Starting to become a rough 3 weeks now for me. Just can't seem to get into a groove. Mostly all my plays have been in cfb during this stretch. Trying to stick it out to the end of the cfb season but the losing is really starting to take it's toll on me and has me wondering if betting this market is a lost cause and if I should maybe move on to another area for now.

Sat down tonight and added up my past 3.5 weeks of bets. It wasn't fun but sometimes taking a good hard look at this gives me some renewed confidence and overall helps me feel better about things. A lot of times I come out of this the feeling that things haven't really been that bad.

I have won right around 50% of my last 250 plays. It seriously doesn't get much worse then that for someone in my job. That is losing a solid 20 units. The only good news is 250 plays is so little in the big scope of things that it's not really worth thinking twice about when put in the context of a years worth of bets (5000 or so).

The problem is that since there isn't much going on right now I actually feel the results a lot more then I normally would over 250 bets. For example in January, 250 bets comes in and goes over a one week period but this current 250 bet sequence has been going on close to a month now for me. When you makes 250 bets over 25 days it feels like an eternity and for me it makes the bad beats (and believe me these have been raining down on me of late) hurt a lot more then normal.

Some nights I am playing less then 3 plays a night and for me that has never been the style that I prefer. Playing so few nightly plays seems to put more pressure on how and what I do in a given night.

Tried to cap some of the NBA card today. I lost a little bit but that wasn't really the problem. The whole thing just didn't do much for me while I was working on it. That really scares me. I thought I would be really excited to jump into a new season and see if I could expand on my red hot ending of last year. The lack of excitement is something I have always worried about with doing this for a living. What if I get sick of all this? I am an extremely passionate person and I thrive off of loving what I do. If I don't like something then I just won't or don't want to do it all. What happens if I don't enjoy this anymore? I am not saying I am there right now or anything like that but all the losing can really make you feel that way.

Like I said earlier when I say losing I am talking about me losing 50% of my plays. I try to tell and warn people all the time about the fine line in all this. In reality everyone is going to lose close to half the bets they place. That means the difference between going 8-7 or 7-8 is the difference from being awful to being good enough to do this for a living. It's really that close and that extra win out of 15 bets makes all the difference in the world. That is why I (and many others) work so hard at what I do, it's so I can hopefully gain enough of an edge to go from 7 out of 15 to 8 out of 15 winners. It really can be that simple when you look at it but it also can be so very difficult to do when you are trying to do it over such a short time frame.

Variance is a killer and we all go through it. Every serious gambler knows all about it. They go through it to the extreme over the short term many times throughout a years worth of betting. When your losing not only can it tear your insides apart at times but one big thing it does to me is make me think twice and question my whole approach in this. The hope is after thousands of plays the variance gets ironed out and along the way you handle the the ups and downs as well as you can.

There is one way to solve all this. It's rather simple actually.  It's winning, it cures all with this. All I need is a 40-20 stretch or maybe a couple solid winning days in a row and bingo all that negativity goes back out the window. This is why I am so eager to get involved with cbb so soon.

One thing I promised myself last year was I would really work through certain areas trying to learn as much as I could. If I felt like after an adequate amount of time that I still couldn't win at something then I would quit betting that market or at least drop it going into the next season. So going into year 2 I felt really good about all the stuff I planned on playing. I believed I had ironed out all the kinks last year and I was really ready to take off this football season. I didn't expect at all to go from having a winning year last season to getting so soundly beaten like I have with cfb this year. I am doing almost all of the exact same things that I did last year in cfb. To be real honest I am doing even more work then I did with this a year ago.

Like I have said time and time again of late I honestly don't know a single other serious bettor having a winning cfb season. Now don't get me wrong I am sure there are tons of guys out there who are winning but what I am saying is every guy I have spoke with and trust are struggling mightily this fall with cfb. Maybe my stubbornness is too blame here. A lot of the guys have moved on for the year but not me. I am to far into this weeks card to turn back now. I think the only thing that would hurt more then having a losing week this week with betting cfb would be to not bet it and have a winning week.

It's awfully funny how losing in one area like can really change your confidence all the way around. I know a lot of guys who say when this happens to stop and take a break but I don't agree with that logic at all. All I want to do is get to the next day and try put some wins under my belt. To me that is what will bring the confidence back, refresh me and make me feel good about what I am doing. Unfortunately that hasn't really been happening of late.

A part of me wants to just fire out 200 bets in a 4 day span on any and every bet I feel I have a small edge with. The thought is hopefully after making enough decent bets at great numbers the math will then work everything out and this will quickly squeeze me out a nice winning stretch, then with that I will start to feel better again about everything. I have thought of doing something like that but then again the way I am running right now I think it would be better off to try and just play what I think is only my better stuff right now. 

The one good thing about sports betting is that a hot streak can be right around the corner. Plus you can't get hot unless you are betting, so start firing away, LOL. Well it's back to work!!!

After looking over how tough this weeks cfb card is and realizing how much extra time I may have during the day now because of it,  I have decided to get involved with cbb right now. Litttle scared as I don't usually do well at the very beginning of any season but after seeing some of the stuff yesterday in cbb I think there might be some nice opporutinites out there for me to try and take advantage of. Kind of excited as it is a whole new challenge for me. Still going to mess with cfb but not nearly as much as I have in the past.

Speaking of cfb, there is one game tonight and I have looked this up, down and all around and I am having a hard time coming up with anything. Made a small bet on the over and the 1st half over but may get out of it after I look a little closer at everything. Probably wouldn't bet this game if it were on a Saturday but since it's the only game going tonight I may take a small shot at it. Not the best advice or way to do things but I will be keeping ithingsvery small.

Looks like the transition from football to basketball begins tomorrow. It should be really fun, I can't wait!!! 

Seems like the same thing every weekend this fall, lose on Saturday and fight back to even on Sunday with a solid day. This weekend was no different then the past 4 weekends or so. Getting to be a broken record. Really wished I could put both days together but just haven't really been able too yet this year.

Actually came away yesterday upset I didn't do a little better. I posted my top 6 picks in the NFL on Friday's blog and they went 5-1. Had a couple of last second heart breakers on stuff I didn't like as much with the Giants and the Jags ruining what could have been an awesome weekend.

Been that kind of football season for me. Since their are so few games and they are space out over a week, it kind of magnifies everything. I can't get over how many guys that I know who do this semi professionally or professionally and not one single guy has told me is having a good football season and most are saying their are down for the year. Sort of scary but also kind of reassuring to me in a weird way. If it wasn't for corralated parlays in cfb, I also would be down overall on the football season. Still around even at best and may even be down a bit overall. Like I have said before, being even feels like losing when you add in the time spent on all of this.

Really at the beginning of a very big time in my "gambling career". Need to make things happen during this tretch but like I said earlier cause of the so few games/bets right now, it seems like every game is a lot more important then it probably really is. Gets hard to watch or even stomach at times. In a typical football season nowadays I would estimate I am making less then 800 plays, which really only amounts to about 15-20% of a total year for me or actually one normal mid season month full of hoops. So you really feel every win and loss a lot more right now. Not sure which way I like it better, this way with so few games most days or the days were you have a whole slew of bets everyday and things can change for th better or the worse in a hurry.

Trying stay upbeat going into this cfb weekend. Debating if my time would be better spent working on the NBA daily then CFB right now. I probably don't have the adequate time needed to do both confidently. I am getting ready to settle in and look at this weekends cfb card, if it doesn't "feel right" I may call it semi quits for the year with it and just go onto the NBA. Ideally I would like the NBA to get another 2 weeks under their belts so I have more information to work with. Plus I really want to give my new method of capping cfb a real shot, as it did okay on sides but bad with totals last week. Still think it is too early too tell if I am onto something with it but I do feel a lot better about my plays if that means anything. The one good thing was that the sides that I really worked hard on and felt the most confident with, did pretty good so that is encouraging. I really want to end the year in an upswing with cfb, having something to build on next year, so I doubt I will be quitting with this anytime soon unless I just don't feel good about things anymore.

As for the NFL, it cracks me up when people say this is the hardest sport to beat. Not going to go into full detail on how I do things but I couldn't agree less with that statement. If one doesn't put so much emphasis on last weeks game in the NFL then beating the NFL becomes much easier. Everyone from the oddsmakers to the betting public puts way too much stock in the last game a team has played, IMO. Even before I started doing all of this at a serious level, I always held my own and them some with the NFL. It's smarter to not overreact and instead look at the big picture. It's kind of the no team is as good or as bad as they looked type thing. Using that thought process with some other key stats, looking at who has been "unlucky" in the turnover category (fumbles especially) and throwing in strength of schedule as there just aren't as many games played in this sport, all adds up to someone being in the right direction when it comes to beating the NFL. It's the process I have used for years and one I find most sharp players use when playing the NFL. In fact I find myself on the so called "right" sides more in this sport then probably any other sport that I follow. There is no other sport I feel I can beat at the openers and be on the right side of a line move then the NFL, other then maybe cbb totals (which is in a whole other league of it's own).

Now that I doing all my own work this year, I feel comfortable enough to share some things on here that I might not have back in the day when I may not have been nearly as confident in posting any of these.

Ended up posting my 2 plays on Tuesday on here with Bowling Green and the over and both won so hopefully a few people jumped on board with me. Maybe posting on the board will be a good luck charm type thing for me, I figure it can't hurt. I know one thing it's starting to get time for a hot streak I hope, it's been about 20 days since I had a real big day. Though you never really know when those days are coming either.

For Saturday here are a handful of things I played (game sides and game totals only): over Michigan St, WMU, under pittsburgh, over minnesota, lousiville, under NC st, wake forest, duke, over in duke, under Indiana, s. carolina, iowa st, under florida, navy, under smu, alabama, under texas, under air force, under KSU, nebraska and many more on top of that in cfb.

In the NFL I have some ridiculously good numbers with miami, detroit, dallas, under chicago, under miami, Cincinnati. These are a few off the top of my head in the NFL. A lot of these the number I played at are gone but some are still out there and some you may be able to get better numbers then I got at a few days ago.

Should be really fun this weekend. Really excited to see how things work out. I have a lot of time and effort into this weekends card. Probably the most time I have ever spent capping one weeks worth of plays. I hope I can get paid for all of my hard work but nothing is guaranteed.

I think I am closing in on one of my longest losing stretches in cfb betting. This is coming off the heels of a solid 2-3 week stretch right before that. The good news is I am off to a nice start this week so far being up over 2 units right now on the week.

I am up a good chunk on corralated parlays this year that I have messed with small at  one of my square outs that still takes them (though I have lost both that I have played there this week). For as much as I am up on the parlays, I am down nearly the same amount with game sides this season (though 4-0 on them this week so far). It's been such a disappointment on this end, especially with how well I did on these type bets last year. I did make some changes in the approach I am using with these by just basically putting in much more work into each one of these. I feel very confident in the stuff that I am down on tomorrow so we shall see. Pretty close to break even on cfb totals for the year (0-2 this week). All added up it comes to pretty much even for the year in cfb, which I cannot explain how frustrating that is to me. In fact you may as well say I am down because being even after over 2 months of extremely hard work feel just like I am losing, IMO.

The NFL has been a little bit of a different story. A solid season so far in the NFL on game sides for me. Nothing off the charts great but pretty dran good. The thing is there just isn't as much stuff out there to play in the NFL on a weekly basis so this limits how good (or bad) I can do with these.

I am playing some of my best stuff at SBR forum's "Beat the Prick" contest, under the name Iceman. One must choose four selections AT THE CURRENT ODDS, not like most contests that let you play into stale numbers and can be some what of a joke. Why all contests don't set things up this way is beyond me. This to me is the most difficult NFL contest around cause of this format and it's one of the only contest I play in against the spread. It's basically a true test of timing the market and handicapping, which proves what a good bettor needs to win. I am right around 100th place on the year and there are over 500 players in the contest. I am at 59% on the year and have been red hot the past 5 weeks. It seems every contest I enter I do the same thing every year, start out terribly bad only to come charging down the stretch. I finished in the top 5 last year in this particular contest, just missing the yearly prize money but there were only 150 or so players in it if I am remember correctly. Either way it's fun and something extra to help break up the weekly monotony of betting football.

Though we are hitting the busy season for me with my daily plays, things are down overall quite a bit as compared to a year ago. Looking at my records from September and October of  '08 as compared to this September and October of 09' (the start of year 2), it looks like my overall volume of plays are down over 40%. Pretty simple reason why that is, it points more towards how much I have evolved from a guy who just plays mainly off numbers and to now becoming a guy who makes his own numbers and plays just his own stuff.

With this change I have become more cautious with when and why I play a game. Plus you throw in stuff like 1st halfs, 2nd halfs and team totals now being eliminated almost entirely from what I do and that explains the major dropoff. Things nowadays are just very different for me and are actually changing almost by the month it seems. Sometimes I look back at where I was just a few months ago and I can't get over the major difference in my approach. To be honest with you though the results haven't reflected this change in a positive way for this football season as it did for me with MLB and the NBA. Hoping all that changes around soon.

Took Bowling Green and the over on Tuesday here in the blog. Was very happy cashing both of those tickets and chalking up a nice solid winning day and start off the week on a winning note. It wasn't easy but we got there. Tonight there is 3 plays on the board and I am in on all 3 of them right now. I may add more later but pretty happy with what I have right now. First off I played under 49.5 in the N.Illinois game. Have done okay with cfb totals this year and think  this one drops off later today a bit. Next I have some Miami Ohio +18 against Temple. Made this line in the low teens so I see some value here in this one. Lastly I grabbed Va Tech at the open at -12.5 and with that line slowly creeping up that play looks solid according to the current market numbers.

Have spent quit a bit of time on this weeks card in football. Really excited about the prospects of doing things more my way and less into the math models plays like I was playing earlier in the cfb year. I think late in the cfb season one must dig a lot deeper as the lines have tightened up a lot compared to even a month ago when you could rely more on the mistakes being made by the oddsmakers and picking them off. So anyways this is sort of a big week for me with cfb, not so much money wise (which is also big) but in the next month I want to grow as a football handicapper and feel this has to be the way to go about it. We shall see how it goes.

Legendary bad beat last night with my New Orleans -9 bet. Makes it really hard to get out of bed today and go right back to work at this. Not going to talk about it but you had to see it to believe it type thing. It's close wins that makes one feel like all the time and effort they put into this is worth it, then for that to turn around and to lose late like that is rough, especially with the last 16 days stretch I have went thru. Just can't seem to get on a roll the past two and a half weeks. Usually this stuff goes in cycles so if that is the case maybe a hot streak is right around the corner.

Really studied tonight's game in-depth. Played the over and looking at playing Bowling Green plus the points later on but still not sure yet if I am going to add that into the mix. Will be keeping my eye on the weather situation in this one also as there is some rain and snow shower possibilities mixed in.

In with some really solid plays this week in the NFL so far. Spent some time yesterday looking things over again and really like this weeks card. Will talk about them later as I study up more on things. Waiting patiently for the openers to come out on next weekends Atlanta and Saints games. The opening lines haven't came out yet on these two teams as they played in last nights game. Something tells me I will be playing the Saints under this week. This won't be easy betting the under against them but you have to believe the oddsmakers will be posting a very high number on their game with the Panthers the way they have been lighting up the scoreboard.

Beautiful weather again today here in Vegas. High in the 70's with little to no wind or clouds. I think this time of the year in Vegas is the best time of the year weather wise. The only thing that stinks now is that it is getting dark at 5pm and it will be earlier everyday till winter begins and the days start to get longer.

Huge weekend of sports and sportsbetting. Made over 80 bets in the two days and lost a little over 2 units, nothing to write home about.

Kind of sitting in situation where I am unsure how to handle the next few weeks to a month. I have always been a math model type guy who puts together some basic stuff and hopes to get good numbers by using the information the computer spits out at me. Everything went really well with this approach last football season. I tried taking this into my hoops betting but was beaten pretty badly in the NBA while winning at an unbelieverable rate in cbb totals.

After searching and deciding what to do with the NBA I all but gave up on playing it last year until I came across an interesting thread at a gambling forum by a guy on how he beat the NBA so consistently. Basically in a nutshell he worked at it all day by gathering up info and eventually with this info he hoped to come to a logical conclusion on who or what was the right side. After spending a few days reading his entire thread and taking notes I started to apply his thoughts and methods into some things I felt were important in capping the NBA. By using this new found approach I was able to have my best 2 month stretch in the NBA that I had ever had.

After trying some model things with baseball then doing a little scalping, I decided I would sit down and once again do things the old fashion way and try and grind out a winning baseball season by putting in the necessary work everyday in and capping it. I was surprised on how well I did though I was betting very small for those last 3 months of the year. I spent everyday taking in all sorts of information and I ended up beating a sport I didn't think one could really beat. I was now convinced like the NBA, that if one worked hard enough and knew what he was doing, the answers were right there.

So now with football getting ready to start I had a choice to make, do I go with the models that I used last year or do I try and cap things like I did with the NBA and MLB? After much debate and going back and forth I decided on going with the same approach that had won me money in the past and so I went back to using strictly the math models. I started out doing really well and was rolling along when I hit a big bump 3 weeks ago and have been sliding backwards in cfb ever since. Along the way I started to doubt if using the model was the right approach as I know it will beat the closing line a high majority of the time but it hasn't seen nearly the results it has seen for me in the past. This past week I decided I would try a little bit of both. I would use my math numbers but also I would go over every game and use those numbers with my handicapping. The time I put into the handicapping really gave me a boost of confidence in my plays and I did very well this past week going 13-5 while the math numbers went around .500. Overall it was a little better then a 60% weekend in cfb (not counting correlated parlays and baseball where I lost). I was more then ecstatic with the results though I do know that they are short term and really mean nothing.

So as November starts I am really unsure exactly what to do next with making my plays. All sports bettors can talk about this, that and the other but until they decide EXACTLY how they come up with their plays nothing else really matters. It is the most important thing we all do when it comes to betting. I know that I have to make that difficult decision and stick with a plan on how to approach things daily or I will be second guessing myself all the time. I want to jump right in and cap this stuff but I have come a long when from someone who originally was under the belief to just play off numbers, then I tried using some statistics/models and let the numbers spit out my plays that way to now doing all the work myself. Now I can't complain as the first two methods did well enough for me to show a 2% profit or so through the years.

The thing is I am nervous that going the capping route could ruin what I have going for me and that has won for me in the past. I was already going to cap the NBA and MLB on my own this year but I am still not sure what and how to handle cfb (nfl been using the same methods for years and winning). I guess I only have a solid month left of cfb so I shouldn't care much but it is crucial to my success that I am growing every month as a bettor and right now with cfb I feel I may have went backwards a little. I guess I know deep down what the right answer is with this and that is to combine everything and do a little bit of both. I have to do my own work if I am ever going to take things to another level with this and to be honest with you I enjoy things much more going this route also.

The main reason I am having so much difficulty with doing things this way is I was so brainwashed when I first started betting at a serious level that most if not all sports handicappers pretty much lose in every sport. That the only people that actually do win are the ones who are picking off the bad numbers or are using some type of unbelievable computer model.The bottom line is I wished I believed more in myself but for some odd reason that I can't explain I just don't at times. I have no reason to really doubt my abilities as I have never lost over a 2,000 bet stretch since I started this 3+ years ago.

In fact capping and doing the extra work really gives me much more confidence in my plays after I make them, that is something I didn't' t have when I was using the other methods. I guess it is only natural for one to have negative thoughts and feelings, especially with an approach that is still somewhat at the beginning stages (though I did have over 2,000 NBA and MLB plays that I won at a great rate). Hopefully I can just go with whatever approach I choose and hit the ground running and never look back. 

Don't get much better then this weekend if you love sports and sports betting. All three major sports are going this weekend and there will be plenty of action to bet on. You have the World Series which looks like it might be an epic battle starting to take shape. I don't know why but I get the feeling this will be a classic before it's all said and done. You have a full slate of cfb on Saturday as the season ends it's October games. This will be the 5th Saturday this October. Sunday is all NFL, all day with mid season games on tap. Then throw that it is the NBA's opening weekend. Not sure you can ask for much more then this or would even want to, LOL. A lot of fortunes will change hands in the next 48 hours with all these outcomes taking place.

As far as how I am going to handle things Most of my cfb card is in place and ready to go. I have spent no less then 10 hours looking over each and every game just the past two days in CFB. Combine that research with earlier in the week picking off bet after bet since the openers came out on Sunday night. This is the first week of the CFB season that I feel I didn't do a great job with picking off the good numbers, not sure why but some plays went against me, a lot more then normal with what I do. I think the thing is that most bettors are all on the same page right now with how good (and bad) these teams are. It's time to look a little deeper inside the numbers and then go from there. I tried to mix some things up a bit this weekend in cfb later during this week, looking over each game. I hope to break the horrid two week stretch I have had in the sport. To be honest with you looking at my card going into tomorrow I am not very excited with the prospects of things but with that said I was extremely fired up going into last weekend with my plays and a lot of good that did me. Not sure why I don't feel stronger about things but I just don't right now. I really need to go on a 10-3 run or knock out a 5-10 unit profit day tomorrow. It's not so much for the money, though that would be really nice but mainly just to get my confidence back for the stretch drive coming up. I am pretty down and out and don't feel confident or comfortable with my whole approach with cfb of late, mainly that is with betting game sides. It wasn't 3-4 weeks ago I was upset that the cfb season was starting to wind down, now I am debating on if to slow down or start turning most of my attention to hoops very soon if things doesn't turn around quickly. My how things change very fast with all this sometimes.

For as shaken up and as unconfident as I feel with cfb I feel completely the opposite with the NFL. My card is unbelievably good from a betting standpoint going into this weekends games. Starting next week I will start sharing daily what and who I bet as soon as I make the plays for others to see. I just don't have the time to go over every play for this weekend this late in the week. It is looking like a typical 60 plays or so made for the weekend in cfb and the nfl combined.

As for hoops I am making an occasional play from time to time if I see something i like or if someone I follow once in a while makes a play I feel I would like also. I am 4-4 so far this week doing that, so nothing really happening there. Things will probably be so hectic this weekend that I won't look twice at the NBA board.

To be honest with you my football weekends are nearly as busy as they use to be in years past. The more I get away from betting off numbers in smaller markets like 1st halfs, 2nd halfs, team totals and props, the less I work I have to do on gametime. I like to compare what I do to with what a football coach does all week, getting prepared all week for gameday. Most if not all of my work is done from Sunday night thru the rest of the week and actually things start sowing down as the week goes on for me. It all comes together on the weekend when the games are played, the bets are tallied and I find out if all my hard work has paid off.

As far as baseball is concerned, I am pretty much done with betting it for the time being. I did make a few playoff bets but have more or less stayed away from it since the regular season ended. It seems I do that with most sports, I quit playing them when the playoffs start. Not sure exactly why, it must be the smaller cards.

I do think by the looks of it there is some nice value to be had on fading the Yankees here in the World Series and backing the Phillies in certain parts. One of those spots might be tomorrow night as it looks like the Phils will be a small home dog. Off the top of my head I think that price is good enough to grab some Philly action. I just haven't got around to doing it yet and not even sure I will.

Will try to get back a few times here this weekend but making no promises. Hopefully I have some good news to report when I do. Very excited about cfb and what happens. I know 60 games means nothing in the big scope of thing but I put in some extra time this week towards the card and I really want to be rewarded for all my hard work and efforts. Hope everyone has a winning weekend!!!

One of the slower times of the year right now for me with actually some nights having no action at all. This will all come to end sometime in November with hoops (college and pro) getting into the full swing.

Looking to share everything I do on a daily basis for all too see on here. I think posting and thinking things through on here will help my bottom line plus it will let some others see exactly what I am doing as a bettor and give me something different to write about everyday.

Last year from November thru March I made a little over 4,600 plays. This year I estimate a little more then half of that. I figure I have about 400 more plays left to make in football, cbb totals should be the majority of the stuff I bet on with around 1,300 plays expected, then another 1,000 or so NBA plays (between sides, totals and halves). Because of the increased stakes I expect to bet a total close to 2x more money wise then I did last year during this time and that comes while making only half the number of plays.

Very excited about all of this as things have been to slow for me volume wise the past month or so. With all that said we shall see how I feel and handle the extra money being placed on each game. With the extra money comes the extra importance of each play. Now a win or loss that covers by a half point or so will be much bigger swings for me then I am use to. Going forward I need to look at the big picture and not let one game effect me and let the chips fall where they may. After this 5 moth stretch of some 2,500-3,000 plays I should have a good idea if I am playing with an edge.

I remember some advice a few fellow full time gamblers gave me back before I made the big move to do this full time myself. They said not to have goals or place much concern over how you expect to do over a period of time. I am not sure that I agree with this but I understand their point and will try to follow it a bit here. They both specifically talked about how doing this would just place added pressure on one's self to need to do well. My problem is I like to look deep into record keeping and try and figure things out beforehand so this won't be easy for me to do, LOL. I still am a big believer in keeping detailed records and will continue to do that daily but as far as expectations, I will leave that alone and try not place any emphasis on it.

Trying to look at each and every cfb game much deeper then just throwing a number on it. I am asking myself can so and so cover this spread 54% of the time? So far I have found a handful of games I feel much better about and unfortunately some worse that I played at open and will decide what to do with them later on in the week. Either way I like the feel of this much more then following my numbers completely blind.

Don't like playing many bigger favorites in any sport but going with Va Tech tonight. My numbers made the bet price anything under -17 on Va Tech so I played them here. Haven't watched many cfb games this season but did get a chance to see UNC last week and couldn't believe how bad their offense looked. They struggled badly with throwing the football and were going up against a very poor Florida St defense. Now none of what I seen last week is why I like this play tonight but it does add to my confidence in the play a little bit more. The only thing I have to decide on is that in some sports I bet teams looking bad their last game can a lot of times be a good thing when it comes to backing this team in it's next game. I don't think that is the case so much here. Like I said I hate the big number to cover but can't see UNC scoring over 17 points in this one. Also leaning towards the under here for the above reasons with the UNC offense, Va tech defense and the total I put on the game. It's never a good idea to bet a 15 point favorite and also an under 43 and expect to win both bets as their just isn't much wiggle room to work with. Anyways with that said this is what I like in this particular game and am going with it. I just don't want to make a happen of making plays like this in the future, LOL.

First day back in my "blog everyday" quest and I almost missed it. Really wasn't my fault thought as I got a nasty virus on my computer late last night.

Something I like to do from time to time while working on my stuff is watch TV or at least have the TV on and the noise going a bit. Well last night in the middle of watching a Happy Days reunion special on Biography (no laughing please, it was actually pretty good) I decided to google Mrs. Cunningham's (Marion Ross) date of birth to see how old she was when the showing was playing. For some odd reason the older I get the more interested I become in people's ages, it's weird I know. Anyways one thing leads to another and I got a nasty virus on my computer while surfing for the answer. The virus wouldn't let me even run my Maleware program to clean it up. After trying everything I could think of (and believe me that isn't much) I gave up and called a company to come out to my house and take off the virus today. Hours later and $120 or so I am back in the game. What a mess but were back in business.

It's weird how important a computer is to my everyday life as compared to just 5-10 years ago when I barely if at all used a computer. I was away from it today for a half a day and I now feel so backed up, confused, organized, etc... I couldn't imagine being away from it for a couple days. If that was ever the case I don't know what I would do and I am not even talking from a betting point of view either (though that is very important to me also). I would much rather lose the use f my TV or phone before I lost the use of my computer.

I lost another cfb side last night with a play on Memphis. I am really stumped right now with cfb. My how things can change in this game so fast. The thing is I am stuck in that old dilemma I always get in as a handicapper, it's either follow my opening computer numbers blind or take the necessary time and cap the game by researching things. My numbers pointed towards Memphis early on but since it was the only game on the cfb board yesterday I really took the time and studied it yesterday and eventually felt like I was on the wrong side of the Memphis bet that I played at open. It's not so much that I liked E.Carolina, I am just not sure that I liked Memphis when I really looked at things.

Things were really rolling along the first 6 weeks of the cfb season for me as I felt really good about the plays I was making mainly on Sunday nights. About 2 weeks ago the wheels came off with these not so much from a "beating the closing line" perspective that I focus on so much on but from a results standpoint. It seems if I beat the closing line I still only have done okay, when I should be doing great with those plays at those numbers. This is what we call variance in the sports gambling world and it should even out over the long haul. Last week I went 9-12 in cfb on the games that I beat the closing line easily. Now I know 21 games hardly means anything in all of this but it is frustrating to get down on what you (and others) feel are great bets only to see the majority of them lose. I just keep telling myself it happens and to keep doing what I do. Just try to make the right plays at the right numbers and the results should take care of itself over time.

The thing is I feel so much more in tune with the NFL right now. I am making a number based off stats like I do with cfb but because it's so much easier to keep up with all the teams (25% of the total amount of teams) as compared to cfb, I in turn and am also doing some other capping overall. I have a really good feel of how teams are playing right now in the NFL, who is getting better, who is getting worse, etc.... This is the way I approached the NBA successfully the 2nd half of last year and how I beat MLB all last season. I basically jumped into the sport with everything I had and was following things very closely and not just attaching a "computerized" number to it. I ended up having a great Sunday not only results wise but the numbers I bet the games at were even more impressive then the results. Looks like the same thing this week with the NFL as I am sitting on some great bets with ridiculously good numbers.

So last night (before the virus) I spent most of the evening looking at the cfb card for the week and will continue to do that from here on out. There is a lot of time between now and kickoff this week so hopefully by then I will have uncovered some things and feel more confident then just going solely on the numbers that I use. This once again continues to be a problem for me with which direction to go with things in the future. Do I trust the numbers I make and have won with in the past but these involve little to no thinking or do I ditch most of the ways I was able to win with before and take a deeper look into the games and make my decisions based on that? There is no perfect answer with this and if I am not winning I am sure I am always going to be asking this question. Most bettors go through this all the time, deciding what process they use to get their plays. Eventually I would like to find the happy medium with both approaches and go from there.