Sports general discussion thread

[Brian Boru]

reason I went to the roulette table to begin with was the long, slow line at the cashier's window. Impatience pays off @Brian Boru

'Ere, 'ang about there! You were being patient with the cashier line—if you'd taken a bathroom break instead of roulette, you'd still 'ave been ahead

I was going to reply re Martingale, but you did a much better job—kudos! Btw the house take used to be half in EU back in the day—only one zero, compared to 2 in US wheel. Is that still the case?

 

[ZedClampet]

I was going to reply re Martingale, but you did a much better job—kudos! Btw the house take used to be half in EU back in the day—only one zero, compared to 2 in US wheel. Is that still the case?

Without leaving the cashier line, I wouldn't have got that $700 from roulette, and the woman I tipped $200 used that money to start a charity that helps disadvantaged kids in Africa.

Okay, I made that part about the charity up. Just trying to make impatience seem impressive

It's usually both 0 and 00, but it depends on the casino. A few do just a zero, or so I've heard. Everywhere I've been has had both.

 

[ZedClampet]

"peeks behind Zedclampet's shoulder* I'll bet what he is betting!

Aside from that one trip to the roulette table and poker, I never win anything. Before I go to a casino, I divide my money into different games and can't go beyond that, and I've lost every penny I ever allocated to craps, blackjack and slots. Every single penny. Fortunately, I never take much money for those. Worst I've ever done was losing $100 on blackjack over about 5 minutes. Boom. Done with blackjack for the trip. I think it was $100. That was ages ago.

I feel like if I talk about my gambling exploits a year from now that I'll give all different figures for everything and the stories will have changed slightly. I think the SSD in my brain is going bad. Things tend to get bigger over time, so I probably won $5 in roulette and tipped a quarter

 

[ZedClampet]

"peeks behind Zedclampet's shoulder* I'll bet what he is betting!

This just reminded me of another cashier, roulette story. I didn't actually play, it was just something I saw (someone's very complex system), but I won't bother with the story. The point is that it was at a different casino, and I was watching people play roulette because of how long the cashier line was. I wonder if it's a common practice to understaff with cashiers and place easy gambling spots next to them to try to get the rest of the money from impatient gamblers?

 

[Frindis]

Worst I've ever done was losing $100 on blackjack over about 5 minutes. Boom. Done with blackjack for the trip. I think it was $100. That was ages ago.

I lost around 250 USD in the 90's gambling at a casino in Kiel. I basically went in, bet all on red, and lost. Went to my hotel and laughed about it with my friend. I was mentally ready to lose the money since I had saved it up for the trip anyways. What did suck was that I tied my shoes just before I went in and the shoe laces were of course black, so yeah, should have gone with my gut feeling back then.

I'm solid at poker though, won almost (2nd place on the last) three tournaments in a row back in the early 2000s when you could actually play legally at bars in Norway. This was against roughly 80 people each time and it was a hell of a lot of fun. I'm not particularly good at using any systems, but I'm good at having a feel for the cards and I can quickly change between playing passive or aggressive. Later played a little on Pokerstars (not allowed in Norway anymore, yaaaay...) and did ok on freerolls.

The absolute sickest I have done while playing poker was against some fellow students. I basically went all in blind and made a tell of the cards before they got shown. I said I would get four of a kind and I did!

I also had a habit of guessing the top card after people around a table shuffled the cards to the point of them knowing I could not know the card. Since I did it a lot at different parties, etc, the odds would be in my favor that I would eventually guess the right card and when I did, you can bet the other people were like: "whaaaaaaaaat?". If they asked me to do it again, I would be like "I'm not sure I could do it, but I'll try my best". So, if I did pick the wrong card but it was close, I could sell that in as a win also. Kind of cheese, but fun

 

[Brian Boru]

I said I would get four of a kind and I did!

Okay, so what are your 'Great Moments'? As in not making some great play, but rather doing something almost impossible.

I have two, both from when I was in college.

180 in darts
We'd often go for a game at a local pub, where like most of us my fav score was 26. But one time, it happened.

Royal Flush dealt straight
5 Card Draw with my roomie in the digs, penny poker in our room, waiting to be called down for dinner. Luckily, he dealt the cards! He filled a full house, so I won nearly £1

 

[Frindis]

Okay, so what are your 'Great Moments'? As in not making some great play, but rather doing something almost impossible.

I'd say winning two tournaments in a row and second place in the third one with that many people would be considered very hard to do. At least I don't think many people with the exception of professional poker players could follow that feat. So, I'd say that deserve some bragging rights

Besides that, I did BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) sparring against two Norwegian professional wrestlers (both sons of the Norwegian Olympic Winner in wrestling, Jon Rønningen) and won both matches. The thing is both weighed around 60, had little to no experience with BJJ, and were basically there for fun and a little training and both had a height of roughly 157-158. I'm a tall guy, so you could say I had both power and height advantage

Here they are doing a similar thing (though wrestling) against a Norwegian comedian (about my height), so that kind of puts it in perspective:

View: https://youtu.be/aPDCzWz-ldM?t=21

I have two, both from when I was in college.

180 in darts
We'd often go for a game at a local pub, where like most of us my fav score was 26. But one time, it happened.

Nice accomplishment, especially considering the local pub and what you normally drink there.

Royal Flush dealt straight
5 Card Draw with my roomie in the digs, penny poker in our room, waiting to be called down for dinner. Luckily, he dealt the cards! He filled a full house, so I won nearly £1

Oooh, lovely! Never did get any Royal Flush, but have had some straight flushes over the years.

 

[ZedClampet]

Great accomplishments?
TLDR: Once pitched a no hitter and beat pro poker players in Vegas on multiple occasions. Don't bother reading all the rest unless you are just really bored.


Baseball: Hmm. I can think of great moments pretty easily, like going the distance in the city's under 16 baseball championship game and striking out the last batter with two runners on. My teammates charged the mound in excitement, tackled me and formed a nice human pile. But I guess my best achievements were pitching a no hitter once and leading the league in home runs a couple of years.

Was asked to play baseball at the University of Tennessee, but there was no scholarship offer (baseball is weird with scholarships), and I decided I was going to try minor league baseball instead. Drove to the rookie league baseball stadium on the opening day of practice, sat in the parking lot for awhile and then drove home. I just didn't want to play baseball anymore. My poor mother was crushed. My confidence at being able to play at that level wasn't overly high, and had an ongoing injury from another sport, and I just wanted to be done with that part of my life.

Basketball: Made varsity as a freshman, injured my knee and never played again. Was born too early. Nowadays they fix that sort of thing with ease. But I'd say averaging 24 ppg in middle school was a great achievement. Knee still causes me problems and was a contributing factor in my not wanting to play baseball, as I would occasionally have to come out of games due to pain. It felt like someone was trying to pry off my kneecap.

Poker: Nothing in particular, but winning against professional players in Vegas on two different occasions seemed pretty good at the time. It wasn't a tournament though. I never played tournaments because it would have caused me to have to change my playstyle, but the World Series of Poker used to be a bucket list item. Large tournaments require a lot of luck, though.

Soccer: Scored 3 goals in an all star. rec-league game, the only game I ever played any position other than goalie. I really wasn't that good at soccer, but I could very nearly kick the ball the length of the field, both on goal kicks and drop kicks.

Elly May: It wouldn't be a post by me if I didn't include a story about my kids. My daughter was ranked the #1 u14 soccer player in the region and scored 6 goals in the championship game in Atlanta and was named tournament MVP. Was a great team. Former NBA player Steve Hamer's (he called the UT game on ESPN last night) daughter was also on that team, and he coached their middle school basketball team, which was also very good. Funny enough, I coached his son in his first soccer league. That's funny because I don't know much about soccer even though I played goalie for a few years, but coaching 5-6 year old kids is pretty easy.

My daughter is a carbon copy of me in a lot of ways and got completely burned out in sports with all the travel and practice. We both need our quiet, alone time to remain sane.

 

[Frindis]

I never played tournaments because it would have caused me to have to change my playstyle, but the World Series of Poker used to be a bucket list item. Large tournaments require a lot of luck, though.

Yeah, WSOP was something I considered, but never really went all in for. I did watch a lot of it though and watching Phil Elmut's rants (still does it, lol) was probably one of the funniest things on the show. I used to watch when a lot of the big ones played, like Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen, Elmut, Brunson, Johnny Chan, and Negreanu to mention some of them.

Gus Hansen was probably the craziest of them all as he always made ridiculous bets/all-in with really bad cards, he just did not care at all, or at least was good at hiding it. He lost over 15 million dollars playing online poker and I would not be surprised on bit if it was because of doing the same thing.

Negreanu is excellent at bluffing, reading other people's cards super well, and also a gentleman at the table, even if he loved to rile up Phil Helmut.

Helmut is the OG with over 17 bracelets, but I never did like his kind of playstyle. He is the kind of person who gets made because you play in some obscure way and probably because he would think he should have won with his cards and that his statistics were correct. Even if he is probably right most of the time, just a bit too ranty for my taste and horrible at fending off trash talk. It almost seems he takes it too personally a lot of the time.

 

[ZedClampet]

Yeah, WSOP was something I considered, but never really went all in for. I did watch a lot of it though and watching Phil Elmut's rants (still does it, lol) was probably one of the funniest things on the show. I used to watch when a lot of the big ones played, like Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen, Elmut, Brunson, Johnny Chan, and Negreanu to mention some of them.

Gus Hansen was probably the craziest of them all as he always made ridiculous bets/all-in with really bad cards, he just did not care at all, or at least was good at hiding it. He lost over 15 million dollars playing online poker and I would not be surprised on bit if it was because of doing the same thing.

Negreanu is excellent at bluffing, reading other people's cards super well, and also a gentleman at the table, even if he loved to rile up Phil Helmut.

Helmut is the OG with over 17 bracelets, but I never did like his kind of playstyle. He is the kind of person who gets made because you play in some obscure way and probably because he would think he should have won with his cards and that his statistics were correct. Even if he is probably right most of the time, just a bit too ranty for my taste and horrible at fending off trash talk. It almost seems he takes it too personally a lot of the time.

I haven't followed professional poker since I stopped almost 20 years ago, but my favorite player was Ted Forrest.

Have you ever read the book "The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time"? That's a fun read. Lots of back-in-the-day poker pros in it, including Ted Forrest.

Forrest has 6 WSOP bracelets, but he doesn't play Hold'em very much, which is where all the publicity is at, and I think he's mostly dropped out of the public eye since the mid-2000s.

I liked Forrest because he was incredibly calm and completely unpredictable.

 

[ZedClampet]

Well, I ran the numbers for this week's NFL games after making two adjustments. This week's games seem really difficult, and I have zero confidence in my results, but here they are anyway.

First the No Bets that I wouldn't bet on because my number was too close to the line

Carolina @ Chicago. Line is Chicago by 3.5. My number is 0. No Bet
GreenBay @ Pittsburgh. Line is Pitt by 3. My number is GB by 1.5. No Bet
Cleveland @ Balt. Line is Balt by 6. My number is Balt by 8.7. No Bet
SanFran @ Jacks. Line is SF by 3. My number is SF by 1.5. No Bet
Tenn @ Tampa. Line is Tampa by 1.5. Mine is Tampa by 1. No Bet
NO @ Minn. Line is NO by 2.5. Mine is NO by 5. No Bet
Detroit@LACharg. Line is Det by 1.5. Mine is Det by 3.3. No Bet
Wash@Seattle. Line is Seattle by 6.5. Mine is Seattle by 3.2. No Bet
NYJets@LVRaiders. Line is NY by 1.5. Mine is NY by 0.9. No Bet

And now for the ones I would bet

Indy@NewEngland. Line is Indy by 1. Mine is Indy by 10. Bet Indy
Houston@Cincinnati. Line is Cinc by 7. Mine is Cinc by .4. Bet Houston
Atlanta@Arizona. Line is Atl by 1.5. Mine is Atl by 8.4. Bet Atlanta
NYGiants@Dallas. Line is Dallas by 16.5. Mine is Dal by 24. Bet Dallas
Denver@Buffalo. Line is Buf by 7.5. Mine is Buf by 19.8. Bet Buffalo

Just looking at all the numbers, I may not being giving enough credit to home field advantage. I've got problems with a number of the "Bet" games, but I'm not going to bother going through them because I'm trying to do this by math, not opinion. But I'm not sure I could convince myself to bet this week. A lot of the games are really evenly matched.

Lastly, 3 different teams have new QBs, which is incredibly important, and I have no system for handling that. the only one in the Bets category is Arizona.

In a lot of ways, this week's results are more important than last week, because my system is giving me the opposite results to what my opinions as a fan are. will be interesting to see what happens.

 

[ZedClampet]

@Frindis Also, I don't think I would want to play online anymore due to all the poker calculators out there, which is kind of like a chess player using a computer to tell them their next move. Get a couple of different types of odds calculators and just bet accordingly. It should be cheating, but there's no way to stop it. I used to have lots of odds memorized. Lot of good that would do me now.

 

[Frindis]

Have you ever read the book "The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time"? That's a fun read. Lots of back-in-the-day poker pros in it, including Ted Forrest.

I have not, I did read one from Tod Brunson, but forgot the name of the title. Probably about poker

 

[Brian Boru]

Soccer: Scored 3 goals in an all star. rec-league game, the only game I ever played any position other than goalie

Hah, opposite for me—I played goalie for the school team, but center forward later in inter-company leagues.

I'm trying to do this by math, not opinion

While opinion is not enough, neither is math. You need both for optimal, eg that QB knowledge—but maybe math can give a sub-optimal edge on its own, if no one else is doing it. But that's hard to believe, unless you've found a new angle.

 

[ZedClampet]

While opinion is not enough, neither is math. You need both for optimal, eg that QB knowledge—but maybe math can give a sub-optimal edge on its own, if no one else is doing it. But that's hard to believe, unless you've found a new angle.

The problem is my opinions are usually wrong. That's why I need the math.

As far as no one else doing it, I'm sure other people have their algorithms, but I'd be beyond shocked to learn that anyone else was using exactly my algorithm. It's quite different from anything else I've seen. For one thing, I noticed something this year from following Vol football that I've never heard anyone talk about. That probably means it's wrong but I'm using it anyway. Also, I have somewhat unconventional philosophies on a number of statistics. I'm sure other people share one or more of those philosophies, but I'd be surprised to find anyone that shared them all.

 

[ZedClampet]

While opinion is not enough, neither is math.

I just remembered this, but I got my original idea to go just with math from a true Vegas sharp. But I'll explain what he does later. Time for bed.

 

[Frindis]

This is just insanely impressive!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vtMsH6KhK4

 

[Brian Boru]

impressive

Damn, the balance required to stay on those planks—and the precision of the cuts to hold the planks…

 

[ZedClampet]

Found a good deal at DraftKings and decided to go ahead and bet this weekend. The deal is that if you place a $5 NFL bet, you get $200 worth of free NFL bets. It's hard to beat a free $200.

I've decided I'll live and die by this weekend and, going forward, only bet any money from whatever happens to that $200 they gave me. Hopefully I'll win a couple of those and get to play next weekend.

I also made a parlay bet since it was free. While highly unlikely, that would get me quite a bit of cash.

New fun for me (until I lose that $200)

 

[Zloth]

Found a good deal at DraftKings and decided to go ahead and bet this weekend. The deal is that if you place a $5 NFL bet, you get $200 worth of free NFL bets. It's hard to beat a free $200.

And yet they still make tons of money.

 

[ZedClampet]

And yet they still make tons of money.

Yeah, I heard the average sports better is down $7500 this year. Meanwhile, if I win any bets tomorrow, I'll be ahead and would seriously consider cashing out even if it's just $25. Depends on how much fun I have following the games I bet on.

No matter what, I will still have $50 in free bets for next weekend because I didn't bet it all.

 

[Zloth]

Yeah, I heard the average sports better is down $7500 this year.

That's.... THREE HUNDRED PIZZAS!! And that's an average? Does that even come out as a bell curve?

 

[Brian Boru]

Does that even come out as a bell curve?

Unlikely, I doubt the journo knew enough stats to know how many outliers to exclude to get a representative average. Usually better to go for the median in those cases, so the guys down $10m don't totally skew it.

 

[ZedClampet]

So I ended Saturday 3-1, losing the Atlanta v Arizona bet. I hated that bet, but if I don't stick to my system then I'll be like everyone else. You know, the people down $7500.

So for my $5 bet, I now have $112.02 and the Monday night game to go.

I've decided not to cash out. I'll just keep betting until I lose it all or there's one week left in the season. I won't bet the last week because too many teams bench their starters.

So far I'm 8-2. Can't keep that up. No one does that well. Luck has definitely been on my side.

 

[ZedClampet]

To spare the board, this will be my last sports betting post until I either go broke or cash out. Honestly, my attitude changed after the Buffalo game, which I lost. I was still 3 - 2 for the week, which is a winning week, but all of a sudden I'm too bored with it to run next week's numbers. Maybe that will change as the weekend gets closer.

My wife is old-fashioned and very conservative. She tolerated my poker days because I convinced her it was a game of skill, but she hates this. She doesn't understand it, and it concerns her. She told me they were just letting me win to draw me in. I responded that I didn't think this week's NFL games had been fixed to sucker in someone who'd bet $5.

While I do enjoy getting on her nerves, it probably bothers her enough that I should quit. Or I could just stop mentioning it. I thought maybe she'd be impressed that I was picking games pretty well. Thirty years of marriage, and I still want to impress her. Haven't had many opportunities to do that recently.