Week 1 NCAA plays and leans

[MyTurn2Raise]

oh yeah, in general, sorry this thread got borderline ugly last nights as there was constructive criticism going on

The one thing I've improved at dramatically is getting better lines as Thremp sarcastically made fun of me and would PM me everyday it seemed with a better line he got for my game and some derisive comment.

It's really huge. I went 181-155 on sides, totals, and coinflip props on my posted picks the last two seasons without working hard to find the best line. I went back through my data and saw that I could've been 187-149 by just grabbing the second best line available at the time of the bet at books rated A- or better. That's a jump from 53.9% to 55.7%, which is huge!

This week alone I had Illinois +6 (push instead of loss), Memphis +3 (win instead of a push), LSU/Miss St o45 when it was 45.5 most places (push instead of loss) and I added when it dropped to o44 before kickoff (commented in IRC but didn't post, so I won't add it to my official record), UNLV -6.5 @ Utah St (win instead of push), ULM-Tulsa u52.5 (win instead of push)

Just by line hunting, I made a significant difference in about the 45 O/U, ATS Game spreads I had this week and that doesn't include 2nd half bets.

I understand the concern post UIGEA. I balance that risk by suggesting to only use highly rated books on SBR. For example, 5dimes, WSEX, Bookmaker, TheGreek, BoDog, matchbook, betonline, betJamaica should give you a nice selection and make upto one point difference in the totals you get and a half point in the lines. THAT IS HUGE!!!!!!

I'm not so concerned with the environment in gambling anyway as long as reputable books are used. I believe last summer I had 39 online poker accounts. I was the uber-whore. I had money still sitting at over half when they slowly locked off US customers one by one. Every single one of them paid in full. while I trust sportsbooks less, I'm not too concerned having 1/12 of my roll at any of the sites I listed earlier.

Also, the second half difference between pk and -2 is huge. Actually, I was about to bet that second half at -.5 when bookmaker dropped to pk right before I confirmed somewhere else.

1) The push on the zero is awesome
2) one point can and does happen frequently enough....7-6, 14-13, even 8-7 with FSU trying to comeback.

It's just tough to take one to two points worse than widely available (which I consider the second best line available at the A- or better books) and be a winner. I did it over the last 10 seasons, but I can only regret not having stockpiled a much larger record and unit profit.