Performify's Pigskin Picks: Week Four

I really like both Oakland and the Vikings this week. I'm in for five units early on each. All lines brought to you by Bodog.com, the best sports betting site around.

Yearly results: 8-8, 2-1 on Game of the Week Last week: 2-2, loss on GotW

Oakland -3 vs Dallas
This game is the Raiders' season. They are 0-3, but they played hard last week against the Eagles and took that game to the wire. More importantly, one thing I've learned in the past three weeks is that Dallas has serious, serious troubles in the secondary. I look for Oakland to work to establish the run with Lamont Jordan, but they're going to go up top several times for big scores. Moss and Porter both have career days, as does Collins. Game of the week by a landslide, even though there's a lot of public money on the Raiders already. Oakland 118, Dallas 98.

Minnesota +6 at Atlanta
This is a game of public perception, i think. Everyone I know loves Atlanta here, and once again I'm going the other way. Here's a laundry list of reasons: The Falcons allowed more than 500 yards passing their first two games, against Philly (understandable) and Seattle (!). Atlanta only settled down the pass defense last week against J.P. Losman, who was held to 75 yards passing - but he's terrible. Tice is on the hot seat. This is practically a must-win for him.

Atlanta's banged up secondary - I know DeAngelo Hall and Jason Webster practiced Wednesday - Friday but they're still not 100%. But even so, the Vikings a much better team talent-wise than they're playing so far. Last week's confidence booster against NO, they didn't look perfect by any stretch but with fresh confidence they may be able to rumble over a real team.

Atlanta's strong run game against Vikes weak run D. - ATL will be able to run the ball and will likely grind a lot of clock. Mewelde Moore is a much better RB than a lot of people (general public opinion) give him credit for. Especially on turf. Despite Falcons solid defense, I think Minn will be able to run due to the strong passing threat of Dante versus the banged up secondary.

Vikings free safety Darren Sharper being questionable doesn't hurt them nearly as bad as most people think, in my opinion. Chavous is a great player at strong safety, and the Vikings are looking at going to four linebackers using 3rd year LB Dontarrious Thomas (out of Auburn) who is extremely quick and will help dramatically against the run compared to having Sharper. Thats assuming OLB E.J. Henderson (probable) is healthy, otherwise Thomas will be playing for him. I'm also actually considering Erasmus James (stud 1st round pick from Wisconsin) probably starting at DE as a good thing - he's much quicker despite his lack of experience and I think he could step up and be an x-factor for the Vikes defense.

Public perception is on the side of the Falcons, i think the smart money is fading that public groundswell. People seem to have forgotten how good the Vikes should be with the last three games, and have overvalued the Falcons who have looked spotty at best in the last three. Not saying Minn wins necessarily - but I think there's a lot of value in taking the points. Falcons 24, Vikings 21.

Kansas City -1.5 vs Philly
KC is 17-3 at home against NFC opponents since 1995. McNabb is beat up, and the Chiefs are going to go super-agressive on defense at home with the raucous Arrowhead crowd behind them. Surtain will match up well against Owens, the difference for the Chiefs is going to be stopping Westbrook from having a huge day recieving out of the backfield. 31-14 Kansas City.

Baltimore -7 vs Jets
While the spread is pretty significant, I really look for Baltimore's defense to step up majorly for the first time all season, and put a big hurting on the Jets, who are starting their third string QB Brooks Bollinger (and what's worse, backing him up with Vinny Testaverdi). While Baltimore is starting 2nd stringer Anthony Wright at QB, he's got experience as a starter and obviously is going against a much weaker defense. 24-10 Baltimore.

Quick heater

Hit three MTTs thursday in my never-ending quest to increase my large-field tournaments played, and didn't have much luck - I was chiplead at my table in the $30+3 with about 600 people remaining, but got AK cracked by A6 (button raised standard 3x, I came over the top with my AK, he called with A6 soooooted and caught two sixes on the flop) which cost me 3/4th my stack and bounced in about 500th.

However I'm experiencing a nice little SNG heater at the $33's, both yesterday while playing in the MTTs (and doing NFL pick research in the background at the same time, even) and tonight while doing more NFL research for tomorrow's picks. 8/16 ITM with a four firsts, three seconds and a third. Juicy 76% ROI for the two nights. This moves me to 46% lifetime ITM on the $33's since moving up, with 47% ROI. The ROI is probably a little on the high side to be sustainable, but the heater is nice while it lasts. I'm definately at the $33 to stay (baring a massive downswing that forces me to move down, of course), and if I keep up these results for the next couple of weeks I'm going to start mixing in the occasional $55 STT just to see what they're like.

Quick lifetime stats update:
Single Table Tournaments: 36% ITM with 11% ROI.
Multi-Table Tournaments:   27% ITM with 355% ROI
All Tournaments Combined: 34% ITM with 34% ROI

updated Thursday night with results from yesterday + tonight

Performify's Pigskin Picks: Week Three

This whole week is tough, tough, tough. Most of the games that I liked on first look (Philly, Indy, Pitt, KC) are ridiculously one-sided in public opinion, and knowing that the books don't just give money away for free i'm having a really hard time fading public picks this week. All lines brought to you by Bodog, the best sports betting site around.

Yearly results: 6-6, 2-0 on Game of the Week Last week: 4-3, 1-0 on GotW

Tampa Bay -4 at Green Bay
The Bucs are the #1 defense in the NFL right now. Green Bay is struggling bad, and Tampa is going to overcome the home field advantage to win this easy. Tampa's defense stuffs the Pack very early and the cover two defense is great at limiting big passes (that Favre depends on) and on creating turnovers with the lurking safeties. Gruden's D will look to do the exact same thing to the Pack that they did to the Vikings, a very similar team (from an offensive perspective) in week one: look for Tampa to blitz the “A” gap (between the center and the two guards) on the Packers line and consistently penetrate the backfield. Favre will have very little time to throw and will force several passes under pressure. This is a defense that finished first against the pass last year and is leading against the run right now. made an All-Pro quarterback look terrible two weeks ago. The Packers dropped two in a row at home last year, and this year they repeat the feat... While the experts are almost unanimous in picking Green Bay, ESPN and Yahoo users are not quite as one-sided, which gives me a little more confidence that there's some soft money on the Packers to make this a sharp play. 28-13 Tampa Bay. Game of the Week.

Vikings -4 vs New Orleans
Yeah, Minnesota has looked terrible to this point. And there's a groundswing of public support around New Orleans. As bad as they've looked, the Vikes are at home against a mediocre Saints defense - a Saints defense that the Vikings have scored 70 points against over their last two meetings. Vikings rebound here and do it big. 31-14 Vikes

Dallas -6.5 at San Fran
Cowboys coming off a disappointing loss last week look to rebound big on the west coast against the 31st ranked defense. Cowboys haven't allowed an opposing RB over 100 yards since week seven last year and this week is no exception - Barlow gets stuffed early, the Cowboys get out to an early lead, and are able to blitz Rattay in to making a mistake or two late. This looks really one sided, but I believe Dallas is better than they looked last week, while San Fran is every bit as bad as they looked last week (and no where near as good as they looked against the Rams week one). 27-14 Dallas.

Cleveland +14 at Indy
Yeah, its Cleveland. They don't have much for defense, they can't do what most teams are doing against Peyton this year and drop eight people in coverage - so they are going to give up several touchdowns. But this is an Indy team that didn't score 14 points total against an average Jacksonville defense last week. This is almost purely fading public opinion - too many people are eating up this line at -14, which makes me think the sharp money has to be to fade the public here. I hate this game though - Cleveland's just not very good, and Indy is going to want to open things up at home and make a point that they're better than they've looked the last two weeks. But hopefully Cleveland can get the run game going (the Colts gave up almost 130 yards/game on the ground last year) and Dilfer proved that he can put up some numbers playing from behind against the Bengals in week one. Its just enough to earn a spot on the list of picks this week: 24-14 Indy for the cover.

If you made me chose a winner Monday, i'd take the Chiefs and the moneyline. I don't see this game being decided by three points - either the Chiefs are going to run away with it, or the Chiefs are going to short-circut and Denver wins by a bundle. Right now, no formal pick on this game either way but I might make a small moneyline play depending on the weekend's results.

Beginner's Luck

Our local paper's poker columnist posited a question my direction this week about "beginner's luck" in poker. I wrote the following in response, and thought it was worth posting here as well:

In my opinion - a big part of "beginner's luck" is that people on the "bad beat" side just don't understand the math.

Pocket aces are "only" a 80% - 20% favorite over any smaller pocket pair. Say you're playing a no-limit tournament, and you get all your money in the middle three consecutive hands in a row with aces and are called by any smaller pair, what are your odds of winning all three hands? Eight out of ten, right? Wrong - way wrong.

When you're talking about these three hands in a series, and talking about the odds of winning them all, you're basically betting in the sports world what's known as a parlay - you've got to win all three hands, or else you lose all your money.

While you're an 80% favorite to win each hand individually, when you look at the three hands together, the math is a little different: you take the probability of winning each hand, and multiply that by the probability of winning the next. Which means 80% * 80% * 80%, which results in a final probablity of you winning all three hands at just 51%. Yeah, that's a coinflip.

Its the same on any given hand even in limit poker. People tend to overestimate the strength of their hands against multiple opponents: If you're playing 3-6 at the casino and a minimum of five people are seeing every flop, you're going to be an underdog EVERY HAND (someone else at the table is going to win more often than you do), even with aces - pocket aces are about 49% to win against four opponents with purely random hands, and slightly worse if you give your opponents slightly better hands than pure random.

So if you're playing against several new players who are playing every hand and taking them way too far, they (the new players collectively) are going to win a lot of those hands. When there are several of these new players in every pot - somone's going to win every pot, and its not going to be you (the experienced player) every time even though you've got the best starting hand...

And on a third level, a lot of the time i believe people don't understand the math of even two hands going up against each other heads up. Even though a lot of people have seen the numbers flash during the WPT broadcasts, people seem to forget (or conveniently ignore) that certain hands aren't really that big of favorites over another especially if you're seeing all five cards. Your pocket pair is only a 55%-45% favorite against any two overcards (if you raise with 99 and are called by JKo for example). Vice-versa Ace-King looks really good preflop but its still an underdog to a measly pair of deuces. Not to mention edges like Ace-Ten being only a 65-35 favorite over a hand like Jack-Three offsuit or 6-4 offsuit. Ace King unsuited is "only" a 2-1 favorite (67%-33%) over a measly seven-two offsuit.

Yeah, over time that 65-35 edge is going to mean that you're going to win almost two dollars for every dollar your opponent does - but thats over thousands and thousands of hands. 65-35 isn't that big of an edge, and the 35% side of that hand is going to come through a lot more than a lot of people seem to think (more than one hand out of three) by their cries of "Bad beat" or "Beginner's Luck!" if you will...

Your profits in poker come from pushing small edges. Those people who are seeing every flop lose over the long term because they can't outrun the rake and they can't depend on luck to carry them forever.

We as winning poker players need to always keep in mind that every cent of our profit comes from our opponents mistakes - and while its frustrating to see somone call a three-bet preflop with a trash hand and hit two pair to crack your kings, that opponent is making a mistake according to the Fundamental Theorm of Poker and they're going to pay you off long term. if your opponents weren't making mistakes and everyone was Playing Perfect Poker, then we'd just be shuffling money around according to the random distribution of the cards, and we'd all be losing money (no one could outrun the rake).

Quick poker update

Since the NFL is in full swing you're seeing a lot of focus on football, but here's a quick update on the poker world.

Last month I pulled $1000 of pure sweet profit out of the bankroll to pay some bills, planning to redeposit it over the next two months under Party Poker's generous reload bonsus program. I generally hate playing limit poker, I'm a no-limit player more (and a tournament player even more so than a cash game specialist). I previously lost a good chunk of change at the 2-4 tables learning this lesson in the beginning of my poker career. And my poker ego was really looking forward to getting back to those 2-4 tables, under the +EV guise of bonus chasing, to try to make some headway towards turning those numbers back around.

So when this month Party was offering a 25% reload bonus instead of the regular 20%, so I dropped back in $500 of the $1000 I'd pulled. I loaded up two and sometimes three tables of the 2-4 games, complete with Poker Tracker and GameTime+.

I cleared the requisite hands in three sessions. And once again I lost my ass. To the point that I actually lost money beyond the bonus. -EV all the way.

I'm not really sure why. One of these nights, i'm going to sit down over this session and look for leaks. I think i'm playing decent small stakes poker, in accordance with the wisdom of Jones and Slansky / Miller. Using the best available limit rules, I rate out for these sessions as Tight Agressive or Tight Neutral/Unknown. But I'm leaking money like crazy.

So at least the bankroll grew a little this month with the redeposit, but I'm down farther than when I pulled out the grand, obviously. I'm looking forward to getting back to the $22/$33 SNGs and the MTTs. I'll give limit poker another try next month I think (when I redeposit the remaining $500), but I'm probably going to drop to 1-2 and see if I can't put up some winning sessions there. Maybe even (shudder) the $.50/$1 tables. But most importantly I'll keep my ego in check (thanks Iggy for the latest uberpost - i've stolen a bit he posted about ego + poker as Comment #1, check out GuinnessAndPoker for the rest).

Besides that, i played in the $10+1 MTT last week and cashed in the top thirty. That gives me multiple cashes at every level of Party MTT with over 1000 regular entrants from $5-$30. And speaking of tournament poker, this weekend I'm hosting a WSOP super-satellite. Our local Harrah's is hosting a WSOP Satellite at the end of the month, and we're going to be giving away one entrance to that Satellite for every 10 entrants to our Super-Satellite (already one seat guaranateed). Details on KCPoker.org if you're in the area and interested...

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Friday night update:
Eight SNGs played tonight across $22 and $33 levels. 37.5% ITM with 48.33% ROI (two firsts and a third). Damn its good to be back here.

Performify's Pigskin Picks: Week Two

Yearly results: Overall: 1-3. Game of the Week: 1-0.
Lines listed are the favorable of the two currently available at Bodog or BetOnSports.

Kansas City -1.5 at Oakland.
Last year, KC walks in to Oakland as a one point favorite and comes home with a seven point win. Oakland finished the league dead last in points allowed last year, and against the Patriots the Raiders D looked even worse than last year's. Warren Sapp especially looked bad in the middle - he's overweight and has lost the quickness that made him so dangerous. The Chiefs open up the running game and then go over the top with play action. Priest Holmes has a huge day out of the backfield, much of it receiving, putting up 200+ combined yards and two touchdowns. Larry Johnson sees ten touches and one touchdown, and two strikes through the air for Green (to Gonzo + Kennison). The Raiders play catch-up the whole way and struggle against the much-improved KC D. 34-24 Chiefs

Detroit -1 at Chicago
Detroit will face a serious challenge with Chicago's defense, but Chicago's limited offensive options will prove too ineffective against a solid Detroit team. Detroit started strong last year (4-2) and should do the same this year, winning a key game to open a 2-0 lead in the NFC North. Kevin Jones will be the key to the game, if Detroit can successfully establish the run againt the hard-nosed Chicago defense they should be able to control the game. 21-10 Detroit.

Jacksonville +9 at Indy
I backed the Colts bandwagon big last year, and they were some of my most successful picks covering week after week. However, I think the Colts suffer a letdown here. Jacksonville is the only other team besides the Pats to consistently matchup well with Manning and the Colts. The Colts are vulnerable to top defensive teams (Baltimore had opportunities last week to cover if not win, but for a few critical plays that went the Colts way...) and Jacksonville brings a very strong defense and a balanced offense in to the RCA Dome: Fred Taylor has averaged almost five yards a carry on the ground against the Colts, and I think both teams are content to play a slower ball-control game here with the Colts taking a fourth-quarter lead of a single score and then running out the clock The Colts are also still missing Dallas Clark, which really hurt them against the Ravens last week and will lead to several missed opportunities this week as well. Colts win this game by a touchdown (or maybe two field goals), but those extra two points make it a Jacksonville cover. 27-21 Colts.

Dallas -6 vs Washington
Redskins have lost their last four Monday night games, this week makes it five in a row. Brunell steps in to replace Patrick Ramsey, but thats not going to be enough to fix serious problems with the Redskins offense. 21-14 Cowboys.

Minnesota +3 at Cincy
Its a tough game, but the Vikings don't open the season 0-2. They tried but failed to establsh the run last week, this week they will successfullly open up the ground game and let Culpepper go over the top big. 24-21 Vikings.

I also like fading the barstool pundits picks this week (playing Denver and Seattle, as everyone seems to be on the other side of these games) so both will see single unit action, but not based on any specific insight on my side so they're not formally in my picks.

Performify's Pigskin Picks: Week One

Normally I send out an email newsletter each week (usually on thursdays) with my NFL picks for the week (and I also post them in the sports betting section of 2+2). I generally publish four selections (sometimes more, occasionally less) ranked in order of confidence. This year I'll be posting these here on the Poker Blog for posterity, as well as sending out the email list. If you're interested in signing up for the email list, feel free to drop me an email.

Week One of the NFL is usually the week with the most solid lines: since the lineup has been set for months, they've had months to hammer out any weakness in the line, instead of 24 hours like every other week of the season. So its a tough week to make picks, you're picking for value instead of picking at weak lines. Don't make huge plays this week.

Detroit -3 over Green Bay Seems everyone on the planet thinks Green Bay is a lock here (2+2 is one of the only places where I've seen a general consensus to go the other way). Mostly because of Detroit's last serious preseason game, the debacle against St. Louis. I think Detroit is going to come out and more than make up for their preseason fiasco. You're going to see Kevin Jones establish the run (he'll put up one of the best performances among RB in week one) and then Harrington will be able to throw over the top to his fantastic cadre of receivers - everyone shredded the Pack's pass defense last year, and this year Detroit has the most dangerous group of receivers anywhere. Favre will throw two, maybe three interceptions, Green gives away at least one fumble. Game of the week... 27-17 Lions.

Philly -1 at Atlanta You're seeing a lot of respect for Vick in the dome with this line, and more than a little bit of doubt around T.O. But Philly's run defense is more solid than a lot of people give them credit for - they struggled last year in games which Trotter sat out (which made their season numbers look a lot worse), but firmed up dramatically once Trotter was back in the starting lineup. And T.O.'s preseason performances should put any doubt to rest about his ability to click with McNabb. Philly tore up Atlanta last year, and they're going to do it again this year. This is very close to being my game of the week. Philly 28-14.

Denver -5 at Miami. Miami is, well, Miami. Denver is a team that traditionally starts the season strong and they should have no trouble dominating the Dolphins in Miami. Its pretty obvious, but the Dolphins are still really, really bad. Miami has a lot of key defensive personnel already banged up (Daniels, Seau, Thomas, Bowens), a terrible offensive line, and zero scoring threats outside of Chris Chambers. Miami is going to try to run, and Denver returned the core of the NFL's fourth best rush defense last year. Wouldn't be suprised to see this one go to a two-three touchdown lead for Denver, but I'll call it as 21-14

St. Louis -6.5 at San Francisco As bad as the Ram's defense is, its not worse than San Franciso's offense. This is going to be an easy blowout i think. The line's crept up from opening at 4-4.5, but as long as its under 7 its playable in my opinion. Final 31-17 Rams

My other possible was Indy -3 over the Ravens, but this line scares me. That low it makes me think that its a sucker line to encourage action on Indy and that the Ravens would be the sleeper pick, so I'm going to stay away. I also think KC -3 over the J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets isn't a bad play either... but not in my top four. The KC defense should be much improved over last year, the offense should be high powered and clicking from the get-go, and Pennington is still playing catch up from missing most of camp + preseason. This game might see some action, but doesn't rank

WPBT Winter Classic announced

The infamous Bill Rini has the details: Second Annual WPBT Winter Classic. I'll be there this year for sure, probably dragging local player and occasional blogger Cujofan along for the ride...

While bonus chasing...

***** Hand History for Game 2672290648 *****
$2/$4 Texas Hold'em - Wednesday, September 07, 20:11:41 EDT 2005
Table Table 39286 (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 1: Performify ( $27.57 )
Seat 2: REYNARD60 ( $43.50 )
Seat 5: bdrasmuss ( $225.50 )
Seat 7: borkbork79 ( $61 )
Seat 10: princess5453 ( $41.25 )
Seat 4: Fohnee ( $91 )
Seat 9: Bullgear21 ( $97 )
Seat 8: danasn ( $146 )
Seat 3: bigydt71 ( $24 )
bdrasmuss posts small blind [$1].
borkbork79 posts big blind [$2].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Performify [ Qs As ]
danasn folds.
Bullgear21 folds.
princess5453 folds.
Performify raises [$4].
REYNARD60 folds.
bigydt71 folds.
Fohnee folds.
bdrasmuss calls [$3].
borkbork79 folds.
** Dealing Flop ** [ Ks, 4h, Js ]
bdrasmuss bets [$2].
Performify raises [$4].
bdrasmuss calls [$2].
** Dealing Turn ** [ Kh ]
bdrasmuss checks.
Performify bets [$4].
>You have options at Table 11283 Table!.
bdrasmuss calls [$4].
** Dealing River ** [ Ts ]
bdrasmuss checks.
Performify bets [$4].
bdrasmuss calls [$4].
Performify shows [ Qs, As ] Royal Flush.
bdrasmuss doesn't show [ Tc, Jh ] two pairs, kings and jacks.
Performify wins $32.50 from the main pot with Royal Flush.