Current Streak: 1

I would imagine the Phillies should be a decent size favorite tomorrow but there is currently no line.

7/30/09

Current Streak: 4

not sure what the deal is with the soccer games. I cant find any lines for them. There is nothing good today. For the tiger prop, he gets a birdie or better 51.70% of the time on par 5s and is averaging 4.48. I would lean <18.5 but the orioles pick is most likely better.
The late game prop seems pretty random but I would lean 3 runs or more if the pitch counts are getting up there. I'd imagine these pitchers would get tired in the 6th and give up more runs but I haven't looked at any data so only pick this if you have a little streak.

7/29/09

Current Streak: 1

Nothing all that exciting. I am leaning cain in the early prop only because they are favored and at home. This is pretty much a coin flip.

The everton line is from paddy power and it has a lot of juice

7/28/09

Current Streak: -1

Update: Conn Sun are -167/151 and stars are -128/116

7/26/2009

Current Streak: 1

I cant seem to do much right. I picked toronto today in hopes that I could take them and then the cfl game. They were up 9-1 and lost 10-9. Luckily the cfl game lost so it didn't really matter.

One of these times the cycling prop has to hit. Pinnacle actually has a matchup of cavendish vs the field so I trust this one more than the others.

7/25/09

No picture today. Saskatchewan is 65.85% and the Rockies are 61%

7/24/2009

Current Streak: 0

The rugby prop seems like it is 50/50 betus has leeds -5.5 at -135/105

7/23/09

Current Streak: 0 or 3 (pending)

Once again only the WNBA point spreads are up so I based my numbers off them. I will try to post an update at around 10.

Vegas Watch came up with the Weaver %'s and it looks to be a strong pick

UPDATE: The wnba games are Fever 59% and mystics 70%

7/22/09

(the marlins shouldn't be highlighted green)
Current Streak: -1

Took the Manny prop and it turned out he got HBP. A lot of the streakers are calling for a push but the any other result seems clear.

Does anyone know how long a world championship darts game lasts?

Pedroias expected total bases is .38 while Kinslers is .44. This prop like most of the total base props really relies on the pitcher but Bucholz doesn't have enough data to go on so I will wait and see what the red sox line turns out to be. I will try to update this post it comes out.

7/21/09

Current Streak: 2

Looks like it was good weekend for other players. 5 of the top 7 still have active streaks going and the leader is at 25.

7/20/08

Current Streak: 1


Its a monday so there are not a whole lot of choices. I am flipping a coin for pick 1, then braves and probably Manny. You are picking against pitchers in this prop and since it is Schmidts first start you really do not know much. Vegas has the dodgers -150 so I will risk my lowly streak on manny.

7/19/2008

Current Streak: 1

Todays card has alot of picks but none are all the exciting except for the Braves over the mets. The WNBA games currently do not have a moneyline but these %''s should be pretty close. Nothing too exciting with any of those games. I do not mind have a streak of 1 today because most of the picks are straight coinflips but there is a possibility of getting alot of picks in. My picks are highlighted

7/19/2008

7/18/2009

Current Streak: Pending

Getting this out of the way early because I wont be in any condition to do it later tonight. I dont have odds on the softball prop but I think USA has to be a favorite.

7/17/09

Current Streak: -2

Not in any condition to talk about card will take the colors

7/16/09

Current Streak: 6

Took Argentina and passed the rest of the day.

Tomorrow is all about deciding which golf matchup to take. Tiger is -200 vs westwood and Ishikawa doesn't show up anywhere because he is only 17. The true % is probably closer to a little below 60% when you account for tigers name and the -.5. Furyk meanwhile is the betting favorite and you still win with the tie so his % should increase. I am going to try and pick both of these. If you had to decide between one or the other I would go with the Furyk pick because of the -.5.

Nothing too special tonight but I think there has to be some value in taking beckham because of the half goal. I do not know if that value is worth risky a decent streak on though. If the games look good on Friday I would wait if not I would pick it.

7/15/09

Current Streak: 5

Got lucky yesterday with the tennis match not locking properly and therefore I cannot be angry that I managed to cancel the Obama lock when checking my phone every three minutes during class.

The Only real pick tomorrow is Argentina (-635). I am not really sure why they put this game up but I am picking it and expecting a major upset.

All the other props currently look to be 50/50's so hopefully Argentina will be the only pick tomorrow. I will post an update later if any games are added.

7/14/09

Current Streak: 3

Tomorrows card isn't all that pretty. Once again we have a cavendish vs the field. You can get cavendish anywhere from -150 to even. I am passing on this and taking Masa Zec Peskiric

The soccer match is nothing special.

The night picks are either WNBA or the All star game. Most of the allstar picks are quite random but somehow Paddypower had lines for most of them. I wasn't able to find the moneyline yet for the WNBA but I think it should be somewhere in that range.

If you do not have a streak going into the night games I would probably pick the wnba 1st half ( will let you know when they post 1st half totals) and then just hope to get lucky with the inning picks. The AL is the away team so they are the favorites to score first.

Goodluck with your coin flips.

UPDATE: Espn has added numerous all star props. The best seem to be Where will obamas pitch land (the Glove ~ -300) and the American league +.5 in the 5th

7/13/09

Current Streak: 1

Last night the silver stars lost as a 7.5 point favorite. Thank you ladies.

Todays card is either Home run derby or summer league basketball.

All 3 hr derby picks are dependent on each other and therefore you can only pick one of them.

The albert pujols/howard vs field line is -113 / -107. I would say this is pretty much a coinflip and the only thing stopping me from picking the field is the all star game is in Stl which might make Pujols try harder. With that said he could try hard in the first couple rounds and tire out in the finals like most.

I got nothing for the most home runs or how many the winner will hit.

Tonight I am going to play the summer league games because that should insure that I get at least two picks. I am going over blake griffin and choosing evans.

7/12/09

Sorry was too busy watching ufc last night to make any charts for today.For those of you who didnt watch it the Dan Henderson / Bisping fight was probably the best of the night. You can watch it here


I picked Cilic in the early games and the only real pick tonight is San Antonio Silver Stars at -322.

7/11/2009

Current Streak: -2

Yesterday was not a good day with the golf rain out and then I made a misclick. Luckily i lost the later game so the misclick did not hurt.

I dont have much analysis for saturdays card and the graphic is pretty crude but you cannot expect much on friday nights. I also wont be able to fix it tomorrow morning because I will be golfing.

Thanks to a big ufc night you can reasonably get in 6 picks. I am picking the liberty over everyother 7 o clock game because it will probably be the best odds and it is almost sure to end before henderson/ bisping manage to square off.

I am predicting a 5-1 day with a Lesnar knockout. I cant wait.

7/10/09

Current Streak: 2

The golf match is a straight 18 whole matchup . Calcavecchia shot a 33 yesterday while Austin shot a 37. I will stick with pinnacle and take austin

Nothing else on this card is all that exciting except for the fact that you could get 4 picks in.

7/9/2009

Current Streak: 1

The golf line does not include the -.5 Chopa may be a slight favorite. A lot of lines are currently not posted and I probably will not be able to get to the under 7 o clock games because I will be in class all morning. kenny perry won last year but I can seem to find his hole by hole results. This season he has made a birdy on 16% of his par 3's.

A soccer match was added its 51.47% for Randers

I think the royals will be in the -170 to -200 range when it comes out tomorrow so you dont even have to look at the wnba scorers or the phillies pick.

The padres strike out 11th most in the league and you all know what lincecum can do.

How Many Bases Will Manny Get

I had a long post here but as Vegaswatch correctly pointed out to me a walk does not count as a base like I had first assumed and therefore this pick is worthlesss. Go with the dodgers instead

7/8/09

Current Streak: 6

The first pick of the day is another Tour De France pick. Stage 5 is apparently a sprinters stage. Cavendish is -225 at betus but I think a lot of that is juice because Cavendish has the yellow jersey and has won the last two sprinter stages. Because of this I brought the line down to -200. 66% still seems a little high but even if you reduce that % more it still will be good enough for the pick.

The Braves / cubs game is Over 9 -121 while the Pirates/Astros game is Under 8 -108 so the lean here is to the braves/cubs but I would rather pick the soccer game.

Once again I got the soccer line from our friends at paddypower. There is a decent amount of juice taken out because I used two different bets. One was a double chance and the other was the regular bet. If you were to bet on a draw and then bet on Rosario you would be 60.17% to win with juice taken out. I will be conservative and stick with the 57.64% and only pick Rosario if Cavendish loses.

There is only 4 picks to look at in the late games: Manny prop, Dodgers, Whitesox and the josh Hamilton prop. The white sox are only the pick if you do not like the dodgers on the road and you do not really care about the Josh Hamilton prop.

The Manny prop is interesting for a variety of reasons and I am going to create another post with how I came up with the %'s for that and the hamilton prop. It should be up sometime later tonight.

7/7/2009

Current Streak: 3

Got lucky last night with the phillies winning exactly at 10 o clock which allowed the LAA play.


The morning starts off with a tour De France pick. Its lance armstrongs team vs the field( Team Columbia, Team Germin Slipstream, and Team Saxo Bank). The line is anywhere from -145 to -160

Apparently there are two old games on this card Lacrosse and volleyball . According to the comments the last time this happened the games pushed. I am not sure how long the pick will remained locked. Its not worth the gamble so just go with the under 2.5 goals pick. I got this line from Paddysports. On other sites I have seen it go from 57.6% to 60.5%

If your streak is at 1 or 0 the only real pick at 7 would be to gamble on the Verlander pick. I have a very slight lean on the strikeouts. This is a great pick if you are trying to win the month because you are guaranteed to get to the 10 o'clock games because he can only throw so many pitches before he gets taken out of the game. The Pujols/ Fielder pick seems like another 50/50 but I have a slight lean toward Fielder because of Gallardo. Luckily we won't have to pick against The Machine since there is a much better pick at 10.

A lot of people have abandoned the WNBA home teams and are only going by record thanks to sundays dismal showing by the Sparks and Shock. I myself will stick with pinnacle and choose the (2-8) Monarchs.

Update: Monarchs are now -310 and 73.82% to win. This has no chance of hitting.

Streak Strategy pt. 1

There are two ways to win in the streak for cash:
1. Pick ~24 games right in a row
2. Have the most wins in a current month

In this series of post I will be looking at what strategies I think are the best to win each of these and then post a conclusion on the benefits and disadvantages to each side of the game. Both of the games seem to have completely opposite strategies and I would imagine it would be impossible to win both.

This post will talk about a strategy to produce the longest streak. This chart shows the % chance of getting to certain levels of a streak. Even if you were able to pick games that had a 99% chance of happening you would only get to 25 77.78% of the time. Sadly for us a majority of the games we pick will be in the 60% range and that gives us a .000284% of winning. This means that there is a better chance of us getting struck by lightning (.000357%) than there is for winning this contest.

For us to have any shot of winning this we need to come up with a way to increase our chances of winning. I think this can be done if certain rules are always followed.

Rule 1). When you have no streak pick the game that allows you to make another pick as soon as possible no matter what the % chance of happening is.

Example Pick A at 1:05 Pm has a 52% chance of happening and the game should last 3 hours. Pick B at 1:05 PM has a 70% chance of happening and the game lasts 4 hours. Pick C at 4:30 has a 55% chance of happening.

The correct play would be to always choose Pick A over pick B. Since A only takes 3 hours it allows you to pick C which means now you have a 28.6% of picking 2 right and a 78.4% chance of picking 1 of them correctly. The question then becomes if Pick A hits do you pick C? Because 55% games are very common I think it makes sense to always pick C and only worry about your streak until you pick 3 right in a row.

Rule 2) Only pick games under 60 when you have a streak of 3 or less.

We can assume that we will make three picks a day and if those picks have a 55% chance of happening we can expect to have a streak of 3 every week. Its at this point that we should stop doing coin flips and become more strict in our picks.

Rule 3) For every other correct pick above 3 increase the min % chance of happening by .5% until you reach a streak of 14

With our min % starting at 60 we will reach a min level of 65% when we have a streak of 14. If we pick the min % every time we will get a streak of 10 (given we already have a streak of 3 to start with) .57% of the time.

Rule 4) Once the streak reaches 14 have a min level of 68% and raise it by .75% for every correct pick

If we follow this pattern we would have a 3.42% chance of getting a streak of 24 (given we already had a streak of 14). Depending on time constraints we may not have a chance of to pick games above 73 so if we cap the min % at 70% we would have a 2.68% of completing the streak


If we follow all four of these rules we would get a streak of 24 ~.00254% (.1664* .0057*.0268) of the time. 1/39250 looks a lot better then the 1/392500 we would expect with only picking 60% games. This number can be improved even further if we pick games that are above the minimum pick level.

As it stands now here is what the minimum pick structure would be:


If anyone is reading this let me know what you think about this strategy and if you have any other strategy ideas I would love to hear them.

7/6/2009

Current Streak: 0

Well it turns out WNBA home teams actually stink.

The baseball prop seems like it is pretty close to 3hrs. Pettite has given up 1 hr every 5.44 innings at home but most of his home runs came in one game vs the Rays ( 4 Hrs in 6 innings). Romero has given up 1 hr every 8.022 innings and managed to hold the rays and phillies homerless in his last two games. At home the Yankees hit a hr every 17.96 at bats and the blue jays are hitting a hr every 30.87. Instead of trying to use any of this data I am going lean < 3 and pick Kalmar FF W/d instead.

The night games are spaced out in a way where we probably could only make one pick. So it is either Diamondbacks or Astros.

EDIT: The Phillies and 2 games at 10:10 and 10:15 were added late. The phillies are -162 and there is a chance to play a late game so they are the pick. The mariners are 50/50 and the 5 inning total of the Giants / Marlins is Under 4.5 -112. That pick also looks like it is pretty close to 50/50 so only gamble on these picks with a 0 or 1 game streak.

7/5/2009

Current Streak: 2

Turns out it would have been good to skip the early picks. I won with the phillies and the galaxy.

Todays card allows for a decision between the cardinals at 1, twins at 2 or irish soccer at 2:45.

Cardinals are on the road and currently being picked 96% of the time so I am not going to pick them. This leaves a toss up between the twins and Drogheda. I am picking Drogheda because you are guaranteed an opportunity to pick the juicy wnba games. If you pick the twins they could play a 5 hour and 7 minute game. The odds of this decision mattering are very slim but then again so is winning this contest.

The late picks are both WNBA games. Whenever you are faced with a major WNBA dilemma ignore the record and just pick the home team.

7/5/2009

I will make the chart when I wake up tomorrow. Total sets is pretty much 50/50. The soccer match is also 50/50. The cardinals are 60% to win so take them early

7/4/2009

Current Streak: 6

I changed the color scheme a little bit.

Green - Pick anytime your streak is < 15
Yellow - Pick anytime your streak is < 10
Pink- Pick anytime your streak is < 6
If your streak is ever 15 or greater there is enough time between now and the end of the contest to wait till there are games > 70%

Tomorrows card is pretty straight forward and a pretty good card for the 4th of July because you could pretty much skip any pick after the Cubs.

I am skeptical of the nascar %'s. I came up with it by taking the % chance of each of them winning and dividing them by the sum of these %'s. I would only pick this over the Rays if you have a very small streak and like to watch Nascar instead of fireworks.

I am kinda surprised there is no Nathans Hot Dog Eating Contest pick. FYI, the over /under for number of hot dogs eaten is 60.5 with the over being a decently large favorite at -156. Joey chestnut, having won the last two years, is the favorite at -152.

7/3/2009

(most odds don't = 100% because of juice)

Current Streak: 3

Picks are in yellow.

I am not sure how long a typical WNBA game lasts but if it is < 2 hours and 25 Minutes and your streak is short you should probably take the Dream and Real salt lake to win. If your streak is long go with the -261 Stars.