Bookies have to make a living, we all know, and if they didn't make a profit, there would be nowhere to place a bet.
Still and all, Saturday's 99 college games included 22 so-called upsets that must have filled sportsbook coffers to bursting point.
I am leery of college sports of all stripes because of their erratic nature, and if I had a choice would stick with the pros.
But with the NHL on hiatus (they resume on Tuesday, praise be) I don't have a choice as long as my objective is to place seven dog bets whenever possible.
Saturday, we nailed one of the two underdog wins in the seven-game NBA lineup, plus three more from the 22 in the 99-game college schedule.
Notre Dame was the first college shocker, paying +425, and while most of the other underdog wins were deemed close matches by the bookies, standouts included Evansville over Drake at +380, New Mexico over BYU at +290 and North Carolina State over Miami Florida at +250.
None of those big payouts "qualified" as 7-dog trial picks, and although they keep winning with infuriating regularity, long shots are a really bad choice in the long run.
They are like naturals at blackjack or baccarat: They happen, but you can't count on them.
Making selections from the college schedule on any Saturday is tough, a clear case of too much of a good thing from a punter's point of view.
But obviously for the kids involved, their game is a very big deal, no matter how the bookies choose to rank it, and it is the only one being played that day.
The wide spread version of the dog trial finally got a boost from a +145 win at maximum bucks, and even the 5x rules set did will from four right picks out of seven selections.
Today, of course, is another day.
Updates are below, but first, answers to a couple of questions that have come up.
Some days, the numbers in the charts do not quite match up, but the discrepancy is never more than one day in more than 100 trial days so far.
It happens because sometimes I save screen snaps before I have added today's bets, which then stay in the minus column until all the finals are in.
A bigger question refers to the fact that the 50x trial hit a profit of almost $60,000 on Feb 10 before falling back.
Why didn't I take the money at that point and reset all the series to minimum bets once I had decided to continue the trial?
The simple answer is that it would have been a judgment call, which is disallowed in a trial that requires all prior losses to be recovered before each of the seven series can drop back to a minimum bet.
"Eating" a very small deficit in just one series back on Feb 10 would have been smart, and without the world watching, that is exactly what I would have done.
Unfortunately, it was never an option.
Here's today's data, five minutes before the first tip-off!
A quick addition to the recent posts about video poker, with thanks to a company called Two Patsies, Inc. (I couldn't find a website anywhere, but did find about a dozen references to the chart you see below).
What follows is a fairly typical VP strategy, with my rude highlighting added to show where I disagree...more than 50% of the time.
I say yes to holding high cards (A,K,Q,J) if they are same-suited, but not otherwise, and not always even when they are paired.
That variation alone rules out much of the standard strategy to the game and marks me as brave, stupid, innovative, or all three.
My reasoning is that winning combinations frequently come out of the clear blue sky when all five "cards" are junked, so it makes sense to do that as often as possible without ditching winning cards.
Remember, a high pair is not a win, it's a push, and putting a push ahead of a potential straight or a flush amounts to playing the game for the house rather than yourself.
No one ever got ahead by breaking even.
As I have said before, I now know that I have been playing these sucker-bait machines all wrong for years.
I don't feel bad about that because I play them very rarely, and always with money won at more sensible games.
I admit that I don't think of winnings as my money until I have turned chips or coins into folding green at the cashier's cage, and have stuffed it in my wallet before heading out the casino door.
Plenty of people disagree with that, and they have the right to be wrong!
Either way, my posts about VP continue to be ignored, and that's fine because in part this blog is about going on the record and maintaining a digital paper trail, even if those last three words add up to an oxymoron.
Monday, March 1 at 1:35pm:
A slow sports book day yesterday, and I don't have a lot to say for once!
A couple of thing, though: Bleak as the current 50x slump in the 7-dog trial might seem to be, only one of the seven series (#5, naturally) is in the red overall.
Here's some data:
And in the spirit of the cliche that there is no such thing as a stupid question, only a stupid answer, I want to make it clear that none of the iPod games that I play permits players to add to their bankroll without winning.
Many online "demo" simulations of casino slots and table games allow exactly that, making a big fat bottom line meaningless.
The iPod video poker game I use starts you out with 100 points and adds another skimpy 100 only when you wipe out to zero.
The iPod blackjack game opens with a $500 bankroll which, again, is only renewed when the cupboard is bare.
So the screenshots below should actually mean something to those of you who are interested:
Here's today's 7-dog trial info:
Tuesday, March 2 at 3:00pm:
I'm celebrating the resumption of the NHL season with an all-ice dog pack today.
Monday's picks scored three wins out of seven, not bad against a pretty lousy overall DWR but not good enough to save us from sliding further into the red.
I have learned a number of useful lessons since the 7-dog trial started last November 1, but I can't apply them because the rules do not permit any mid-stream horse changing.
One is that +100 to +180 is far too wide a range to pick from, and another is that I need to develop a more rigorous selection process.
It'll happen, but not before dogs (oxymoronically) dig their way out of the hole under the current rules set(s).
Here are today's summaries:-
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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