Re: Home advantage and capping.
for an amateur handicapper like myself, i don't attach specific point values to anything. i acknowledge what i am doing is an imperfect science.
with home field advantage, what i'm looking for is a team whose HFA is big enough that they're always live to a fair market number. for a favorite there might be too much HFA built into a line at times, but with dogs, i think generally, the HFA is fair. if a HFA is undervalued in the public's eye (like boise's blue turf a few years ago), but you're aware of it, then you pretty much always have a live dog.
take denver on monday night. denver is always live at home. the number hovered around 1-2 all week, and then at kickoff, pick 'em was available. when i bet denver i didn't know if it was a 53-54% bet, but i did know that it wasn't any worse than 50-51%. with a good home field, and a little steam, there was no way that bet was bad.
the same is true for road favorites, in terms of, are they definitely going to have intensity, and not be affected by travel, in this upcoming game? take troy last night. it was a home game, but let's imagine they had to travel to tennessee. imo a team like troy who never gets to play on national television, is likely to get up for that game on the road. a road favorite with a strong mentality or with much superior talent is always live to cover a reasonable number.
obviously this is very, very rough handicapping. it's not about me coming up with a play from scratch. it's my process when i'm looking at the screen and seriously considering making a play.
like detroit +3.5 tomorrow. the lions HFA on thanksgiving has historically been under-valued. maybe that's shifted in recent years, but maybe it hasn't, because i can see how a person can logically say "why is HFA a bigger deal on thanksgiving than on other days?" of course it's not a HFA issue, it's a road team traveling on a short week issue. maybe enough people don't realize this and detroit +3.5 is a solid 54% play. but at worst, the lions are live to +3.5, and if i shop for the best juice, it's likely profitable.
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