Back to business after the holiday break! And for a while, posts will just consist of each day's bets...

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NBA: New Orleans Hornets +120, Minnesota Timberwolves +115, Milwaukee Bucks +120, Golden State Warriors +130; NHL: Carolina Hurricanes +100, Montreal Canadiens +120, St. Louis Blues +110.

Game starts are from 4:05pm PST to 7:35pm.

Sunday, December 27 at 09:20am

Something a little different, courtesy of Windows 7 (which makes my new laptop more like an Apple, at 1/3 the price!)...


I will use these snaps from now on, before and after the results are in. The numbers to the right of the pick indicates odds, followed by the spread and the total. On the far right is the bet value. The red number on the far left is the total wagered that day, and below that is the overall DWR (dog win rate), which shows 100% before scores are entered.

Below is an update of the win to date for the 7-dog trial that today began its 57th day with a profit of 44 units ($4,400).

Dognostics will no doubt protest that a win of two grand a month isn't enough - those among them who don't dismiss the data outright, that is.

What we see below is confirmation that a dogs-only selection method paired with target betting is reliable and viable.

As predicted, the DWR has settled at very close to 45%, although it took a while to get there.

Also as predicted, backing underdogs has proved more profitable than putting money on the favorite in the same games (up $4,400 vs. a LOSS of $3,600 to date).



Monday, December 28 at 01:15pm

Let's not talk about Sunday (today's another day).

The bad new is summarized below, and the bottom seven lines show today's bets:-



NOTE: The DWR for Sunday was 28% overall, and the red numbers on the far right under today's date will not count as a loss unless all of Monday's dog picks go south...

Tuesday, December 29 at 09:20am

Dogs bounced back Monday, but one of our three wins was a minimum bet, so the benefit was...minimal!

That's how it goes sometimes, and these things always even out over time.

We have now had three bad days after one so-so day, but there have been no surprises. Monday, I entered the wrong pick on the chart and the right one won.

But again, that's how it goes. Mistakes happen, and once a ticket is in hand, the bet can't be reversed (unless, of course, you spot the error while you are still at the bookie's window).

Today's bets:-


Wednesday, December 30 at 02:20pm

Five right picks in seven is becoming almost a habit!

As it happens, with a 37% win rate, dogs didn't do especially well yesterday.

But there were five underdog wins in 13 games...and we nailed every one of them.

Sweet!

Right now, we're at just under 83% of our best win to date in the 7-dog trial, and all of the ups and downs we have seen so far have followed the predicted pattern.

I'm not always right, but it makes me very happy when I am, especially when there is money at stake.

Here's the latest update, including today's bets:-


And here is a chart that tracks each one of the seven series to date. The red lines are for series that are a drain on the overall win/profit number. Four out of seven lines are ahead of the game, and unrecovered LTDs total about $6,900 before today's game times.



Remember that when dogs lose, the bookies lose, which is why those three red lines trending below zero will all be in profit in time.

It's just the natural order of bookie economics...

Thursday, December 31 at 03:20pm

Maybe the last day of the month and year will be kinder to us than Wednesday was!

Two dog wins out of seven might have been OK if both of the picks had not been $100 bets.

But having started out by treating each line as a totally separate entity, I'm stuck with that methodology, at least for this test.

Next time, I will probably spread the load so that if there is a substantial LTD to be recovered, minimums will not apply.

And the max should certainly be more than 5x the minimum, to better exploit winning patterns that have shown themselves as frequently in the past two months as I predicted they would.

I have no complaints about where we're at right now. What matters most is that we are still in profit, whereas a punter backing favorites all the way would be in a hole almost $4,000 deep.

Here's the latest summary, with today's bets in the lowest panel, as usual:-


Friday, January 1 at 11:50pm

Most of the time, I manage to get each day's dog picks up ahead of game times, but today I am allowing myself a little leeway in honor of the start of a new decade!

Pickings were thin today but as I type this, no games are even close to over, and in any case, dog odds dictate my choices, whatever mid-game scores might suggest.

In the next few days, I'm going to have to deal with the task of partitioning the hard drive on my new laptop so that I can run Windows XP and Windows 7 separately.

This is a process forced on countless thousands of folks with new computers, so I know I have plenty of company as I try to work my way through this.

I also know that I am not about to shell out hundreds more bucks to upgrade all my software, especially since my old files will mostly be inaccessible if I do that.

I can't imagine I will ever use up close to 500GB of storage!

My cranky old Dell Inspiron 1100 has 40GB and after five years of pounding away and creating thousands of spreadsheet files ranging in size from 0.5MB to 40MB, there is still a ton of room remaining (admittedly helped in part by my use of an add-on drive).

Today's bets:

(College FB) Florida State +125
(NHL) Philly Flyers +115 and Atlanta Thrashers +160
(College BB) Creighton +100, W Virginia +175, S Illinois +110, Illinois State +170

There are some longshots in there and I don't expect miracles.

Thursday set us back a little (-$315) but as always, I am confident that a rebound is a-coming...

Saturday, January 2 at 12:00pm

So far, I'm not liking January much!

Today's bets:-

(NBA) Chicago Bulls +135, OK City Thunder +100
(NHL) Vancouver Canucks +105, Tampa Bay Lightning +120, Colorado Avalanche +105, Atlanta Thrashers +120, Detroit Red Wings +115

It would be nice to see more than two dog wins out of seven picks, but if wishes were horses...

Sunday, January 3 at 10:00am

Five right picks out of seven again yesterday. Ho hum...

It means we're on an upswing again, thanks to a DWR that averaged out at 50% overall.

I will start a new chapter later in the week, with the usual charts and summaries, but for now here are today's bets:-

(NFL) Jacksonville Jaguars +115, Philadelphia Eagles +130, Miami Dolphins +135 and Tampa Bay Buccaneers +110
(NBA) Toronto Raptors +135 and Philadelphia 76ers +165
(NHL) Florida Panthers +125

Monday, January 4 at 09:55am

The NFL was a total bust for the 7-dog trial yesterday, but the remaining three picks were winners, reducing the overall loss for the day to just over five units.

When my anonymous friend "Peter Punter" was depending on so-called 'Cappers for his sports book picks, he and I had a standing disagreement about what I called throwaway wins to describe bets that were disproportionately small and had an insignificant impact on the long-term recovery goal.

That same problem is has dogged (!) the current target betting trial almost since it began on November 1.

Since I am not about to change the rules in mid-trial, I have created a "shadow" spreadsheet which allows me to assess the effect of keeping bets at or near the maximum even after an individual series or line has achieved turnaround.

The target betting variation that has applied to the 7-dog trial since the beginning now stands at 14 units ($1,400) ahead with $10,000 in unrecovered LTDs.

The win to date represents just over 1.0% of total action, which is no small achievement given that "dogs" have a win rate of less than 45% right now.

The win also represents a little more than five average bets.

In contrast, spreading the load to avoid throwaway minimum wins when unrecovered LTDs at any point exceed $700 or 7x the lowest permitted bet steps the total profit up to 3.0% of action and 13x the average bet.

Another significant contrast: Backing favorites throughout the 429 games in the trial so far would have resulted in a LOSS of $3,540 to date, or -8.25% of action given flat bets of $100 a pop.

In the next few days I will know how the trial would have done if all qualifying dog bets in the +100 to +180 range had been included.

For now, it's enough to know that we are still in the black and that we are poised for a comeback when nature takes its course...

Today's bets:

(NBA) OKC Thunder +125
(College BB) Drexel +120, Utah State +110, UC Davis +100, Idaho +110, Canisius +115, Rider +115

No screaming long-shots today, but college basketball is always scary territory to me!

Tuesday, January 5 at 03:45pm

I hoped to get a new post started today (who knows, I may yet manage it!) but the clock is ticking towards Tuesday game times and I need to get new picks up before the buzzer goes.

Monday was another day for five right picks (almost six but Idaho blew a solid early lead in college basketball and spoiled our fun) and almost every time that happens, someone warns me that I can't hope for that kind of "dumb luck" too often.

For the record, there is nothing dumb or fluky about days in which dogs win more often than they lose.

Monday was our 65th betting day in this 7-dog trial that started on November 1, actually #64 allowing for the Christmas break.

In that time, dogs have brought home the bacon in four games or more out of seven a total of 23 times or 36% of all days. Hardly a fluke!

There were 13 days with 4 right picks out of 7, 8 with 5 wins out of 7, and 2 with 6 out of 7. Sadly, no clean sweeps. Yet.

So how about keeping this whole dog thing in perspective and recognizing that we are betting with the bookies rather than against them, with long-term losses ergo being very unlikely indeed.

After cashing in yesterday's tickets, we are up $2,890 or +2.4% of all action to date, and the win now represents 10.5 average bets at $276.

We have done better in the past, and we will again.

Today's dog picks:-

(NBA) Sacramento Kings +125 and Portland Trailblazers +100.
(CBB) Rhode Island +100, South Florida +110 and New Mexico +145.
(NHL) Florida Panthers +110 and Edmonton Oilers +100.

Catching up after the holiday break may take me the rest of this week, and as soon as I can, I will post results from bets on all qualifying underdogs.

Wednesday, January 6 at 04:00pm

I have just a few minutes to go before the first Wednesday game times, and my plans to open a whole new post will have to wait another day (catching up from the holidays is taking longer than I hoped).

Tuesday was a disaster, although at least wasn't a skunking.

Our win to date was slashed in half, but given the hammering an all-favorites bettor would have suffered since November 1, being ahead $1,400 is something to be at least a little bit proud of, I reckon.

We now stand at just over 33% of the best win to date, which is disappointing but far from fatal.

I plugged in a new test today to continue the day-by-day win analysis that I started yesterday.

It turns out that 3 or more dogs have been winners just over 60% of the time, 3/7 being a few pips shy of a 43% win rate.

There have been two "skunkings" in the last 64 days, and on 3 days, the best we could manage was a miserly one right pick out of seven underdog selections.

We were right 3/7 on 16 days, 4/7 on 13 days, 5/7 eight times, and 6/7 twice. Clearly, a clean sweep is long overdue because we haven't had one of those yet!

Today's dog bets:-

(NBA) Miami Heat +110 and Golden State Warriors +140
(CBB) VA Commonwealth +105, Providence +145, Duquesne +120
(NHL) Dallas Stars +115 and NY Islanders +135

Can today be worse than Tuesday? Probably not...

Thursday, January 7 at 04:45pm

Today's best-laid plans ganged aglay (as a Scotsman with a mouthful of haggis might put it) because I had to spend an hour on the phone with an AOL tech support gent in India and the service is as crappy now as it was when I started.

I hate to post after game starts, but the truth is it makes no difference.

As I have said before, dog picks are made on the basis of odds, not of what may or may not be the score mid-game.

Yesterday was only a little better than Tuesday, with two right picks instead of just one, but the dog win rate was well below half the long-term average.

The good news is that things will get better. They always do.

Today's bets:-

(NBA) Charlotte Bobcats +145
(NFL) Boston Bruins +110, NY Rangers +105, FL Panthers +120, Col Blue Jackets +110, St. Louis Blues +135 and Detroit Red Wings +105.

I'm still working on a result for all qualifying dogs being bet rather than just seven a day, and have at least finished keying in all the games between December 16 and the start of the New Year.

One hard fact that has jumped out at me is that favorites won more than 65% of all games in the NFL season that is now winding down.

That suggests that either "Harrahs Dave" was indulging in chronic wishful thinking when he scribbed "Dogs 51.5%" on my betting schedule way back when, or he was callously leading me to slaughter.

I don't believe the latter (he seemed like a nice guy) but it really doesn't matter either way.

What does matter is that backing the favorite in every NFL game since August would have left a punter in a deep and wide hole in spite of that huge win rate.

More about that next time...

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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