Interview with Garett Skiba, Elite Contest Player and OptixEQ User

March 13, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Meet Garett Skiba, an elite handicapper and contest player with the most six-figure cashes in handicapping contests over the last two-plus years. He most recently took home third place in the 2018 National Horseplayers Championship (NHC) tournament in Las Vegas, netting $125,000. We asked him to discuss OptixEQ and how he incorporates its products into his own handicapping process. 

 

Optix (O): When did you first start following horseracing? And what is your proudest achievement as a horseplayer?

Garett Skiba (GS): I started playing the races with my dad, going to simulcasting outlets at Balmoral Park and to live racing at Sportsman’s Park and Hawthorne. As a horseplayer, my proudest achievement is having won more than $650,000 in contests.

 

O: What kind of player are you and how often do you play? For example, do you follow just one circuit? Do you just play tournaments, etc.?

GS: I will focus primarily on Kentucky Downs, Belmont, Saratoga, Keeneland, and Gulfstream. I will typically play intensively one to two days a week, and then, for three or four days a week, I will look for spot plays.

 

O: What kind of handicapper are you, and which types of bets favor your style?

GS: Historically, I have been a handicapper who has looked for hot pace scenarios that would favor horses with perceived “weak form” who would benefit from a pace collapse. Optix has been a valuable tool in broadening my approach to the overall pace picture.

 

O: How long have you been using OptixEQ and what brought you to try our handicapping platform?

GS: I have been on Optix for about two years. My interest was brought on by a willingness to try new products and always tweaking my style/approach in order to better understand the game. 

 

O: Describe how OptixEQ has enhanced (or added to) your game?

GS: As mentioned previously, the product has improved my understanding of the pace picture. Additionally, OptixNOTES have been a fantastic way to explain away poor races by horses who are being overlooked on the board.

 

O: Over the past two years, OptixEQ users have been finishing very well in tournaments. What advice do you have for users who are new to the platform?

GS: I would highly recommend learning about all aspects of Optix and also take the time to review historical races. I wouldn’t recommend playing either OptixPLOT or OptixNOTES alone, but rather use them as tools to support/contract your entire picture/opinion of the race. It is not meant to be a prediction engine!

 

O: What would you like to see integrated into the platform to further enhance the product?

GS: Personally, I would like more control as it relates to the pace lines driving the OptixPLOT, or at the very least, visibility as to which line is driving what we are seeing.

Filed Under: Horse Racing contests & tournaments, Industry Profiles, Learn to Handicap Tagged With: ,

OptixGRID: A Fully Integrative Past-Performance Platform

April 22, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Part III of The Future of Handicapping (OptixEQ)

While OptixNOTES can be viewed in a standalone format, you can also view the OptixNOTES information as part of a more detailed past-performance platform in OptixGRID, which also includes plenty of other proprietary data fields as well as traditional past-performance information (like odds, finish position, fractional times, etc.). OptixGRID also includes a unique speed-figure rating called OptixFIG, which helps players assess whether a horse is even fast enough to be competitive in a given race.

To help you process the information available in OptixGRID, the OptixEQ team has made this past-performance matrix fully interactive; in other words, players can sort and filter the data however they’d like. For instance, if you just want to see a horse’s turf races, you could easily filter the surface column to show only the turf races. Let’s say you wanted to view the field in order of the fastest OptixFIGs, then you would simply sort the OptixFIG column in descending order. No other past-performance platform has the functionality to manipulate the data in such a unique and personal way.

The OptixGRID looks like an expanded version of the OptixNOTES platform, including all of the traditional past-performance data as well as several proprietary fields unique to OptixEQ. To learn more about OptixGRID, you can view the instructional video and documentation here: https://www.optixeq.com/?products=optixgrid#doc.

 

OptixFIGs

As part of its integrative platform, the OptixEQ product includes its own proprietary speed figures along with its past-performances in OptixGRID. We thought it would be interesting to show you a list of the OptixFIGs for this year’s Kentucky Derby prep races as a point of reference.

OptixEQ-KYDerbyprepsv2

Is It Worth It?

As you can see, OptixEQ has all of the traditional handicapping elements covered in its fully integrative platform, but it puts a new spin on how players can analyze and interpret a race. Who has time to spend hours poring over raw data in an old-school past-performance product when you can get the same information—and so much more—distilled for you in an easily accessible and visual way?

Once you start using OptixEQ, you will never want to handicap a horse race in the traditional way again. The information here is too good and too valuable that you’ll feel the need to use it on a daily basis. Whether you’re an avid cash player who plays multiple tracks or a contest player who has to handicap fifteen mandatory races, you’ll find that the information available in OptixEQ will give you an edge over the competition—and it will save you so much mental energy that you will find yourself making better decisions and wagering much more smartly and efficiently throughout the day.

And the best part is: OptixEQ is eminently affordable. Daily packages start from as low as $10 a day, while a full monthly package (which includes OptixPLOT, OptixNOTES, and OptixGRID for all available tracks) only costs $180 (which is essentially just $6 a day). There are way more expensive products on the market—and none of them deliver what OptixEQ can in terms of sheer data, handicapping proficiency, and racing analytics.

Simply put, OptixEQ is the future of handicapping.

Did you miss Part I?

Did you miss Part II?

Filed Under: Handicapping 101, Horse Racing Education, Kentucky Derby | Triple Crown Tagged With: ,

OptixNOTES: Trip Handicapping in the 21st Century

April 21, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Part II of The Future of Handicapping (OptixEQ)

While OptixPLOT will give you an excellent overview of the race shape, race flow, and pace dynamics of the race, helping you choose which races offer the best opportunities, OptixNOTES will help take your handicapping into the 21st century.

OptixNOTES is a proprietary trip-handicapping past-performance platform that includes performance ratings, trip descriptors, and form projections (along with detailed extended comments) from the OptixEQ team of expert handicappers. Think of them as past-performance grades and trip descriptions that can help you better understand and predict a horse’s current and future form.

OptixNOTES are available for most of the major tracks on the major circuits, and they are an incredibly valuable tool when it comes to assessing a horse’s chances of winning a race. Since watching replays is incredibly time-consuming—and sometimes fruitless if you really don’t know what you are looking for or how to use that information—the OptixEQ team does all of the work for you, grading a horse’s previous trip/performance while also commenting on that trip and sometimes even projecting where that horse might be headed in the future.

The other cool thing about this platform is that it’s vibrant—everything is color-coded for easy readability. Positive attributes are green while negative ones are red.

Here are the OptixNOTES for Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, including one of the extended comments from his Monmouth race:

OptixEQ-Notes

This type of trip-handicapping data is available for several tracks on the major circuits, giving handicappers a massive edge when it comes to assessing a horse’s form.

For more information on how to use OptixNOTES, visit the product information page at: https://www.optixeq.com/?products=optixnotes#doc.

Tomorrow in the conclusion, Part III, we take a look at OptixGRID as well as the OptixFIGS for all of the Kentucky Derby preps.

Did you miss Part I?  Click here

Filed Under: Handicapping 101, Horse Racing Education Tagged With: , , ,

OptixEQ: The Future of Handicapping – Part I

April 20, 2016 by 2 Comments

It’s an exciting time to be a horseplayer with a wealth of data and information available for whichever handicapping tools fit your needs. But in this information age of big data, sports analytics, and high-level algorithmic approaches to gambling, the horse-racing industry has lagged far behind—until now. Enter OptixEQ, an equine analytics handicapping platform that is sure to take your game to the next level.

OptixEQ is a brand-new, unique handicapping package that presents relevant data in a dynamic, integrative, and multidimensional way. All of the elements of traditional handicapping are factored in—i.e., class, form, speed, and pace—but the data is combined into a platform that is more in line with the statistical analysis done at the highest levels of professional sports, fantasy sports, and gaming—and that is because the team behind OptixEQ consists of full-time horseplayers with backgrounds in statistical modeling and software development.

OptixEQ was designed for horseplayers by horseplayers with the sole purpose of creating a handicapping product that would save players countless hours of having to study the Form, do pace analysis, create speed figures, and watch replays. This vision has been realized in OptixEQ, which integrates all of these handicapping elements in a visually dynamic way.

The OptixEQ platform consists of three major components: OptixPLOT, OptixNOTES, and OptixGRID.

 

OptixPLOT: Not Your Grandfather’s Pace Analyzer

The old adage, “Pace makes the race,” will take on a whole new meaning once you start using OptixPLOT, the new gold-standard when it comes to high-level pace analysis. OptixPLOT is a multidimensional, data-visualization tool that allows horseplayers to instantly assess the pace dynamics of a race, while at the same time, accurately portraying the overall shape of the race, so that users can easily isolate lone-frontrunners, strong closers, or tactical stalk-and-pounce types.

The purpose of the OptixPLOT is to give horseplayers a true sense of how the race will be run based on the relative early speed, pace velocity, and finishing ability of the horses in the race. Horses show up on the graph where they are expected to be at the first and second calls, while their finishing ability is represented geometrically, thus creating a multidimensional display of the most sophisticated pace analyzer available to handicappers.

The OptixPLOT can also be changed using a horse’s recency or “today’s” surface and/or distance parameters.

Here are three different OptixPLOTs, showcasing three key running styles: lone-frontrunners, deep closers, and stalk-and-pounce types (note: the larger the square, the stronger the finishing ability of the horse):

Lone-Frontrunners:

OptixEQ-LoneFRv2

 

Deep Closers:

OptixEQ-DeepCloser-ver

 

Stalk-and Pounce Types:
OptixEQ-DeepCloserv2

 

For more information on how to interpret OptixPLOT, you can watch the videos and read the FAQ on the product information page here.

But there’s  more to OptixEQ.  Tomorrow we take a look at OptixEQ Notes.

Filed Under: Handicapping 101, Horse Racing Education, Learn to Handicap Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,