Gambling Thread

Got off to a good start last night with UNLV -4 against Wyoming. UNLV is pretty damn good, and Wyoming has faded big time.

Today? Not so much.
Can someone please explain Kansas to me? I think this is the fifth time in 10 games that I've bet on them, one way or the other, and it's trending toward going 0-5 (down 13-7 in the fourth quarter to a shitty Texas Tech team at home, while giving four). There's always that one damn team that is like Kryptonite for me, but I can't resist it. Looks like Kansas is this year's version.

 

Eat. A. Dick. Kansas.
First-and-goal at the 8 with a minute left, down 13-10, and they do two running plays and a halfback pass. Wind up settling for the field goal. Fine, there's still overtime.
Except the Jayhawks are getting paid by the hour and they ain't working overtime. They let Texas Tech go down the field on them in the last 40 seconds to kick the game-winning field goal.
This is why I absolutely hate time-shifted parlays. Had this one and Alabama in the 11 a.m. window, and three games in the 1 p.m. window. Now it's blown up and the fun is gone. Only a cheap $5 ticket, but it's the principle of the thing.

 

The margins are so thin ... took Michigan-Penn State under 46.5 (hit), FSU -13.5 against Miami and Washington -8.5 against Utah.

FSU up 14 and well on its way to adding to it, has to punt, then two FSU defenders run into each other on a short pass and Miami takes it 85 yards for a TD to cut the lead to seven. Ugh.

Washington's kicker queefs one into middle of the line with the Huskies up seven in the closing minutes. Basically two plays ruined it.

 

Weird day.
Lost Nebraska +2.5 when Maryland kicked a walk-off field goal to win 13-10. Then in the late window my Fresno State +1 pick that I loved never stood a chance.
However, USC rallied for the backdoor cover to save a three-teamer with Iowa State (-9 at BYU) and Hawaii (+19 vs. Air Force; they won outright, and won big). So it ends up as a break-even day. Could've been better, could've been worse, kind of like this whole season. Been treading water for the past month.

 

Oddly enough, that second straight in-game Iowa O13.5 bet saved me from a pretty bad day.

I've been killing three-leg NBA player props this week and almost got another one yesterday, but took Evan Mobley O26.5 P+R+A and he ends up with 19 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists. Dude averages over 10 boards a game and didn't get a rebound in the first half. I'm going to trust the process on those and chalk that one up to bad luck and keep trucking along.

 

Got crushed on Saturday by three things:
1) A bad betting pattern where I went heavy on small parlays.
A little bit of trying to make up some ground financially, a little of liking too many games too much, and a little of a "screw it, let's have some fun and cover the board" mindset. I bet on 16 games, with one same-game parlay in there. Only two straight bets. I usually try to keep it to seven or eight games, since the more you bet on the more you have to win.
My picks were 7-10 with a few 50-50 calls, so it wasn't an abomination on a macro scale, but I didn't hit the right combinations. Two four-teamers went 2-2 and a three-teamer went 1-2.
Only lost $45 on this whole fiasco, which I suppose is a saving grace. The three-teamer was a $10 bet and the two four-teamers were only $5. But there's a lesson to be learned from this about how to rein yourself in.

2) A few tough beats. Not bad beats, just bad breaks.
Nebraska (+5) kicks a last-second field goal to get to overtime vs. Wisconsin, then gives up a touchdown and loses 24-17. LSU covers the huge 32-point spread, but has a late defensive stop to go under for the first time this season and kill a parlay. San Jose State has a guy break into the open for a potential backdoor cover touchdown run, but he gets tackled at the 30. Southern Miss and Mississippi State go from the expected grind it out slog to a highlight reel of long touchdowns in the fourth quarter and hit the over when I had the under. That sort of thing.

3) Teams doing a full 180 on their recent trend lines, at a point in the season when that isn't supposed to happen.
Had Colorado +4 against a Washington State team that crashed into the side of a mountain the past few weeks. Wazzu flips it and blows them out.
San Jose State has been surging and San Diego State struggling, but SDSU gave them a tough game and covered.
Florida sacks up for the first time in a month, with its backup quarterback no less, and almost beats Missouri (-11.5). A fading South Carolina team does the same thing and does beat Kentucky.

One full week to go. I usually kill it on Thanksgiving weekend, because it's almost like the bowl season when you get a bunch of teams that are ready to pack it in playing others that are motivated. You get good some great match-ups and lines that are off-kilter. This season has been so middling, though, that who the hell knows?

 

Steelers defensive TD was +1300 last night. I put $2 on it b/c the Steelers have only scored two defensive TDs this year...both against the Browns. Dropped to +800 this afternoon.

 

Tommy DeVito suddenly turning into an all-pro quarterback in Washington is not helping my weekend mood at all, even if it is continuing the theme of teams going full reverse on their trend lines.

 

Folks this did not work out. Now I can't buy the USA Today tomorrow.

 

I got my ass kicked six ways to Sunday this weekend. My only win was taking Georgia -9.5, which hit easily. We'll reset and try find some favorable player props on a pretty stout NBA slate tomorrow.