Battling the Books, June 7
Weighing Trends
Yesterday, someone was making a case that Dallas +6′ was the way to go in game one. Among the reasons he gave was this – “The Western Conference historically dominates the Eastern Conference in recent Championship play.” (He also said that after beating Miami, Cleveland, and Indiana in the first game of their series, Boston was “due” to lose a game one. In a future column, I’ll give you my thoughts on ‘’The Due Factor” as it relates to sports betting and the lesson we can all learn about betting on it from the degenerate gambler Herschel Schmoikel Krustofsky, aka Krusty the Clown.)
He’s correct, the West has been dominant, but East vs West is just one of many stats to factor into your handicapping of the game and series. And it’s a generality, a league-based stat.
I offered him another angle to look at for the game. “How about a specific stat, one that is team-based, like a Head to Head number?
For example, Boston is 2-0 vs Dallas this year.”
He countered with, “But Dallas is a completely different team since the trade deadline when they picked up PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford. They went 21-9 in their remaining games. That was the third-best record in the league.”
This set me up perfectly for, “True, but again, that’s a league-based stat; it shows how they performed against all teams. How about another specific, team-based stat, like this: one of the two Boston wins over Dallas came after that Feb 8 deadline. And the Celtics won that game by 28 points.”
Was I making appoint that team-based stats should be weighed more heavily than league-based stats?
No (though it certainly played out that way last night.)
In my opinion, league-based stats are always more valuable than team-based ones because you’ve got a larger database of information to use.
But there’s no hard, fast rule for which stat to use, league or team-based.
If there was, everybody would win.
And everyone does not win.
The key is to look at handicapping like chess.
You need to see the whole board and consider ALL angles before making your move.
- Recap: 1-0
- Record: 4-2 (UFL 0-2) (WNBA 3-0) (NBA 1-0)
Review: The Celtics’ win has me temporarily touching The Grail, 67%. It’s the lofty goal I strive for within an individual season in a specific sport, not my overall record for all sports. But it’s nice to visit whenever I can.
Today’s play:
Looking at today’s WNBA card, I see I can bet against the 0-10 Washington Mystics and only have to lay 2 points. Sound like a bargain, eh?
The problem is they’re playing the Indiana Caitlins, who aren’t much better at 2-8, and just 1-5 on the road like they are tonight.
The Mystics are also in the very rare (for the WNBA) spot where they’re playing two nights in a row, just one of two Wash will see this year. They’ve only been in this situation twice in the past two seasons, going 1-1.
I have no play on this game tonight as it doesn’t qualify for any of my methods/systems.
So why am I writing about it?
Because part of winning at sports betting is taking notes for future use. And when Wash plays their second two-in-a-row spot later this month on 6/23 vs Dallas my calendar will alert me to check how they performed tonight to add it to the other factors I’ll use for that game.
One of my ‘capping methods kicks out a play on the LA Sparks tonight.
But . . . another one says take their opponent, the Dallas Wings.
It’s not really a conflict, though, because the record for the Sparks play is a losing record, which puts me on a Fade opportunity on it.
LA also fits a sub-category I track, which rarely comes up and has a record of 0-1.
This sub-system had, by far, my highest Win % in the NBA this season.
It’s just 0-1 in the WNBA thus far, but I’ll ride it until it bucks me.
For tonight, I took Dal (4-1 ATS on the Rd) against LA (1-4 SU at Hm)
Dal -3.5