Why those LTD numbers matter: They tell you how far ahead you'll be when you hit all your targets - and while the wait can be hell, you will hit them!

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Sunday was a mirror image of Saturday, with two dog wins and five losses.

But one of the many benefits of backing underdogs is that you lose less when you lose than you win when you win...except when the "wrong" pick wins and you miss out on a maximum payback!

The 7-dog trial is now just one unit away from breaking even, which represents a trivial return on more than $50,000 worth of action and a month and a half of time and effort.

The good news is that unrecovered targets (LTDs) total almost $7,700 at this point, providing an encouraging glimpse into the future.

As I have said in many past posts, one of the great positives built into target betting is that the rules tell you when you should stop betting the max and fall back to the baseline.

Most punters will increase or at least repeat their bets when they feel they are on a winning streak, and that can be very profitable - for a while. Then what?

Downturns are a thin hair more probable and therefore more frequent than upturns, but you can't know you are in one until serious damage has been done.

Better to recover your losses, be happy with a relatively small profit on top of those losses, and reduce your bet values along with your level of exposure.

Today, we have four "max" bets in play, two at $200, and one at the $100 minimum.

I will be happiest if the maximum bets all turn out to be winners, but this long-term process is not about me getting what I want all at once.

It takes time, and although yo-yo patterns like the one we are in right now are frustrating and disappointing, the long-term prognosis is for profit, profit, profit.

Before today's games, dogs are $127 ahead in the 7-dog trial that began on November 1.

Favorites won 57% of all games, but flat-betting $100 on the "smart choice" every time would have put us in a hole $2,290 deep.

It's as well to keep that in mind as the trial goes into the second day of its seventh week!

Today, Monday, our money is on the NBA's Washington Wizards at +115, then six NHL teams, Florida Panthers +120, Atlanta Thrashers +120, Nashville Predators +110, Ottawa Senators +115, Philadelphia Flyers +125 and Montreal Canadiens +115.

Wednesday, December 16 at 2:15pm:

Monday had four dog wins and a day's profit of $555, then Tuesday delivered one dog win and six losses costing $1,970.

Talk about a rollercoaster!

One bit of good news is that I get to take a break for a couple of weeks, even if the 7-dog trial does not!

I'll be away from my home base at least until December 27, so posts and updates to the Google docs spreadsheet will be sporadic.

I will, however, keep track of qualifying bets every day, updating the files whenever I can from various family computers.

After yesterday's almost dog-free debacle, total LTDs now top $10,000 and we're about $1,300 in the hole.

The LTD number tells us where we will be after everything has come together the way the numbers predict.

Today can hardly be worse than Tuesday! Can it...?

Our picks are: (NBA) Charlotte Bobcats +135, LA Clippers +100, OKC Thunder +110, Washington Wizards +130, (NHL) Carolina Hurricances +105, NY Islanders +125, Phoenix Coyotes +115.

Whenever I can, given the perils of other folks' access, I will make sure each day's dog choices are posted ahead of game times.

An important reminder: The only person likely to make money out of this blog is you, Dear Reader. There's nothing to buy, ever, and your soul is safe (from me, at least). Test my ideas and use them or don't. It's up to you.
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