I was thinking about this tonight after a ridiculous weekend in which I somehow cashed big plays on Penn State and the Patriots and another on the Red Sox. None of them really had any business cashing; I suppose you could say PSU and NE were in control for more of the game than not, but they were both dead in the water near the end until their opponents fvcked it all up. Boston, meanwhile, was just a total fluke.
Anyway, between the three plays, I had close to a $1,000 swing -- crazy for a guy who bets $20 per unit. So I'm sitting here looking at my account balance thinking about being on the "right" side of the "wrong" play three times. This, one week after having Northwestern and a bunch of other shitty beats that had me wondering WTF I was doing, feeling like I was on the "wrong" side of the "right" play.
I know bettors who break down a game every which way. They have systems, study matchups, analyze data, trends, etc. I put a lot of time into capping games, but these guys are workaholics when it comes to research and doing their homework. I don't go anywhere near that far. Sometimes I feel like I should. Sometimes I think it's a huge waste of time.
The smart response here is probably to not worry as much about the end result -- that in the long run, if you put the time in and don't take short cuts, you will be rewarded for making the right play more often than not. The longer I'm in this game, though, the more I question and wonder if you can legitimately be a "sports investor," as LTA liked to call it back in the day, as opposed to a guy who is either a lucky schmuck or an unlucky sonofabitch on any given play no matter how much effort you put into preparing for a bet.
Anyway....