I hate being sick, I really do.  This isn’t a “wah wah my nose is runny I hate it” post, this is an “I’m an idiot when I am sick and I make stupid mistakes” post.  The biggest reason I am an idiot when sick is I usually never take time off my work.  I’ll be cuddled up in my laz-e boy, electric blanket wrapped around me, shivering and coughing up a lung while doing work.  I’ll be in the bathroom with my laptop, talking to an affiliate manager one minute, then throwing up in the toilet the next minute.

But the current reason I hate being sick is in regards to sports, sports betting or sports pickem contests.  If you read NPP you would remember last years NFL Pickem drama.  Heading into Week 11, I was rocking it, in the lead and dominating each week.  Then I got ill.  And I happened to post the lowest score possible, which lost me my lead, something I never recovered from.

Well, it happened again.  I woke up yesterday stating that I would not make any NFL picks.  Not one damnit.  Yet there I was today, making predictions.  And what happened?  I went 0-3 ATS.  My record is still solid, 18-9, but still I knew I shouldn’t have bet to begin with.  Sorry to all who follow me but I did warn you earlier!!!

Then there was the NFL Pickem League I am in on SA.  I’ve been doing great in that, averaging 50+ points a week, and went into this week as the actual leader.  There is thousands up for grabs, and so I REALLY want to do well this time.  What happened this week?  National disaster, I scored just 11 points and dropped to 4th, and I expect to go on monkey tilt from here on out and lose lose lose.  I don’t even want to know what I got in the NPP Pick’em.  This time next year I am getting someone else to make picks when I inevitably get sick.

Note to self: Check my NFL Bets after my illness last year and see if they declined.  If so, retire this season.

And while writing this, I just lost a $750 pot at poker.  Wheee!

…and not by choice either.

My friends all know that I’m a big sports better, and so it is usually a conversation topic when we’re around.  A few weeks ago I was hanging out with a friend and there was some baseball on at the bar.  He said he hated baseball unless it was the Blue Jays, and I said he should bet some money on it and that way he’d care.  So he asked if I’d take his bet, and after checking the lines on 5dimes I did just that.  As I bet a lot at sportsbooks, I’m able to pretty much text or call in bets now rather than have to bet online.  So being the financial wiz, I took my buddys $50, gave him odds at -113, then bet it at -107.   This way, no matter the result I’ll never lose money.  Since then, he has texted me on a regular basis asking me to take his action for hockey, baseball etc and I’ve obliged because well, he is a mate and that’s what I do.

Last week when my boy Nate was in town, he brought out his 800 pro-line tickets to show all the bets he had.  I pointed out how stupid pro-line was because you need to bet a minimum of 3 spreads, and it’s hard enough to get 1 right.  So this conversation went on for awhile, and he asked me to take his action for the Browns on Sunday, so I did that, while laughing and yelling that I was a bookie now.  Well, I was drunk, and I traded cell phone numbers with a few people at the bar who also wanted to bet, they gave me the money upfront and I put the bets on for them(with extra juice of course).

Fast forward to this weekend, where as of 1pm on Sunday afternoon, I’ve received 12 fucking text messages from people wanting me to put bets on for them not just for NFL but for UFC too.  The funny thing?  I only know TWO of these people!  The rest are all people that “got your number from a guy” etc.  I decided to take their action this week, but I really better stop this before it gets out of hand, because this is a weird road to go down. Here’s just two of the messages:

So yeah - weird stuff.  I’ll probably just try to convert these guys to online sportsbooks like 5dimes, then I don’t have to worry about the legalities of it, plus get myself referral money.

Feeling a bit better now BTW - the fever and chills have gone after another night of waking up drenched in sweat.  Got a killer sore throat though, and one of those headaches where it feels like your skull is going to just split open.  I made some tips for NFL which I am regretting because I was planning on skipping this week due to illness.  If you remember, last November when I was this ill was when I fucked up the NFL Pickem and only picked like 4 right or whatever, and it cost me the league.  So you should probably avoid these at all costs:

Saints/Chargers under 46
Chargers -3
Jags -7
Falcons +9.5

Well I had my lows this weekend, but not when it came to gambling.  Let’s see…

UFC 89.  I made 3 bets.  Big one on Jardine, then smaller ones on Soukoudju and Leben.  So while I lost the latter two, I still made money thanks to the Jardine bet.

NFL.  Went 5-4 - would’ve been 6-3 if not for that stupid safety in the Giants game.  A winning day is a winning day though, and I had my biggest bets on Seahawks, Colts and Ravens so I profited there.  Current YTD is 18-6.

Golf.  Oh boy, golf.  So HRHomer on NPP is somewhat of a golf wiz, and always has good tips.  A few months ago he won me a shitload of money with a 40/1 pick, and to thank him I bought him tickets for UFC 89.  Well that was this weekend, and he also had golf tips for me, so I decided what the hell, and doubled my bets.  Usually I do $100, this time $200.  How did he do?  a 2/1 place, a 3.5/1 place - oh, and a 66/1 winner and 16.5 place money.  So that’s about a profit of - oh, $17,000.  Yes, this has been quite the weekend!

I decided to take the night off tonight, and just chill out.  Risto was coming over to pick up a book so I ended up inviting him over for dinner - home made caesar salad and veggie chili, which is right up his alley as he is a vegetarian now.  After that we decided to play some 360, and put on Assassins Creed.  I bought this like a month ago for $15.  Holy shit is the beginning of this game AWFUL - I mean you spend about 90 minutes on cutscenes and tutorials before getting to the actual meat of the game.  Overall it isn’t bad - as long as you play the game in bits and pieces.  I plan on doing a mission a week approximately for the achievement challenge.

We were swapping the controller back and forth for awhile, then I decided to head onto the laptop and respond to a few e-mails for work.  I’ve been in the mood for poker lately so I brought up Full Tilt while doing that, and jumped on a $5/$10 Stud heads up game.  This was just fucking silly, because I played like 3 hands, the guy went up $30 and he fucking QUIT!  I hate hit and runners - but to hit and run over 3 big fucking bets?  Unbelievable.

I was ready to just quit but then I found an $8/$16 headsup game that I decided to try out, and I was glad I did.  It started off fairly even, but like many players my opponent couldn’t handle the swings - he was up about $300 for awhile, then I took it back in like three hands.  After that he might as well have been playing face-up, his play was so obvious.
Seriously - if money affects you that much, don’t fucking play at that level!  I might understand if it was a bit more, but its just 18 bets, variance like that should be expected in a heads up game.  He was actually a decent player up until that point, then he just collapsed.  Like he gave off the kind of tells you expect from a $2/$4 game - instabets on the river and you know he is bluffing.  Some hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3307445

That hand I actually missed a bet, but it was at the beginning of his “I was winning now I am losing so I am going on monkey tilt” and you can see how crazy he was playing.  Makes it a lot easier.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3307449

You can see how crazy the guy is there, raising so much.  I mean christ, he went 3 bets on 3rd and raised 5th with just jack high against my open pair of 9s!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3307452

Again - seriously, WTF?  The problem with a lot of these players is they suffer from FPS - Fancy Play Syndrome.  While if you play straight up(for the most part) you’re going to be fucking fine.  The amount of times he completed against me with nothing was crazy - or 3-bet me etc with nothing.  Whats funny is my biggest skill is hand reading - based on the cards, the way they play, the timing etc, I can pretty much narrow down their range to almost 90% certainty.  So what that ends up meaning is I make lots of sick calls and bluff bets(that I show when they fold) which just tilts them all the more.

Anyway, I finished up $1200 for the session approximately, which made for quite a nice Friday.  However it’s now 3am and I’ve got to take the kids to Thomas the fucking Tank Engine tomorrow, so I bid ye farewell for now!

Since the Olympics, the WNBA has just fucking sucked for betting.   The teams and players just seem all over the place.  I came back a bit too soon with two predictions that went 0-2 so took two weeks off to reevaluate.  I’ve now got 3 plays today that I posted on WNBA Tips which are Indiana -4.5, Chicago -4 and Seattle +7.5.  I’m only betting half units though until the end of the season.  I’m planning on launching an NBA Tips site for the upcoming season which I am excited about - prelim tests last year i did saw me hit 75% wins so hopefully I can get something similar.

Also for NFL I bet on every game now, although some bets are bigger than others.  I basically have 3 different types of bets.  I’ll have $100 on every game minimum.  If there is something that I like, or have good information on or a good reason to bet - like the Lions today against the Packers(Vegas haven’t changed the line despite Packers getting 80% of action), then I’ll bet $1000.  Then for the bets I am confident about(that I post on NPP etc) I’ll bet about $5k.  That’s usually the highest amount I’ll bet these days, beginning of the year I was doing more than that in some instances but I was taking betting a lot more seriously then - these days it is more a casual interest and as long as I break even, I’m good.

The $5k bets today are Colts -1, Titans ML, Pats ML and the Chargers ML IF LT is starting.  The Colts line just seems like printing money, I think the Titans are strongly undervalued, and I think Bradys loss along with Favre hype has really fucked up that line.  True line should be Pats -4.5 IMO, not Pats as a fucking dog.