[No coincidences]

Wish Justin7 were still around to reiterate how truly important this is in gambling.

Early bird gets the worm. Hope you guys all got the good value on numbers Sunday evening for Monday's games.

[No coincidences]

Using Pinnacle's numbers:

Cleveland opened at +111 (+135 at BOL), closed at +105 and lost.
Colorado opened at +137 (+150 at BOL), closed at +117 and lost.
Pittsburgh opened at +133 (+155 at BOL), closed at +116 and lost.
Milwaukee opened at -104, closed at -124 and lost.
Arizona opened at +146 (+155 at BOL), closed at +139 and lost.
LAA opened at -190 (-150 at BOL), closed at -192 and lost.
San Diego opened at +106 (+115 at BOL), closed at +101 and lost.
CHW opened at +100, closed at -105 and lost.

Just variation of a really odd theme that's been dominating baseball for weeks now.

[DeezusWINSTREAKT]

They did it again tonight with padres. Fife pitches suddenly and then padres favored -109 -110 n lost too . Weird trend

[DeezusWINSTREAKT]

Although braves opened -150 and went to -125 and they won

[Simon Gruber]

Wish Justin7 were still around to reiterate how truly important this is in gambling.

Early bird gets the worm. Hope you guys all got the good value on numbers Sunday evening for Monday's games.

His book was recently made available for kindle. I was going to buy it today. Should I reconsider then?

[2daBank]

Shit been crazy.. I did beat the closer on both totals I posted in ur thread and hit them both.

[Ron29301]

Gonna look closely at this today. Just saved the open lines from my book and sbr. Gl today fellas.

[No coincidences]

Gonna look closely at this today. Just saved the open lines from my book and sbr. Gl today fellas.

Ideally and typically, you want to ideally beat the closer, as well as being as close to the opener as possible. In other words, if a dog opens at +145, you get them at +140 and it closes at +125, that's normally a pretty safe bet that you have a good chance at a winner -- until recently.

[No coincidences]

His book was recently made available for kindle. I was going to buy it today. Should I reconsider then?

No -- I was being facetious. BTCL has you in the poor house lately. Justin7 and his ilk swear by it as the only true way to win long-term, but I have a feeling that, like RLM, the books are catching up to this notion and manipulating numbers accordingly just to prove a point that past trends doesn't = future success.

[MDRTYson]

I posted in another thread that I beat it yesterday on 4-4 of the games I bet. Total line movement on those 4 games was 50+. As you said, I went 1-3 by eaking out the Astros pick. Ouch

[blackeyeshamus]

I backed off Oakland bc of the erratic kind movement, and that was an easy win for the A's...fxxk.

[MDRTYson]

Using Pinnacle's numbers:

Cleveland opened at +111 (+135 at BOL), closed at +105 and lost.
Colorado opened at +137 (+150 at BOL), closed at +117 and lost.
Pittsburgh opened at +133 (+155 at BOL), closed at +116 and lost.
Milwaukee opened at -104, closed at -124 and lost.
Arizona opened at +146 (+155 at BOL), closed at +139 and lost.
LAA opened at -190 (-150 at BOL), closed at -192 and lost.
San Diego opened at +106 (+115 at BOL), closed at +101 and lost.
CHW opened at +100, closed at -105 and lost.

Just variation of a really odd theme that's been dominating baseball for weeks now.

Using the pattern above, I'd say Houston should be in the win column rather than the Angels in the loss column though. Still...

[No coincidences]

Using the pattern above, I'd say Houston should be in the win column rather than the Angels in the loss column though. Still...

Nope -- Angels closed higher than where they opened and still lost. So you could've locked them in at a better number than where they closed and, like the others, it would've been a useless ticket.

[No coincidences]

I backed off Oakland bc of the erratic kind movement, and that was an easy win for the A's...fxxk.

That was the weirdest one of all, given the public was on Oakland and the books just kept giving people better numbers all day long.

[MDRTYson]

Nope -- Angels closed higher than where they opened and still lost. So you could've locked them in at a better number than where they closed and, like the others, it would've been a useless ticket.

I stand corrected. On my book, I took the overnight line on Houston which was better than when I checked mid-day. Just looked at the pinnacle line and you're right, Houston did close worse than where it opened.

[matthew919]

Settle down, there is no conspiracy among the books. Sharps are just losing right now. Take my word for it: the line is still moving to the +EV side. If it makes you feel better, I spent 8 months developing a very sharp model. Its performance on my test set (with an enormous sample size) showed a BTCL rate in the 67-70% range with an ROI of 5-6%. This year is my first year betting actual dollars. The line movement accordance is identical, but my ROI is -9%. So count your blessings that you're not plummeting into the red- it could be worse.

But panicking and inventing theories about line manipulation is just silly.

[No coincidences]

Settle down, there is no conspiracy among the books. Sharps are just losing right now. Take my word for it: the line is still moving to the +EV side. If it makes you feel better, I spent 8 months developing a very sharp model. Its performance on my test set (with an enormous sample size) showed a BTCL rate in the 67-70% range with an ROI of 5-6%. This year is my first year betting actual dollars. The line movement accordance is identical, but my ROI is -9%. So count your blessings that you're not plummeting into the red- it could be worse.

But panicking and inventing theories about line manipulation is just silly.

You don't think books are adjusting at least a little to the BTCL method? I never said there was a "conspiracy," but if you look at what's happened over the course of the past month or so, this seems to be more than just an aberration.

[matthew919]

The BTCL method, as I see it, follows from being on the correct side. Sharp, well-funded bettors are still on the correct side, and will continue to be in the future. And if you are as well, then you'll be fine long term.

A book has no ability to adjust to the BTCL "method" because it isn't a method at all- it's just a consequence of sharp money moving lines in the right direction. If they were to accept wagers from sharps, but they started moving lines the other way just to prove a point or something, millionaire sharps would just double- and triple- pop those things for 3x the max limits, and books would be out of business real fast. So no, I'm not concerned at all. I started gambling knowing full well it'll be ten or twelve years before i make it to my first million. This is just one very small stretch in that marathon.

It is an aberration for sure though. I suspect that the beginning of 2013 will not soon be forgotten by a lot of baseball bettors. And it sucks for me that is happened the minute I stepped into the game. But just hang tight.

Good work so far this year, btw. You're looking good for results in spite of things.

[jason1968]

Who are BOL ? Excuse my ignorance .

[Big Bear]

it just goes to show you line movement does not mean a damn thing in baseball.

Baseball is a hard game to fix.

Football and Basketball is easy to fix.

If you cant hit a 98mph fastball you just cant. Period.

[matthew919]

it just goes to show you line movement does not mean a damn thing in baseball.

I disagree. Here are bar plots showing ROI according to your BTCL rate of the Pinny line, for both totals and MLs, over a four year period, from 2009-2012 (almost 10,000 games). I know which side of the line movement I'd prefer to be on.

Totals_ROIByLineMovement.jpg
ML_ROIByLineMovement.jpg

[Big Bear]

what do those abreviations mean and how much weight do you put into it?

me personally i'm just a baseball guy. i have forgotten more about this game then most will ever know.

[matthew919]

Each bar represents a "bin," which includes all games which showed a certain amount of movement. For bars from left to right, the line movement goes from more against you, to more in your favor.

For ML, the measurement is in implied probability movement, and ranges from <-8%, -8% to -6%... up to > 8%.
For Totals, the line movement is measured in a statistic which converts runs to "Adjusted runs", which shades the actual half points according to the juice. For instance o7 -115 might be adjusted to 7.25 runs. The bins for this range from -0.5 runs against you, to 0.5 runs in your favor.

[Big Bear]

Each bar represents a "bin," which includes all games which showed a certain amount of movement. For bars from left to right, the line movement goes from more against you, to more in your favor.

For ML, the measurement is in implied probability movement, and ranges from <-8%, -8% to -6%... up to > 8%.
For Totals, the line movement is measured in a statistic which converts runs to "Adjusted runs", which shades the actual half points according to the juice. For instance o7 -115 might be adjusted to 7.25 runs. The bins for this range from -0.5 runs against you, to 0.5 runs in your favor.

wow you are a smart man... i'll have to see if i can study up on that stuff and add it to my arsenal.

[No coincidences]

The BTCL method, as I see it, follows from being on the correct side. Sharp, well-funded bettors are still on the correct side, and will continue to be in the future. And if you are as well, then you'll be fine long term.

A book has no ability to adjust to the BTCL "method" because it isn't a method at all- it's just a consequence of sharp money moving lines in the right direction. If they were to accept wagers from sharps, but they started moving lines the other way just to prove a point or something, millionaire sharps would just double- and triple- pop those things for 3x the max limits, and books would be out of business real fast. So no, I'm not concerned at all. I started gambling knowing full well it'll be ten or twelve years before i make it to my first million. This is just one very small stretch in that marathon.

It is an aberration for sure though. I suspect that the beginning of 2013 will not soon be forgotten by a lot of baseball bettors. And it sucks for me that is happened the minute I stepped into the game. But just hang tight.

Good work so far this year, btw. You're looking good for results in spite of things.

I buy everything you're selling -- almost. I'm not completely convinced that every line move is pure -- i.e., driven be actual betting, vs. manipulation and subjection by books in isolated instances. But that's just a theory of mine. I guess in the meantime, we let the Brock Landers of the world enjoy the "heater" they're on in baseball laying chalk and ignoring whether or not they got the best number available.

BOL to you as well.

[No coincidences]

Who are BOL ? Excuse my ignorance .

BetOnline. Big rec. book, but they're the first to set lines for the next day's action.

[matthew919]

I buy everything you're selling -- almost. I'm not completely convinced that every line move is pure -- i.e., driven be actual betting, vs. manipulation and subjection by books in isolated instances. But that's just a theory of mine. I guess in the meantime, we let the Brock Landers of the world enjoy the "heater" they're on in baseball laying chalk and ignoring whether or not they got the best number available.

BOL to you as well.

Indeed. It'll turn around though. Be patient and keep doing what you're doing.

[EXhoosier10]

I buy everything you're selling -- almost. I'm not completely convinced that every line move is pure -- i.e., driven be actual betting, vs. manipulation and subjection by books in isolated instances. But that's just a theory of mine. I guess in the meantime, we let the Brock Landers of the world enjoy the "heater" they're on in baseball laying chalk and ignoring whether or not they got the best number available.

BOL to you as well.

Matthew, are these ROI plots made using openers or closers? If they're closers, then whether or not there is a reason for the movement, it doesn't seem that whatever news may have been the cause, moved the line enough (meaning even betting these lines right before close wouldn't be a terrible idea)

[matthew919]

Matthew, are these ROI plots made using openers or closers? If they're closers, then whether or not there is a reason for the movement, it doesn't seem that whatever news may have been the cause, moved the line enough (meaning even betting these lines right before close wouldn't be a terrible idea)

Right, maybe I should have specified this better- these plots derive the line movement using both the openers and closers (movement is the difference between the two). The ROI, however, is computed as if you had bet on the opener, before it had moved.

I see what your question was getting at though, so I generated a new set of plots for that- in this case, if one were to bet the closing line based on which direction the movement went, you would expect that any strategy would be a losing one, since the value was negated by the movement.

Here are the corresponding plots for that:

Totals_ROIByLineMovement_BetClosers.jpg
ML_ROIByLineMovement_BetClosers.jpg

Before you get too excited about the positive ROI for the ML games with large line movement (>6%), you should know that those bins included very few games- 74 and 29 for the two far right bars, respectively. The rest of the bins were much larger (several hundred, with the ones in the -2% to +2% range being in the thousands). So in my opinion, it's unlikely that there is much value left when blindly betting the side which the line movement moved significantly toward.

Also, the sizes of the totals bins were much more uniform- each included roughly 700 or so games.

[italianbandit]

You don't think books are adjusting at least a little to the BTCL method? I never said there was a "conspiracy," but if you look at what's happened over the course of the past month or so, this seems to be more than just an aberration.

No, books are not adjusting on the BTCL method, keep finding value and bet it overnight you will be fine. 1 month is nothing.

[EXhoosier10]

Right, maybe I should have specified this better- these plots derive the line movement using both the openers and closers (movement is the difference between the two). The ROI, however, is computed as if you had bet on the opener, before it had moved.

Thanks, Matthew. Hopefully, then, this past month is just a variance thing and everything returns to historical averages soon. Seeing more and more red is starting to get to me.

[chunk]

Assuming accuracy, I'd be very surprised if it wasn't based on openers.

[No coincidences]

4-11 tonight open vs. close.
5-19 past two days.

Chalk eaters went 11-4 on the ML tonight and 7-2 last night (18-6 total).

Solid.

Feel particularly sorry for anyone who got great numbers on Miami, Pittsburgh, the Mets, KC, SD and TOR. Your due diligence meant absolutely nothing.

[MonkeyMoney]

Using Pinnacle's numbers:

Cleveland opened at +111 (+135 at BOL), closed at +105 and lost.
Colorado opened at +137 (+150 at BOL), closed at +117 and lost.
Pittsburgh opened at +133 (+155 at BOL), closed at +116 and lost.
Milwaukee opened at -104, closed at -124 and lost.
Arizona opened at +146 (+155 at BOL), closed at +139 and lost.
LAA opened at -190 (-150 at BOL), closed at -192 and lost.
San Diego opened at +106 (+115 at BOL), closed at +101 and lost.
CHW opened at +100, closed at -105 and lost.

Just variation of a really odd theme that's been dominating baseball for weeks now.

thank you for this.
i am quite stoned and need those for futures