Category: Hockey
Thursday
Late post today as our NHL season comes to a slow and inconsequential end. No plays again tonight despite a full slate of games. Vancouver who won yesterday and is officially now a garden variety below average team is the best option tonight but rejected for our purposes since they are on a back to back. Hopefully we can find a game to play this week. Enjoy the NCAA action.
Tuesday
It’s pretty clear that you’re running poorly when marginal plays that are passed turn into winners while the ostensibly “better” plays are consistently losing. Sean is living in that world at the moment as the Jets were much further away from winning than their 2-1 loss would suggest. Keri Lehtonen was excellent in goal for Dallas. Montreal and Ottawa were both shootout winners, the latter ending a 7 or 8 game losing streak.
Nothing doing today despite a full slate of games. Detroit is the closest thing to a play. I have my NL-only Superdork draft tomorrow night and will post a link if possible if anyone wants to follow along.
How to turn $1 into $869
So, been a pretty bad week for me sports gambling the last week: I batted 0.233 in my NCAA bets, my brackets are cooked, and I missed all but 2 of my suggestions on this blog for NCAA this week. Thank god for poker lately, as I have been running hot.
However, amazing feat last night for the UFC Card in Brazil: Shogun vs Henderson 2.
I was playing some MTTs late last night and was going to watch the event while pokering. If you have followed my UFC bets here on the site, I’ve done very well with a 62% ROI on UFC bets YTD, including killing it on these Brazil cards since I always look for good odds for fighters FROM BRAZIL fighting guys who are NOT. Especially when they are underdogs…..they just fight jacked up and put on a great show for the home crowd.
I liked two fighters on the card: Fabio Maldonado +230 (a boxer with a granite chin) and Thiago “Marreta” Santos +525. For the Santos fight: not only had I not heard of the guy he was fighting (Ronny Markes….and I follow MMA pretty closely), the guy also missed weight by 5 FUCKING POUNDS. I’ll take the +525 (Thiago Santos beat him in the first round with a liver kick to the stomach).
I also did something fun: I parlayed 4 dogs in a $1 parlay that would pay out $188.24:
Thiago “Marreta” Santos +525
Fabio Maldonado +230
Michel “Trator” Richard Cunha Dos Prazeres +260 (his opponent grabbed the cage *4* times during the fight, resulting in 3 points taken away. I’ve never seen that before, even in WWF steel cage matches)
Leonardo Santos +230
Well wouldn’t you know it, the first 3 hit! So we had a great hedging opportunity with the last fight with Leo Santos, a Brazilian JiuJitsu Blackbelt who is the sensei for champions Henan Barao and Jose Aldo, versus Norman Parke, a Judo Olympic Team Member from Northern Ireland.
Parke was a -335 favorite (this encompasses ALL results, like No Contests), so I betted around that since we had around $80-$100 in hedging cash and -335 was too high to bet on the fight alone.
I took:
Parke to win via decision -150
Parke via KO (kick or punch standing) +400
Parke Inside Distance (submission/ground n’ pound TKO) +250
AND $10 on the draw at +7500
The fight itself, was awful. A grappler vs judo guy usually is a good stylistic matchup, but these guys just canceled each other out.
Parke was strong enough to hold Santos against the cage (therefore taking him away from his ground game with BJJ and establish octagon control), but didn’t have enough power in his fists to make significant damage to impress the judges or KO Santos.
Santos is very green striking and you can tell; but his wrestling defense (sprawl) is very good.
The referee was also awful, giving Parke a 1 point deduction for grabbing the shorts during a takedown in the second round (its usually just a warning, even if you pull the guys’ pants down). This was the type of fight that tilts the fuck out of Dana White, especially since it was 3rd to last fight and the card up to then was one of the best I’ve seen in the history of the promotion as 90% of the fights ended in a KO.
And wouldn’t you know it, the judges scored it 29-28 Santos, and 28-28 and 28-28, shipping us the draw! On top of that, and I didn’t even know this: for 2/3rds of the bets I made on this site, since the match ended as a draw in MMA, I also chopped that cash too! And it was….a miracle cover!
The amazing thing about this UFC card, sans this draw: EVERY SINGLE UNDERDOG WON. I think if you parlayed all of the dogs on the card that night, it probably would of been 100,000-to-1. The type of shit that keeps a bookie up at night.
I now have some more money to set on fire at the WSOP in the summer, and I also now will take Winnipeg +150 tonight on the road. #whynot
Monday
Forgive me I am late posting today. One NHL play tonight it’s Winnipeg +150 @ Dallas. Ottawa and Montreal for sadists, action junkies and the like. 28-22 +15.91 for the season.
Sunday Brunch Bets
NCAA:
Mercer +8 vs Tenn
Team full of seniors, high FG percentage, and Nancy Grace is an alumnus. Count me in!
NHL:
St.Louis v PIT Over 5.5 (+105)
St Louis clinched a playoff spot last night, so you *know* they were out drinking last night. Pittsburgh has scored 13 goals in its last 4 games. It’s a 1pm start and they might break the over themselves.
Saturday
Nothing doing yesterday, Tampa and Calgary are the best options today. Tampa is at Pittsburgh here in 30 minutes or so. I am passing but feel free to play. Calgary is at Edmonton late tonight so it’s far to early to pass or play that for now. Also Ottawa for those needing more action. Updates when necessary. Good luck today.
Friday
Split on hockey yesterday with both games being coinflips and finishing 3-2. Columbus was a bit better than that as they should have had the game wrapped up early but same/same nonetheless. Philly was a winner as well so good job Pat. Nothing doing today though there might be some NBA later. I say that a lot and it usually doesn’t amount to anything but three games popped up today so maybe I will get some action down or just pick NCAA games tonight at random.
NCAA Bloodbath
I went a whopping 2-for-9 yesterday (I also took Lou’s Anaheim suggestion in NHL). 3 of the games I bet on went into OT lol
Thankfully, I qualified for a bonus to set some MORE money on fire today.
The only games I hit after being stuck 0-2 in the hole early were Harvard second half (I should of taken them for the entire game; Cincinnati got a technical for not including a substitution in their pregame sheet!) and MSU+Over in a teaser (with a great “miracle cover” moment…although not so much for our bettor below who had Delaware +13.5):
We'll this call and free throw cost me msu https://t.co/w3Qv2te167
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) March 20, 2014
Here are my picks today:
Teaser: UMass +5 and Under 137 vs Tennessee
Stanford +3
Teaser: VCU -6.5 and Over 136 vs Stephen F Austin
Providence vs UNC Under 143 (-105)
Updates:
Took Mercer 2H vs Duke and that went well. There are a few times a yr I get that shit-eating grin on my face throughout the entire day – Duke losing in the NCAA Tourney is one of them.
UMass is currently shitting the bed so I now take the Stanford and Mercer money and put it on Wichita St -16.5
Off to Beer Fest!
NHL Play
Nothing doing on NCAAM plays just yet. It’s going to sound weird but the result that is most surprising to me so far very early is Syracuse winning easily. One of the first odds I looked up was on Syracuse not making the Sweet 16.
Dallas Stars @ Philadelphia Flyers ML -139 @ 14
Thursday
Nothing yesterday though Charlotte covered and Nashville lost for anyone who played. Hockey has Dallas, Columbus and Anaheim on the shortlist for today with Minnesota in NBA showing up as well. I have OSU to win the East at +1100 for my only NCAA action which is not looking very good at the moment.
Season update on NHL is 27-21 +15.31
UPDATE: Here’s a nominee for the I Don’t Give a Shit Award.
Bernard Tomic’s comeback from hip surgery did not last long.
In fact, it did not even last as long as the previous shortest completed match in ATP history.
Tomic lost to Jarkko Nieminen 6-1, 6-0 in 28 minutes and 20 seconds during first-round action at the Sony Open Tennis tournament in Miami on Thursday afternoon. The 21-year-old Australian won one point in the first five games, three points in the first set, and 13 points in total.
We’ll refrain from pointing out the obvious things like how it’s no longer possible to “fix” a tennis match anymore via withdrawal so we’re left with this sort of “performance” which really could have been turned in by anyone with both a tennis racket and a drinking problem. If Tomic was injured or re-injured himself, why not just withdraw from the match? We make lots of jokes about failure here, but it’s really not anywhere near as much fun when the people involved don’t even pretend to try.
UPDATE 2: I am taking Pat’s action on Philly as I would be strongly considering taking Dallas tonight otherwise, despite them playing an out of conference game. One confirmed play tonight: Anaheim +145 @ Los Angeles. The other game we are watching as mentioned earlier is Columbus and it’s very, very close and will be a GTD.
UPDATE 3: Columbus +119
