Wembeeerrlllley.

Last weeks bet could be considered fairly unlucky. With Nate Kaeding out, The Chargers picked up former Texan, Kris Brown from free agency to cover the kicking duties.

He did extremely well with the onside kick but right at the death, 23-20 down he is forced 5 yards further back for a penalty and hits the post. This was in the dying seconds and obviously meant the field goal would have taken it to overtime allowing us to collect on the overs bet regardless. Its a hard one to take but I still think we were on the right line as come game time the firms had pushed the point spread up a a couple of points.

More problems arrived this week with a bet with the Magic Sign on Saturday. 2 nice dogs came my way and I asked a mate to put on a single and a double in a local shop for me (these dogs are better done in the shop than on account).

Anyway the 1st one obliges at 7/2 and the 2nd wins at 7/4, but whats this the bookie is refusing to payout, even though the bets were placed 25 minutes before the start of the first race. Its a long and complicated story (they are even refusing to return the stake) and IBAS will i'm sure come to the rescue but until then, my advice is to use Hills or Corals if you are betting on a "dodgy" dog or two.

So i'm off to Wembley this Sunday to see the Broncos take on the 49ers. For this reason I have decided to concentrate my efforts on this match up as I'm obviously going to need to have some interest bets.

When the NFLUK agreed terms to bring these franchises to London I'm sure they did not expect the 2 teams to be 1-6 and 2-5.

Denver's last game against Oakland was well, unbelievable really, losing 59-14. Its a short week for them with a lot of travelling involved so its going to be hard to recover from such a beating.

It's not looking a lot better for the 49ers, who allowed Carolina their first victory of the season last Sunday. In Fact the only game they have won this season was a 17-9 home win against the Raiders.

There will however be some things to look forward to. In Frank Gore the 49ers have one of the best running backs in the NFL and he will be given the lion share of the ground work once again. Vernon Davis is also a top TE and has found the endzone in his last 4 outings.

Denver letting Brandon Marshall leave for Miami in the off season was a big talking point, however in Brandon Lloyd they have a reciever ranked no.1 for 20 yard+ receptions and with Kyle Orton in fine form (for the most part) we should expect a lot of decent yardage.

Knowshon Moreno has returned from injury and I was impressed with him in his rookie year last season, so I'm sure it is only a matter of time before the Broncos improve their rushing game.

So in what could be a "anything happens" game i'm going to take the Broncos on the money line, solely because they seem to offer a little more value, and lets face it they can't be as bad as last week again.

Other bets I'll be having for interest:

Denver 6/5
Vernon Davis anytime TD scorer 17/10
Frank Gore total rushing yards under 105.5 (this is way to much, some firms go 95.5)
And solely because railing the unders is awful, over 41.5 total points.

Lets hope its a great game.

Week 7 bet

Fortunately yesterday's tilt over flight prices has vanished. I managed to find a resonably priced flight, although a week earlier than intended. It means I'll be back in London on Saturday.

I've really been enjoying the Baseball play offs this year, although having talked up the chances of Texas for so long I'm a little annoyed that I haven't a penny on them and in fact have backed the Yankees.

The Yanks pulled it back to 2-3 last night with another post season win from CC Sabathia and now they return to Texas for the final 2 (hopefully) games. Friday sees Phil Hughes pitching against Colby Lewis and I'm really hopeful that Hughes who has been a revelation this year winning 18 regular season games can get the W. If it goes according to plan then we really will be in for a treat on Saturday night with Andy Pettitte trying to revenge his earlier lose against the formidable Cliff Lee. Only 4 or 5 teams in the history of the ALCS have come back from 3-1 down. One time please Yankees.

So back on topic and I thought I would be recommending a bet on New England on the money line this weekend. I do like their chances still but having studied the match up i've decided to go long on the points instead.

The line is generally set at 47, and I think it should probably be as high as 50.

New England are the league's highest point scorers so far this season with an average of 30.8. Yes, they have lost Randy Moss but that didn't seem to slow them down last week with a solid victory against Baltimore. Brady is a hall of fame quality QB and has one of the best arms in the business, he knows how to find his players and I'm sure the likes of Wes Welker, Deon Branch, Aaron Hernandez and Co are relishing the extra work they are going to get now Moss has departed.

They are conceding points too, at an average of 23.2 per game.

Now looking at the Chargers set up, if I'd of suggested pre-season that San Diego would lose back to back games against Oakland and St Louis you'd have though that i'd gone mad. But thats exactly what has happened these last 2 weeks, yet they are still ranked no.1 in the NFL for offense. Its a crazy world. Points wise they are 5th overall averaging 26.2 a game and conceding an average of 21.0.

A crude mathmatical equation suggests to me the line should be around 50.5 taking in to account points scored and conceded by each team. Injury doubts concerning Floyd and Gates will be of concern to the Chargers but Gates is unlikely to miss the action having played the last 85+ games, it will have to be very serious to keep him out. The special teams have been letting the side down, but Phillip Rivers has not. Expect him to find his TE and recievers again this week and put plenty of points on the board.


1pt over 47 points 10/11 (generally)

Week 7 Lines.

I have been spending most of this morning on life tilt. Trying to find a flight back to the UK in time for the Wembley NFL match is proving a pain in the proverbial. Unless I want to go now (a little early) the flights are three times as much due to what I am told is half-term week. Marvellous. I'll pay through the nose so a bunch of cider swigging half wits can have a week off.

Anyway, onto week 7 and I have compiled the handicap lines as I see them. I'll spend the next day or so looking at the matchups and will hopefully be posting a 3rd straight winning bet before the weekend arrives.

at New Orleans -10 Cleveland
Pitsburgh -2.5 @ Miami
at Chicago -1.5 Washington
at Atlanta -3 Cincinnati
at Tennesse -3.5 Philadelphia
San Francisco -2.5 @ Carolina
at Tampa Bay -3 St Louis
at Baltimore -10 Buffalo
at Kansas -3 Jacksonville
at Seattle -3 Arizona
at Denver -6 Oakland
New England @ San Diego PK
at Green Bay -1.5 Minnesota
at Dallas -3 New York Giants

IPO Trip Report

Nice to see the Jets covering by one point at the weekend. Maybe that's a sign of things starting to go our way. I'll be looking at next weeks match ups throughout the week.

I've never blogged about poker before but a few people mentioned that I should give it a go so I figured why not start with the Boylesports International Poker Open.

SPOILER: It doesn't end well!

I had been to Dublin a month or so ago for the UKIPT where I had found the standard pretty awful, still I managed to fade the money by about 12 or 13 spots but thats fairly typical. I wasn't anywhere near as motivated for the IPO to be honest, Dublin is not my favourite place and with the Euro as strong as it is it becomes one of the most expensive cities in the world (or at least that i've visited).

I flew in from Alicante on Friday afternoon with Ryanair. I've been doing a fair bit of travelling lately and although far from the best, Ryanair has been doing the job ok at the lowest prices. This Friday afternoon flight was a bit different, it was full of vermin. Kids running around screaming, bogites getting drunk and yelling, just a real bunch of low lifes. In fact if ever a plane deserved to go down it was that one, wait..hold on - nah it deserved to go down.

I was staying in the Dublin Skylon Hotel as the Regency was full by the time I got round to booking anything. It was literally a 10 minute walk and for once the rain managed to hold off so it wasn't any bother.

I went out on the Friday night and in true Nutty style got tore into as much Guinness and Whisky as I could possibly handle and then some more.

Waking up for day 1b on Saturday wasn't any trouble however and after a decent breakfast I was at the Regency ready to roll. The main reason why my motivation had been lower for this tournament was because I (along with a small % of others) was to start the comp with 25% less chips than anyone who could be arsed to run off 1000ish hands on Boyles Poker. Pretty retarded if you ask me but it's one of the reasons why I won't be going back next year.

I started on Table 55 seat 7 which wasn't in the main room. In fact the table looked like it had been bought in from a local home game and trying to squeeze 10 players around it was pretty comical. Fortunately everything else about the table was to my liking.

I managed to grind my stack up from 8k to 12k pretty quickly by just opening in position and c-betting any flop when one of the blinds decided to defend. There were 2 decent players on my table, one local guy called Michael Coyne (who cashed in 60th) was directly to my right and then there was Dave Masters, directly to my left who was also a bounty. Dave arrived late and fortunately seemed to be card dead for the duration. Michael was giving me the most problems despite his position, but as my stack grew it became more awkward for him to do so.

At the first break I had 22k and was having a great deal of fun opening my full range. One hand that lead to some futher action was when I opened the HJ with A9cc making it 275 at (50/100) and the BB called. Flop came 9 7 3 rainbow and villain checked it to me. I c-bet for 400 and the BB flats. It really felt like a float, he just didn't seem to want to give it up against this serial raiser. I was sure he was going to lead the turn and I was going to raise pretty much any turn card.
The 10c fell on the turn and it looked like a blank to me. BB leads for 900 into a 1400 pot and I insta raise to 2300.

After a long time in the tank (where i figured I must be good) he folds the 10Jo face up. I showed my hand which probably ended up costing him his torunament life, as he 4 bet jammed into me after the break when I was holding pocket Kings.

At this point I started to run real good. It's not often I'm keen to get into race situations but I was winning them all and after running pocket Kings into Pocket Aces pre flop I said "I have outs" and right enough I turned top set to knock out another oppo.

I then took the bounty of Dave Masters who in his defence was absolutely card dead. Folded to my small blind I looked down at pocket fours and picked up a stack more than enough to put Dave all in. Dave calls with KQo and a 4 on the flop ends it quickly.

So at the 2nd break (100/200) I have circa 75k and feeling pretty good about how things have gone.

Then I start to take a bit of a nose dive. I'm still stacking chips from a previous pot when I see MP1 open for 3x, the CO flats and I come along for the ride on the button with J9cc.

The flop comes Kc 7s 10c which looks like a fairly good flop for me ;o). MP1 checks, CO leads for half the pot which was slightly strange as it represented almost half his stack. I figured he has a big hand here but I'm fairly happy that i've got 16 outs twice - if he has a hand like AK then i've got about 55% so I move all in to get it heads up, and as expected MP1 gets out of the way. CO then does his best Helmuth impression by pushing his chips in and jumping out of his seat while displaying pocket tens for 2nd set. I still have about 42%.... but hold on, i've mis-read my hand. While busy stacking chips i've not realised that I am holding Js9c. Marvellous.

In reality I have about 28% and to rub it in the Ac falls on the turn giving me what could or would have been the winning hand. Oh well, no more mistakes please.

I was very aware of the amount of short stacks on my table now, the tournament didn't take long before it became a crapshoot with the average stack never very much above 10-12 BBs. I had to avoid these stacks 3 bet jamming my opens and the slightly bigger ones re-stealing on any 3 bets I made.

There was one guy who let me continually pound on his BB from the CO. I saw him limp/fold 8bbs or less at least 3 times. Why do these people bother?

So my first major downfall happened soon after a bigger stack (40kish) moved to seat 4. Another local who seemed to be fairly ABC but was raising his fair share of hands. In fact he had c-bet 100% of his opening range and had double barrelled twice to take down the pots without showdown. I wanted to put this guy to the test with my position and because he was the next biggest stack I figured he would less likely want to tango with me.

I don't remember his name so for the purpose of this report I will now refer to him as Local Villain. So Local Villain opens for 4x in MP2 and I decide to peel the button with 78cc (it's the top of my range ;o)).

The flop comes 3c 5d 7s and Local Villain checks. I've bet a lot worse flops than this in my time so this one looks like the nuts to me. I lead with a 75% pot bet and he clicks it back almost instantly. Warning: the rest of this hand is pretty ugly.

I stick it in and he tanks for like 8 weeks before making the call with pocket Queens. Ty for the slow roll.
That takes me down to about 40k which in all honesty I never really recover from. I get a move into the main room and find a tight player opening for 3x UTG2, another tight player flatting in MP2 and I look down at AKo in the BB with about 11 BBs. It's a no brainer so I shove, UTG tank calls for a very similar stack (LOL) and MP2 folds. UTG has 88 and its good game me when the board bricks out.

People talk about how much fun the IPO is, yeah I had some good banter throughout the day - and a shout out goes to Michael Coyne who provided a lot of that banter and went on to cash in what was a solid display of grinding. Yet, tournament poker sucks if you don't win, thats the reality. The buy in is small because it is aiming to attract the most players every year but really the cost of the trip far out weighs any equity a £200 tournament offers, plus the structure left a lot to be desired. For anyone that lives locally its a great tournament to play but as for flying there next year, its odds against.

Next stop will likely be the 100k gtd at Dusk Till Dawn on 6/7th November, where I hope to improve on recent form.

Week 6 Bet.

Looking through the lines available this week there doesn't seem to be too many areas that differ from my views.

Having reviewed them all I have decided that there is some value in backing the New York Jets this weekend. I had given them 4.5 points to overcome on the road to Denver and I actually think that might be a tad on the low side. As I write, Boyles give The Broncos only a 3 point start at 10/11.

The Jets are getting the job done. I think LT and Shonn Greene will be rubbing their hands together in anticipation of this match up as I envisage the Jets literally running all over Denver.

The Jets ranked no.1 for rushing are facing a poor Denver D ranked 25th defending the rush. It all adds up to plenty of yardage. Make sure you have Jets RBs in your fantasy team this weekend!

Kyle Orton has been on form and currently has the 2-3 Broncos ranked 2nd for passing offense. Lets not read too much into that at this stage because they cannot run the ball, they are 32nd for rushing, so this will leave a Jets team (who last season were the no.1 pass defense) with little else to worry about. Of course it will be nice if Revis is fit but even if he is rested they have plenty of other tools.

The Jets are averaging 27 points a game and the Broncos 20.8 on offense and conceding 16.2 (Jets) to 23.2 (Broncos) on defense.

The more I look at this match up the more I can see the Jets in complete control, defending hard against the pass and running all over the Broncos D.

1pt New York Jets -3 10/11 Boyles.

I won't be about this weekend which will mean no X factor posts. If you are having a bet or trading the elimination market make sure you get an early look at what each act is singing because it can get you into some good early positions. As it happens I think it might just be a bit of a non entity this week. I'm off to Dublin from Friday - Monday and I may post about the trip when I return. Until then, lets go Jets.

Week 6 Lines

Just a quick post with my thoughts on how week 6 will look.

at Philadelphia -1.5 Atlanta
at Chicago -6 Seattle
at Pitsburgh -9 Cleveland
at New York Giants -7.5 Detroit
at New England -1.5 Baltimore
San Diego -9.5 @ St Louis
at Green Bay -3.5 Miami
New Orleans -4.5 @ Tampa Bay
at Houston -6 Kansas
New York Jets -4.5 @ Denver
at San Francisco -3 Oakland
at Minnesota -4.5 Dallas
Indianapolis -3 @ Washington
Tennessee -4.5 @ Jacksonville

I'm off to Dublin on Friday for the IPO, so I'll try and get a bet up sometime on Thursday.

Dodging Bullets Baby!

Following on from my last post I forgot to include what turned out to be an all important scenario.

Scenario 3): All judges invite 1 act back, call them a wildcard and they each bring 4 acts to the live show.

Now obviously had I considered this I wouldn't have been laying the "any other" option. To be honest looking back it was something that needed consideration. The show was longer than any other opening show had been and it wouldn't be considered fair for one judge to have a numerical advantage.

Having watched the show I grew a little in confidence. Wagner will survive a few weeks for comedy value, TreyC is very good and Diva Feva like Wagner will become boring in the coming weeks. In my mind that left Paije as a danger, he sounded awful, looked awful and sang a ridiculous song. I expect him to be bottom two next week.

So having dodged that bullet we ended up getting the lot with Nicolo getting the boot first (previously tipped on this blog).

As far as the winner goes it is no suprise to us at Nutty Towers that Aiden is now favourite. Aiden, tipped up here at 10/1 is generally around 4/1 now. We also have a bet on Cher and to be honest I don't expect to be collecting on that. I think she has given her best performance (1st audition),she isn't really likeable and I imagine her fading out around 5th or 6th, I hope i'm wrong because a different type of act winning might just help the show continue in future years.

Atlanta Falcons covered the spread in Cleveland this week getting us off the mark for the NFL season so hopefully we can kick on from there and find another winner for week 6.

I've just arrived back in Spain so will be taking it easy for the rest of the day and intend to post my week 6 lines tomorrow.

X Factor Coup?

There was quite a lot of interest into my claim on Facebook that I had found "The bet of the year" so rather than reply to all I figured I'd post my thoughts here....

As some of you will know the X Factor returns on Saturday with their live shows. There has been quite a lot of controversey surrounding the selections made by some of the judges this year. Whether or not that has anything to do with the "twist" the show is adding is unknown.

However, the "twist" is that each judge can nominate an act that they didn't put through, and then there will be a public vote allowing one of these acts to join the live shows.

The selected acts as I understand it are as follows: (Groups) Diva Feva, (Boys) Paije, (Girls) TreyC and (Over 28s) Wagner.

I would imagine one of the two scenarios will occur:

1) We will be invited to vote for the act we want to see make the live shows and the results will be given on the Sunday show (allowing for plenty of votes).

If this scenario is correct then an act will be eliminated before the new act joins the live show.

2) We will be invited to vote for the act we want to see make the live shows at the beginning of Saturday's show with the winning act singing live at the end of show.

This will mean they too could be eliminated in the first week.

Either way, I am fairly certain the new addition to the show will not be booted out first. Obviously the first scenario is better but even if the second scenario turns out to be correct, how likely are the public to vote in another act, giving them a reprieve only to boot them out a couple of hours later?

With this in mind I have been laying "Any other" to be first to be eliminated on Betfair. There isn't a lot of liquidity but it has been possible to do blocks every now and again. I have layed bits as short as 2/1 or thereabouts and will continue to do so until the show starts.

It just seems a gift to me.

Missed The Boat

I had made Carolina 2.5 point favourites this week in their game against Chicago and very early lines released from Vegas and then the UK firms showed they disagreed with me giving The Panthers a 2.5 start.

It was my intention to back them on this line but having looked again it appears they have changed and they now make Carolina generally 1 point favourties. Looks like i've missed the boat here because I can't back them now after a 3.5 point swing. That will teach me to delay matters and not get on early.

So where to for this weeks bet? I had intended two singles and a small double but we are now left with just one single and that rests with Atlanta. I'd given the Falcons 5.5 points to cover for their trip to Cleveland but it is possible to get them at -3 at evens, and that looks like a bet to me.

Cleveland have started 1-3 with a sole win over Cincinnati.

Altlanta top their division with a 3-1 record which includes a narrow win over current Champions, New Orleans. Looking through all the stats The Browns do not match up closely in any area.

The Falcons also welcome back WR Michael Jenkins for this game and with plenty of rushing talent in Turner and Snelling I can see them covering the 5.5 points I made it, so even money for 3 points should be a walk in the park.

1pt Atlanta -3 Evs (Paddy Power, Bwin) @ Cleveland

Week 5 Lines.

I am going to spend today studying some of the week 5 match ups so this is a quick post with my ideas of what the lines should be.

Jacksonville -2.5 @ Buffalo
at Baltimore -6 Denver
at Indianapolis -7.5 kansas
Green Bay -2.5 @ Washington
at Detroit -2 St Louis
at Caroliona -2.5 Chicago
at Cincinnati -4.5 Tampa
Atlanta -5.5 @ Cleveland
at Houston -2.5 New York Giants
New Orleans -6 @ Arizona
at Dallas -6 Tennesse
San Diego -6 @ Oakland
at San Francisco -2.5 Philadelphia
at New York Jets -3 Minnesota

I expect the firms to price up the matches today or tomorrow in which time i'll be ready. Lets googogo.

A Good No Bet Week.

It's been a pretty good sporting weekend. I've been glued to the Golf this week and managed to come out slightly ahead having backed a few top point scorers.

It's a shame they had to hold it in Wales in October (or Wales at all really) but it did prolong the action and a lazy Monday in front of the TV watching top sporting action is never a bad thing.

I didn't have a bet on the NFL this week, most of my early lines were very similar to that of Vegas and the firms and I really couldn't find anything I liked enough to invest, which on reflection with a few suprise results probably wasn't a bad thing.

Another favourite of mine is the X Factor (possible spoiler alert coming up). This weekend showed the remaining contestants at the Judge's houses awaiting their fate. Of course the final 12 have been fairly common knowledge for some time now but it still makes good TV.

What always makes me laugh when these shows are aired is the constant bitching about the decisions made on people's Facebook status'.

I'm sure Simon Cowell loves the attention as it displays the popularity of the show even now it's in season 7 but I can't understand a lot of it.

I saw one status that claimed to "HATE" Cher Lloyd. Wow, a kid (just turned 17) taking a shot at her dream and within a couple of hour long shows you hate her? Got to imagine that persons life isn't up to much.

I also saw another one that was happy to confirm Cheryl Cole's racisim because she didn't select Gamu.
I happen to believe that Gamu was the best vocalist in the competition, but I also understand her visa had run out and it is likely the show didn't want to risk her when she was very possibly going to get deported. Was she better than Katie, of course she was, it wasn't even close, but lets not get carried away calling Ms Cole a racist, or perhaps that was why she divorced Ashley?

There is to be a twist to this weekend's first live show, and although this is by no means confirmed (the firms are still betting wider than the final 12) my understanding is that there might be another contestant added to the field via a viewers vote. If that is the case I encourage you to vote for Gamu.

My bets on X factor so far have been limited, I wanted to back Gamu, but won't until she is a confirmed runner. I have backed Aiden Grimshaw at 10/1, who I think will improve every week and is very likely to be popular with the female viewers, I've had a bit on Cher Lloyd too at 9/1, she is different to any other act, Simon might realise that he can't keep churning out ballad singers and well racist or not, Cheryl really likes Cher and I get the feeling she might just concentrate most of her efforts on her.

Difficult to say who will be first out at the moment, Katie, who is getting some bad press because Gamu missed out is the early favourite, but I think there might be some mileage in Nicolo Festa going first at 8/1. He's not going to have a strong fan base from Italy and against 2 other very strong contenders in his category might struggle to avoid the bottom two.

More to come this week, I'll be studying the NFL matchups hard this week, I'll be looking into the Baseball playoffs, keeping my ears open for any X Factor news and playing a little Poker.

So until then happy punting.