Enhance Guardian 'Restrict Refresh'

[EyePeaSea]

Dear Santa,

What I'd like for Christmas is more flexibility for the 'Restrict Refresh' option in Guardian. At the moment, I'm gambling in-play for UK/IRE horses. I enable restrict refresh and set 'before start time' to zero and 'seconds after start time' to 900. Generally this works ok, apart from those races that run more than about 10 minutes late.

Now I look at Boxing day specifically, and winter racing generally (shorter days, so more races are packed into a shorter timeframe). Lots of races overlap that 15 minute timeframe and so in really busy periods there up to 6 or 7 races that Guardian is updating at the same time. Even optimising Guardian means that the lag between updates is sometimes 2 or even 3 seconds.

That lag could be caused by BF, BA or lag on my internet connection because my youngest son is downloading a Minecraft patch. Or a combination of all three. Inplay moves so fast, 3 seconds is a lifetime for an automated system.

How about an additional option:
Only refresh if race is shown as InPlay.

I know that BF don't seem to set the InPlay flag for lots of overseas races (and other events?), but it is shown for almost all UK/IRE races and this new option would give people a choice and also help where races are delayed for considerable periods of time.

DavDvo asked something similar last month (viewtopic.php?f=20&t=8610&p=69456&hilit=inplay#p69456)

I appreciate that this is quite a niche request, but compared to some of the great enhancements made over the last 24 months, I don't think it's a very complex change (as you already have the information available).

Thanks


Ian

[LinusP]

I am very keen for this but would also like to have the function of only changing to the next race if it is in-play. As I missed a few today!

[Euler]

Just get it to use the automatically switch markets option, then it will refresh in at the speed of your main market in Bet Angel.

http://www.betangel.com/user-guide/ribb ... =&sct=MTAw

It isn't very well documented in the user guide by the look of it, so I will make sure that gets update pronto.

[EyePeaSea]

Thanks for that Euler. I'll have a play around with it to see how it works (how it copes with overlapping races etc.).

I'd still like this feature request to stand though. You know, a rainy-day feature that the programmer(s) can add in when there's nothing more exciting to do.


Regards

Ian

[DavDvo]

Yes, option "monitor only if market is In-play" for Guardian will be great, plus "stop monitoring if market has been suspended In-play".

There is one mystery in Guardian refresh. If you have loaded many markets with restricted refresh (so races do not overlap), 200ms, then even if only one market is monitored at given time, the refresh rate for this market is significantly more then 200 ms! It looks that Guardian is every refresh cycle testing all markets if some of them should be monitored and that is why refresh for choosen market is delayed. This should be coded in some more effective way.
David

[EyePeaSea]

Just get it to use the automatically switch markets option, then it will refresh in at the speed of your main market in Bet Angel.

Hi Euler,
I was half way through replying to say that it didn't seem to have any effect.. and then I realised that at a point after a race was over (I think), the race disappeared from the spreadsheet. Is that what you meant would happen? It looks as if a race stops updating more quickly than the value set in 'restrict refresh', so hopefully that's an improvement.

And there are now a few people in this thread who agree that a bit more control would be welcome. So can you confirm that it is at least going to be considered as an enhancement?

Thanks

Ian

[DavDvo]

Hi Ian,
is your spreadsheet connected to main BA market or you have spreadsheets for each markets loaded to Guardian linked by Guardian?
I am using some time the same concept like Euler suggests so I can help to explain what happened
Tradegards
david

[EyePeaSea]

Hi David,

I use Guardian linked to a customised multiple sheet. My way of working is to load up all UK/IRE races in the morning and leave it running. Some systems that I've tried aren't very time sensitive, but now I'm only betting in-play, the refresh rate is critical. I restrict refresh to 0 seconds before the official start up to 900 seconds after the start - that covers most of the action. But when there are 3 or 4 races in that 15 minute window, it does start to lag a little. *Part of the lag is my code, which I'm optimizing bit by bit. But more granular options on the Restrict Refresh (or switch market) would be a big help.

Thanks

Ian

* Just a (Granny-sucking-eggs?) tip for anyone who has their own code behind the BA spreadsheets. Delays in the VBA code such as writing to a DB etc., will make it appear that BetAngel is lagging because it won't update the values in Excel as quickly. The easiest way of seeing if the lag is your code or BetAngel, is to watch the Guardian 'last updated' field at the same time as the matching sheet for that event. If Guardian is updating more frequently than the sheet, then the delay is with your code. This isn't a fault of BA, it's a feature of the way Windows programs interact with each other.

[PeterLe]

Ian,
Depending upon your strategy; have you tried linking a single excel worksheet via the main excel link (rather than via Guardian)? You can still get guardian to switch markets but it is faster. (You have to have some code to clear the status cells etc)
regards
Peter

[OnGoldWires]

I have the same problem. Excel looks at the race from 60 seconds before the scheduled off until as much as 4 minutes into the race. The problem, which is a real world rather than a BA problem, is that the start time could be long after the scheduled start time or that a long race can overlap another race which is scheduled 5/10 mins later.

What you really need is feedback control from Excel to Guardian, but the is a new level of complexity. This could enable Excel to request Guardian switches markets. This would introduce a number of potential tail wags dog problems, but it would also add functionality. It could enable excel to place bets on a number of events with the same start time.

[DavDvo]

Hi Ian,
with your setup - if you set "switch BA" markets few seconds before official start time, then this market will have refresh rate the same like main BA window, so I believe that excel worksheet for this market will get data faster then others. However - when there is time to switch another market, new market will be loaded to main BA window regardless if previous one had been finished. You will have max refresh rate for new one and so on. Overlaping markets is simply Big problem if you need max refresh rate. Guardian is actualy slower with refreshing, than value set for Guardian if there are more markets loaded. My estimate is that if you set refresh rate 200ms, and only one market is actualy monitored by guardian(but many more markets are loaded), than refresh rate for this market is about 400ms. If the same market is loaded to main window, and main window refreh rate is 200ms, that you will get really 200 ms refreh for that particular market.

What I do is to prevent overlaping - so I delete some markets in the morning to have at least 10 minutes betwen too markets and use Switch market to get max refresh rate from main window.

Tradegards
david

[EyePeaSea]

Hi David,

Sorry for the delay in responding, I missed this.

Thanks very much for the explanation - I hadn't understood the benefit, but I understand now. As Euler said - it's really not clear in the documentation.

Because my system only normally selects between 1 and 5 trades on a normal day, I can't cut out the overlapping events. When I'm at home, I do delete suspended races but that's not a practical solution as I'm not here often enough.

A better (although not perfect) solution would be to have an option to stop updating whilst suspended. It might not work for some events outside of UK/IRE Horse racing, and it also wouldn't benefit everyone. However, as the information is all there for BA already, this really shouldn't be a complex task. I appreciate that BA have limited development resources, but I'm a bit peeved that I haven't even had a "we'll add it to the long list of features to be looked at" pile.

Thanks again

Ian

[EyePeaSea]

Ian,
Depending upon your strategy;

Hi Peter,
Thanks for the suggestion, it's a good approach to solving the problem, but won't work for me. The easy route is just to put up with it. The harder route is to write my own interface with the API. Ho hum.

[PeterLe]

Ian,
Depending upon your strategy;

Hi Peter,
Thanks for the suggestion, it's a good approach to solving the problem, but won't work for me. The easy route is just to put up with it. The harder route is to write my own interface with the API. Ho hum.

Ian
Have you read 'Automatic Exchange Betting' by Colin Magee?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Automatic-Excha ... 184344061X

If you haven't and don't want to pay the £39 to purchase it, I,have a copy you can borrow if you like, if so pm me and I'll post it to you
Regards
Peter

[EyePeaSea]

Ian
Have you read 'Automatic Exchange Betting' by Colin Magee?

Thanks Peter, that's really kind. You've actually just saved me! My other half had no idea what to buy for my birthday in a few weeks and I was worried that I might get gloves. Now she can buy me this

Thanks again

Ian