The Chalkboard

Everyone has a friend whose betting strategy is simple as it is stupid: lay chalk across the board. He tries to convince you taking USC -45 over Washington State is the lock of the week despite the fact that the Trojans have yet to cross the 30-point barrier all season. The Yankees at -325 with CC on the mound? No problem, the Yanks have won nine straight! You forget to inform him he hasn’t done his homework because the Evil Empire clinched the night before and is starting their AAA lineup behind Sabathia. Sometimes these chalk bettors just need to learn a lesson. Now you have to lend this chump buffet money for the rest of the trip because he forgot the number one handicapping rule: don’t fall in love with favorites.

Laying chalk is a strategy oddsmakers easily countered with inflated spreads, run/pucklines (my obligatory hockey shout out for the year) and severely juiced moneylines. In a sport like baseball, the best team usually hovers around a .600 winning percentage so why risk taking any team at higher than -150? The only value you can find here is creating your own teaser or parlay, and well, we all know how that goes.


Sorry, Canada.

This leads us to the 2009 NFL season. In my season opening blog I did my best to steer anyone who works hard for their money as far away from the No Fun League as possible. That was before weeks 1-7 proceeded to destroy my “NFL is the perfect parity machine” theory. This season has officially mutated into a chalk bettor’s heaven. The big dogs (Saints, Giants, Colts) are covering double-digit spreads with ease. This past week we saw favorites go 9-2-1 with six teams covering a touchdown or larger spread. Every week the sharps have warned Joe Public that the all-knowing oddsmakers will even out this number with painful results for those who choose to jump on the chalk bandwagon. The result? We’re one week away from mid-season and the favorites just keep on rolling. A fourth-quarter Saints flurry to erase a 21-point deficit over the Dolphins guaranteed that the NFL would have three undefeated teams (Saints, Broncos, Colts) heading into week eight for the first time in league history. Clearly, we are on unprecedented ground with this trend.

Enough crying. What can we do about this?

1. Pay close attention to scheduling. Many teams are entering the teeth of their division schedules. Look for value in the underdogs in the tougher divisions (AFC East/North, NFC East) in interdivision games. Division play features more familiarity between coaching schemes, similar pace, and less travel. You can worry less about a jetlagged teams history in mountain-central time or how a southern team will handle sleet and opposing fans’ snowballs once they are playing the majority of their remaining games within their division.

2. Stay away from heavy road chalk. Everyone is well aware that large road favorites are covering at record pace this season but remember again we are entering division play where double-digit blowouts are rare. The majority of road blowouts this season haven’t happened in traditional matchups, they’ve happened in once every five year matchups such as the Giants-Bucs, Saints-Bills, Jets-Raiders.

3. Create a tier-system for teams. Teams ranked in the lowest tier (Rams, Bucs, Chiefs, Browns) qualify as candidates to risk large spreads against in the right situation. Mid-tier teams (Dolphins, Titans, Seahawks) who have faced a brutal 1st half schedules warrant strong consideration if they are getting points against top-tier teams, especially when they’re at home. For the record, I’m willing to wager my lunch money that the Titans finish .500 or better the second half of the season.

4. Finally, don’t read too much into the chalk trend. Focus on individual matchups and crunch numbers instead. Some weeks you’ll come up with more favorites, others you’ll have a stable of dogs. Either way, make sure you’re picking based on your research rather than blindly following a trend or gut feeling.

I know this season has thrown our chalk loving friends a slow fastball down the middle. We might be even be questioning our own time consuming research and considering abandoning discussion with fellow handicappers in the forums. Resist the urge to switch horses midstream. There’s plenty of football left to be played. Don’t forget every dog has his day.

How to Lose Your Bankroll in Seven Days

Parlaying is a lot like communism. It’s a great concept that works in a perfect world. There’s only one problem: the world ain’t perfect. Sports bettors who swim in the parlay tank are flawed creatures. Their demise is inevitable because they swing for the fences instead of working small edges and carefully managing their bankrolls. Sometimes you have to learn the hard way. Just ask my bank account.


The fun is definitely over.

Rewind to week three of the NFL season. After a profitable college football Saturday, I made the ingenious decision to let it ride on a juicy three-team NFL parlay. With two already in the bag, I needed the Steelers to cover a measly three points versus the Bengals (I will henceforward refer to them as the Bungles). Ben Roethlisberger was dissecting the Bungles secondary at will; capping off a seven minute drive with a one-yard superman touchdown dive. Pittsburgh cruised into the fourth quarter holding an eleven point advantage. All was well in parlayland.

Then it happened. Roethilsberger threw a pick-six. Cedric “I’m on a boat” Benson rumbled 23 yards to cut the lead to five. After another Pitt three and out, Carson Palmer woke up from his Steeler induced coma and marched the Bungles down to the Pittsburgh twenty-yard line. After a fourth and two completion to Laveranues Coles to the fifteen I got a sinking feeling of defeat in my stomach. I knew it was over.

There’s a funny thing about parlays. No matter how bleak the outlook, they always throw you a bone on your last leg. Palmer spiked the ball on first down instead of calling a timeout. A rabid James Harrison forced Palmer to throw two quick incompletions to Ocho Cinco and Chris Henry. Fourth and ten with thirty-six ticks remaining. The Bungles called their last timeout and I was pacing hopelessly around my living room. The momentum for Cinci was a runaway freight train and I was powerless to stop it. My heart sank after third-string back Brian Leonard caught a short pass and rumbled through three Pittsburgh defenders for a first down. The next play Palmer fired a game winning four-yard touchdown strike to Andre Caldwell. The Bungles were back.


Yep, I was Bungalised

What followed violated every handicapping rule in the book. I took the only game left on the board, the Sunday night Colts-Cardinals game and parlayed it big. Whiff. Monday night I parlayed the Cowboys-Panthers game for half my bankroll. Whiff. I took the rest and placed three monster parlays for week four. At this point there was no research, no leans, there was only action. It was pure tilt, chasing losses with no regard for my remaining bankroll.


The King of Tilt. I feel you, Mikey. I really do.

After another 0-3 plate appearance I was done. Seven days of tilt erased six months of responsible systemized wagering. Just like that it was over.

“Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely.” Lord Acton didn’t have English Premier League parlays in mind when he coined his quote, but his words cannot ring truer. Parlays corrupt, absolute parlays corrupt, absolutely. They corrupted my discipline, my objective mind, and ultimately my bankroll.

Before you dive headfirst into the parlay tank with the oddsmaker and bookie sharks remember you have a much larger edge betting straight over the long run. I’ve heard the argument parlays eliminate the ten percent juice the house takes on straight wagers. But if you can’t beat the juice straight up you’ll never turn a profit parlaying. If you don’t believe me, they are always hiring at Wendy’s. I’m hoping to get promoted to shift manager by the end of the month.

Ricky's Revenge

Lost in the smoke of the Miami Dolphins last second 31-27 Monday victory over the New York Jets was the game’s statistical hero, some guy people may remember as Ricky Williams. Williams accumulated a game-high 144 yards from scrimmage, averaging six yards per touch. Yet postgame praise focused on platoon mate Ronnie Brown (who was equally impressive) and his mastery of the NFL’s most overused two words: the wildcat. Sideline reporter Andrea Kremer sprinted past Williams to shove a mic in the face of Miami quarterback Chad Henne. There was zero mention of Ricky. I can’t help but get the feeling Ricky is just fine with that.

A self proclaimed vegan and active member of PETA, Williams has quietly become the NFL’s anti-Vick. After a multiyear absence, Ricky has made himself relevant in the one place where Vick has not: the football field. There’s no question he’s back as a football player, but the real dilemma for fans is whether he cares. Has Ricky really changed as a person since his suspension?
“I get defensive,” says Ricky when asked this question by the New York Times in a preseason interview. “I like to think I’m the same person. I just have more clarity.”
The problem for Dolphins fans is that the “same person” abandoned their franchise two days before their 2007 training camp for a dime bag of alfalfa and a bottomless box of cheezits. The fallout was not pretty for the Fins: a franchise worst 1-15 mark. Fans were unwilling to forgive, forever labeling him as the NFL’s posterboy pothead.

“Since I’ve become famous for it, I’m amazed at how many people ask me to smoke,” Williams says. “For me to move on with my career, this has to be behind me. I don’t want to keep being reminded of it on a daily basis.”

We can’t blame Williams for avoiding incessant questions about his past. Still, fans itch to know if he’s only in it for the paycheck because the cardinal sin in sports for fans is an athlete who doesn’t love the game. In the back of our minds we still dream of hoisting the Heisman trophy or shaking the commish’s hand on draft day. Ricky was blessed with the talent to enjoy these moments; so it’s infuriating for a lot of us diehards to accept the fact he chose hot room yoga over the professional gridiron.
“At the core, we’re all spiritual beings,” Williams tells the New York Times. “It’s something that I had been pushing down my whole life. The search for meaning, I guess, the whispering of the soul.”

Not exactly words that strike fear into opposing defenses, right? What fans really want from Williams is to see his passion for winning. They want him to tweet “just finished third cycle of roids. give thirty-four the damn ball!” How about a choreographed fine-inducing endzone dance, Ricky? Please, please at least remove your helmet during locker room interviews?

The reality is Ricky will never be the fire breathing athlete we adore. He is a unique flower, one who is fully aware of his own confusing legacy: “It’s like the open-minded, spiritual person and the football player, they get into a tug of war,” Williams says. “It’s not pretty. It’s ongoing. I have to find a way to reconcile both those parts of myself so that I can have some kind of peace.”

Ricky’s bruising running style shows little evidence he is searching for this inner-peace on the field. In a season which headlines have been dominated by Vick, the never ending Favre hype machine, and endless dissection of 32 variations of the wildcat formation, it’s a godsend to follow a player who still knows how to lower his shoulder and drive his feet into the chinstrap of the defense.

I doubt we’ll ever know if Ricky actually cares about the outcome of the game. All we can do is enjoy him on the field and try our hardest to appreciate this rare breed of athlete off it. One day Williams will likely disappear from the league with little fanfare. No matter how funky the smell, fans will miss the cloud of smoke he leaves behind.