Thurs night NCAA football

[thelyingthief]

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USF -1.5 @ Rutgers bet 3.15u to win 3u

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I lose again and am about ready to give up for the year

everything I looked at had USF -6 or more even with a big HFA for Rutgers

something is very wrong with the models that used to lead to $$$$ for me

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Give up less than halfway through the year? Isn't the whole reason we use 100+ unit bankrolls is to absorb losing streaks? If you decide that you can't figure out this game then what hope do the rest of us have? I'm pretty discouraged by your pessimism. Seriously...hang in there.

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i have found it necessary over the years to avoid early cfb conference matchups, and mid-season NFL games: early out of conference games do not yield reliable figures for in-conference matchups; and, due to early season injuries and the uneven quality of depth of roster for various teams, the pro game is likewise elusive. usually, i bet 8-12 games a week, but that will drop to 4-6 during october. you might try accepting the nature of things and exercise restraint. believe me, once teams have played into their conference schedules, your perception will get better.

tlt.

[thelyingthief]

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I hate the over/under right now. Both recommendations came from a professional betting company. I think I'm better off just taking my chances on the spread as of now. This over/under [censored] is really screwing me over

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i chanced upon an exhaustive study of fb O/U's by a statistician some years ago, and he concluded that no factor or combination of factors afforded a bettor any edge. while i do not whole-heartedly embrace the conclusion, the evidence is strong; so, as with any bet laid against a spread, you really need solid reasons for choosing one side or another. i remember an O/U a few years ago, the matchup featured the two best defenses against the run in cfb, and neither team could pitch. the O/U? 44. now, that was proposition i could endorse.

tlt

[hedgie43]

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in being only partly right you are totally wrong.


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No.

[MicroBob]

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USF -1.5 @ Rutgers bet 3.15u to win 3u

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I lose again and am about ready to give up for the year

everything I looked at had USF -6 or more even with a big HFA for Rutgers

something is very wrong with the models that used to lead to $$$$ for me

[/ QUOTE ]

Give up less than halfway through the year? Isn't the whole reason we use 100+ unit bankrolls is to absorb losing streaks? If you decide that you can't figure out this game then what hope do the rest of us have? I'm pretty discouraged by your pessimism. Seriously...hang in there.

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i have found it necessary over the years to avoid early cfb conference matchups, and mid-season NFL games: early out of conference games do not yield reliable figures for in-conference matchups; and, due to early season injuries and the uneven quality of depth of roster for various teams, the pro game is likewise elusive. usually, i bet 8-12 games a week, but that will drop to 4-6 during october. you might try accepting the nature of things and exercise restraint. believe me, once teams have played into their conference schedules, your perception will get better.

tlt.

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I've heard similar philosophies with all sports before and I still don't get it.

If the game is easy for me to determine a line because I've seen the teams play and have a decent feel for them then it should be easy for pretty much everyone else. Therefore the line should be somewhat handicap and finding the 'right' side should still be difficult.

If the game is difficult for me to determine a line because it's too early and I just haven't seen them enough then that means nobody else has seen them enough either. This can lead to some lines that might be off due to public-bias or whatever.

IOW, waiting until I have a good idea of how the teams play means that I'm also waiting until everyone else actually figures out how these teams play also.

Am I being too simplistic here? It just seems to me that the logic of, "wait until you can figure out how they play" seems self-defeating and maybe somewhat squareish.

Or is it that I'm the square and that waiting really is a good idea because it means you get a little bit of meat for your own math-models which afterall are supposed to be good and hopefully able to overcome public-bias and some teams' lucky/unlucky results that aren't being factored properly in the line, etc.

[dankhank]

well for the second straight year i am picking up steam as the college football season goes along. it is not because i know more about the teams myself, but because the people i follow and the invisible sharp money i tail is getting smarter about their picks. the same is true in the nfl. conventional wisdom is that the middle of the ncaa and nfl seasons is the most profitable. early on, people can't handicap properly, and late, even the slow learners have picked up on how teams compare.

in contrast, a lot of people think the start of the nba and mlb season is the most lucrative period. the difference being that there's a lot more turnover in football than the other two sports. in ncaa basketball the best period is december. once you hit conference play and teams start facing each other multiple times, again, even the slow learners are able to make accurate comparative judgments.

[thelyingthief]

microbob:

i find it difficult to gage the respective strength of two teams who are facing one another with identical 3-0 records, when each has played only div. 2 teams to date, and when, perhaps, neither return an O and/or D line with more than 2 starters from the previous year: how am i to know how they will match up?

this is not to say that an edge isn't obtainable, because often it is: the talent level a school attracts, or the ability of a coaching unit to extract the best from its talent base, or an AD's commitment to winning factor into the equation. however, with football teams on both the professional and amateur levels in constant flux, the information that is most crucial to a decision is often lacking, and as a bettor i want to be immune in my decision making to what unknowns do arise, that is, i want them to be trivial to the outcome, not presuppose it.

since the consensus that establishes an opening line pursues a largely statistical strategy in doing so, and tries to equalize for motivation, injury, etc., i feel as a handicapper constrained to approach things differently. mostly, i am less inclined to utilize purely numerical methods (which is NOT to say i dismiss them, they are a necessary step in my handicapping process), and restrict myself to issues which i can qualify/quantify better than the book maker, issues of motivation, and matchup edges, the psychological pressures that will compromise a player, and if those pressures are apt to appear in today's game: these simply do not reveal themselves in vacuo, because of the transient makeup of teams and squads as i have indicated. who, for instance, could imagine a wisconsin defense that returns 7 starters misbehaving so abysmally? it takes time to see that there is a weakness where there should be strength, etc.

sports betting is about the public: i am not in a battle with the books, as so many contributors here seem to think, but with mass perception. successful handicapping for me--and i would suspect that an independent (guys making it solo, and not as part of team) who does not do the same, is not successful--is squaring the opinion of the mass with the facts, and betting when there is a dissonance. although, the books do take positions against the public, and to that degree are a competitor (a harrahs sb manager told me in 1997 that they profit 16% per annum on football wagering, which can only accrue to positioning), i accept it in train as one more pitfall in the process.

as a last thought, it appears to me, viewed in purely logical terms, that your question pretty much defies the bettor any edge at all under any circumstances. i don't state this to provoke you, but to ask if this is a predisposition or bias, perhaps of which you are unaware.

tlt

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If the game is difficult for me to determine a line because it's too early and I just haven't seen them enough then that means nobody else has seen them enough either. This can lead to some lines that might be off due to public-bias or whatever.

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but if you have no knowledge how will YOU know the line is on or off?

[hedgie43]

Tlt,

I'm still waiting to hear why sports betting isn't about the odds you get.

[dankhank]

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sports betting is about the public: i am not in a battle with the books, as so many contributors here seem to think, but with mass perception. successful handicapping for me--and i would suspect that an independent (guys making it solo, and not as part of team) who does not do the same, is not successful--is squaring the opinion of the mass with the facts, and betting when there is a dissonance.

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i don't understand why an independent bettor should be less about "beating the books" and more about beating the public. by definition an independent bettor can wager smaller amounts, thus they can target specific books. it is the large bettors and syndicates who have to actually beat the other players, by betting into WA lines.

i respect what you are doing and trying to articulate. it is alan boston style betting. but i think you are too dismissive of easier methods.

[thelyingthief]

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Tlt,

I'm still waiting to hear why sports betting isn't about the odds you get.

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well, as with most discussions, a poster is either preaching to the choir, or wasting breath on the atheists. arguing from my perspective--one that places far less emphasis upon the line, and tends to view it as camouflage to trap the unwary--i would start by referencing a study: 80% of the winners of all games cover the spread. ignoring the best team in favor, or disfavor, of the odds received, given this substantial majority, too often sees the bettor chasing value at the expense of worth.

when i began betting sports (football only, actually, and thoroughbreds), i made the inevitable acquaintance with runners busily chasing down odds for pittances on the dollar for some centralized authority; i was always bemused at the poverty of the individuals who so chased, and the mythical wealth of the people heading them. and it seemed these latter were always going bust and being replaced by another incarnation of the same, and the tale of it making the topic of bettors' gossip when nothing else was up for mention. in my personal experience, the winners i met were mostly handicappers, men who spent a lot of time absorbing the games they played; they did not spend too much time worrying about the lines, except in the normal course of things, trying to get one favorable to themselves, if possible, but taking bad ones just as often, because really, they were irrelevant much of the time. you do develop a feel for the inconsistency of a line, after a couple of years, and those may attract your interest enough to study the game they question, but it's more often that you have an understanding about a game before you ever see its line, and know before it is ever posted what that line will be, and in which direction it will develop. lines, for me, and, again, players of better talent than mine, were like watering holes, where you went down to kill for dinner; other than that they were meaningless. and when i say most of the bettors i knew who were successful, it was in fact all; the exceptions were NOT people i met in the ordinary course of my betting day. there were and are groups of individuals who invest large sums of money in pursuit of inside information, or the modeling of data, or, or, or, whose existence was sure, and whose success was also; but individually, and in person, i met very few men who understood and possessed the necessary objectivity of their chosen sports to make a go of it. i saw a lot of scalpers and mathematicians come and go, young guys taking a semester away from college and trying the exotic approach to making a living, swearing before god they were getting rich and needing not to work to do it--but the guys who made it, who laid down bets northward of five dimes on their choices, gameday in and gameday out, were of an eclectic, analytical sort, and regarded the line without any piety whatsoever.

when i lived in nevada, i made acquaintance with a number of sportsbook managers; and from them learned very interesting information. for instance, the books profited in the latter 90's, when i lived in vegas, reno, and tahoe, about 16% of the wagered dollar. they often supported lines egregiously tilted against the probable odds--and rare indeed was a bettor who even perceived the error, or understood its counter value. and, from the character of the lines i see today, i think the books are taking much bolder stances against the public than ever before. i will go much further, though this is off topic, and support the belief that the game is vastly more crooked than at any time in my experience; that the industry is behind it, and that this is a major influence upon the lines put up.

be that as it may, the following factors have also impacted the purely mechanical methods, i believe: the technology has changed (opening lines now issue from a central committee, which the various books adopt as their initial offering; and all of it begins with data analysis and statistic methods that factor in the scalping activity of many players, the moisture content of candlestick, and every esoteric variable in between--which things have a bearing on the mechanical methods much more than the qualitative, imo); laws have been promulgated making scalping increasingly difficult; and the commitment of the media to extolling the trivial above the significant, which in turn creates a misdirection of the public gaze, and exaggerates public error.

to my discredit, i almost instinctively discount the approach most players here use. i think many adopt these methods out of exasperation and naivete, and much less from inclination. and any method one adopts that is not a direct expression of one's psychology is apt to betray the user. i can tell you, i could almost handicap profitably by taking the consensus of twoplustwo's contributors on a given outcome, and fading it; and in fact have so done, several times. i can also say, if i and the consensus are in agreement, i almost immediately ask of myself, what have i missed? i used to have this exact mindset when listening to the wise guys at the Hilton. if this is so of the individual selections of the contributors here, why would this not impact the consensual view of their chosen method? nonetheless, i am not saying "you can't". that may be the great mantra of the modern world; but my experience makes me carefully dubious of the approach. :^/

tlt

[hedgie43]

LOL

You just don't get it. And it's hilarious.