Re: BCS now crystal-clear

Eagle@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (J. Hugh Sullivan), my dear, dear friend, there was this time, oh, 12/1/2008 2:17 PM or thereabouts, when you let the following craziness loose on Usenet:
On Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:57:59 -0600, "Kyle T. Jones"
<KBfoMe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Eagle@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (J. Hugh Sullivan), my dear, dear friend, there was this time, oh, 12/1/2008 7:44 AM or thereabouts, when you let the following craziness loose on Usenet:

Actually the Florida Bama match IS for the MNC - #1 vs. #2.


Hugh
If, say, Oklahoma hammers Alabama in January, will you stick with this?
Yeah - that would mean we beat Flardy and the game you mention would
be next year.

So do you believe tO$U was the 2006 champ? I quite agree, exhibition games that occur two months after the regular season ends shouldn't count for anything.

I have not been an OSU fan since Woody Hayes left.

Picking the MNC is tough - no system would satisfy everyone. Being
undefeated is great but there are a slew of other factors.

How tough was a team when you beat them and, at the time, were they
over- or under-rated? Injuries need to be factored in. Yankee teams
don't play in heat as well as in the cold - and vice versa for
Southern teams.

Years ago I kept a rating system. Using the original computer ratings
I kept track of about 25 teams - by hand. It was good for betting the
cards.

Hugh


Was it? Seriously? Did it give you enough of an edge to stay ahead of the vig?

I used to think in terms of poker/sportsbetting... in poker it's really important to focus on table selection, and finding chumps. Your edge at any given table is simply yer edge over the average player at that table. Pick tables well enough, the money is hard to lose.

But then I'd think, "yeah, but I'm playing online as well. I don't see nearly as many dumbasses online as I do in yer average poker room... "

There are a lot of things that factor into that, but it's generally accepted that a live game will have worse players than an online game at the same level. Of course, online gives you a big edge in terms of the rake, and that's also significant.

Back to player selection, though. So then I started thinking "man, to win at sports betting, you only need to have an edge over the average Joe across the entire *world* that overcompensates for the vig." You know, because I thought "hey, the line is the same everywhere (basically), and it's set by the average person's 'take' on that game."

But, that's way off, right? The line might get pushed this way and that to try to even the money, but the line itself is set by some Big Brane who follows this *** twice as closely as you or I, correct?

Is this all correct, or at least close enough for reckonin'? This is basically how the line is set, right?

So, how do you manage an edge over Lefty Rosenthal? Is there anything to the idea of watching lines that have above-average movement over the course of the week?

Just curious.

Cheers.
.

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