big al.... shoe in emporer....

absolutely a great call against all trends on the raiders,,,i am a believer,uh oh might jynx ya,,,nope but ya kept me from a bet on denver...so you've saved me two large bets this year..we humbly await your next shoe in or will this be the boot of the year...great handicapping..gl

lol...thanks. This has been a good season so far and I will keep on posting. I think I may be getting a following...I've noticed that my shoe in gets about twice the number of viewings that the average post gets. Actually, I am just happy they have continually come through and I hope some people out there have made some money off of them and on the other games I occasionally comment on. If people dont mind, I would like to know if you have been using them and making some dough. Hopefully, we can keep it going for the second half of the season. I will say that I have noticed a slight drop off in my winning percentage for the last quarter of the season for the past couple of years. This years trend has followed the same pattern as the last 3 (upto this point): extremely accurate for the first 2/3's to 3/4's of the season, then a slight dropoff the rest of the way (in the 50-52% win range). This is always disappointing when you have been hitting at a 75-85% win rate for the majority of the year. I am trying to figure out if it is just the fact that you can't win at such a high rate over time, no matter how good a handicapper you are, or if the variables I use change towards the end of the season. I will try to make some adjustments this year so that I dont end up in the 50% range for the last quarter of the season.


One quick handicapping note: I am fortuante that I do not depend on my livlihood by betting games or being a professional gambler. I trust none of you are betting the rent and food money on my picks or on any games. I think you do much better at handicapping games when you have other financial means. In poker, they say never play with scared money. The players at the table can almost smell it and go after you like a shark. Same here...if you are sweating the rent and food money and playing a game to try to get it, you are in trouble. This will affect your handicapping abilities. An author I like to read once wrote that the myth of the starving artist was a joke. He basically said a man can write much better with a steak in his belly and some good wine on the table than the starving artist concept of a poor, penniless schmuck who is creating great works of art while starving to death. Same here...get the rent down first, then use your recreational money for betting games. You will enjoy it more when it hits and wont be quite so depressed when it doesnt. Also, let your ego go. Dont be afraid to follow someones advice/picks. The bottom line is too win money. Who cares how you got there or the information you used. Some guys want to do everything on their own so they can pat themselves on the back and think they are bright boys because they picked a game. Screw that..if some guy came along and picked games better and more consistently than me, I would follow him to the end of the world, all the while collecting cash along the way. Another quick story to ilustrate the point...there once was a young beautiful girl in a small town who, one day, got a coke bottle stuck in her sn*tch. She had to go to the doctor to get it out and it being a small town, word soon got out on what she did and what happened. After that, no man in the small town wanted her because of what she did and what everyone said about her. The only guy who did was this old shriveled dwarf of a man and she ended up with him. He didnt care, he had the best piece of a$$ in town. Best of luck--Big Al.

I love the analogy.. and the fact that most of us are playing your Shoe in regularly now... Keep up the good work.. Am also looking forward to hear your thoughts on Madness come March..

Best of Luck

i do not think it is just regression to the mean that late season handicapping falls off...it can become a different game almost in the last third of a season and i am trying to figger it out...hey i have bet the rent money when i was young...now i sweat higher bets but they are less than a weeks salary...agree that keeping wagers reasonable is key..gl all