Saturday 1/31

I know Vegas and I just had a long discussion about how to use Pomeroy numbers. I agreed with him that >1 point was too stringent of a baseline. However, Tech is predicted to lose by 12 and I think that is enough to push the game to a pass, particularly with the screwy line movement.

Yes, I am tracking my passes. I'm really just emphasizing which games you should be betting on. My passes this week have been like Squeeky's NCAAF passes in 2007, which really makes this post look like a good idea.

Earlies (12p-159p)
12p West Virginia +6 -106 3x
145p Iowa State +9.5 -113 2x
Passes: Georgia Tech, Washington State, Indiana State

Middays (2p-359p)
Passes: Georgetown, Tulane

Appetizers (4p-559p)
4p Indiana +7 -103 2x
4p Kansas State +10 -107 3x
4p Towson +3.5 -105 2x
Passes: None

Dessert (6p-759p)
6p BYU -16 -112 2x
7p Old Dominion -1.5 -108 2x
7p Georgia +7.5 -103 2x
7p Detroit +4 -106 3x
7p Florida Intl +2 +101 2x
730p Oregon +4 -106 2x
Pass: Marshall

I didn't understand why everyone was chirping about BYU. They are certainly anti-public, but not eye-poppingly so. Then I headed over to KenPom and saw that BYU is predicted to win by 22, BYU is the 275th luckiest team in the country (meaning they are likely underrated by the public) and Wyoming is the 7th luckiest. Ok, then.

Nightcaps (8p-12a)
8p Ill-Chicago +2 +102 2x
10p Fresno State +6 -112 3x - Gay
Passes: Depaul, Colorado State

Good luck tonight.

Friday 1/30

I actually seriously considered Valpo. Their consensus numbers aren't shabby at all. In the end, I decided I could find better spots than this to extend myself in the middle of a losing streak. I also contemplated Dartmouth, briefly.

I Hate Aubrey Coleman

I didn't even bet on Houston. However, there is no denying since that game, contrarians have taken a huge hit. Last week, through Saturday, I was riding a +25x streak. Since Sunday, I'm back down 21x.

I don't honestly believe that Aubrey Coleman is the reason for the downturn. As I mentioned a few times last week, I got the good side of variance. Now I'm seeing the ugly. I'm probably no better than a 52-54% gambler, so the return to the mean is inevitable. Still, it really affects my psyche when there is a significant point in the gambling season that coincides with a huge downturn in net profit.

There are a couple of unappealing Ivy League games tonight, a Metro Atlantic game, and a chance to fade Butler, but 17.5 on a garbage squad with a name like Valpo is unlikely to anti-public. I imagine I'll be passing everything tonight.

I can't wait to drop 20x on Saturday.

Thursday 1/29

An interesting card tonight. I'm really not sure what to make of it. All of the really good plays are from non-BCS conferences. I have a hard time pulling the trigger on a 3x play on the Chips or Bows when I don't really know a whole lot about either team. There was no getting around it with the Owls, though. Everything just lined up there.

7p Iowa +6 +109 2x
7p Florida Atl +2.5 -104 3x
7p Central Mich +4 -108 2x
8p Hawaii +5.5 -107 2x
9p Alabama +4.5 -105 2x
10p Idaho -4.5 +100 2x
11p Gonzaga -9 -109 3x

Good luck tonight.

Leans 1/29

If you have any interest in using the Pomeroy numbers in your gambling strategy, you should read the comments section from last night's post. Vegas and I flesh out some relevant points.

I don't have time this morning to make a comprehensive leans list. That said, the following games intrigue me:

7p VT -1 vs. Clem
7p Iowa +5.5 vs. Sparty
9p Bama+5.5 @ Ark
10p Idaho -4 vs. Boise
1030p UCLA -9 vs. Cal
11p Gonzaga -8 vs. SMC

Wednesday 1/28

I've been doing some thinking about proper wagering recently. I used to think I was a volume player and that anywhere I thought I had the slightest of edges I should play. In other words, I had a difficult time figuring out which plays would hit and which wouldn't (and yet, I had a 1-5 sliding scale for my plays... intelligent). Lately, if you haven't noticed, my cards have been about 60-70% of other contrarians out there (well, except Jonny, for obvious reasons).

Some reasons that a game might get trimmed: not anti-public across all sites, more than a point of difference between Pomeroy and the line (like UTEP tonight), or significant forward line movement. I may overlook one of these reasons if the other two are strong (like Fake Miami tonight), but overall, I think this is a better wagering strategy. Either that, or if I really have no skill at choosing the better sides, I'll be decreasing my variance. Obviously, I'll be playing less games, but I feel confident I'll still have more than enough action.

Hopefully, I'm not too far behind the curve and I'm not posting the obvious here.

For tonight:

7p West Virginia -17 -107 2x
7p Villanova +3 +102 2x
7p Miami (OH) -16 -103 3x
730p Nebraska +4 +103 3x
8p Loyola-Chicago +4.5 +104 2x
8p Wichita State +5.5 +107 2x
9p Kansas State +3 -105 2x

Passes are pretty much everything on the leans list below. UTEP, Provo, Charlotte, and SDSU were the hardest cuts.

Good luck tonight.

Leans 1/28

Stronger Leans
7p Fake Miami -17.5 vs. NoIll
7p Chat +10 vs. Dav
7p Nova +3.5 vs. Pitt
730p Neb +4.5 vs. Kan
8p Wich St +5.5 @ Brad
8p UTEP +5.5 @ Hou
9p K-St +4 vs. Mizz
10p SDSU -12.5 vs. TCU

Weaker Leans
7p Ga St +5.5 @ Drex
7p WVU -16 vs. Johns
7p Prov -2 vs. Cuse
8p Ill-Chi +7 @ UW-GB
8p Loy-Chi +5.5@ UW-Mil
830p NW -13.5 vs. Ind
9p Dep +13 vs. UConn

These are probably going to change.

Tuesday 1/27

I have very little confidence in this card. Pomeroy is not on my side for the ACC games and there appears to be late forward line movement in both. I should mark them down as a loss already.

I don't hate Baylor nearly as much as everyone else does. I can't find the link from RMMB, but it was an epic meltdown over there. I had to have passed that game, since everyone still talks about it and I have no recollection of it. Anyway...

7p NC State +1.5 +107 2x
730p Maryland -5 -101 2x
9p Baylor -1.5 -101 3x

Good luck tonight.

Leans 1/27

Ever since the Houston debacle, the landscape has shifted for contrarians. Hopefully, tonight changes that.

7p NCSU +1.5 vs. Real Miami
7p Ole Miss +8.5 vs. UK
730p UMd -4 vs. BC
9p Wisky -1 vs. Pur
9p Baylor -1.5 vs. Texas
9p VCU -7 vs. NEastern
10p Utah -3.5 vs. BYU

I'm sure this will all change by this evening.

Monday 1/26

Oklahoma ended up getting matched. So, that leaves me with somewhere between a .06x and .065x loss for the night. Oh well. Here is the total wager.

9p Oklahoma State +2.5 +106 3x
9p Oklahoma -2.5 -106 3x

I know that the Pokes are the right side here tonight, but after all this screwing around, I just don't feel like playing the game. I guess I am costing myself +0.4x of EV or something along those lines. I'll sleep fine tonight.

As I suspected, Notre Dame isn't really public.

Good luck if you play the Cowboys.

Leans 1/26

If you were watching the site last night around 10p or so, you saw that I had put in

9p Oklahoma State +2.5 +106 3x

The lesson is: if you don't know what you're doing, don't do it. I have no idea how lines will react, but suddenly, I thought I knew something and got down on the Pokes. About fifteen minutes later, I checked Pinnacle and saw the line jumped to three. I immediately tried to sell off my OSU stake. I'm still waiting for someone to snatch it up on Matchbook. Hopefully it happens while I'm at work.

In the mean time, Oklahoma State has become almost unplayable with the line currently set at 3.5. I'm reasonably sure that I don't want to wager on a team that saw that much forward line movement, Pomeroy be damned.

The only other lean for tonight is Marquette, which seems unlikely, since the Eagles will probably be a top ten team when the rankings come out later today and Notre Dame is finally getting exposed.

That's More Like It

Sunday's results:

Plays: 0-5 -12x
Passes: 2-0-1

Sunday 1/25

I wish poker and blackjack went as well last night as the sports picks this week. Variance making up for the good night in Vegas, I suppose. Onto today:

130p Vanderbilt -1 -112 2x
2p Marshall +7 +101 2x
2p Toledo +5 -111 2x
345p Ohio State +3 -110 2x
4p West Virginia -1 -112 3x

I'd like to thank Matchbook again for setting great markets. Those juice prices are outstanding.

Ohio State isn't terribly contrarian, but the line is off from Pomeroy by 4 points. This is roughly the time of year when Pomeroy has a large enough sample to start being meaningful. Four points is meaningful enough for me.

Passes, in order: Hall, GW, Indiana.

Good luck today.

Saturday 1/24

Another Saturday, another afternoon reluctantly laying points with Duke. The half point move with Auburn didn't scare me off due to the excellent consensus numbers and the Pomeroy prediction.

Earlies (12p-159p)

12p Duke -16 +106 2x
1p Auburn +5 -103 3x

Passes: USF, Mizzou

A trip to Atlantic City just sort of came together. Putting in the rest of the days' plays in now. Good luck.

4p LaSalle +4 -104 2x
4p La Tech +9 -108 2x
4p Virginia -1 +109 2x
4p Eastern Michigan +3 -101 3x
6p Iowa +6.5 -119 2x
7p Rutgers +5 +109 2x

The Iowa line pisses me off, but I'm not liquid anywhere except Matchbook. Thanks, football season.

Passes
3p CMU +5.5 @ NoIll
4p W+M +7.5 @ Drexel
4p Baylor @ OU
6p Ore +13.5 @ Cal
6p CSU +7 @ Wyo
7p Ind St +11 @ Brad
8p FIU +2 @ ULM
815p ULaf +1.5 vs. USA
9p SDSU +7 @ BYU

Friday 1/23

No reason to force anything tonight while I'm riding a winning streak. Biggest pass was Youngstown, but they weren't even that anti-public. I'll be back with the usual Saturday Crap Shoot tomorrow. Good luck if you decide to play anything.

For what it's worth, I figured that Brown would be a play tonight because they just lost to Yale last weekend in Providence by 8. Clearly, the books weren't fooling anybody with that number.

Leans 1/23

It sure is nice to be riding a positive variance wave. It's been so long since I had a rush like this, I forgot what it felt like. This also ensures that I will go 4-10 on Saturday.

Leans
7p Brown +5 @ Yale
9p YSU +10 vs. Cleve St
11p San Fran +8.5 @ S Clara

Brown looks like the only sure play, unless Ivy says something to make me think otherwise.

9/19/09 Revisited

Doc Saturday, admittedly not from a gambling perspective, seems to think I'm not totally retarded.

Thursday 1/22

After whining about WVU, Wazzu, and UDub this morning and getting called out for it, two of the three ended up on my card anyway. In fact, WVU (if the value hasn't been sucked out by the move) and Wazzu were the only slam dunks on the card, as far as I could tell. Who is surprised?

7p West Virginia +5 +100 3x
7p Purdue -1 -102 2x
730p Geo. Washington +5.5 -107 2x
730p Detroit +5.5 -105 2x
9p Washington State +5.5 -108 3x
9p San Diego +3.5 +103 2x

Good luck tonight.

Leans 1/22

For once, it seems, the variance monster was nice to me. I ended up yesterday 6-2-1 +9.5x or so. Looking ahead to tonight, it's become clear that the books have a different opinion of West Virginia and the two Washington schools than anyone else in the country. Those three schools are getting close to the DNP list until their lines get back in order of how good they actually are.

Strong Leans
7p WVU +5.5 @ G'town
730 GW +5 vs. Dayton
9p Wazzu +5 vs. UCLA
9p USD +4 vs. St Mary

Moderate Leans
7p UW-GB +9.5 @ Butler
7p Pur +1 @ Minny
730p Det +5 vs. UIC
10p SJSU +5 vs. Ut St
11p UW -6.5 vs. USC

Weak Leans
9p NMSU pk @ Boise
9p Zags -26.5 @ Pep
1030p Cal -19 vs. Ore St

As always, I'm sure this will all change by tonight.

Looking Ahead: 9/19/09

Yeah, I know it's basketball season, but obviously college football is my favorite sport...

Just guessing here, but given what I've seen written by the MSM so far:

Vanderbilt +6 +102 3x

Ole Miss was one of my favorite teams at the end of last season. They were, in my opinion, legitimately the third best team in the SEC last season. That said, let's take a look at their last 5 games:

W 17-7 Auburn (chicken garbage)
W 59-0 UL-Monroe (Sun Belt)
W 31-13 @ LSU (chicken garbage)
W 45-0 Mississippi State (chicken garbage)
W 47-34 Texas Tech @ Cotton Bowl (overrated?)

These games are what the public is going to remember heading into 2009. The last 5 teams were mainly garbage. Texas Tech, while having an outstanding season, still seemed to me like they had a better record than their actual skill level. However, some people are ranking Ole Miss in their Preseason Top 5. I'm not so sure. With only 5 returning offensive starters and 2 on the offensive line back, I'm not really expecting Ole Miss to put up the numbers they were at the end of last season, Jevan Snead notwithstanding.

I am of the opinion that Ole Miss will have a higher public perception than what they deserve, given the way they took care of the awful SEC West last season. The only part that I am unsure about is how good Vandy will be this season, but they are returning 19 of 22 starters from last year's bowl team. Hence, I'm thinking Vandy will be an anti-public pick in Week 3.

Wednesday 1/21

How the hell did this happen? I guarantee less than half these leans will be played (Ed. Note: Barely.), but this is my first run through the card (i.e. only really looked at Wagerline numbers). (630p Update) Here they are:

630p Northwestern +12 -105 3x
7p Old Dominion -20 -103 2x
7p St. Bonaventure +11 +102 2x
7p Richmond +3 -105 2x
730p Miami(FL) -6 +100 2x
8p Tulane +6 +101 2x
830p Iowa +3 -101 3x
9p Nebraska +13 +100 3x
9p Kansas State -3.5 -101 3x

No school has tormented over the last calendar year like K-State. I'm sure that won't continue tonight.

Leans
7p Duq +7 @ Joes
7p S Car -1.5 vs. Fla
7p Ind St +5 vs. So Ill
7p Rutg +10.5 vs. 'Ville
8p UTEP +6 @ UAB
8p Mizz St -1 vs. Drake
9p Mizz +1 @ Okie St
9p Aub +12 @ UK
9p Mem -26.5 vs. Rice
9p UNC -13 vs. Clem
10p BYU -8.5 vs. UNLV

Line movement was the reason why UNC, Indiana State, Rutgers, and Missouri missed the card (I'm aware Miami was in the same boat, but Pomeroy ended up being the deciding factor there). I hate the Valley, so Mizz St caught the axe. The other leans didn't turn out to be particularly anti-public, so they were easy to get a rid of with a card like tonight's.

Good luck with whatever you play, which could be a lot.

I Am An Asshole

Apparently, I started a new blog and decided to use the exact same template as over here. Obviously, the old blog needed a change.

Tuesday 1/20

The problem with posting leans at 5:51a is twofold: a) Small sample size from the consensus sites and b) I'm not fully awake, causing me to do retarded things like mis-label dates. Either way, the leans weren't bad and I got my Crate.

8p Colorado +10.5 +102 2x
8p Eastern Michigan +4.5 +107 2x

Biggest passes were Akron and Duke, in that order.

Good luck tonight

Leans 1/20

How often these type of posts go up will be directly proportional to my ability to snooze my alarm twice, rather than the normal four times. From strongest to weakest:

8p E Mich +4.5 @ No Ill
7p E'ville +1.5 vs. Creighton (How does one abbreviate Creighton?)
7p Ill -7.5 vs. tOSU
7p Akron +4 @ Ohio
8p Duke -19 vs. NCSU
8p Colo +10.5 @ TTU

I'm sure this will all change by the time I get home.

Monday 1/19

I hate everybody that had off work today.

7p Pittsburgh -9.5 +106 2x

If I liked gambling, I would also play the Kansas/aTm under.

Also, instead of doing the weekly reviews, which don't make nearly as much sense in basketball as they do in football, I'll grade each wager at the end of the night/first thing in the morning by changing the color of the wager in the post. If there is anything super to write about, I'll try to bang it out before any of the rest of you degenerates wake up.

Good luck tonight.

Line Guesses

Pittsburgh -7
Baltimore -2

No play on either line.

More Reading

I'm bored tonight. I decided to look through some of the Wizard of Odds sports betting information, at first to see how it compared to my analysis of 2008 NFL lines. While I was there, I found some other information. Most of this is old hat to most of the people reading this blog, but I thought I would put it out there anyway.

The Power of the Dog
Teasers are Bad
Vegas has covered this more, but Futures are Garbage, too

A well timed post by Sham over at RMMB goes a bit more in-depth than either the WoO or I did in describing the Home Dog Effect.

Sunday 1/18

Looks like one of those 2-2 +0.3x type of days.

12p LaSalle +12.5 +102 2x
2p Rhode Island -19.5 +102 2x
2p Northwestern -1 +105 2x
3p Missouri State +12.5 +109 2x

Passing Pittsburgh. Good luck if you are on them.

Saturday 1/17

Lots of leans today. Hopefully it goes as swimmingly as last Saturday.

Earlies (12p-159p)

12p Maryland +3.5 -101 2x
130p Missouri -15 -109 2x

Middays (2p-359p)

2p Texas A&M +3 -103 2x
2p UIC +3 +101 3x
2p Florida -10.5 -110 2x
330p Clemson -3 -104 2x
345p Arizona State -113 2x
3p Georgia Southern +12.5 +101 2x

Appetizers (4p-559p)

4p New Mexico +1.5 -107 2x
4p Texas Tech +6 +105 2x
4p Wichita State +4 +100 3x

Dessert (6p-759p)
The cherry had to be broken at some point...

6p Indiana +5 -112 2x
6p Louisville -2 +102 3x
6p Kansas State +1.5 -105 2x

Nightcaps (8p-12a)

10p Santa Clara +4.5 +108 3x

Leans

130p Duke -9 vs. Gtown
2p Depaul +1 vs. Cincy
4p LSU +1.5 @ Ole Miss
8p tOSU +4.5 @ Mich
9p Prov +1.5 vs. Marq

Oh, and as if anyone cares, the sidebar has been updated a little bit. Good luck.

Chicago is Cold

I'm sure I missed everyone batting .750 and being up 20x. Be back shortly with leans.

Tuesday 1/13

I think I am glad that I had things to take care of when I got home from work this afternoon. Given the movement in both the Suckamore and Golden Shower games, passing seems like the right idea.

I have to travel to Chicago for work tomorrow. I hope to get up early, look at consensus sites, use my alter-ego's initial leans, and get some Wednesday picks up. Thursday will be a total wash for sure.

Good luck the next few days.

Oh.

Well at least this



makes a little bit more sense now

Monday 1/12

What?

Louisville -6.5 -102 2x

1/5-1/11 Review

Amazingly, I was 7-3 +6x in hoops at one point last week. From Wednesday through yesterday, I went 5-15 -19x, easily one of the worst stretches of my short wagering career. Other than that swing, nothing really stands out.

Am I stoopid?

Did anyone else realize that you can copy Wagerline data into a .txt file, then open it up in Excel? I wasted a tremendous amount of time in my football posts by not doing this. Now if there were a way to plug final scores in as well, my life would be a lot easier.

EDIT: Here is the procedure. It's really simple.

1. Highlight the data you are interested in. Like this:



2. Hit Ctrl+C on your computer
3. Open up Notepad and hit Ctrl+V
4. Save document off as somename.txt
5. Open Excel
6. Go to File -> Open...
7. At the bottom, where it says file type, choose All Files




8. Open somename.txt
9. Choose Delimited, hit next



10. Make sure only Tab is checked on the next screen, hit finish.



Now all of the data is ready to be processed in Excel. Have at it.

Sunday 1/11

Somehow, I am the only contrarian on the planet to come out negative yesterday. Good for me.

130p LSU +3.5 +106 2x
1030p USC +2 -106 2x

The most likely plays here are LSU and USC. I don't have any desire to lay 19.5 on Pitt, even if they are 5th in offensive efficiency. Wake isn't exactly flying under anyone's radar either.

I seriously considered Wake, in light of the 6 point difference between the spread and the prediction, but I tend to tighten up when I am running bad.

Good luck tonight.

Saturday 1/10

This card scares me. I'm playing 6 early NCAA games and have 12 other legitimate leans. On the other hand, Carolina is now off the NFL board.

Earlies (12p-359p)

12p West Virginia +2.5 -103 2x
12p Clemson -11.5 +101 3x
130p Kansas State +1.5 -101 2x
2p Duke -9 +101 2x
2p Old Dominion +5.5 -101 2x
3p Toledo +1.5 +104 2x

Middays (4p-759p)

NCAAB
6p Washington -6 -106 2x
7p Miami (FL) +2 +106 3x

NFL
430p Tennessee -3 +100 2x

I debated whether to make the Huskies or Titans 3x plays. In the end I decided that if I was debating, I really shouldn't bump up either of them.

Nightcaps (8p-12a)

I am getting really frustrated between going 1-5 so far on hoops plays and watching Tennessee screw the pooch in the red zone. I'm going to pass everything tonight. My plays would have been Miss St, Mizz St, Hawaii and Wazzu.

All told I would have went 2-2 anyway. So, no big deal I quit tonight.

Good luck tonight.

Obviously an Omen

I am sitting here playing cards with the fiancee. What comes on the 80s channel other than "Far From Over" by, you guessed it, Frank Stallone. If I go less than 75% tomorrow I am going to be highly disappointed.

Look, I'm Not a Degenerate

At least for tonight. I'm taking my fiancee out on a date. I haven't even looked at the lines. This may or may not be because I know Fridays suck in college basketball and I'll have to be up early to get on the hoops card tomorrow.

Also, it looks like I'll be on both football games tomorrow.

Good luck if you play anything tonight.

How Contrarian was the 2008 NFL Season?

Not fucking very, I'll tell you that much.

If you recall, about a month ago, I looked at how win probabilities were spread across different bins of Wagerline percentages for the entire college football season. The results were a lot more cut and dried there. Remember, for each graph, it is the amount of action and win percentage received by the favorite.

For example, if the 53-54 bin has the following record: 8-4-0 0.667, that means that the aggregate of all favorites that received between 52.5 and 54.49% of the action at Wagerline won two-thirds of their twelve games.

Below are the results for all games and some selected discriminators. Red (Green) text indicates results that would be bad (good) for a contrarian. Yellow highlighted boxes show something that I found interesting.



Wow, you think the NFL market was efficient this year? Can't get much more efficient than that.

As a whole, if you weren't betting on the most contrarian sides, favorites receiving less than 40% and dogs receiving less than 30%, you weren't profiting this year, unless you had other strategies. I think one of the things that helped me to my demise this year is that 69-70 bin, where I would imagine I played close to every game.

Home Favorites

Road Favorites

For a while now, it's been touted that in the NFL, home dogs are generally a safe wagering option. Guess who figured that out and changed the market? This year, home favorites had a losing record. On top of that, almost 70% of the games played had a home favorite. So, if you were playing road dogs, opposite of what you would expect, you would have been profitable, barely, at 53.1%. For the road dogs, it was once again the extreme events where the most value was to be found.

When the road team was favored, there was hardly any profitable angle at all. Home anti-public dogs (getting less than 35%) went a miserable 14-16-1 this year. That area is where a lot of money can be made in college, but in the pros, it was worthless.

Spread = 1

Spread between 1.5 and 4.5

Spread between 5 and 7.5

Spread between 8 and 13.5

Spread 14 or Greater

I opted to bin the spreads differently for this exercise. There seemed to be a lot of one point spreads in the NFL this year, and I wanted to capture that. From there, I split them up so the lines were roughly indicative of field goal, touchdown, 10 point and two touchdown lines.

There were two places where I think real money could have been made this year. The first is the anti-public favorite when the spread was one. Up through 54%, anti-pub chalk was 15-6-1. If your personal cutoff was 52%, that rose to 15-3-1. Beyond that, just about every other aggregate was garbage in the NFL this year. The other place that money was to be made was with big dogs, regardless of spread. Old time gamblers bet any line greater than 14 on principle (or so I am told, I don't actually know any old time gamblers). The final table shows that was profitable, at least for this year.

So what does this tell me? First, there is no easy way to beat the system in the NFL. Second, you need more than consensus numbers to make intelligent decisions, whether it's intuition or some other metric. I'd be interested to see somebody take the spreads and see how something like Football Outsiders does ATS. Third, this is my third losing NFL season in a row. I am considering hanging it up in the pros. Why bother if there is no angle? When somebody like Moneyline can't turn a decent profit, why cause myself the aggravation? I will likely stick it out one more year to try to get better, but if results like this come back next year, I'll be happy to watch the NFL for pleasure in 2010.

I should point out that I think this year was particularly bad to contrarians, though I have neither the time nor patience to go back and compile previous years' statistics. Feel free to do so on your own and let me know what you find.

Wednesday 1/8

Well, this ought to be neat. After a solid three day run back on the East Coast, yesterday blew ass. How did I respond? By putting 22x in play (roughly half my bankroll). Good for me.

NCAAB
7p Florida Intl +6 +102 3x
8p Detroit +5 +105 2x
8p UL Monroe +6 -101 2x
830p Arizona -10 +102 3x
9p San Jose State +2.5 +106 3x
10p Washington State -2 -106 3x
1030p Washington -7 +100 2x
1030p Arizona State -21 +127 2x

NCAAF
815p Oklahoma +5 -106 2x

The fact that the line has begun to fall again is what finally sold me on the Sooners. My (complete and utter) guess is public money drove the line up initially after the Fiesta Bowl, and now sharps are knocking it back down. I still don't really like this play, but I think it is right.

Are the Playoffs Different than the Regular Season?

After posting my leans yesterday, a decent discussion started in the comments. The Saw thought it was interesting that all of my leans were favorites. I responded by saying this:

I feel very uncomfortable with it. Here is a thought experiment I might post about:

Premises:
1. NFL playoff games generate more action than any other game all year, leading up to the Super Bowl

2. Books will be less willing to expose themselves with such large action, i.e. happier to take the rake versus setting trap lines.

If those are true, then I would conclude there is more value available on a split action dog, since the books know that favorites attract more action by nature.

That said, I have a hard time believing that Ten -3 and especially Car -9.5 were set to attract split action.

I'm happy to hear other opinions on it, though.

I think what I wrote here is generally true (see e.g. Super Bowl XLII line). However, Moneyline pointed out that the opposite can also be true:

I like your list. If forced to decide right now, Tenny would be my only play.

Try thinking of the Tennessee line this way:

Let's say that the books know, based on all the info that they undoubtedly possess, that Baltimore as underdog is going to be much more attractive to bettors than Tennessee as a favorite.

They don't want to be exposed in this big of a spot, so what do they do?

They shrink the price on Tennessee to increase the # of dollars that are wagered on the Titans.

I'm not saying that is definitely what is happening in this case, but it is certainly possible.

It is not unreasonable to think that the "true" line for this game is somewhere between Tenny -3.5 and Tenny -4.5

Eric had his own ideas:

ML, I remember reading something you wrote about the divisional rounds last year that really stuck with me. It boiled down to:

-People were used to betting on 'good' teams against 'bad' teams all year.

-Divisional playoffs normally pit two well regarded teams against each other.

-Public sides with taking the points because both teams are perceived as 'good' (equal).

Maybe there's little chance for the oddsmakers to avoid that bias.

*Also thinking out loud*

So, the hard part is figuring out which side the public will like more. That's always our problem, and the playoffs only compound the problem. I think each line needs to be scrutinized harder in the playoffs to find the angle. For example, listening to what people around the water cooler are saying, what Peter King writes, or what the Gay One and the Dumb One say on ESPN Radio.

A side conversation came up as well. The Saw said:

I certainly don't know the inside workings of books, but the more I thought about it, I think the books setting up trap lines makes more sense in these situations. Yeah they may lose more money over the course of one weekend or a playoff season, but over the course of many seasons wouldn't the books make more by taking a stand against public teams?

Jonny came up with one explanation:

the problem is that books can't set traps whenever they want. Sometimes there is no situation for them to exploit(or it is too small) and they receive a higher expected value keeping the split as small as possible.

I thought something different. Ordinarily, I would agree with The Saw. But in games with such heavy action, the risk involved with setting a trap line would outweigh the +EV. I think. That's at least my rationale for the thoughts above. I'm sure whichever side I choose will be wrong anyway, so all of this will be moot.

Coming later tonight: picks, obviously, and a look at the 2008 NFL regular season.

NFL Divisional Playoff Leans

Tennessee -3 vs. Baltimore - Strong
Carolina -9.5 vs. Arizona - Moderate
Pittsburgh -6 vs. San Diego - Weak
NY Giants -4 vs. Philly - Weak

Tenny will almost certainly be a play and I have a difficult time seeing Carolina missing the card, Carib numbers notwithstanding. Unless something changes, Sunday will be quiet.

Wednesday 1/7

Kind of a light card tonight.

Eastern Michigan +8.5 +102 2x
Northwestern +7.5 -107 3x

Both the Eagles and Wildcats are contrarian and reverse line movement plays. The difference? The smart guys are loved by Pomeroy; the Ann Arbor-wannabes, not so much.

EDIT: I am disturbed.

2008 NFL Line Movement

As you can see to the right, I was absolute chicken garbage wagering on the NFL this year. Which is par for the course. I am always straight up awful the first third of the season. It didn't help this year that the second third of the season was as square as it comes. Just for grins, here are the results for all of my leans this year.



Like I said, chicken garbage. If you recall, I looked at college football line movement a few weeks ago. When looking at the graph below, remember that it is tabulated using only my Tuesday leans from the year. Again, though, I think this is the relevant sample that, at least, I should be looking at. At first glance, the hypothesis that reverse (negative) line movement is good for the contrarian gambler looks decent. When interpreting the results, you should compare what my overall record was (terrible) compared to the winning percentage of lines with reverse movement (marginal).



Unlike college football, in the NFL, the magnitude of the reverse movement doesn't appear to be all that significant.



Also, in the NFL, there are far less lines that move throughout the week than there are in college football, which shouldn't be much of a surprise since teams are much more evenly matched and more about each team is known.

As always, feel free to tell me what a retard I am in the comments.

Dad?

Brock Huard

Mr. Larson

Tuesday 1/6

I guess it wouldn't be Tuesday night without me throwing my profits away on some garbage MAC teams.

NCAAB
West Virginia -3 +100 3x
Fake Miami +6.5 +109 2x
Toledo +10 -105 2x
Seton Hall +7 -110 2x
Clemson -14 -109 3x
Penn State +2.5 +103 2x

I'm obviously not averse to laying the wood on chalk, but Tulsa is too split action for me tonight in the GMAC Bowl. It should still be entertaining.

Good luck.

Monday 1/5

NCAAB
William and Mary +3.5 +101 2x
Idaho +13.5 -105 2x
VCU -24 -108 2x
La Tech +13.5 +6 +109 2x

NCAAF
Ohio State +8 +106 3x

Between the Big Ten sucking and Texas out for revenge, there is no chance this bet hits.

Sunday 1/4

So I lied about playing hoops today. I was feeling good when I got up.

NFL
Minnesota +3 +115 2x
The move to 3.5 concerns me. If it weren't for that, I would have played it for a triple.

NCAAB
Indiana State +2.5 -102 2x
Oregon State +11 -103 2x
Hoops plays are now going to be 2x and 3x, just like football plays.

Good luck today.

Bookkeeping

Records are updated to the right. If you include all of the bets I should have made while I was on the West Coast, my NCAAF record would be a whopping 2x (-juice) better. All that is left there is the Fiesta Bowl tomorrow. The NFL record will be updated tomorrow with the wild card games added.

Looking at Minny for sure today, possibly but unlikely on Miami.

Saturday 1/3

I'll deal with all of the bookkeeping tomorrow. For now:

San Diego +1.5 +104 2x

I doubt I'll feel like playing any hoops tomorrow because of jet lag and unpacking, but I suspect I'll be on both football games.

Good luck tonight.

No Posting

LA is not conducive to gambling. Won 20x in vegas. Have had no time to look at lines. Good luck if you play things.