NFL -- Week 11 Picks

OK I will use some of my fantasy machines to roll out some more picks. Last week was a triumph everywhere except for my Fantasy Football teams, sadly. Can't have everything.

This week I'll start using a more B3TZ-friendly format -- the actual bets and less yakkin'. For now. Notice the B3TZ tracking board in the right column.

[the NYJ@DEN game closes tonight at midnight, the other games close 11/19 midnight]


NYJ@DEN
Wow the Jets will have to shake off that miserable loss to the Pats last weekend. The has moved to meet all the Jets money and I disagree. It will be close. Tebow Time!

Vegas Line: opened with DEN+5, moved to DEN+6.5
Shelby Line: DEN+3

Bet #1 -- Shelby takes NYJ and you get DEN+3 for 9 Brags
or
Bet #2 -- Shelby takes DEN and you get NYJ-3 for 4 Brags

OAK@MIN
I don't know, Oakland is feeling frisky. Michael Bush? A couple young receivers? Rejuventated Palmer? That said, MIN is at home and licking their wounds from Monday night's 3 hour double-check discount commercial but that's not enough to overcome a bad offense -- I say flip the line.


Vegas Line: opened at MIN-1.5 and pretty much parked there
Shelby Line: MIN+1.5

Bet #3 -- Shelby takes OAK and you get MIN+1.5 for 8 Brags
or
Bet #4 -- Shelby takes MIN and you get OAK-1.5 for 5 Brags

SEA@STL
A surging Beast-Mode vs. Action Jackson, a battle of the small market RB stars. Saint Louis is at home and both teams are young and inconsistent, but I think the SEA defense wins the edge here.


Vegas Line: opened at STL-3 and moved to STL-1.5
Shelby Line: STL+1.5

Bet #5 -- Shelby takes SEA and you get STL-1.5 for 3 Brags
or
Bet #6 -- Shelby takes STL and you get SEA+1.5 for 4 Brags

PHI@NYG
Philly is in trouble. I thought Andy Reid almost cried at his postgame press conference last week. Probably because he's managing a team of talented head-cases. And the Giants are kinda clicking despite that loss to SF last week. New York has solved Philly, they'll roll them again.

Vegas Line: opened at NYG-5.5 and move a little to NYG-4.5
Shelby Line: NYG-9

Bet #7 -- Shelby takes PHI and you get NYG-9 for 4 Brags
or
Bet #8 -- Shelby takes NYG and you get PHI+9 for 7 Brags

KAN@NWE
This is some kind of setup. I think Haley will have his guys ready to play -- he's like the new Jeff Fischer, pretty effective at motivating a ragtag bag 'o dudes -- and I don't trust that Pats D. I think this will be closer than what we see on paper here.. That's a crazy line and Boston money has made it crazier!

Vegas Line: opened at NWE-12 and has zipped up to NWE-15
Shelby Line: NWE-9

Bet #9 -- Shelby takes KAN and you get NWE-9 for 3 Brags
or
Bet #10 -- Shelby takes NWE and you get KAN+9 for 9 Brags

NFL -- Week 10, Licking The Chops

I guess last week I wasn't totally without data machines, despite my pick moaning. I did my first set of Fanduel numbers the week before so I had a little bit of machine momentum going in.. And it seemed to help.

1. Jacksonville at Indiana -- Final: 17-3
I didn't see the game but I was cheering for MJD to have a big game here against a tired Indy team and sure enough. Indianapolis gets a bye week now to lick their wounds and eat some Turkey before getting a mopey (and visiting rookie..) Cam Newton in a couple weeks.  

Vegas line was: JAX@IND-2
Shelby line was: JAX@IND+2
Actual line was: JAX@IND+14
SHELBY WINS

2. Buffalo at Dallas -- Final: 7-44
Just like the Indy + Jax game, I had a horse in the race -- DeMarco! -- but didn't get to see. Dallas cleaned the Seattle clocks last week and had their cleaning equipment still laying around. The shine is definitely coming off the Buffalo apple..  

Vegas line was: BUF@DAL-3.5
Shelby line was: BUF@DAL-8
Actual line was: BUF@DAL-37.. geez.
SHELBY WINS

3. Baltimore at Seattle -- 17-22
I did manage to see every single second of this game, however. What a beaut, if you're a 'Hawk fan. The Ravens are hugely talented but they didn't come to play. Hello 12th man. Hello Marshawn, more like -- Beast Mode was flipped on..  

Vegas line was: BAL@SEA+7
Shelby line was: BAL@SEA+4
Actual line was: BAL@SEA-5
SHELBY WINS

4. New England at New York Jets -- 37-16
Jets almost got a toe-hold against that Pats passing D, but Sanchez couldn't quite make the guys pay. I guess it says a lot to me when the QB is *not* the person leading the rah-rah in the huddle -- for the Jets it wasn't Sanchez but LT who was all fired up. I love that LT guy, and I miss him in his prime. But Brady? Holy cow, he put on a chess clinic and kept the Jets D off balance in the second half, esp. that back-breaking field-length decisive drive. I wonder if its safe to put him back in my fantasy lineup..?  Remember when I picked my lines and I said I couldn't imagine the Pats losing 3 in a row? Yeah, should stuck with that.

Vegas line was: NWE@NYJ+2.5
Shelby line was: NWE@NYJ-1
Actual line was: NWE@NYJ+21
VEGAS WINS

5. Minnesota at Green Bay -- 7-45
When you have Aaron Rodgers on the sideline for most of the 4th quarter and he's not even remotely injured, you know its a stomping. I was a little disconcerted with how much nice-talking happened between plays between Rodgers and various Minnesota players, especially Jared Allen. What's with that? I guess I'm old school and like a little animosity with my football.

Vegas line was: MIN@GNB-12.5
Shelby line was: MIN@GNB-15
Actual line was: MIN@GNB-38
SHELBY WINS

Lines this week were brutal for Vegas -- wouldn't be surprised to see some analysis on how much money these guys lost with the Dallas and Green Bay type blowout games where there's no way their going to pop a 30+ line even though that's probably what will happen.

You see how chicken I got after last week? I'm shading baby..

Next week I'll do a slightly different format to prepare for B3TZ style picking. Check out the bet board in the right column -- it has dummy data right now -- getting ready for Week 11 football picks which should be out sometime Wednesday.

Fanduel Heads Up

A few weeks ago I found myself researching a company that had a betting game that has turned out to be a lot of fun -- FanDuel.

The basic idea is that you pick a standardized fantasy salary-cap sports team and play head to head or in large pools with other fantasy players, for money! Because fantasy sports are categorized legally as a game of skill, this game is not considered gambling. Think: the stock market, pretty much the same difference.

The first week that I played I just played two $5 games -- one head-to-head card and one pool game. I got creamed in both, and I took my research and licked my wounds and retreated to my fortress.

Last week I played two more $5 games, but this time I used some numbers based on Yahoo! Sports fantasy predictions. I won one and lost one, but I noticed some things.. Hmmm.. I tweaked my models for this week and I think I'm going to do a bit better <g>.

At any rate, it's a fun way to watch football but for heaven's sake don't play this without bringing the math.

NFL -- Week 10 Picks

Damn, another week of gut picks because I don't have any good data machines set up. Not that I don't viewz me sum dataz, but sadly I have nothing formal in place..

1. Vegas says: JAX@IND-2
Accuscore says these guys will be tied 17-17 (after 10,000 simulated games!) and Vegas has this one under a field goal for Indy. I say bollocks! Jacksonville has actually won a couple this season (including the Ravens!) while Indy has yet to find their first green dub. The key piece of info for me here -- Jacksonville is coming fresh off of bye week and Indy is crawling toward their bye week next week and with a defense that has been on the field a *lot* and is just plain out of gas. Sure Indy is at home, but I think they're a dog and JAX is going to find a way to win it with their Freshness Factor. So back the other way on Vegas.
Shelby line: JAX@IND+2

2. Vegas says: BUF@DAL-3.5
Of course I watched with great sadness the spankage of the 'Hawks last week at Dallas. What I learned is that young DeMarco Murray can do OK against a mediocre run defense (hint: Buffalo is worse than Seattle!). And that when Romo keeps the offense on the field, the Dallas D is pretty darn stout. I think F-Jack is going to have a very uphill day and Ryan Fitzypants is going to get Ware back on track for his sack record. Yes, more than a field goal. I'll do better -- more than a touchdown!
Shelby line: BUF@DAL-8

3. Vegas says: BAL@SEA+7
I love the Hawks of course, but I'm going to make this one simple. Baltimore's two losses have been on the road to mediocre teams. Not sure why they're sucking at these games, but I suspect that they just can't be bothered getting up for piddlywinks with little girls. That plus the Hawks have been consistently inconsistent this year and are coming off a couple disappointments -- I'm going to shade this one back to the home team.
Shelby line: BAL@SEA+4

4. Vegas says: NWE@NYJ+2.5
Belichick just loves to thump Ryan and I can't imagine the Pats losing 3 in a row -- my mind doesn't have a place to put even the idea of a bad streak like that and I bet it's been a hella long time since that happened. But all that said -- and I can't believe I'm saying this -- I think the Jets are going to win outright. Wow. Something is going on in NWE and I don't think it was Fat Albert.. Sanchez gets back on track here.. Am I crazy?
Shelby line: NWE@NYJ-1

5. Vegas says: MIN@GNB-12.5
Ah, Las Vegas -- not enough! Not enough! Green Bay will just pound poor Minnesota into oblivion by at least a couple TDs! The only thing that could stop the Cheezeheads would be a diarrhea plague or something. Double-check discounts all night, baby!
Shelby line: MIN@GNB-15

OK, that's enough for this week. Check out the Leaderboard for this crazy lines game that I'm playing -- this is how I'm rating myself. If you want to take me on, just make a comment to this post and put down the team names that you'd take using my lines.. When B3TZ M3 ships in a few weeks you'll have a way to actually do this in an app. Can't wait.

Leaderboard

You'll notice that I put up an abortive little leaderboard. Working out what to put up there reminded me that I haven't been super specific so far in what my personal metrics are for what constitutes "better than Vegas".

Turns out there's a couple ways to think about this, and here are the two I'm tracking currently:

No. 1 -- Directional method: the Shelby Line as a directional indicator of which side to place a bet. For example. If Vegas sets the GNB@SDG line at +5.5 and I set it at +8, that means a Shelby pick would favor taking GNB if Vegas is only giving 5.5 points. So when Green Bay beats the spread (with 7 points) then I claim a victory.

No. 2 -- Proximity method: the Shelby Line as a superior game score predictor than the Vegas Line. So in the example above, since the Vegas line is 1.5 points off the final score and the Shelby Line is only 1 point off, I again claim a victory.

The Directional method tells you how well I'd do if I went to Vegas to bet, and you can track my progress against these guys who are the pros.

The Proximity method is me kinda being falsely superior to Vegas. I'm fully aware that those bookmaker guys are playing to their audience and are shading their lines once the oddsmakers give them a "pure" line, i.e. a predicted game score. The bookmakers use the oddsmaker information to place their lines -- and move the lines -- based where the money is coming in. Books make money on fees, so they want high volume evenly divided by the line. My proximity numbers are more like what an oddsmaker would produce, although as we start ramping up B3TZ I'll be acting a bit more like a bookmaker..

More on how this will turn into a B3TZ game later.

NFL -- Week 9, Counting The Bodies

[ed. revisited win conditions -- see Leaderboard post]

Wow. I stunk the place up this week. Two certifiable whiffs plus one merely bad pick, and then one squeaker -- but they all count as losses for me. I only had one solid, clear, I-told-you-so win. That's not going to get it done, ladies.

Check out the aftermath:

1. Miami at Kansas. Harumpf. Rather than building on their 4-streak, the Chiefs looked like they were trying to find a way to be viewed as an underdog again. My lesson: emotional teams can't stay high forever. I guess the question is -- are they streaky emotional? I bet they are and I bet they lose again next week before rattling off another couple wins.. We will see. At any rate, I got schooled on this one. Vegas did too, by the way. Vegas was 32 points off the line. Unfortunately I went 6 points the wrong way and only added to their stupidity -- for a whopping 38 points off the line. But on this one VEGAS WINS.


2. Seattle at Dallas. Vegas gave Seattle 12.5 points to play with, and even though Seattle would have won you money in Vegas, my 5.5 points weren't really enough. My takeaway this week here -- yeah yeah, some home teams are worth a lot more at home. I should check out home numbers before I flip out my lines.. Since the Vegas line is closer to -10 then VEGAS WINS.


3. San Francisco at Washington. Here's another one of these emotional and "hot" teams playing a massively underperforming team (i.e. Miami vs. KC). In this case the under-performing team is "tinkering" with a lineup.. Heck, I'm still searching for the answer on that KC game. This one went exactly as I expected, the score was on the non-Vegas side of my +7 line so SHELBY WINS.

4. Green Bay at San Diego. Vegas called a close one, but they were thinking field goals and didn't have the two best QBs this weekend properly dialed into their math. San Diego put up a very valiant fight, for sure. And maybe the Norvettes are on their way back. I don't think so. I can even see a scenario where the Bolts don't make it to the playoffs. Of course Norv keeps his job.. Boo. Green Bay on the other hand is still undefeated and they get Minnesota again next week. So while my +8 was almost the right number for the +7 final score, I'm going to claim a proximity victory here SHELBY WINS.

5. Chicago at Philadelphia. They featured Vick and Urlacher in all the head-to-head pre-game hype, but it should have been just Cutler they talked about. Geez, that guy shredded. He was sharp and resourceful -- he scrambled better than Vick! Sadly I mis-read the line here and I put up a silly line. I thought Vegas was giving Chicago 5.5 points since Philly was clearly the home favourite. Not. That was 5.5 for the Eagles! Vegas saw this one coming! Wow. My line should have said CHI@PHI-10 so I whiffed hard for 10 points in the wrong direction, my second terrible linke out of five. Not good. Better improve Goerlitz! VEGAS WINS.

Next week's lines coming later Tuesday -- looks like Vegas already has opinions.. Damn, I hate doing this with just my gut. Let's see if I can do a little data work this week, eh?

NFL -- Week 9 Picks

I'm a little late -- next week I'll work to get my picks up by WED so you have a chance to think deeply about the wisdom of my selections..

Also, these are total gut calls. In coming weeks I'll get a little more data-riffic.

1. Vegas says: MIA@KAN-4
This one just leaped out at me. Only 4 points? Kansas City is on a big-time 4 game roll, coming off that emotional win at Arrowhead last Monday night. Miami on the other hand is 0-7 for a reason. Heck, they lost to the Broncos, which is really really hard to do. (Picture me Tebowing now!). I can't figure out what the geniuses in Vegas are seeing, but I think you'd have to give me 10pts to make me take MIA. Blech!

Shelby line: MIA@KAN-10

2. Vegas says: SEA@DAL-12.5
No respect for my Hawks! I'm expecting more of the Giants-beating Seahawks, not the Cincinnati-bumbling Seahawks we saw last week. Hopefully clipboard-Jesus stays off the field and we get a frisky Tavarius. The Cowboys are looking for a positive inflection-point in a season which has been pretty sucky. I don't think Dallas is going to see Cam and Earl and Chris on the Seahawks D coming -- those guys are starting to gel and if they lose it won't be by many points.

Shelby line: SEA@DAL-5

3. Vegas says: SFO@WAS+3
Yeah, there's no way Washington has a shot here. Grossman is a pick machine and Beck has been studying him closely. I just get the sense that the whole team has given up on Shouty-han, so I don't see any inpsired reversal of Hogville's season. SF is exactly the opposite -- even that lump of grumpus Vernon Davis is running through walls for Coach Harbaugh and they're on a roll. If you'd expect me to take Washington I need at least a touchdown here, even on the road..

Shelby line: SFO@WAS+7

4. Vegas says: GNB@SDG+5.5
I hate Norv Turner so I always bet against him. I'm sure he's a nice guy, but he's a terrible football coach which he has somehow convinced a series of suits that he's somehow capable of impersonating. Last Monday night's Rivers fumble-gate -- sloppy execution -- is all team mentality, i.e. coaching IMO. Apparently in SD manhoods have been challenged and coaches fired. So far they haven't fired the right coach. And Green Bay? Look out '72 Fins. Sure the Bolts are home dogs, but I'll dog them even more.

Shelby line: GNB@SDG+8

5. Vegas says: CHI@PHI+5.5
I pretty much always make a pick on Monday night. Sunday night too, but the Sunday night line (BAL@PIT-3.5) is pretty solid I think. Chicago at Philadelphia is a little more suspect -- I think the Dream Team is starting to find themselves, while the Bears awesome defense is really now just awesome at fighting with each other and the front office. Weak. I can see the Eagles at home running off with this one and to take the Bears I'd have to have at least 10.

Shelby line: CHI@PHI+10

OK, that will do it for this week. I'm too late to get any bites on these lines this week from actual people but this will be my baseline and look for my first scorecard vs. Vegas next Tuesday.

Vegas = VI Consensus numbers

For starters I'm going to pick an oddsmaker to represent Vegas. For this season, let's stick with VegasInsider.com numbers, specifically their VI Consensus numbers.

I do like the way Covers and Bodog present their numbers -- they are just easier to read -- but I think in the spirit of "beating Vegas" having a published consensus number from 6 of the major oddsmaking Vegas hotels is about as good as I'm going to get. If anyone has a better approach feel free to comment or ping me.

Tonight I'll give the lines a good look and get back tomorrow with my first batch of picks. Here's a preview though -- that MIA@KC line is a laugher. Opened at -5.5 then moved to -4? Huh? Must be something that spooked everyone because MIA has turned into one of the biggest lillipops in the NFL schedule..

Beating Vegas Football Lines

For about 25 years now I've been convinced that I pick better sports lines than Vegas does, especially in NFL and NCAA football, which I follow a bit, and NBA basketball, which I follow pretty closely when the players aren't locked out.

In the absence of some long term cumulative data I've sorta started believing this little fantasy about my line-picking superiority. I guess I'm at a point that I'd like to do a little checking find out two things:

1) is my "gut method" of picking lines really beating Vegas?

2) if it isn't, can I start to use some of my favorite analytics tools to improve?

So I'm going start some Vegas line games on B3TZ.com and give out prizes to people who can do better than me. In all my games I'm going pick my own lines and offer bets on both sides of the line. I may vary the amount of brags (B3TZ game points) I offer depending probably on the distance from the Vegas "conventional wisdom". We'll see how that goes and we'll see what kinds of prizes I can drum up as well.

At any rate, hang on, play if you want, and let's see where this goes.