SSI's Plays for Sunday.-- ATX?

SSI · Aug 17, 2003

Atl(+1.10) listed for 1 unit.
Atl-1.5 runs (+2.00), listed for 1 unit.
Hou-1.5 runs (+1.05), listed for 1 unit.
Phil(+1.10), listed for 1 unit.
Phil-1.5 runs (+1.90), listed for 1 unit.
Hou/Cinn over 9 (+1.05), listed for 1 unit.
SF/Mont under 8.5 runs (-1.10), listed for 1 unit.
Balt(+1.70), listed for 1 unit.
Balt-1.5 runs (+3.20), listed for 1 unit.
Minn(+1.15), listed for 1 unit.
Minn-1.5 runs (+1.80), listed for 1 unit.
Oak-1.5 runs (+1.75), listed for 1 unit.
CWS-1.5 runs (+1.50), listed for 1 unit.
Mont-1.5 runs (+2.15), listed for 1 unit.
Bos(+1.25), listed for 1 unit.
Bos-1.5 runs (+1.90), listed for 1 unit.

16 plays all for 1 unit and listed pitchers, taking a page out of ATX system as ive played these for a small % of my bankroll. did this yesterday with MLB and NFL, hit for +1.85% gain.. wondering what a good weekly % goal would be? Is 3% weekly attainable, im playing a slightly higher percentage than you do, but of course, i am still experimenting with this.. i was playing .5% yesterday..

SSI · Aug 17, 2003

ATX, i am playing .25% on the alt. runline games.. and .5% on all the others, any comments..

SSI · Aug 17, 2003

I went back and double the %'s. Now playing all for 1%, with the exception fo alt. runline games, they are for .5%. this may be a mistake but i just stuck with what i did yesterday, playing for 1% of bankroll, except the alt runline and the nfl moneyline games, in which i played a .5%.. can you comment on this ATX? also can you comment on an attainable weekly goal - % wise.. i read your posts often but cant remember your comments on this..

SSI · Aug 17, 2003

ATX, just read your comments in the hadicapping zone, 300% a year is attainable, believe thats what you said..

two_headed_monster · Aug 17, 2003

SSI, so what happened to the advice to us earlier on this season about playing too many games daily??

just kidding buddy, giving you a hard time as payback. Best of luck today, hope you cash on these.

two_headed_monster

BigGamesOnly · Aug 17, 2003

SSI, I believe this is the best way to manage money. The biggest reason I believe this way is because you can survive a bad streak which we all have. ATX had a bad streak a week ago and it hardly affected his bankroll.

Even the best have a bad streak now and then and if you bet a high percentage of your bankroll you will certainly have it depleted.

Good luck guy.

SSI · Aug 17, 2003

my time has been limited lately buddy, when i load up on 1 or 2, it seems that puts alot of pressure on you.. notice on these plays, that all but one are dog plays in reference to the "money". been doing a lot of research also on the impossibility of beating the (-1.10). ive done this for 17yrs, however im still a young man at age 36.. I trade stocks and commodities also during the day, ATX comments seems a way to tie the things together.. Betting only 1% or .5% of my bankroll, maybe i wont get killed, and who knows maybe ill stumble into a different way to do this,, and fully treat sports wagering as a market in itself.. good luck to you also, nice to see you in the NFL forum, i am playing all the dogs for now.. also look forward to seeing you in the nhl and nba forums this year.. do you play nhl and nba also?

two_headed_monster · Aug 17, 2003

SSI, we hear what you're saying and support you on the decision to go with whatever system works for you. Best of luck tonight...And to answer your question, we play every sport!

two_headed_monster

NYReb · Aug 17, 2003

SSI, I'm curious about something. Earlier in the season you were going with 3 games a day, and I thought you were hitting them at an incredibly high percentage. Am I wrong? And if I'm right, why did you decide to change your system and experiment with others?

BigGamesOnly · Aug 17, 2003

Ah, so you trade stocks and commodities. Do you see a parallel between .5% - 1% wagering in sports and trading stocks?

I've been a fan of nhl and nba since 1972 but haven't bet for 20 years. It takes a lot of experience betting to get good at it so I consider myself a novice. Some people pay lots of money and go to school for 4 years to learn a trade. I figure this is a way to lose less money than tuition and still learn a trade. You guys sure help. Thanks much.

SSI · Aug 17, 2003

I see a big correlation between stock, commodity trading and sports wagering,. Im a good friend of a guy who posts here from time to time (BobK), he works for A.G. Edwards out of DC and has for many many years. We talk all the time of the similairities of the two.. I constantly change, the way that i do things, adapting.. ive done this for 17yrs, the first few, i didnt have a clue, remember i made my first bet on a college football game in 1986 and couldnt understand that if i lost a $20 bet, that i owed $22.. Ive had some great teachers along the way, worked my way up to being profitable almost every season about 5yrs ago.. However i found online gambling about 3-4yrs ago, and its much different than simply calling into a local... so in the world of wagering, i am a 17yr vet, however with online gambling, i am still somewhat of a newbie.. Just trying to find a happy medium if you will....... and Reb, i get hot and cold.. I feel that by wagering less, i can spread my bankroll around and not risk too much on any one play, and also i can take a couple hours and work on it and finish for the day.. Not just keep on and on, all day long,, baseball season tends to have a way to burn me out rather quickly.. its a marathong and not a sprint.

BigGamesOnly · Aug 17, 2003

I was going to start a thread asking which way people preferred to bet, a few "sure" bets or a lot of not-so-sure bets. I've found that my "sure" bets certainly do lose.

I think ATX said it best when he said that he bets more games as a way to minimize risk.

NYReb · Aug 17, 2003

I'd like to see a marathong.

ATX · Aug 17, 2003

SSI, I'll get back to you a little later. I've made over 300% annually the last 3 years, on an avg wager of 1% BR. Special subsets and angles raked in over 100% per annum. I am pretty sure I'll risk less this year per wager. I am now completely comfortable wagering on over 3500 events per year. It takes a lot of hard work to get used to finding 10 events per day (avg) that hold value, and you have to know when some days dont offer anything and when there are days that offer over 40 value events. I tried to count how many wagers I had yesterday and keep losing count, I wish I had risked more on everything.

ATX · Aug 17, 2003

SSI, this is what I did:

I started out wagering the typical 3-5 events a day in football. Then basketball. Then I added 1-3 totals. Even starting out I never won less than 58% on NFL and BigXII games over the course of a year, at the time I thought everyone hit 60% except the girls. I thought that sportsbooks made money off the girls and the guys evened things out, lol. Basketball was different, I quickly saw what was killing me in baskets and learned to do the opposite.

Just like everyone else I had those football days where I was winning all 5 games, only to have those fluke backdoors or bad calls turn the 5-0 to 0-5. And then I'd look at the other games and think to myself "I would have won all the rest." After a while I started keeping my core 3-5 games at 2%, and I began adding leans and "worth a shot" games for half (or less) of that. Everyone is better on certain teams. After thousands of games of experience I can do fairly well handicapping the entire league day in and day out by finding VALUE. You will hear a lot of people say not to take a football team unless you have the line 3 points off. I completely disagree. If you take every game that is off by the slightest margin it adds up to massive proportions OVER TIME. If you look at my NFLX from last night you will see how well I did on 2nd halves even though none of the lines (on sides) were off by more than 1-2 points.

Be very careful playing favorites. More times than not the value is on the dog. There is a lot more value in the dog ALT RL than the fave RL. Playing 1% of BR is risky, there will be a lot of more pronounced streaks. I suggest using .5% or less for the added games. If you are doing well with your core games, keep that the same. When you are adding games try to learn what to look for on each team, keep these wagers small, dont even worry about them showing profit. If they lose you quite a bit, look at the reasons why and DO THE OPPOSITE. If they add to your BR then gradually increase their size. I started out this baseball season with little expectation of showing much profit, now I'm fairly sure that I can eventually make baseball as profitable as football and basketball.

Your main weapon against the oddsmaker is TIME. Not only do they have to line the games much faster than you do, but you can apply any edges you have over time and make them really add up. If you are worried about what happens in a single day as far as your bankroll is concerened you are betting too much. I dont usually add up my exact wins or losses every single day. I know if I do well or not, but if I have a losing day I dont necessarily want to know exactly how bad it was, it doesn't matter. What matters is the NEXT DAY, and the NEXT, and the NEXT. History is a great teacher, but it does not have a lot of predictive qualities. Look at weeks more than individual days. I can count on one finger the number of losing weeks that I have had since May, does it matter? NO, I can easily lose the next 7 weeks in a row, I'm prepared for this.

One of the most important things that I do is in grading wagers. I look at each win or loss very carefully and I always ask myself whether or not there was actually value on the play. Just b/c I win a wager does NOT mean that there was value in it. Sometimes a team will be outhit 15-5 and still win by luck. I lose a lot of dogs by one run that could easily have gone the other way, that doesnt discourage me at all. Another benefit of having so many wagers is that it helps mask mistakes. I make mistakes all the time. But they get hidden and dont hurt me as much b/c they are buried in the sheer volume of plays, the plays that I correctly find value in outnumber my mistakes, that is very important. About half of the wagers I make jump out at me immediately. On the remaining 50%, about half of those I have solid leans and take a while longer. On the rest I spend the majority of the time, and even though these wagers are small they make a big difference.

ATX · Aug 17, 2003

Stick with a strategy, if you keep changing your strategy b/c of a couple of losing days, more often than not when you change things you pass on a lot of winners that you would have had the next day if you had stayed course.

I am thinking more and more that I'll decrease wager size this year in order to minimize risk, how easily replaceable you BR is has a lot to do with proper risk strategy.

BigGamesOnly · Aug 17, 2003

Each of the last 3 days my best wager ended up losing. That's why I bet relatively the same amount on each game. Once a person can fine-tune which games have a better chance of winning then they can bet a higher percentage. I'm not at that level yet so I bet about the same on each.

300% per year is very good. If I could attain that I could retire and live off my bankroll, which is my ultimate goal. I'm sick of lesser people telling me how to do my job and then getting laid off because of office politics or incompetence.

If a person had a bankroll of $10,000, he could make .5% and 1.0% bets at $50 and $100 and then make 300% which would be $30,000/yr. I could supplement that with other things and live comfortably.

Good luck gentlemen and let's beat the man.

ATX · Aug 17, 2003

the amount of time you can spend on games each day plays a big role in what kind of learning curve to expect. I've been up since 9am doing nothing but looking at baseball for today. I'm dead tired, but now I start looking at tomorrow's games. Baseball isnt nearly as stressful as spread sports where lines can move a point or two very quicky, and a spread change can change a grade from win to loss. Price changes in baseball affect the value of a play but dont change the outcome. Last night I'm trying to cap NFLX second halves and then Vick goes down so then I have to watch that line and make a big decision at the same time on my ATL/DAL wager. It's not easy and I get burned out at times but I enjoy it. There's nothing wrong with going small and maybe treading water for a while in order to find the strategy that works best for you. Too many people think that they are passing up money by not going large on plays, but there are games every day. The worst thing that can happen is losing a big chunk of BR, that puts you out of the game. Think of this is terms of the future. Plan ahead, set realistic goals, and make adjustments as often as possible. If you are not seeing incremental improvements every 250 plays or so address the issues. I always ask myself if I would have made the same wagers all over again. I also think it helps to not pay attention to what other people are wagering on. You dont want to be dependent on anything. You want to build a system based on duplicity, being able to do the same thing over and over again. I sometimes check other people's plays after I make up my own mind, but I remember a long time ago I would always second guess myself if someone with a good record was wagering on the opposite team. Nothing else screws with your head more than this esp. if you change your mind b/c of someone esle and your play would have won. Hope this helps.

ATX · Aug 17, 2003

BGO, I wouldnt count on 300%.

I dont. It's just what has happened in the last 3 years. I have everything structured in an attempt to return 100%. I've had some massive runs, and really good regular season returns. Then I risk a different percentage of bankroll in the playoffs based on what I've made in the regular season for that sport. I was risking 6% on some of the NFL playoff games last year.

Look more at adding to your bankroll without taking any out. If you can get your BR up to 6 figures and higher then .5% is a lot more significant then when it is at 10K. It's a matter of balancing exposure and profitablity. You also need to realize that things can change very quickly. I've seen guys hit close to 70% one season and then lose their entire BR the next, the whole time thinking they are just about to hit paydirt again.