Fights July 26

Well, now that we all have no fucking idea what will happen next with Tyson Fury, lets run down my other current bets.  The British fights will start in a couple of hours.

I have a parlay that includes Billy Joe Saunders(-900)over Emanuele Blandamura, Terry Flanagan(-600)over Martin Gethin, and Gennady Golovkin(-1250)over Daniel Geale.  This also included Fury(-750)over Ustinov, so the payout, that would have been about 3/5, will be less.

I have another parlay that included Fury(-750), Saunders(-900), Flanagan(-675), and Liam Walsh(-750) over Kevin Hooper, along with Golovkin by decision(+323).  This will pay almost 6/1, but nobody seems to think the GGG fight will go the distance, so this is understandably a long shot.

I have Bryant Jennings(-225)over Mike Perez, then again at (-235), and (-265).  Depending on how 5dimes moves their lines, it is possible that I caused all these moves myself, though I made bets this morning that did not move the lines.

I watched a couple Jennings & Perez fights, and really think Jennings has significant advantages here. Perez hits harder, but Jennings is quicker, more athletic, and has a big reach advantage, so I really don't think Perez will bring his power to bear on Jennings.  The x factor with Perez is that he's a southpaw, and I haven't found any Jennings fights against southpaws.

The odds on this fight going the distance are (-245).  What drew me to this fight in the first place were the odds on this fight going over 8.5 rounds.  Currently these are (-380), and I think they were (-450) or so two days ago.  The less likely a knockout, the more predictable the fight, in my view.*  If we could know in advance a fight will go to the scorecards, then the better boxer should win, unless his opponent has an overwhelming advantage elsewhere, such as home field advantage (Canelo Alvarez over Erislanday Lara, for instance.)  In this case, the Madison Square Garden crowd should be firmly behind Philadelphia's Jennings, over the Cuban Perez.

Perez hits harder, but Jennings has the tools to deal with this, and I think he wins easily.

I parlayed Jennings(-265), with Fury(-800).  Leading up to a fight, 5dimes will limit the amounts on some bets, and won't let you bet them again until the line moves.  I made this parlay because they were limiting what I could bet on Jennings, so I was parlaying him with another fight to get around this.  With Fury's fight cancelled, I stand to make less on this bet, but this way I was able to bet it when otherwise I would have been stopped.

I parlayed Jennings with Fury, Saunders, and GGG.  Again, this was just another way to bet Jennings.  Paid 8.5/10 before Fury's fight cancelled.

Speaking of cancelled fights, Alexander Gustafsson-Jon Jones cancelled due to injury.  This is the fight that will really piss off bovada gamblers, though the fight is far enough out that the money may not have really come in yet.  I was staying away from this fight, but have taken Jones(-195)over Daniel Cormier.  I think Cormier is a beast, and a legitimate threat to Jones, especially if he finds a way to get Jones on the ground and beat his ass.  Basically I am counting on Jones' freak athleticism to keep Cormier at bay, and the judges to give any close decisions to Jones.

I also expect this line to move, perhaps so much that I could hedge with Cormier.  Less than a day later, Jones is (-230), and Cormier is (+170), and the fight is still two months out.

Odds are now out for Mayweather props.  I've taken Mayweather Jr by decision at (-210) and (-245). Just checked, and it's now (-290)...just bet that too.

5dimes finally made available the bet I wanted to reinvest on with my bovada account.  I have Billy Joe Saunders by decision(-170), and (-180).  Saunders is an ultra quick southpaw who should win just about any fight on points, but doesn't earn many KOs.  I haven't watched much of Blandamura, but the odds on the fight going deep suggest he is not a tomato can, or at least that nobody expects Saunders to achieve a KO.

If I coiuld have bet this when I wanted to on bovada, I could have gotten 2/3.  Last I saw they were also (-170).

I also rolled this into a parlay with several other fights I've already mentioned.  May bet this fight to go the distance again if the odds shift.

The last time I had a bunch of parlays like this I got killed, but most of the damage was done in MMA fights. I think boxing is much more predictable.

The only MMA bet I have going tonight is a parlay that rolls Robbie Lawler(-360)over Matt Brown with Saunders and GGG.  Pays about 1/2.  That will be one hell of a fight, and will be what I watch tonight, but I'm not putting much on it at all.

Just took Saunders by decision again at (-210).  That's it for now.

Just took Jennings again at (-235).  That's it, I swear.

*Unless one fighter is an overwhelming knockout artist.  That brings it's own flavor of certainty.  The problem is when your fighter isn't as overwhelming as you think, and you wait for a finish that never comes.

On cancelled fights, and bovada stupidity

Dereck Chisora fractured his hand at the beginning of the week.  Tyson Fury is fighting Alexander Ustinov in his place.  This fight opened at Fury(-600) on 5dimes.  I waited for bovada to open, since I figured they might have a more favorable line.  Eventually, bovada opened at (-600) as well.  By that time 5dimes had Fury at (-750).  He later moved to (-800), and is now back down to (-735).

5dimes refunded money from the cancelled fight more or less immediately, certainly by the time a new fight was scheduled.  While their line on Fury over Ustinov was working it's way up to (-800), bovada held firm at (-600),presumably because American gamblers don't pay much attention to European boxing. Unfortunately, the entire time bovada was offering better odds than 5dimes, they still held my money, because action is still "pending."  Having spoken with custrmer service about five or six times this week, it turns out that bovada will hold all these wagers as "pending" for the remainder of 2014, because if this fight was rescheduled, it would still have action.  The only way they will return $$ bet on this fight before January 2015 is if there is an official announcement that the fight will not be rescheduled.

So I basically have a bet that was supposed to be decided in a week or two from the time of the bet, that has become a mammoth futures bet that will instead be resolved after the entire NCAA and NFL football regular seasons are complete, even though at this time that event is not even scheduled.

I have Tyson Fury(-750)over Alexander Ustinov.  I'm not crazy about these odds, but Ustinov is big, slow, and possibly not in great shape.  Fury is reasonably quick for a guy his size, and punches in nice combinations.  I don't see how he gets behind on points if the fight goes to the scorecards.  Fury's biggest weakness is--

Fury-Ustinov is cancelled.  To quote The Guardian:  "Tyson Fury has withdrawn from Saturday evening’s clash with Alexander Ustinov after his uncle and first trainer was taken seriously ill, it has been announced."

It says there that promoter Frank Warren will announce the rescheduled date for Fury and Chisora next week.  Makes me wonder if bovada already expected this.  I doubt it.  I think they are just hiding behind a boneheaded policy that doesn't make any sense.

Now I'm curious what the odds will be on the rescheduled fight, and if it will be this year.  I expect the odds on Chisora would be longer, in which case I could get decent value out of this.  On the other hand, it could be better for me to have the fight scheduled for 2015, since the fight could easily be rescheduled again, after another injury, or even after this injury not healing on the expected timetable.  David Haye cancelled two fights with Fury within the past year or so.

5dimes refunded by $$ in the last 30 minutes or so, based on the time of my most recent twitter posts, where I showed my pending wagers.  In those photos the Fury Wagers were not yet cancelled  If the Guardian post was at 5:28 GMT, (it says EDT, but I don't know what that is.  I don't think it's EST.) they refunded my $$ in less than 12 hours.

The case for Fury

Having exhausted the collective wisdom of Wikipedia, and viewed most of their recent fights, I've resorted to trolling You Tube for any indications of the respective fitness of Dereck Chisora and Tyson Fury.

Essentially my wagering thesis is that all else being equal, Fury, with his 11 inch reach advantage, should be able to fight essentially the same fight  that led him to a unanimous decision over Chisora in 2011.

All else is never quite equal though, is it?  Chisora was out of shape for the previous fight, actually outweighing a man eight inches taller than him, whereas now he is considerably lighter, while Fury found himself quite a bit heavier this past winter (up to 26 stone, according to one youtube post).  Meanwhile, Chisora has fought several fighters tougher than anyone Fury has faced, including Wladimir Klitchko and David Haye.  He lost three of these bouts in a row, but only Haye achieved a TKO, while the other two bouts went the distance.  Conventional wisdom seems to be that these were fairly respectable losses, and since then he has won five fights in a row, picking up three belts in the process, though you likely haven't heard of any of them.

Fury has since won eight fights, improving to 22-0, but has only fought 11 total rounds in the past year-and-a-half.  This lack of work, combined with concerns about his weight, have led to the narrative that Chisora has left Fury behind in terms of fitness and competition and skill, and will ride these advantages to victory at the end of the month.

That's the argument for Chisora, and who can say it's wrong?  The building blocks seem to be accurate...but do they add up to enough to overcome an eight inch height advantage and 11 inch reach advantage?

That's where my You Tube trolling comes in.  Dereck Chisora's improvements may add up to something if Fury is indeed out of shape.  He certainly was heavier as of a few months ago.  In the mean time, Tyson has been training, as evidenced by several videos from Team Fury, some of which I've included links to in my last post.

There I described Fury and his team as looking "frighteningly incompetent."  A couple things about that.

First, this seeming incompetence is only frightening if you plan on betting enough on Fury that will take you a while to recover if he loses.  That is what I'm considering doing.  Maybe I'll be to frightened to follow through.

Second, if you are serious about doing whatever due diligence you can before going for a double-up with junior's college fund...wait,...let me rephrase...

If you have a lot of time to waste, take a look at the comments below some of these videos.  Granted, the internet seems to bring out the venom in a lot of people, but the comments there are far worse than anything I've said.  Doesn't make any of it fact, but it all makes an impression.  The impression is that Fury, who has come into other fights with evident flab, and has lapsed mid fight into antics that suggest he doesn't take anything too seriously, from his opponents, to his chosen profession, and possibly his training, is being trained by a clan of Pikeys ruled by nepotism and suspected of inbreeding.

These training videos are home videos.  One of the Furys holds the camera, and points it towards the actiion. There are no cuts, no close ups, no cutaways, and no montage music, from the '80's or otherwise.  In other words, these vids are devoid of production value.  Marin Scorsese is not involved, and it shows.

Tyson and Hughie may run on the beach together, but there is no music from Rocky III, and no weird, uncomfortable, homoerotic hug at the end.

In other words, an amateurish video does not amateurish training make.  Ironically, aside from my own limited videography experience, Tyson Fury's own twitter account  (@Tyson_Fury) crystallized my realization that the Fury's home video, as clueless as it may appear, is not necessarily indicative of actual cluelessness.  There I found a series of photos put together to mirror one of Rocky's training montages, where Fury chased a chicken, punched a frozen side of beef, and ran up some steps, etc.   While it didn't hit me at the time, the training montage photos were really well done.  Well done enough that I could remember the images 10 or 12 hours later while writing about how shitty these home videos are.

Well done enough that, while I wasn't paying enough attention to notice it at the time, 10 or 12 hours later I realized that they were almost certainly professionally done.    

I went back and checked, and saw what I'd missed before:  There were two shots of him hammering the frozen meat, and one had text crammed over to one side.  The photos were from a magazine spread, in Forever Sports.

My point is not that these magazine photos made him look like he's got his shit together.  If anything they make him look like a burly David Beckham, or Mark Wahlberg; a fashionable coat-rack, other than he's not wearing anything more glamorous than sweats for these glamour shots.  Rather, their professionalism contrasted with the unprofessionalism of the home training videos.





                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Too Fat, too Furious?

Now that the smoke has cleared from Canelo-Lara, I'm looking ahead to Tyson Fury vs. Dereck Chisora. Fury is a (-220) favorite, has an eleven inch reach advantage, and already beat Chisora a few years ago. If I like to bet on Goliath (and I do), who is more of a Goliath than the 6'9 Fury?

On the other hand, Chisora apparently is much fitter than before, while Fury has supposedly ballooned out to 26 stone or so.*  (360 lbs. or so?)  I'm inclined to think the media is exaggerating Fury's unfitness to make what is likely to be an uneventful rematch into a compelling matchup, but since I'm at least considering getting down on Fury, this heaviest of heavyweights fairly heavily, I've been searching the net for indications that the Mancunian Brobdingnagian is on his way to being fit to fight.  What I find are videos on Youtube like this or this, that make Fury and his whole team look frighteningly incompetent.  It's almost as if the Fury clan (who apparently are to some degree Irish Travellers a la Brad Pitt's bare-knuckled Pikey in Snatch) are trying to invite action on Tyson's opponent.

Otherwise, you can find articles telling about how fit Fury has become...that are dated 2012, or this one of him hanging out in the sauna back in January 2013, & listening to Skynrd.  Inspiring.

Tyson has stated that he is the best heavyweight in the world, and that Wladimir Klitchko will duck him until he retires.  If they ever do fight, I'm on Klitcho unless I have firm reasons to think he is slipping and that age has finally caught up with him.  Fury has been called a poor man's Klitchko, and comparisons based on size and style are apt.  In fact, if there is any validity to the notion that Kitchko is ducking Fury, it would be that Fury is actually two inches taller than Wlad, nullifying his usual huge advantage.  Fury has certain physical gifts that can't be denied, though they may be discounted due to evident flab around his middle, or his wilingness to clown around, or mug to the crowd while in reach of his opponent.

Beyond that, parts of this training video reminds me of competitions you might find at a church picnic.  What the hell.??.?

And maybe it should...the Furys love picnics...and buffets...

...and fast food.  On the other hand the fight isn't until the 26th, so I will continue to take my time, before risking a chunk of my roll on this fight.

I briefly reached out to other sources, including Iron Mike Gallego (@ironmikegallego) who covers boxing for Deadspin, to see if he'd heard anything a bit more firm regarding Fury's fitness.  He was kind enough to respond that while he had not, he had seen videos of Tyson Fury punching himself in the face.

Amusing, but this doesn't get me any closer to the truth regarding Fury's fitness, other than to say he once survived one of his own punches.

The other thing you'll find on youtube is footage of so-called dust-ups with Chisora, and other bad behavior from Fury, both of which I believe are intended to hype the fight, either along the lines of "these two REALLY don't like each other," or Fury generating interest by playing the heel.

He's pretty good at playing the heel, in that he can hold my attention during an interview or a rant, though my interest is certainly influenced by my intent to earn, or at least not lose money, and my wish to get a feel for his accent, and determine how many parts it is Manchester, and how many parts Pikey.  He's far easier to understand than Brad Pitt in Snatch.

*Unconfirmed--pulled from comments on youtube.


*Unconfirmed--this is from a youtube comment.

Fuck you money/Going the distance

(I'm writing this as the fight starts, but my picks are already on twitter, in case you think I'm full of shit and past post, or whatever they call it in The Sting)

I was outside grilling some ribs, steak, vegetable kabobs & portabello muchrooms last night, while drinking Single Barrel Knob Creek, Stone IPA, and smoking an ACID Blondie cigar...

(which is to say,

a.) I'm getting all paleo & shit

b.)  I consider "veggie" to be a regressive, infantile word, a futile attempt to turn vegetables into comfort food

c.) I'm a two-fistin' baller.  I'm not a big fan of our culture of consumption, but if you're going to consume, do it right.  Remember this if I'm driving a BMW in a couple of years)

d.) ACID Cigars are flavor infused, so they are like the Bartles & Jaymes of cigars, so you can deduct me some man points)

...when one of my personal heroes tweeted me back.

Last Tuesday I tweeted Alan Boston, who along with Bob Scucci, is one of the men who Chad Millman's  about his entire adult life, successfully enough that he used to buy a new 'Vette every year.The Odds is based on.  If you don't know who Alan is, he has been making a living betting on sports for a living for basically his entire adult life, and does well enough that he buys a new Corvette every year, or had until 2002 or so, when the book came out.

Corvettes aren't exactly my style, but they are a nice way to let people know you've got "fuck you" money.  A new Corvette every year says it better than Frank Underwood's cuff-links...especially if you never trade any of them in.

I don't remember if Chad said he traded them in, but you can see why he opened the book with Boston doing donuts outside Aria, while flipping off Vegas' Finest.

Just kidding...Aria/City Center wasn't built yet when the book came out.



Anyway, last Tuesday I noticed Boston tweeting a bunch of bets he'd made on Wimbledon, and asked him if he was betting tennis because it was Summer and there is fuck all going on, and asked him if he ever bet Boxing or MMA.

So Friday night Boston answers me...he really enjoys tennis, but generally doesn't bet fights unless somebody recommends a side to him.

Well, I meant to ask him if he was serious about tennis, (as in, can I take his picks to the bank, like in college hoops?)  but instead over the next day I hit Boston with a staccato burst of tweets.

First I told him fighting was the only thing I consistently win on, and recommended he stay away from Alvarez-Lara...

Then I said I liked the fight to go the distance at (-170), or maybe over 9.5 rounds, at (-330)...

(The 10th just ended, so if you had OVER 9.5, you won already.)

By the time the smoke cleared, I'd broken down why I thought the fight would go the distance, watched Canelo fight Angulo, watched Lara fight Angulo, took a dump, watched Canelo fight Trout, watched Lara fight Trout, bet the fight to go the distance at (-170), again at (-175), decided I was more impressed with Lara, bet Lara to win by decision (+305), tweeted Alan that I thought the judges would probably give a close decision to Alvarez, tweeted that boxing judges are worse than the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee...ate dinner, bet the distance at (-185)...payed for PPV, bet Lara by decision at (+329)...

It's enough to make me think I might have a gambling problem.

Anyway, right before the fight, the man himself (Boston, not tweets me back.  We went back & forth, had a nice conversation, and he answered a lot of my questions.  I'm truly honored.  I'm assuming he didn't take any of my advice on the fight, because who the fuck am I, anyway?

(Hold on, they're going to the judges scorecards...)

SPLIT DECISION....

Alvarez won.  Lara can't believe it.

I guess I called it, right down to the questionable judging.  The questions from the media sound like an interrogation of Canelo...they seem way more sympathetic to Lara.  In Canelo's defense, I think they took that angle more because controversey sells than because they actually believe Lara won.

Who the fuck am I?  Well, I called the fight, or pretty damn close.  Ever since I started betting fights, I've been betting heavy favorites on the money line...a lot of bets on Goliath, Darth Vader, and the Germans.  I've won some, and I've lost some, but I've done a good job of weighing my bets, so that my BIG wins make up for my smaller losses...except for my Germany over Libya/Rousey to win in UNDER 2.5 rounds parlay.  Those bets added up to a lot, and it hurt, though I made most of it back by betting more on the Rousey UNDER...

Where was I?  I truly suspected my tweets were hovering around his head like a cloud of mosquitoes, so it was really nice when he answered most of them.  These mosquitoes got the red carpet treatment, class all the way.

If you've followed any of my picks, you could be up, or you could be down, depending on how you weighed your bets, and how you managed your bankroll.

If you don't have a significant bankroll, you will probably never follow the bets that have built up my roll, because they are favorites and heavy favorites, and are too expensive to be worthwhile unless you have some $$ behind you.

If you do have a pile of $$ (I'm looking at you, Alan) my picks could be valuable...more so to you than to me, because I don't have that much.

If you see me tweeting a pick out to @bostonred88, I am probably going to bet that pick pretty heavily. After all, he wins without me, so why should he waste his time by going along on my degenerate binges?

In my search for more Goliaths to bet on, I may start betting some tennis.  Normally I don't pay much attention to it, except when Federer plays Nadal*, and when there are hot chicks on, but lets face it...there are hot chicks delivering financial news on CNBC too.

Don't get me wrong--I don't know shit about tennis.  On the other hand, 8 or 9 months ago I didn't know shit about fights either.  Maybe I still don't.  (Boston tweeted out Sousa over Cuevas, so I bet it, small.  I have no opinion here.  Who are Sousa and Cuevas?)

If I can grind my way to my own pile of fuck you money, I won't care if you're paying attention or not.

*The last time I told somebody this, they let me know that Djokovic has eclipsed Federer, who is now washed up.  Yeah, well, I was aware of that...marginally at least.  But I payed more attention when it was Federer.  Me not paying attention was my point to begin with.

Belgium-Argentina odds

If you bet Belgium-Argentina, you can get Belgium(+.5) at (-111), or Argentina(-.5) at (-104).  If you bet the result on the money line, you can get Argentina to win at (+100), Belgium at (+350), or a draw at (+245).  While betting Argentina one way or the other are virtually the same, or only 4% apart, betting Belgium with the spread has you paying an 11% vig, whereas, if you bet equal amounts on both Belgium to win, and on the draw, the books pay you a vig.  Lets say you bet $100 on each.

$100 --> $240 if draw
$100 --> $350 if Belgium win

so

$200 --> $240        odds = (+120)

or

$200 --> $350        odds = (+175)

So, you could look at it as you have a $200 wager on Belgium to tie at (+120), with a $110 free roll. (110 being the difference between 240 and 350)  However you look at it, aren't these two wagers better than betting $222 on Belgium to win $200?

Having said all that, Argentina just scored, & lead 1-0, less than ten minutes in.  Maybe I'm looking at it all wrong.  Maybe Belgium(+.5)(-111) is just a huge sucker bet.

I suspect I am missing something, since I have noticed this same supposed discrepancy in two games in two days.  I suspect that had I been inclined to bet any underdogs earlier in the World Cup I would have found the same thing.

Perhaps I should stop looking for live dogs.  So far the favorite has won every elimination game.

Game 3

So far (pregame) I've bet spurs(+4.5), and UNDER 197.5, which has since dropped to 197.  I'm hoping the Spurs get off to a good start, because I want to get down on Miami, who I really expect to win, and to play even better defense at home and keep the score down.  I have about 3x as much bet on the under as on the Spurs, but intend to add bets on the total as the game progresses.

Spurs up 18-10 at the first timeout, and I got HEAT(+4.5).  Then the odds changed.   They've gone away now, but I think the Heat are now favored by 1.5, so I just basically stole 6 points.  On the other hand, I could have taken Miami(+400) for the game, which feels like an even better steal, as when the odds updated to Miami(-135) or so.

I'm a bit puzzled as to what happened.  I wonder if this happens alot when a dog gets up early, as the oddsmakers need to decide between possibly overreacting, and possibly underreacting.

SA is up 13 now, 7 min in...I wonder what the odds will be next break.

Just found out my Heat(+4.5) bet was for the first quarter, so that Heat(+400) ML no doubt was as well.  Coming out of the 2nd break, Miami is down 7, so they are a 3 away from covering, 3:20 to go in the period.

I just took UNDER 210.  I'm assuming Miami won't wait until game 4 to play defense, though to start off the Spurs were draining 80% of their shots...sick, but not sustainable.  On the other hand, SA occasionally shoots about 60%, which should get the over, and a win for them.

World Cup Quarterfinals Day I

Germany did everything I needed them to in their elimination game vs. Algeria...they just did it too late.  I had several bets and parlays on the Germans, including Germany(-300)over Algeria, Alexis Davis/Ronda Rousey UNDER 2.5 rounds(-310), and the same bet with UNDER 2.5 rounds(-350).  These would have paid about 5/7.  Instead, they are already dead, because Algeria held off Germany for the first 90 minutes.

I could have bet Germany to advance, but that paid considerably worse, about 1/8 before parlays.

After losing on the Brazil-Chile OVER, I rattled off ML wins on Holland, Costa Rica, and Colombia.  I would have won betting France on the ML, but I parlayed them with Germany, who took too long for a decision.

The parlays I lost on Germany probably add up to the most I've lost on a team sporting event.

Today I have Colombia ML(+393), and Colombia-Brazil draw(+266).  Combined, these offered a much better price than Colombia(+.5), which is now (+119), and was less, as evidenced by the fact that the Colombia ML has moved to (+409), and the draw has moved to (+283).  I may have to bet these again.

I also now have a bet on Colombia to win it all at 12/1.  If they go through against Brazil they will be a cheaper hedge on Germany (now up 1-0 on France at the half) than betting the field over Germany.  I also think they have been in better form than Brazil, so far, though they haven't had to play anybody as good as Brazil either.  The step up in competition hasn't helped France so far, who still trail Germany, a little into the 2nd half.