2)  I have made two NFL bets with Louis.  I like one and am anxious about the other.  They are…

* Raiders win total (over 6 games) – This is actually the bet I like which should tell you something about the other bet we will talk about in a second.  The Raiders have not won 6 games in ages but I like their coach, their defense and that J Russell is no longer on board.  In my mind I win this bet 1/3 of the time and push it 45-50%.  But the next bet…

* Chiefs to win the division (10:1) – I am The House in this bet and I flat out do not like it.  The only things I hear about in this division are how many players on the Chargers are either hurt or holding out.  And if they do not dominate this group, I am in trouble, because there is a whole lot of generic nothing after them in the AFC West.  I figure I win this bet 80% of the time, which means I am getting a poor deal at 10:1.  Week 1 will be a HUGE indicator of how this bet will go as KC opens at home against the Chargers.

3)  There are three MLB future “to win World Series” bets that I like the value of.  They are…

* Red Sox 25-1

* White Sox 28-1

* Giants 20-1

Oswalt has been much better recently, not that he has really been bad at any point.  And the Giants have been struggling.

Uruguay (+296) v Mexico – Two Units

Uruguay v Mexico (Draw -108) - Two Units

As has been analyzed by many including Louis, a draw puts both sides through, thus making it a very possible outcome.  But a win is very beneficial.  I am taking Uruguay based on the idea that I don’t like them more but dislike them less than Mexico.

Nigeria v Korea Rep (over 2 and 2.5 +109) – Two Units

Nigeria v Korea Rep (over 1.5 -214) – Three Units

Here is my thinking.  Nigeria is going to have to win in order to have a chance to advance, so they are going to have to play aggressive.  And if they do score, the onus than goes on Korea to score or they are going to be gone.  The only way Korea can play completely defensive is if the game is 0-0 at the half and even that plan goes out the window if Greece is scoring against Argentina.  Let’s see what happens.

France v. Mexico – Draw +215 – One Unit

A couple of teams with not a whole lot going on these days.  Both seem very unspectacular.  I am betting on 1-1 or 0-0.  So, with that in mind…

France v. Mexico – Under -118 – One Unit

And then…the chalk

Germany v. Serbia – Germany -140 – Two Units

USA v. Slovenia – USA +120 – One Unit

England v. Algeria – England -344 – Two Units

These picks are about as imaginative as a turd, but that doesn’t mean they won’t happen.  England is vastly superior to Algeria, the US cannot lose the game, and Germany scored four fucking goals in their first game.  How the hell do you bet against any of these teams??  2-0 in all three games.

WILL PAT D BREAK FOUR HOURS:

Yes : -200

No : +200

For anyone not fluent in gamblese, -200 means that the odds are 1:2 that something will happen, you bet two dollars to win one.  +200 means the odds are 2:1, you bet one dollar to win two.  The reason I am making myself a favorite is because I just have so much damn money bet on myself.  If I was running this for fun it would probably be just as likely that I would be drinking booze halfway through the race.  With that in mind…

Will Pat D Run the Entire Marathon

Yes : -500

No : +500

I have entered the Boston Marathon twice, finishing it once (4 hrs, 30 mins) and dropping out after 17 miles the second time.  Again, this line would be a lot different if I didn’t have a boatload on the line.

Over/Under Water or Sports Drinks During Race : 11.5

I honestly have never kept track of this in the past but I am guessing this sounds about right.  As a guide, the absolute minimum I could see on drinks would be like 8 or 9.

Will Pat D Beat the Random Girl Mentioned Above Who You Have Never Met (Updated)

Yes : Even Money (Updated Line)

No : Even Money (Updated Line)

You know you want to bet on this, you know you are tempted to throw five dollars on or against a girl you have never met.  As a guide, she is in her mid-20s in good condition.  I am almost 100% positive she has never run a marathon before, and I currently have an email out to her asking what time she expects to run the race in.  I may update the line accordingly when a response gets back, but this is the line at this moment.

UPDATE

Originally, this line was me -250, and the girl +250.  However, I received this email response back from her when I asked about time…

I’m shooting for 3:40, but will probably be more like 3:45ish.  What about u?????

CRIPES!  This girl means business.  First of all, she has her expected time nailed down to a five minute window, and on top of that she pops out with FIVE IN YOUR FACE QUESTION MARKS right back in my grill asking me what time I expected.  I was even tempted to make her a slight favorite at this point but I do hold one slight advantage over her and that’s that I have run the race before.  But goodness.

SECOND UPDATE

Follow up e-mail from Corinne

I ran in 2007 in 4:16

Oh Billy!

Will the Sox Game Still be Going On as I pass Fenway

Yes : Even Money

No : Even Money

Opening pitch at the game is scheduled for 11:05 AM.  I will hit the starting line somewhere around 10:35 AM.  You do your own math.  Note : If I drop out, “No” wins.

Will I Ejaculate From Now Until the Marathon

Yes : +500

No : -500

You will notice that for all these lines I have excluded juice from the action.

That’s about all I got for plays at the moment.  If any other good ones pop into people’s minds feel free to make additions.

TEN POINT PICK – SF Giants over 82.5

I honestly feel that I have to be missing something here.  San Fran won like 88 games last year, got a year of experience for a young, outrageously talented pitching staff, added some pop in my opinion with DeRosa and forever-undervalued Aubrey Huff, and the over/under is 82.5?

NINE POINT PICK – Nationals under 72

This really should not even count, it has to be considered essentially automatic, Washington had 59 wins last year.  The under is -136, but that does not matter in this contest.

EIGHT POINT PICK – Dodgers over 84

Very, very good lineup.

SEVEN POINT PICK – Yankees over 95.5

I know the AL East is a bear, but…I’m trying to think of an analogy of what the Yankees are if the East is a bear.  The mighty claw, the powerful jaws?  The Yankees are the “Big Foot’s Dick” of the Al East.  They easily won 100 games last year with A-Rod out and suspect pitching at times, especially early on.   I would have this line at 97.5.

SIX POINT PICK – Indians under 75.5

Another number that confuses me, this is asking the Indians to win 11 more games this year and D Masterson is their third pitcher, and the Lou Marson is their starting catcher right now.

FIVE POINT PICK – Atlanta over 85.5

I really am not crazy about the Braves pitching staff, but their lineup is very solid and they are playing in a far from ruthless division.  Wagner as a closer is probably going to work out well.

FOUR POINT PICK – Texas over 85

This is going against Vegas as the over is +120, but I like it anyway.  The Angels are dead, this division is up for grabs.

THREE POINT PICK – Cincinnati over 79.5

I know NOTHING about the Reds except that every sports show I pop on talks about them as a sleeper and that they have some pitcher from one of those islands where he probably had to swim to get over here.  What the hell.

TWO POINT PICK – NY Mets over 81

You knew it was coming.

ONE POINT PICK – Cardinals over 88.5

This is a high number, but I get the feeling that St Louis could have a ridiculous year, something like mid to high 90s.  Let’s see what happens…

Cornell (+8.5) “@” Kentucky

So apparently whoever the higher seed is, is labeled the home team.  This Cornell line is interesting.  I actually think it is very accurate, but what makes me like Cornell here is that I feel they have a much higher chance of winning than most 8 to 9 point underdogs.  For instance, Purdue is an eight point underdog and I don’t think they have a prayer of beating Duke.

Butler (+6) “@” Syracuse

I think this line is a bit low, it is a continuation of what seems like a season-long trend of over-valuing Butler and under-valuing Syracuse.  I would personally have this at a whisker under double digits.

Xavier “@” Kansas State (under 154)

I am basing this entirely on a four second blurb I saw the other day on one of the networks where a commentator said Kansas St defense was awesome but he wasn’t sure where they were going to get points from in subsequent rounds.  That, combined with a pretty hefty number of 154 makes me like the under.  That is my entire reasoning.

Northern Iowa (+1) “@” Michigan St

I have Michigan St in the final four of my brackets so they damn well better beat these guys.  I know Lucas is out, but the Mich St offense was scoring (when they could shoot the ball) just fine the other day without him.  The thing that makes me nervous is that in the final minutes of the Maryland game, Maryland would trap and Mich St had no answers.  In fact I watched a replay of the game and if you watch, Maryland takes the trap off when they go ahead by one with like 38 seconds to go.  I know hindsight is easy, but they should NEVER have taken the full-court pressure off.  Mich St would have been toast.  Instead, the Spartans go down and score on their next two possessions with no trap to beat.  With that being said, this is why they pay Tom Izzo the big bucks.  It’s up to him to prepare a makeshift game plan.  A team without a point guard is a shell of itself (see Texas), but Izzo is one of a very select group of coaches who I feel can figure something out.

Purdue (+8) “@” Duke

This game could be an absolute blowout in my opinion.  If Duke is suspect, Purdue is that to the nth degree with Hummel out.  This game continues Duke’s stroll.

The obvious examples of this in the 2009-2010 CB season were Connecticut and North Carolina.  Both had records around .500 which are an anomaly to say the least and they were both train wrecks against the spread, North Carolina was 9-19 and UConn at 12-18.

I think this relates to the overall issue that when betting sports its preferable to abandon preconceptions as much as possible and be a cold judge of actual talent.  Vegas gradually revalued both teams during the year, but this was a slow process, and gamblers who had the nuts to go against name recognition obviously did pretty damn well.

This should be a topic of conversation on this Blog at the beginning of the next CB season.

Los Angeles Lakers (+2.5) @ Orlando

Houston (-2) @ Detroit

Washington (+12) @ Boston

Oklahoma City (-3.5) @ Sacramento

Portland (+6.5) @ Denver

Golden State (+10.5) @ Charlotte

Atlanta (+1.5) @ Miami

New Jersey (+8) @ New York

Houston (-3.5) @ Minnesota

Dallas (-1) @ Chicago

San Antonio (-1.5) @ Memphis

Cleveland (-3.5) @ Miliwaukee

Los Angeles Clippers (+13.5) @ Utah

Indiana (+12.5) @ Phoenix

Milwaukee (-4) @ Washington

Los Angeles Lakers (-3.5) @ Charlotte

Detroit (+12) @ Cleveland

New York (+8) @ Toronto

Boston (-6) @ Philadelphia

Golden State (+13) @ Atlanta

Orlando (-10) @ New Jersey

Sacramento (+8.5) @ Dallas

Indiana (+10) @ Denver

New Orleans (+8) @ San Antonio

Oklahoma City (-4.5) @ Los Angeles Clippers

Memphis (+5.5) @ Chicago

Los Angeles Lakers (-5.5) @ Miami

Utah (+1.5) @ Phoenix

Golden State (+15) @ Orlando

Philapdelphia (+8.5) @ Atlanta

Cleveland (-9.5) @ New Jersey

Charlotte (+4.5) @ Boston

Detroit (+3.5) @ New York

Washington (+10) @ Milwaukee

Memphis (+2) @ New Orleans

Minnesota (+14) @ Dallas

Sacramento (+7.5) @ Houston

Oklahoma City (+7.5) @ Denver

Indiana (+8.5) @ Portland

Phoenix (-3.5) @ Los Angeles Clippers

Sacramento (+10.5) @ Oklahoma City

Indiana (+12) @ Los Angeles Lakers

EDIT : TWO ADDITIONAL GAMES, WERE NOT ON PINNACLESPORTS THIS MORNING

Boston (-4.5) @ Detroit

Golden State (+10.5) @ Miami

I just looked at college lines and I am clueless.  I’ll try to do some work on this as conference champ week gets going soon.

Dallas (+3) @ Charlotte

Orlando (-4) @ Philadelphia

New York (+11) @ Cleveland

San Antonio (-2.5) @ New Orleans

Atlanta (+1) @ Chicago

Portland (-1) @ Memphis

Toronto (+6) @ Houston

Denver (+2.5) @ Phoenix

Utah (-6.5) @ Los Angeles Clippers

This is me simply dragging myself towards taking the first step on making daily picks.  We’ll see how things went with these tomorrow when I post tomorrow’s picks.

Other day Louis was talking to me about the idea of creating a gambling program where someone could be exposed to an extrememly high number of past games with spread knowledge in a short amount of time to make them a better sport gambler.  Something akin to the idea that you become a better poker player by playing lots of hands, so internet people have an advantage because they play so many in so rapid an amount of time. 

I think there is a little bit of merit in this, but limited.  First of all we will throw out the idea for the moment that such a program could be created in the foreseeable future.  You would need some Matrix-like thing going on where the person uploads game data into their brains at a rapid rate.  But if such a program existed, the question arises, would it have the results Lou thinks it would.  And to an extent I think the answer is yes.

The main problem is that Vegas essentially already has something like Lou’s hypothetical idea with those simulations they run in computers.  That, after all, is often how the spread is figured, they are running advanced machines to find out what the difference in a game is likely to be.  I cannot decide if Louis’ idea should be described as being (A) different from or (B) being more finely tuned than these simulations.  The idea is different from the simulations in that he wants to figure out future score totals in relation to the spread instead of creating a spread itself, but at the same time, is that not just saying that he wants an outrageously accurate score indicator?  In either case, the task is tough.

But Lou does have one obvious advantage, and that is that Vegas has a set of handcuffs on it, namely, the betting public.  If the public thinks one way strong enough, Vegas is going to often yield to that in making a line.  This is evident in setting the line itself, and in subsequent adjustments.  Teams like the Lakers and Cowboys will routinely get more respect in regards to the line simply because the bookies know where the action is going to go.  I was on a site the other day that noted that the Lakers over the last 10 years weren’t even close to breaking even against the spread, even though, they’ve obviously been very successful.  As mentioned, the public’s influence will also transfer to line adjustments.  A recent example of this was the Packers/Cards Wild Card game this year where the line opened at Cards -2.5.  By kickoff of that game 80% of the betting public (Allen “three Benjamins” Gowin) was on the Packers, and the line had to be moved to Packers -2.5. 

And it is here where Louis’ slim hopes lie at getting rich off his Matrix program.  If Vegas strictly set spreads without the betting public in mind, Louis’ plan could not work for him, as they would be using the most in-tuned sports minds and up-to-the-minute programs and data to set the spreads.  It is in Vegas’ act of covering its own ass that salvation lies for the merit in Louis’ idea, when the sports public forces Vegas to at times make a road team a favorite against a defending conference champion. 

As a brief note at the end, this could encourage a group to take a game, throw a ton of money on one side to pop the line in a certain direction, and then once the line moves a decent amount, throw an absolute shit ton of money on the other side.