How do you approach the placepot at Cheltenham

Badly...never won it in nearly 20 years. A mate does one £20 line everytime and has won 3 times.

I normally try to select 1 banker ( 2 at a push ), 3 in the graded races and 4 or 5 in the handicaps, also try to avoid putting the short price favourites in unless the chance is plainly obvious like big bucks for instance. 6 of us contribute into the perm and we pay approx £25 each per day. We have had some success over the years, biggest dividend was 2500 a few years ago.

creon won the pertemps @ 50/1 when it was run as the last race on the tuesday ?

sheesh it bwas 2005 , dabiroun it was backed it in to 20/1 ,, the year missed that was all the rage for the bumper

Echo the thoughts about the stats for the handicaps - the beauty of using them is they give you a framework to address the big field contests - trying to pull together all the form lines can be at nightmare, takes ages and can end with you being more confused than when you started (for me anyway!)

Obviously you need to look at going preferences too.

if you think a horse can not be out of a place,be wary,a few of us always cut the stake of our perms and add another horse, recent example at last cheltenham meeting in january, punchestowns, 1 mate suggested it could not be out of a place,we begged to differ and reduced our lines from £5 to £2.50 and added tidal bay, we collected a 4 figure profit.

a fiver straight line my phone number then keep yer fingers crossed[;)]

5p a line, 3rd to 5th in the betting each race, sit back an hope!

I had it up once (around 8/9 years ago) and it paid £48 !
Personally I have 1 selection in non handicaps and 2 in the others, usually means 8 or 16 bets, I usually play for a fiver a line, but you'd be mad to take any advice from me given my lifetime placepot P/L is around £3k red !

I got it up one year out of i dont know how many years! A free £2 voucher in the paper, paid £418. Gave it all back chasing them ever since

Last year me and my mate text each other our placepot selections for a friendly £20 match bet and on the first three days I played my selections and lost every day in the 4th of 5th race. On the last day I knocked it on the head and decided to just text my mate and not play the selections. Nobody will believe me but I would have picked up the pot which paid something like £44k from memory. I had a good day anyway but still felt sick at the end, 2nd worst I've felt because of gambling.

I always find the handicaps to be the hardest to hit. There are more and more horses getting plotted up for them, and it's just so hard to work out who is up to what.

Only ever hit the PP once over God knows how many years, but I'll be having another go at it each day

Think GC day could be a big one, everyone is going to be going the KS/Denman route, if neither of them get placed it will pay a fortune.

cheltenham is different to all other meetings, favourites get beat, long shots regularly place. Course form is a big boost.

Its each to their own but the problem with Aintree as oppossed to Cheltenham is that you get far more unreliable results due to the fact that many horses go on to Aintree from Cheltenham where they have in a lot of cases, been trained for a specific target and quite often left their form behind come Aintree.You are quite right in saying that you could lay out a decent amount and fail but as i said earlier in this thread the pool at the festival is far larger than at any other meeting ,i take the bet very seriously and have had lots of success with it in recent years

I love the bet, particularly at big meetings like this...royal ascot...king george day when there's up to £200k in the pot each day. While dependent on the fields/race conditions (with a bank of £80-£90 each day) I normally aim for 1 banker at least (ie 1 selection) and at least 2 in the other races...but am not afraid of 3 in tricky handicaps. If 64 lines...@ £1.25 = £80...may need to reduce the stake if 3 in a race taken.

I look to assess the races where the favs still have some question marks and look to take them on.It's als important to check conditions of the races...as there are a number of non-handicaps with 20+ runners - therefore only 3 places. Always worth remembering there are no eay races at cheltenham and therefore to spend time on each race studying the form....have often worked out the tricky handicaps and fallen a cropper on a supposed good thing. Have landed a good ppot in 3 of the last 4 years which has covered betting for the whole meeting and yielded an overall profit.

Last year I had 64 x £1.25 lines (4 lines came good -ie a fiver) on the first day which paid £98.40 to £1....ie nearly £500 (would have been more if dunguib had stayed out of the 3 - I had menorah in the first. Garde champetre and go native improved the dividend by being out the 3).The previous year I had the 4th day up - Tricky trickster made the bet - had a £2.50 line and it paid c£740 ...over £1800. I always like to take on a hot/obvious fav if there are question marks as there's often alternatives that can be better value in terms of the pot.

I absolutely love this bet and agree with the poster who said it gets harder as the week progresses just because of the running order of the races. Tuesday usually offers a cracking chance at hitting the target.

As for strategy, I have a little trick to add that can massively reduce the amount you need to pay out in your perm and mean you only need to get a horse placed in the first five races.

1: Simply ensure you put the likely favourite as your only selection in Leg 6.
2: If you are still alive and kicking after 5 legs, go to T**epool live information and see how much cash is still moving forward to Leg 6.
3: Work out the number of winning units if the three (or four in 16+ hcps) most popular horses are placed.
4: Divide the pool total by these winning units to calculate the smallest possible dividend.
5: Jump on Betfair's place market and LAY your Leg 6 selection to lose half what you would win from the placepot if it is placed.

Sounds a bit complicated I know, but basically a simple principle and it can save you a packet.
Assuming your perm would look like this:

2x2x3x1x5x3 =180 bets @50p per line = outlay of 90 pounds.

By putting only the fav in the last leg, it becomes: 2x2x3x1x5x1 = 60 bets @ 50p per line = outlay of 30 pounds.

So, I suppose you are effectively halving your dividend if successful, guaranteeing some cash if leg 6 fav lets you down, and reducing your initial outlay by three times (in this example). There are of course lots of little things you can do with this to tailor it more to your style of punting (or the degree to which you place lay the leg 6 runner) but this might well help some people even in its most basic form. It's won me a few quid in the last 18 months or so and hopefully it will do so again next month!

On Thursday and Friday use a pin

just try and get through the leg in the hcaps dont be clever, use your perms here - you can cut down and take a real stance in the championship races. Dont be put off by having 200,300 or 400 lines (even more).

I've had one of the days up last two years (won 400 in 09, and 750 last year) - i do pots all year (rarely win!) and the festival pots can be abs bizarre. Last year on the thursday (think the pot was well over 500k) going into the 5th leg there was about 5k left - half of it, in a 20+ runner hcap was on a pipe 12/1 shot (about a 20s shot on here) - work that one out! When betfair paid out i remember withdrawing staright away thinking the tote running totals mustve been wrong! it wasnt :)

btws think the thursday paid 2500ish and i got her up to 30p (went out next day and adopted another retired greyhound - halcyon days!)