Announcing: Contrarianville

I'd write more, but well, it's 5:30 AM and Moneyline already covered everything here. Anyway, go sign up.

Damn You And Your Daily Doubles, You Brigand

I like late 90s SNL way too much. Thank you, ESPN, for making people in their late 20s and early 30s happy tonight.



Youngsters, reference here.

Schedule Change

Since I am old and rarely go to bars on Friday nights anymore, I think I am going to revisit leans on Fridays. It makes sense to do it then because I can go right from updating leans to floating bets at Matchbook for Saturday, particularly since I end up doing work most weekend mornings.

Despite my long term Wreck position, I'm not against fading GT this season, but neither of these last two Thursday games have exactly been slam dunk contrarian spots.

Question for Readers

TheFiancee is going out of town tomorrow, which leaves me here with the four televisions.

Guess All of My Action Will Stay Offshore

via Deadspin

I actually intended on checking out the books at Delaware Park this fall. I still might go down if they have stupid lines that can be exploited, but I have a high enough standard deviation on wagers. I don't need to square it by playing parlays.

Vacation Re-alignment Thinking

Again, from ESPN:

I've always thought Boston College re-joining the [Big East] would be the best-case scenario. The geography makes so much more sense, it balances out the Northeast portion of the league against the teams south of the Mason-Dixon line and it restores natural rivalries. Plus, BC can't possibly think life is great in the ACC. The Eagles have been relegated to awful bowl sites despite getting to the league championship game, and the travel and lack of natural rivals burden the fans.

Maryland makes a great deal of sense geographically as well, though the Terps' strong tradition in ACC basketball makes it seem less likely that they would bolt.

This is obviously thinking too far ahead, but if I were everyone involved I would have UMd and BC join the Big East and have the football members split off, leaving the Catholic Conference to make up a non-football conference. It's not like the ACCCG is a big draw. The biggest hurdle to climb there would be adding another basketball auto bid (which both conferences would clearly deserve) to the NCAA tourney. Either they would have to get rid of an at-large bid (two?) or expand the tournament.

Doesn't it make sense? A sixteen team basketball conference is way too big.

Delaware Sports Betting

From ESPN:

Since Markell signed a bill to reauthorize sports betting in his state this past May, the style of betting has been up for debate. In 1976, the state allowed parlays, meaning bettors had to pick two winning teams at once to cash in a bet. But, hoping to attract bettors from neighboring Pennsylvania and Maryland, Markell has been pushing for his new sports books to offer single-game, Vegas-style action. The leagues -- the NFL in particular -- oppose this idea.

[snip]

"Delaware did not conduct single-game wagering during its 1976 sports lottery, which was limited to parlay bets on NFL games," league representatives said in a joint statement when the lawsuit was filed. "The PASPA exception does not permit Delaware to now conduct single-game wagers on the NFL or wagering on sports other than the NFL."

The leagues also argued that taking single-game bets, rather than parlays, violates Delaware's constitution, which says all state-sponsored gambling must rely primarily on chance, not skill.

"The federal claim seems to be the weaker of the two to me," said Jeffrey Standen, a law professor at Willamette University in Salem, Ore., who specializes in sports and gambling. "If Delaware allowed bets on sports outcomes back in the day, is it really all that different if the outcome is on one game as opposed to three?

"The state claim may be a stronger case. With a single game there is more skill involved than trying to pick multiple games. Would that single-game bet still fit within the lottery exemption? Is it enough of a bet of luck?"

I'm not a lawyer, but how in the world is betting on one game skill but betting on two (or three) at a time luck? Are we to believe that sports bets are not Bernoulli trials like they are at any other place on the face of the earth? Or perhaps the laws of conditional probability cease to exist in the courtroom? Where they are magic parlays? Do you place these parlays with the same guy that sold Jack his beanstalk?

ESPN Hates Numbers

I realize I'm a little late with this, but this was the front page of ESPN when I got into work yesterday.



I quit baseball for the year, but even I know that the Angels are at best the fourth best team in the AL and strong arguments could be that they are lower than that. Good luck to those of you still in the game fading them down the stretch.

Spread-to-Moneyline Converter

This is the best link I can find. Does anyone have anything better?

I know about the SBR converter, but it is seriously flawed. I'd rather intelligently extrapolate on my own after 13 than use it.

Going Dark Again

This has been one of the worst days for me in recent memory. I was supposed to be getting married in Vegas this weekend, but TheFiancee's mom is ill to the point that doctors aren't allowing her to fly (she'll be ok eventually, just not this weekend).

Instead, now it's just me and a good friend heading out to Sin City tomorrow for the weekend, sans TheFiancee. Those of you with your own TheGirlfriend, TheFiancee, or TheWife can imagine how trying today was.

I'll be back on Tuesday with college football futures bets placed at various casinos throughout Vegas.

Twitter Feed

I can't imagine I am going to update this often before football season, but I added a twitter feed. I already don't like it.

People Google Weird Things

Why have four different people hit my blog in the last 24 hours from googling "Stallone's namesake?" I mean, on what planet does someone need to search for that?

Two. Months.

Yes, I'm obviously getting too excited about the return of football.

Dated, Yet Still Funny

What Else Is There To Do There?

New Template, Obviously

I dunno. It's kinda ok. I accidentally uploaded a previous version of the old template, which killed all of the widgets I had on the sidebar, necessitating a quick fix. Unlike most themes, this particular one didn't seem like it was meant for an emo kid or a thirteen year old girl, so I quickly uploaded it. I'm not sold it's the right answer though.

Oh, and go WNBA.

Does My Lemmy Mean More Now?

Note to TheFiancee

The Angels were not -152 favorites yesterday. I didn't need a streak of W5 anyway.

Question for Poker Players

I can regularly beat home games, but I don't consider myself a particularly good NLHE player. I know some of you guys are legitimately good, so I wanted to see what the poker players think about this hand that came up last night.

Game: 1/2 NLHE at Caesars Atlantic City.
Hand: Dealt KK on the button

Pre-flop: UTG+2 raises to $7, which is a weak pre-flop raise for the table (had been averaging about $12). Two more callers until it gets to me and I raise to $17. Both blinds and everyone else calls for six to the flop.

Flop: Comes off Qd-9h-5c. Blinds check, UTG+2 comes out for $15, the cutoff raises to $65. The cutoff has not been playing particularly well, but obviously plays there often. He has been playing a lot of junk cards and his girlfriend is behind him, harrassing him about two pots that he just lost totalling about $200. I am his only caller.

Turn: 9d. The cutoff and I both quickly check.

River: Ad. Cutoff thinks about it for a while and eventually pushes me all in.

What would you do? Or do you need more information?

TheFiancee is a Degenerate

At least I'm engaged to the right person. TheFiancee went to Atlantic City today, counted cards in blackjack, and came home +$370. She's doing way better than I am sports gambling.