Sportsrmylife
EOG Master
Q:
Fezzik got his butt kicked in his football picks this year. What is he going to do next year to adjust?A:
I'll likely stop spending so much time handicapping!
A curious answer? Maybe, but an honest one. The basic strategy here is to respond with the tried-and-true, "My year was due to bad variance -- all 54% handicappers will have a subpar year sometime ?," and so on. However, the truth is that I was probably unlucky and the game has gotten too tough for me over the course of the year.
The only sport I actively handicapped this past year was the NFL. And all went well the first few weeks, in that the plays I gave out moved dramatically in the marketplace and were embraced. I'd give out a play -4, for example, and it would close -6.5. All the time I'd spent on the NFL during the summer was clearly time well spent. However, it's clear to me now that as soon as the season got into full swing, my edge cratered.
All of this happened despite my setting my own initial lines a full 12 days before the games were played, then updating them constantly during the two weeks leading up to kick-off. I faithfully listened to the informed sports-betting talk shows, carefully weighing the opinions of the handful of guys who truly are expert handicappers, while simultaneously filtering out the frauds and media knuckleheads. I monitored weather reports. I followed injury reports. I had schedule dynamics laid out to the nth. I was keenly aware of key trends.
And I got my ass kicked.
The big picture is clear to me: This game has gotten too difficult for me to beat with handicapping alone. If I continue to do all these things, focus on one sport, and still lose big giving out mid-week plays against widely available lines, then I'm guilty of some seriously poor time management. The reality is, all that time spent actively handicapping carries a huge opportunity cost. Many a winning bettor (who can't name a player on many of the teams they bet) is out and about finding great plays and laughing at my efforts. Of course, it's optimal to actively cap and bet well, but there just aren't enough hours in the day, and I'm not good enough at the former to sacrifice the great value I get from the latter.
The other day I found myself at Lucky's, where they'd put up the prop, "Who wins more games, Lakers or Clippers," with the Clippers +200. I asked for the current line and it was +145. The Clippers at any plus-money is a good bet. So even after dropping to +145 it was still a great bet. Sure the NFL offers the important advantage that you can bet $100K on almost anything (instead of $500), and surely some are making a huge killing betting those huge limits. But, boy, those +145 overlays are pure gold.
You hear bettors say "I win every year," and naysayers come over the top screaming bullshit -- look at your record this year." However, the best bettors know that literally every day there's a bet like that Clippers prop to be found. It's true, but often it requires a lot of time and effort to get to it before everyone else, and the sheer time required for the searching eats mightily into handicapping time.
Call me a poker player eager to exit the tough "big game" and play more in the smaller, but vastly more beatable, games. I have no desire to continue spending 12 hours a day trying to get an edge vs. NFL lines when there are much bigger -- and more reliable -- edges to be had in props and season totals and all variations of derivatives. That's where I made my bones and that's where I want to operate again. It's time to find greener pastures.
Fezzik got his butt kicked in his football picks this year. What is he going to do next year to adjust?A:
I'll likely stop spending so much time handicapping!
A curious answer? Maybe, but an honest one. The basic strategy here is to respond with the tried-and-true, "My year was due to bad variance -- all 54% handicappers will have a subpar year sometime ?," and so on. However, the truth is that I was probably unlucky and the game has gotten too tough for me over the course of the year.
The only sport I actively handicapped this past year was the NFL. And all went well the first few weeks, in that the plays I gave out moved dramatically in the marketplace and were embraced. I'd give out a play -4, for example, and it would close -6.5. All the time I'd spent on the NFL during the summer was clearly time well spent. However, it's clear to me now that as soon as the season got into full swing, my edge cratered.
All of this happened despite my setting my own initial lines a full 12 days before the games were played, then updating them constantly during the two weeks leading up to kick-off. I faithfully listened to the informed sports-betting talk shows, carefully weighing the opinions of the handful of guys who truly are expert handicappers, while simultaneously filtering out the frauds and media knuckleheads. I monitored weather reports. I followed injury reports. I had schedule dynamics laid out to the nth. I was keenly aware of key trends.
And I got my ass kicked.
The big picture is clear to me: This game has gotten too difficult for me to beat with handicapping alone. If I continue to do all these things, focus on one sport, and still lose big giving out mid-week plays against widely available lines, then I'm guilty of some seriously poor time management. The reality is, all that time spent actively handicapping carries a huge opportunity cost. Many a winning bettor (who can't name a player on many of the teams they bet) is out and about finding great plays and laughing at my efforts. Of course, it's optimal to actively cap and bet well, but there just aren't enough hours in the day, and I'm not good enough at the former to sacrifice the great value I get from the latter.
The other day I found myself at Lucky's, where they'd put up the prop, "Who wins more games, Lakers or Clippers," with the Clippers +200. I asked for the current line and it was +145. The Clippers at any plus-money is a good bet. So even after dropping to +145 it was still a great bet. Sure the NFL offers the important advantage that you can bet $100K on almost anything (instead of $500), and surely some are making a huge killing betting those huge limits. But, boy, those +145 overlays are pure gold.
You hear bettors say "I win every year," and naysayers come over the top screaming bullshit -- look at your record this year." However, the best bettors know that literally every day there's a bet like that Clippers prop to be found. It's true, but often it requires a lot of time and effort to get to it before everyone else, and the sheer time required for the searching eats mightily into handicapping time.
Call me a poker player eager to exit the tough "big game" and play more in the smaller, but vastly more beatable, games. I have no desire to continue spending 12 hours a day trying to get an edge vs. NFL lines when there are much bigger -- and more reliable -- edges to be had in props and season totals and all variations of derivatives. That's where I made my bones and that's where I want to operate again. It's time to find greener pastures.