1. #1
    freshguy222
    freshguy222's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 12-13-10
    Posts: 421
    Betpoints: 8359

    Basketball 1st Quarters - is it bad to win them?

    Hello guys,
    hope somebody can help me here.
    I am betting on sports for about 2 years and other than tennis i tail people here on sbr or on twitter. the problem is though that once i tail them, they lose. i have a sheet that tells me f.e. with a 95% probability that a certain capper with a certain record will stay over 58& ATS. However, once i tail them they go on runs like 3-18, this happens all the time when i choose to tail a new capper, and it has never been the other way around.
    And since my BR is not very large, it is very hard to sustain this kind of variance.
    The strange thing about them is that i almost always winthe 1Q spread or ML with dogs when i make NBA plays, and most of the time my team is still winning and covering until the 4th, but for some reason I always lose the 4th qtr, or it starts in the 2nd half, examples of yetserday would be, when i had six plays: Cavs -4,5, Nets -4,5 Warriors -7,5, Hawks -5,5, also had Celtics and Spurs which were just really bad picks, but the other ones were all up huge at halftime and after 1Q, even the Spurs were winning 1Q.
    So my questions would be, is it bad to win the first quarter of an NBA game and what can I do to prevent those 4th quarter meltdowns, it happens really everyday, there is no one day this NBA season where f.e. 2 of my teams would win the 4th quarter and 2 would lose it, its about 75% that my team loses the 4th quarter.
    And the other question would be, what can I do to prevent my cappers from losing once i tail them, because they seem to be cursed as they also start losing in the 4th quarter all of sudden which they didnt before.
    Another question would be, what can i do to get my BR up quickly, about 200 right now and what should i do once i get it to 500/1000, should there be a change in betting at some point?

    Would appreciate any help.

  2. #2
    noyb
    noyb's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 09-13-05
    Posts: 971
    Betpoints: 6821

    either you're overestimating certain scenario's in your head (in other words, you remember the times this has happened and choose not to remember the times it didn't; very natural if you don't keep written records), or your sample size is too small and you have simply been a bit unlucky. if your bankroll is too small to withstand a bit of variance, bet less per play. it's that simple.

    and if you're really convinced you almost always lose in the 4Q, just bet on the 1Q instead of the full game. lots of books offer this.

  3. #3
    snapperman2
    Keep bothering on
    snapperman2's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 08-19-10
    Posts: 2,078
    Betpoints: 16306

    Maybe the reason that your cappers start to lose once you start tailing them is selection bias. Cappers with losing threads tend to close them down, while ones with winning threads usually keep them going. So when you look on the forums you see mostly winning threads. You have to take that into account when you see a thread with a good winning percentage. Maybe you should just bet very small when you first start tailing a capper and see if you are winning with those bets before you start betting serious money on his picks. You could do statistics on only the games that you have bet on and judge whether he is a winning capper from those bets alone, without using his prior record. Using his prior record is dangerous, due to selection bias.

    If you try to grow your bankroll quickly, it is likely that you will lose it quickly instead. At this time it is important that you find out how to win at sports betting. If you bet a lot of money before you know how to win consistently, you will just lose a lot of money. Right now you should look at your bets as tuition payments. You want to pay as little as possible, so keep you bets low. Remember that if you lose your bankroll you are out of the game and can't learn any more.

  4. #4
    freshguy222
    freshguy222's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 12-13-10
    Posts: 421
    Betpoints: 8359

    thanks for the tips.
    but i can tell you, i have never ever won due to a walk-off hr in the 9th when my team was behind, i have never won an nfl game in overtime.
    what i try to do in nba though is try to find teams that try extra hard that night, so maybe that explains why i win in 1Q so much, the problem though is that these are often times the worse teams, that would explain 4th quarter collapses a little bit, however i also often take teams in revenge, the real good ones, where i expect a blowout and at halftime they lead by 20 and still only win by 10 or so, i mean i have lost a bet where my team was up 30 in 2Q and they still lost outright as a -15 favorite.
    The thing is though that i also tail cappers on twitter and i dont take them because of recent success, but because theyve been winning 58% ATS for two years and as soon as i take them they have the worst month of their twitter history and i can swear you it has never ever happened the other way round.
    as for the sample size, it cannot really be too small, since i play around 8 games including all leagues for 2 years now.
    as for betting 1Q, that seems to get into my head, as if i was looking for them to win exactly 1Q i was changing my approach to capping and either make a real bad bet or they win later in the game.

    what also happens with my picks is that as i said i hardly ever win a close one, but many of my picks are total blowouts. best example would be on sunday when i had seattle seahawks, new orleans saints, atlanta falcons and steelers (lost quite ridicoulously in OT).
    btw i can also not hedge out of any bets since i live in europe and sleep when the games are on.
    Last edited by freshguy222; 12-19-12 at 08:00 AM.

  5. #5
    noyb
    noyb's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 09-13-05
    Posts: 971
    Betpoints: 6821

    so from what i'm reading, in some mysterious way whatever you bet you always end up a loser, in every unlikely way you can imagine. maybe the betting gods just don't like you and it's time to quit.
    seriously, your problem is in your head and the way you perceive your own betting. nothing any of us can do about this.

  6. #6
    hutennis
    hutennis's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 07-11-10
    Posts: 847
    Betpoints: 3253

    Quote Originally Posted by noyb View Post
    so from what i'm reading, in some mysterious way whatever you bet you always end up a loser, in every unlikely way you can imagine. maybe the betting gods just don't like you and it's time to quit.
    seriously, your problem is in your head and the way you perceive your own betting. nothing any of us can do about this.
    Absolutely!

    The conclusions you draw from your observations are nothing more but very typical misunderstanding of randomness.
    You take very small and absolutely meaningless sample out of never ending stream of random events and try your hardest to assign
    some kind of meaning to it.
    As a result, you are becoming confused, frustrated and getting an impression that the whole world is in a conspiracy to separate you from your money.

    There is no conspiracy against you, of course.
    It is all in your head.
    You are simply committing one of the oldest and most common cognitive fallacies know to man.
    Last edited by hutennis; 12-19-12 at 10:59 AM.

  7. #7
    CrimsonQueen
    CrimsonQueen's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 08-12-09
    Posts: 1,068
    Betpoints: 1660

    For fun, I made a distribution of you watching 20 potential cappers to tail.

    My assumption is that you watch a handful of people, and then the ones that do well, you follow. You don't follow people before they've made at least 10 picks to prove themselves.

    Everyone out there with a thread posting their plays are flipping coins. At a 50/50 proposition, you watching 20 people each make 10 picks, on average, 1 of them will go 8-2. Two and a half of them will go 7-3. (Flipping around through a forum of 100 people, more than one of them will go 9-1!)

    My point is this. You wonder why as soon as you start following someone they start to lose. There are only 2 options:
    1. Math.
    2. God hates you.

    Since god doesn't exist, let's examine math.

    If you then decide to follow Mr. 8-2 capper, he was just getting lucky. He's going to regress to the mean, and eventually, he will be hitting 50% over the long run. The only way you can really know a capper you are about to follow is actually good is if you have a LARGE sample size. (1000 plays?) This is unrealistic, as there's no way for you to verifiably watch them make 1000 plays, and it would take a very long time to for them to make them.

    Your next math problem is this spreadsheet that you say tells you you have a 95% chance that Capper X will continue to win in the long run. What formulas are you using on this spreadsheet?? It sounds like you're trying to use a Z-score > 2. What this tells you is NOT that Capper X is going to continue to win 95% of the time. What it ACTUALLY tells you is that someone who made this number of picks would win this amount just be getting lucky 5% of the time. Simply put, if you watch 20 people (like in my earlier scenario) 1 of them will get you this Z score purely by chance. You then decide that you should follow this person because they have a great Z-score.

    Lastly, as people have pointed out, confirmation bias is definitely the name of the game you are playing with your whole 'I always lose in the 4th quarter to a walk off homerun because some guy shot the puck and got a lucky bounce that the guy should've made the tackle...etc etc etc' You need to start keeping very detailed records of every game you bet.

    Now, I will say that I exaggerate when I say ALL of the cappers out there are just flipping coins. I will say about 99.9% of them are, though.

  8. #8
    statnerds
    Put me in coach
    statnerds's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 09-23-09
    Posts: 4,047
    Betpoints: 103

    First off, adjust your expectations. 99% of the 'cappers' on this site will not hit 55% long term.

    Second, you should be wary of tailing any capper posting for free on a forum, as it simply math. 100 cappers start a season. 60 are average, 20 perform above average, the other 20 suck so bad they quit.

    moving forward a month, half of the 60 average ones hit a patch of negative performance and quit.

    5 of the 20 over performers continue to do so.

    add a month. all of the over performers have regressed, the others have quit or started with 'fresh records'

    GL finding any capper on this site with a transparent record over the course of 250+ plays that is over 50%.

    and again i say, adjust your expectations. 55% long term is world class you will be hard pressed to find it for free.

  9. #9
    freshguy222
    freshguy222's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 12-13-10
    Posts: 421
    Betpoints: 8359

    well,
    how do you guys explain that i have never won a football game in OT,except for if i had +7.5 or more
    have had 84 walk-off hrs against me, none for me
    sometimes a friend of mine goes against me, 45 times so far, he has won 42 times, i won 3 times
    instead of telling me about variance, id rather have some answers if there are certain patterns to basketball games, more complex than backdoor covers and if i could somehow exploit that i win mostly all my games by a huge margin
    i win about 30% of the games that are within 30% of the spread, 40% of my wins come from results that are 14 or more points away from the spread
    and the question about if it is even goodto win the 1Q and 1H in basketball games because to me it doesnt seem so much
    and not all the cappers are flipping coins, specialized guys can come close to 60%, otherwise i would not win 60% ATS in tennis

  10. #10
    hutennis
    hutennis's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 07-11-10
    Posts: 847
    Betpoints: 3253

    Quote Originally Posted by freshguy222 View Post
    well,
    how do you guys explain that i have never won a football game in OT,except for if i had +7.5 or more
    have had 84 walk-off hrs against me, none for me
    sometimes a friend of mine goes against me, 45 times so far, he has won 42 times, i won 3 times
    instead of telling me about variance, id rather have some answers if there are certain patterns to basketball games, more complex than backdoor covers and if i could somehow exploit that i win mostly all my games by a huge margin
    i win about 30% of the games that are within 30% of the spread, 40% of my wins come from results that are 14 or more points away from the spread
    and the question about if it is even goodto win the 1Q and 1H in basketball games because to me it doesnt seem so much
    and not all the cappers are flipping coins, specialized guys can come close to 60%, otherwise i would not win 60% ATS in tennis
    How do we explain?

    In an absence of hard, verifiable data confirming your stories there is only one explanation.
    You are falling pray to very common and well established physiological pitfalls.

    Conformation bias, selection bias, hindsight bias, taxes sharpshooter fallacy, gamblers fallacy, underestimation of randomness and law of small numbers are more than enough to explain your "problems". We don't need anything else.

    That being said, I'm happy to report that I can straighten your situation out really fast with a simple advise.

    Start posting your picks here ahead of time and you will see that your horrible losing streaks will disappear like a fart in a wind.
    That's it. Easy enough.

    The only drawback is that you should pretty much forget about your 60% ATS in tennis.
    Post enough picks and I guarantee you not gonna see it anymore.
    But hey, no miserable hoops records either. So it's all fair. Is not it?

  11. #11
    brewers7
    brewers7's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 03-11-06
    Posts: 298
    Betpoints: 4441

    Freshguy222:

    Hutennis is 100% right here with everything he said...

    1) Nobody is hitting 60% with over 500 verified plays on any forum...If you find someone who does, post his username here and everyone here will check him out...

    2) You are frustrated at a lot of tough losses and you are hyper-focused on all of those tough losses and forgetting about all the close wins you have had...MANY gamblers do this...I had a recent stretch where I lost 13 NBA games by 1/2 a point or less than a bucket with every one of those losses happening in the final possession of the game and 7 of those losses happened in the final 5 seconds of the game (meaningless 3's, etc) and 4 others happened in the final 10 seconds...And I will admit that stretch bothered me quite a bit because I am thinking in my head that if those games went the other way, I'd be up 26 more units or if I won just 6 of those games, I'd be up 12 more units...You have to be careful not to focus on that crap because it will turn around and you will start winning close games...I think I am past this super-bad stretch though as those tough losses have stopped the past few days and I did have two 1-point wins last night so hopefully (knock on wood) the tide has turned...

    3) To address your 1Q question, I have also had stretches like you are having where the team I am on easily wins in the 1H or 1Q and then finds a way to blow it in the 2H or 4Q...The key word there is "stretches"...And I have had your exact same thoughts: "Why am I not betting these games in the 1H or 1Q"?...And I have done that from time to time...But I would bet 1H, not 1Q...Because when these stretches happen, I find betting the 1H is "safer" than betting the 1Q as I have seen the 1Q bet lose and then the 1H bet still win after a big 2Q...With your "horrible luck", I could foresee you starting to bet 1Qs and then they all lose while the 2Q and 1H would have won and then you'll be back here posting about that misfortune...But these "stretches" do go away and then may pop up again later at some point, but if you seriously believe that this happens to you "all the time", then start betting 1st halves with your plays...

    4) and never try and "get your bankroll up quickly" as that is a recipe for trouble...

    GL...

  12. #12
    1brokegirl
    never had a bad day in my life
    1brokegirl's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 12-19-12
    Posts: 150

    freshguy go see my new thread about a formula for handicapping nba games

  13. #13
    1brokegirl
    never had a bad day in my life
    1brokegirl's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 12-19-12
    Posts: 150

    OK i know why teams who win 1st qtr's and halves wind up going south in second halves

    these are teams that are all offense with little or no defense and just spunk out in 2nd halves the more they are winning by in 1st half makes it a sure shot they are spent and wind up getting run over in 2nd half

    I not into nba just now because sill hard core with NFL but i got help from some guy i found and it's great stuff he put together really long tested systems he put together and they work

  14. #14
    Dom177
    Dom177's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 09-11-11
    Posts: 1,080
    Betpoints: 1210

    My view is either:
    -You are just not a good handicapper. Why are you following these people and then complaining when they go on big droughts of losing? If you have the time to make a spreadsheet and follow people or whatever it is you are doing, put in the extra time to cap your own games. I trust myself a hell of a lot more than anybody on this site.
    -Secondly, there are intangibles you are not taking into consideration deeper in the game. Talent is so high in the NBA that in the first quarter and first half of most of the games the margin of error is very slim. That is probably true for any sport in the first part of it, barring any lopsided matchups. You also need to take into effect bullshit fouls in the second half, player injuries during the game, fatigue, etc.

    Good luck in whatever you decide to do from here, either cap your own stuff or only do 1st Q's if those are really the only picks you win.

  15. #15
    HUY
    HUY's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 04-29-09
    Posts: 253
    Betpoints: 3257

    OP, I think you need to take a long break from sports betting. It's extremely obvious that it's gone to your head. Next step is hearing voices in your head.

  16. #16
    lecubs28
    Keepin em Honest
    lecubs28's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 10-17-11
    Posts: 638
    Betpoints: 5422

    i found op to be hilarious

  17. #17
    freshguy222
    freshguy222's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 12-13-10
    Posts: 421
    Betpoints: 8359

    okay guys, i understand what you are all saying, everyone's obviously ignoring the numbers i posted.
    nobody can tell me the pattern of why i win first quarters, i think it it because i try to find teams that are going to come out firing and motivated.
    making a thread and keeping a seperate record is way too much extra work besides handicapping.

  18. #18
    ineedbeers
    ineedbeers's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 12-26-12
    Posts: 11
    Betpoints: 338

    The leading team usually rest the starters early/mid 4th quarter but this only happens if they are up by a lot.

  19. #19
    GENGUY23
    GENGUY23's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 12-09-12
    Posts: 54
    Betpoints: 119

    New theory: Identify a capper hitting over 70% and immediately fade his next 20 picks you will go above 10-10.

Top