RBD breaks down a key handicapping lesson, explaining how mistakes, data tracking, and discipline shape long-term betting success.
Like most things in life, you’re going to make mistakes when handicapping.
One of the keys to winning over the long haul is learning from your mistakes, remembering them, and most importantly – not repeating them.
Example – in the past, I didn’t start handicapping basketball until the football season ended.
In my Battle with the Books, my strategy was mindful of one of the keys to successful military battles, not dividing your forces.
I thought that dividing my focus and handicapping multiple sports at the same time would be detrimental to my football handicapping.
Because the size of my college football unit dwarfs the size of my units in every other sport I wanted to concentrate on the task at hand – winning my college football Battle with the Books.
Problem is, when I started handicapping basketball in January, I was beginning blind – I had no data to work with.
The solution was simple.
There are three parts to handicapping: keeping data, analyzing the data, and figuring out which parts to use to make a bet.
Charting the data is the least time consuming of the three.
I decided to allot a small amount of the time I dedicate to handicapping each day to keeping stats on college basketball and the NBA, but save time by not analyzing it and making plays.
This way when football ends and basketball begins I would have some data to work with.
Friday, I was charting my basketball handicapping models when I noticed a record that I couldn’t ignore.
One of the systems I use for picking totals was 12-5 on Overs.
And I had one game that qualified, Boston/Indiana.
So, divided focus be damned, I wasn’t going to let those numbers continue without getting in on a play before the record starts to level out.
I used it for my first NBA article of the year.
The total was 221.
They combined for 262.
So, yeah – you could say that they covered the number for me.
No plays qualified on Saturday.
No plays qualified on Sunday.
THREE games qualified on Monday.
After the Boston game the record was at 13-5.
That’s a 72% edge.
I only used one of the three spots.
And I went against that 72%.
The pick and analysis were posted in the PredictEm Forum.
After Monday’s three games the record now sits at 15-6. Two games won, one lost.
The game that lost was the one I Faded.
A bit of luck?
No, a bit of work.
Handicapping work.
Not just scratching the surface, looking at a record, and making a play, but digging deeper into the numbers.
And remembering and learning from past mistakes – charting data from the start of the season rather than coming in late; blind.
My numbers for today aren’t ready yet.
Writing that, I’m reminded of an inside joke we had when we were kids and starting up a band.
We were going to call our first album, “Your Meatballs Aren’t Ready Yet.”
Our second album was going to be called, “Come and Get ‘Em.”
(I actually wanted to call our first studio album, “Greatest Hits – LIVE!”)
But I digress.
Time to hit the charts and enter today’s data, hoping to see another game that I can squeeze out of that 16-5 spot before it starts to regress.
Check the forum for updates.
See ya there. (edited)
