A Bettor World

Tom Brady led his team on a 28 comeback that would have tied the regular season record, only to have the 49ers retake the lead for good on their next offensive play..

The 49ers started the game red hot, stopping Tom Brady before going on an impressive touchdown drive.

This appeared to be a good opportunity to take the Patriots +150.

After both teams traded punts, the 49ers intercepted a pass and returned it inside the Patriot five yard line.

At this point it looked like it cutting losses was advisable, as the tough 49ers defense could have a 17.5 point lead against the spread.

Then as luck would have it, the 49ers fumbled the ball away.

After forcing a Patriots punt, the 49ers extended a drive with a fake punt which provided them another chance to score, but they missed a field goal.

This created another opportunity to back the Patriots +150.  However, the Patriots fumbled the ball away, once again forcing Patriots backers to cut their losses.

The 49ers once again spoiled a golden opportunity, fumbling a snap on a fourth and short after they passed on a relatively easy field goal

Once again, the Patriots could be backed, this time at +160.  The Patriots went on the drive people were expecting to come much sooner.  However, the drive fizzled out and they had to settle for three points which resulted in their value being lowered.

Sticking with the Patriots was costly as the Niners drove down the field for a touchdown to take a commanding 14.5 point lead ATS.

The 49ers then scored the next 17 points to take a comfortable 31-3 lead which looked to be safe.

Tom Brady is a great competitor, one never a person to give up on, though, as he led his team to 28 straight points to tie the game.

San Fran quickly deflated the Patriot momentum by returning the kickoff to the New England 38 yard line and throwing a touchdown on the next play.

New England then quickly moved past mid-field, but two big sacks stopped their drive.

The 49ers then took a conservative offensive approach which allowed Tom Brady a chance to tie the game with a 96 yard drive.

However, the Patriots could not manage a first down and the 49ers kicked a field goal to seal the game.

While Peyton Manning is receiving extensive MVP talk for beating up on a string of poor teams, Tom Brady led his Patriots to quick 21-0 lead  over the league’s lone remaining one-loss team.

Going into the game, the strategy was to back the Patriots –5.5 on their first possession and take off the risk if they scored a touchdown.

After stopping the Texans on the game’s opening possession, the Patriots clicked on all cylinders as they marched down the field for a touchdown.

As planned, a riskless position was created on the Patriots by utilizing the Texans +194 ods to remove the risk.

The Patriots stopped the Texans on their next two drives and Tom Brady quickly extended the Pats lead to 21-0.

From that point on the only work to be done was to sit back and enjoy the 42-14 victory.

Tonight’s game was a difficult one to predict before the game.  A case could be made for taking either side and the game itself justified most of the arguments for both sides.

Regardless of who would win, it was expected that both sides would fight to the finish and not give up if they fell behind.

Taking the side with long odds can often pay off in these types of games, and tonight provided opportunities to jump in on both sides.

The Patriots opened up +150 on the moneyline.  Opening with a small position on them paid off as they opened up a 13-0 lead.

Expecting the Ravens to fight back and tighten the game, it was certainly worthwhile to at least remove all of the red off of a Patriot’s position.

In the second quarter, it became apparent that both offenses were in high gear and it was advisable to take any offense when receiving long odds.

Late in the game with the Ravens down by nine points, it was certainly advisable to take a small position on the Ravens to cut the lead and the odds.  The trade was small risk and moderate reward.

After stopping the Patriots when trailing by just two points, backing the Ravens with a small wager was a small risk, high reward proposition.  However, if you had a good green number on the Patriots, you certainly would not want to risk a large share of your winnings, because you should have been able to take 15% of your green numbers and create a situation where you had an equal and nice profit regardless who won the game.

Eli Manning will likely no longer be refered to as Peyton Manning’s little brother as he led his team on a clutch 88-yard drive to score the winning touchdown and earn his second Super Bowl title.

Although the Giants won the game, the best trade came by backing the Patriots late in the second quarter.

Throughout the season, backing good offenses that have an opportunity to have the last meaningful drive of the first half and the first drive of the second half has been quite successful.

It worked wonders once again as the patriots were able to bookend halftime with 14 unanswered points.  The chance to bookend the half did not look possible as New England has the ball at their own four yard line with 3:40 remaining.  However, after New England made a couple first downs, backing them with long odds and down just six made a high probability proposition that paid off.

After Tom Brady took the Patriots down the field to start the second half with an 8 point lead, it certainly made sense to try to ride the Patriots for a win.  However, the Giants responded with a field goal to cut the lead to five points.  At this point, you knew Brady just led his team on two straight touchdown drives, so you may not want to green up across the board.  A better move was to eliminate your risk by backing the Giants at 3 to one.  Considering you should have been able to back the Patriots at long odds, you could have been sitting with a nice potential win with no risk.

However, after Tom Brady could not move the ball in what now looked like a game that could go down to the wire, it was best to take a third of your potential Patriot winnings and back the Giants at two to one to green up and guarantee yourself winning 2/3 of your potential Patriot winnings regardless of who won the game.

With the Giants coming back to win, it certainly worked out to win a nice profit on the Giants by backing the Patriots.  Only on betting exchanges can you end another exciting season with a loss that provides a nice win to complete another season well into the green.

This will be the last posting for A Bettor World until next season.  However, this marks the beginning of the 2012-13 football season. Doing your homework in the next six months is the key to finding new trading strategies while refining existing ones.

Thus my last bit of advice from the 2011-12 season is to download all the box scores, drive charts and play-by-play charts and do some magic in Excel.

Two turnovers by San Francisco’s punt returner set up the Giants for 10 points, including the game winning field goal to send the New York Giants to the Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl should have two interesting story lines.  Most obvious, it provides Tom Brady a Super Bowl revenge rematch against Eli Manning and the Giants who upset the 18-0 Patriots four seasons ago.

The second interesting aspect is Eli Manning has a chance to move out of the shadow of his older brother in Peyton Manning’s home stadium.

Just like last time, the Super Bowl will be a rematch of a regular season game, only this time the Giants won in the regular season.

Hopefully the Super Bowl will be as exciting as the Giants 24-20 win over the Patriots earlier this season.  In that game, the lead changed three times in the last few minutes.  After the Giants took a 17-13 lead with 3:03 remaining, the Patriots answered with a touchdown to take a 20-17 lead with just 1:36 remaining.  Eli manning then took his team 80 yards in 8 plays to score the winning touchdown with just 15 seconds remaining.

In today’s Giants-49ers matchup, there were two very good entry points.

With the game tied and the Giants set to receive the second half kickoff, it was worthwhile backing the Giants with the ball with 1:36 remaining.  The Giants did well on the front end scoring a field goal just before the half, but they came up empty after the half, but managed to increase their value slightly.

The second came in the third quarter with the Giants taking over the ball at their own 7 leading by three points.  This provided a good chance to take the 49ers with long odds.  Anytime a team is taking over inside their own ten, the other team is more likely to score next.  With the 49ers defense playing well, it was a chance worth taking that paid off.  Even though the Giants managed two first downs, the 49ers had a nice punt return that set up a 3-play, 54-yard touchdown drive to give them a lead.

The end of the game provided a volatile environment with wild swings in value.  Such an environment can provide quick profits, or quick losses.  With the defenses playing so well, it would have paid off to back the defenses through the end of regulation.  However, such trades should be small as one play late in the game can bring a sudden los, as evident by the 49ers fumbled punt return in overtime.

In case you are wondering why there have not been any post here for the past two weeks, a long story short, I can not receive CBS on my satellite or over the air, and since the Sunday Ticket does not cary playoff games, I had to watch the CBS games over the internet (which I do all season long so I can watch multiple games at once.)  Somehow I managed to get a virus two Sundays ago at one of the internet tv sites and did not get my main computer back until this past Tuesday.    While I certainly could have posted  on my other two computers, it felt like a nice excuse to take a couple Sundays off.

Top NCAA Selections:
Nevada +1.5
UAB -5
North Carolina State -11.5

Other NCAA Selections:
Western Michigan -27
Houston -3
Arkansas +12
Michigan -7
Tennessee -7
Alabama -21
UL-Lafayette +14

NFL Sides:
Houston -3.5
Chicago +4
New England  -3

NFL Totals:
Cleveland/Cincinnati Under 37.5
Houston/Jacksonville Under 37.5
Washington/Seattle Under 37.5

New England (-17.5) provided a very nice bookend of halftime providing a field goal just before the half and opening the second half with a 9-play 85-yard drive.

After finally taking a 7-3 lead after Kansas City controlled the first 22 minutes of the game, the Patriots intercepted a Kansas City pass and returned it to their own 46 with 2:01 remaining in the first half.  With New England set to receive the second half kickoff and signs of their offense coming to life on the previous drive, the Patriots were set up for an excellent opportunity to take two possessions to none to bookend halftime and blow the game open.

Patriot’s backers could enter at this point with a binary value of 40 (2.50). After bookending halftime with ten points, the Patriots value increased to 64 (1.56).  With Kansas City only returning the kickoff to their own 13 yard line, it was wise to stay with the Patriots.  Doing such paid off as the Patriots returned the punt for a touchdown increasing their binary value to 80 (1.25).

After the Patriots turned another interception into a field goal, they took a commanding lead 27-3, but only left them ahead by 6.5 points to the spread.  This set the Patriots defense up for a letdown which could lead to a potential Chiefs backdoor cover as they began to aggressively pass the ball.  As the Chiefs passed midfield twice in the fourth quarter, it was advisable to “green up” the Patriots position.

Prior to kickoff, it looked like the Patriots were a good bet for a double backing effort to green up on their first score.  With the Patriots high-octane offense and the Chiefs quarterback making his first start, all one needed was for the Patriots to jump out to an early lead to provide a profit.

However, the Chiefs brought a good effort early and stopped the Patriots three-and-out on their first drive.  They then moved the ball down the field.  Anyone making a double backing effort on the Patriots should have started to look to exit their positions as the Chiefs had a second and four at their own 46.  While the Chiefs drive stalled out at the Patriots 36 yard line, when entering a double-staking effort, it is best to keep losses small rather than falling behind while also laying 17.5 points which can quickly lead to very large losses.  One can always get back in later, often at a much better price.  In this game, the Patriots at one point could have been backed at a binary value of 21 (4.76).

The Pittsburgh Steelers dominated the first quarter against the Patriots, scoring a touchdown on an 11-play drive to open the game and followed it up with a 16 play field goal drive after holding the Patriots to a three-and-out.

If one had taken the Patriots at the outset of the game, the best course of action was to keep your losses small.

One could certainly take a chance on Brady coming back at a lower entry, but with the Steelers playing so well, one should keep a tight stop.

Tom Brady does not always win, and neither will you. When you do lose, do not keep adding to your losses.    Scaling into a position is a good strategy, but have a limit and reduce your losses if your efforts do not work out.  if you wait until late in the game, the value of your holdings can dissipate before you have a chance to keep your losses small.

The New England Patriots and the San Diego Chargers were both able to beat the point spread today due to their inability to pick up a first down that would have enabled them to run out the clock and seal the victory beneath the point spread.

Instead, they kicked field goals to top the point spread which they both were able to hold on to in the final minute.

This situation created significant volatility as the binary value of each team swung wildly at the end of the game.

In the New England-New York Jets game, Patriots were able to get a first down at the Jets 17 yard line with two minutes remaining and holding a 6 point lead (the spread was 7.5 points.)  With the Jets having just two timeouts remaining, the Pats primary objective of their final drive was to gain one more first down and run out the clock.

On their next two plays the Patriots gained 4 yards on first down and moved within inches of the first down on second down.  This dropped the Patriots binary value from 84 to 73 to 48 (1.19 to 1.37 to 2.08) as it looked like they would make the first down.

Some people may have figured they could back the Jets here and double their money in one play as Tom Brady could run a quarterback sneak to seal the victory.

However, on the next play the Patriots were stopped and kicked a field goal to top the spread.  People who thought volatility would bring them a quick and easy win, suffered a quick and frustrating loss.

It is best to stay clear of situations where volatility is swinging wildly unless your educated estimation indicates the market is mis-priced. (educated estimation implying you have done your homework and understand the situational probabilities.)