Finishing First

Everyone was ganging up on 2016 as the year concluded, what with all of the bad news punctuating seemingly every week of the calendar year.

For your humble scribbler, the year seemed to involve an inordinate number of second-place finishes. My Carolina Panthers came up short in the Super Bowl in February, then my UNC Tar Heels also took runner-up in the NCAA finals in April. Then in May I finished second in a poker tournament in Monte Carlo, and came here to whimper a little at having come so close to winning only to have it snatched away.

The presidential election in November was hardly considered a victory here on the farm either, I’ll confess. It was right after that I remember messaging a friend and after listing all of the second-place finishes making a stubborn proclamation: “I am winning the gotdamn Pigskin Pick’em and that’s all there is to it.”

I was referring to the Pauly’s Pub football pool, of course, which I wrote about a bit during the course of the NFL season here although not as much as I have in past years. This was the eighth year running I’ve participated. I won it once before (in 2011), and this year managed to get off to a fast start to tie for the lead in Week 2, then take the lead all by myself in Week 3. By November I had built up a long streak as the frontrunner, and would remain in the top spot into the final weeks.

My largest lead over the chase pack was five games -- six, in fact, for a brief period halfway through one Sunday’s games -- but it had been reduced to just one game heading into Week 16. I was a bit of a basket case, I’ll admit, worrying that I was sadly, slowly careening toward yet another second-place showing.

Week 16 saw games happening all over the place as the NFL scheduled things around (and on) Christmas (which was a Sunday). I believe games took place on four different days that week. I enjoyed some great fortune in three games that mattered a lot, as in each I’d gone one way and my trailing opponent(s) went the other.

The first was the Atlanta-Carolina game where I took the Falcons, others took the Panthers, and Atlanta won easily. Then came the Cincinnati-Houston game the night of Christmas Eve. I had the Texans, my nearest foe had the Bengals, and while Houston led 12-10 in the final minute Cincy was driving for what seemed a certain winning field goal. With seconds left, Bengals kicker Randy Bullock tried a 43-yard field goal that somehow went wide right, and Houston won.

Then on Christmas Day I’d taken Pittsburgh over Baltimore (whom my closest challenger took), and after a crazy back-and-forth game the Steelers got a go-ahead TD with just over a minute left to win 31-27. I was up four games heading into the final week, a relatively comfortable place to be.

For Week 17 all 16 games were played on Sunday, and after making my picks I realized I could very well have it all locked up by mid-afternoon. But it didn’t go so easily.

Up four versus three opponents tied for second, two of them gained two games on me in the early afternoon games, cutting my lead to two. In the late afternoon games one of those two and I made identical picks for all six of them, which meant I’d automatically clinched beating that player as there was only the single night game left.

With the other opponent we’d picked five games the same, only differing in one -- the New York Giants (whom he picked) at Washington (whom I’d picked). The Redskins were playing to earn a playoff spot while the Giants had nothing to play for at all, having already clinched a seed that wouldn’t change with a win. But NY played their starters throughout, Washington struggled mightily, and the Giants won the game.

Now with only the Green Bay at Detroit night game left to go -- the 256th of 256 regular season games -- I had a one-game lead. And I had a strong suspicion my opponent was going to go with the underdog Lions in an effort to close the gap.

I was facing an interesting “game theory”-type situation, I realized. And I had about an hour before the kickoff to ponder it.

I had already chosen Green Bay, but could change my pick if I wished. That said, I had imposed on myself a strict “no-change” policy according to which I never changed a pick once I had entered it. I estimated the likelihood my opponent was taking the Lions to be at least 75%, perhaps even higher. If he did and I switched to Detroit, I’d clinch the title as soon as the game kicked off. But if I stuck with Green Bay and he took Detroit, I’d have to sweat one last game.

I decided not to change my pick, and when the game began I saw indeed he’d taken Detroit. Then the Lions led for the first half, and I was filled with misgivings for having let a superstition of sorts overrule my rational analysis of the situation. Green Bay stormed back in the second half, though, with Aaron Rodgers leading the Packers to three TDs in four drives to build a two-touchdown lead. I don’t think I finally exhaled, though, until after Green Bay covered up the onside kick at the very end after Detroit had made it 31-24.

I couldn’t help but laugh, thinking how I’d spent 10-plus hours during the first day of 2017 fretting about the pool, thinking all along how if things had gone just slightly differently I might’ve clinched things during the early afternoon and avoided all the stress.

Today the trophy arrived, which turned out to be a shiny bit of fun amid a dreary day in which a newly-inaugurated president is going on about “America First,” seemingly unable to understand the difference between national pride and jingoism. (Not to mention unaware -- or perhaps not -- of the term’s history and less than appealing connotations.)

In any case, I’ll say it was fun to be first nearly all year, and even more so to end up on top -- a nice finish to start a new year.

Risk Versus Reward

I continue to lead in my Pigskin Pick’em pool, which means I’m necessarily locked in and following closely just about every NFL game each week. I’d be watching and checking scores anyway, but my motive for doing so has increased considerably thanks to the pool standings.

Amid all those missed extra points yesterday (which created a few interesting spots, strategy-wise), there were a few instances of coaches faced with key fourth-down decisions late in games. A couple stood out, both involving teams that were ahead and looking at a fourth-and-short with just a few minutes left.

One came late afternoon when the Los Angeles Rams were up 10-0 against the Miami Dolphins with six minutes and 45 seconds remaining. The Rams had a fourth-and-1 at the Miami 30-yard-line, and rather than go for it decided to try a 48-yard field goal that like those PATs ended up a miss (hitting the left upright).

Miami subsequently marched down the field to score a touchdown in less than three minutes, held the Rams to a three-and-out and got the ball back, then took just a minute-and-a-half to mount another TD drive to win 14-10. Rams coach Jeff Fisher was maligned somewhat afterwards for not going for the first down rather than try to stretch the lead from 10 to 13 -- certainly more so than would have been the case if L.A. had managed to hang on to win.

Another instance came in the night game between Washington and Green Bay. In that one the Redskins were up 29-24 and in fact there was exactly the same amount of time left -- six minutes and 45 seconds. In Washington’s case, they were on their own 41-yard line and facing a fourth-and-1. They decided to go for it, got a couple of yards and the first down via a quarterback sneak, then went on to score a TD themselves and more or less seal the game.

Of course, in the latter situation Green Bay’s offense was proving hard to stop for Washington (they’d scored TDs their last two possessions), so the desire to retain possession was higher there than was the case in the Rams-Dolphins game where Miami hadn’t scored a point in any of their 11 possessions. In any case, Washington coach Jay Gruden earned accolades for what was deemed a gutsy decision to go for it on fourth in that spot, although again it’s easy to imagine the decision being judged differently had it not worked out the way it did.

“Gruden was feeling risky all night,” writes ESPN, alluding both to the fourth-down try and Washington having gone for two-point conversions twice earlier (failing both times).

Meanwhile many noted the very conservative game plan followed by the Rams who had rookie QB Jared Goff making his NFL debut, with Fisher’s decision to try that field goal earning some censure for being too risk-averse. “Los Angeles could have won that game if Jeff Fisher was less conservative on fourth down late in the game,” concludes RamsWire, articulating a thought shared by many.

Neither of these fourth-and-1 decisions were unambiguous in terms of their reward. That is to say, making the first down didn’t guarantee victories, although certainly would meaningfully improve the team’s chance of winning the game. The risk each presented wasn’t cut-and-dry, either, although it appeared Washington faced a greater one with a smaller lead and worse field position.

I saw a stat not long ago stating that over the last 20 years nearly half of all NFL games ended up being “one score” games decided by seven points or less. Games finishing with margins of eight points up to 16 are also often still in doubt by the middle of the fourth quarter, which means the majority of NFL games present situations in which teams that are ahead face similar challenges to weigh risk versus reward when it comes to clock management and possession.

Like a player with a final table chip lead, such teams and coaches still often have to continue to take risks in order to increase their chances of winning. In other words, they usually can’t just “fold” their way to the win.

My frontrunner status in the pool is causing me to identify somewhat with this position. And the example presented by these coaches and their disparate ways of handling the endgame is making me recognize I shouldn’t become too conservative with picks going forward, since being overly risk-averse may lessen my chance at the reward of winning the sucker.

Photo: Advanced Football Analytics.

Fumbles That Hit You Right in the Feelings

Football season is in high gear, even if my Carolina Panthers are off to a woeful start.

Yesterday’s game versus the Atlanta Falcons was especially distressing, given how evident it was from the very beginning the defense wasn’t going to be able to stop Atlanta’s passing game. Reigning MVP Cam Newton going out in the second half after suffering a concussion just made things less pleasant.

The Panthers losing presents a specific problem for me in my Pigskin Pick’em pool (where we pick games straight up, not versus the spread), as I dislike picking against them. That bias wasn’t so much of an issue last year when they went 15-1, but it’s already earned me three “X” marks this year.

Otherwise I’ve done well so far with my picks, although yesterday got me thinking once more about the relative pain and pleasure that comes from various outcomes.

My buddy Robert Woolley, a.k.a. the “Poker Grump,” wrote a nice article for PokerNews recently titled “Mountains, Swinging, and the Fear of Loss in Poker” in which he shares some research regarding the way losing can hurt more than winning can feel good.

According to findings of the economist Robert cites in the article, the “loss aversion” ratio for most people is “in the range of 1.5 to 2.5.” In other words, for many it is somewhere either above or below being twice as painful to lose than it is pleasurable to win.

It was early in the NFL season last year I shared a hastily-created “pleasure-pain index” for Pigskin Pick’em, something I was reminded of by Robert’s article as well as by some of the results from yesterday. The index goes as follows:

most pain: making non-consensus choice (usually an underdog), being wrong

least pain: making consensus choice (usually a favorite), being wrong

least pleasure: making consensus choice (usually a favorite), being right

most pleasure: making non-consensus choice (usually an underdog), being right

After three weeks of following a relatively conservative path with my picks, I broke out of that yesterday somewhat by choosing a few unpopular dogs such as Jacksonville (who won) and the LOLJets (who lost). Those picks ended up evening out for the most part, although one game in particular -- San Diego’s miserable give-away of its game versus New Orleans -- got me thinking the index isn’t accounting for another factor significantly affecting the pleasure-pain measurement.

I picked San Diego over Indianapolis in Week 3, a game in which the Chargers had a 22-20 lead and a 2nd-and-3 at midfield with less than three minutes left, but couldn’t make a first down and lost the lead on a long TD.

The Chargers then got the ball back down four and promptly fumbled, then after getting it back one last time with almost no time left fumbled again. Indy won 26-22, with San Diego having gone from an 80.6% “win probability” (as ESPN is now measuring) with two minutes left to losing.

Despite the pain caused by that failed pick, I chose San Diego again yesterday in their home game against New Orleans, and with just under seven minutes left the Chargers were up 34-21 with possession of the football. Win probability? 98.5%. But they fumbled, and the Saints got a quick TD. Then they fumbled again, New Orleans got seven more, and the Chargers lost 35-34.

I didn’t actually see either game, save the last desperate minute yesterday when San Diego got the ball back one last time and lost 12 yards, then threw a pick. Reading box scores and play-by-play rundowns of the ends of these two games, the fumbles seem almost purposeful -- the surest way to lose the games. Bill Barnwell of ESPN even tweeted yesterday how San Diego was “trying so hard to lose this game,” and while I don’t actually think they were, it’s uncanny how efficiently they managed to let slip away an all-but-certain victory.

I’m realizing the pain is heightened when being on the wrong side of these games, and is much greater than the pleasure of winning them, in my experience. I’m referring to games in which as a person trying to predict winners the game concludes in such a way that you cannot help but view yourself as being either “lucky” or “unlucky” when choosing either side -- you know, games decided by unlikely late turnovers, odd or incorrect calls by referees, missed field goals, and the like.

I certainly like winning such games, but when that happens I can’t say I feel as though I’ve “earned” the check mark like I do when teams demonstrate less equivocally that I’ve chosen the right side (such as when I picked the Steelers last night and they crushed Kansas City 43-14). Meanwhile losing them feels especially bad, and even today I keep looking back and thinking how “undeserving” I am to have been rudely delivered that red “X” in the Chargers-Saints game.

Each of the four categories above, then, could be split into four more subcategories -- the “lucky” win, the “non-lucky” win, the “non-lucky” loss, and the “unlucky” loss -- with the relative pain-pleasure calibrated for each outcome. Hmm... this is getting complicated. I may have to create a table or graph to represent it all.

Silly stuff, I know. But the curious part of it is how what I’m describing is precisely the opposite of what happens (to me) in poker, where losing because of bad luck doesn’t hurt much at all, but losing because of my own poor decisions hurts significantly. Similarly, winning by getting lucky doesn’t bring as much pleasure as winning because of smart, skillful play.

Will keep monitoring it all. And we’ll see if I can ever bring myself to picking the Chargers again -- or perhaps if I can start picking against the Panthers -- and what sort of pain and/or pleasure those picks will produce.

Image: “fumble!” (adapted), Paul L Dineen. CC BY 2.0.

Feeling Competitive, Not Competing

Enjoying watching UNC play well and advance through the NCAA tournament. Partly because of general uncertainty and partly as an emotional hedge, I didn’t pick the Heels to go this far in my pool. (In fact, I can’t remember the last time I picked them to win it all.) But I am having fun watching them succeed nonetheless.

As happened to many, my bracket went up in flames way back in the round of 64 when my pick to win the sucker -- Michigan State -- dropped their first game against Middle Tennessee State. Meanwhile on the other side of the bracket I managed to pick two Final Four teams correctly (Villanova and Oklahoma), and thus by necessity have wallowed just a bit in “what if” scenarios as a result.

The pool I’m in has about 60 entries, and of that bunch just two folks picked three of four region winners correctly. Meanwhile getting two of them was above average, as only a little over a third of the entries got that many. In other words, over half got none or one.

Of course, most of us who got two also had Michigan State getting through the Midwest (only one picked Syracuse to do so), and a lot of folks had Kansas topping the East and not UNC (I had Xavier). In truth I needn’t bother too much with wondering “what if” MSU hadn’t faltered as they did, as I would’ve probably still been stuck in the middle of the pack even if they had won a few games.

Having hit with ’Nova and the Sooners is a bit of a tease, though. Like hitting your flush on the river only after the board paired on the turn to give your opponent a full house.

It’s a little like a game in which your team gets down big early, remains behind by 15 with eight minutes to go, then stages a pseudo-comeback to get within a couple of possessions before time runs out. (In contrast to what Syracuse pulled off yesterday when they managed to wipe out a 15-point deficit in less than five minutes against Virginia to grab the lead for the endgame.)

My (virtual) first-round knockout from the pool this year makes me long for the pool I used to enter back in the day, the one for which you picked round-by-round and thus were never out of it -- at least not until the end of the second weekend. (I discuss the scoring and rules for that pool in this post from a few years back.)

Then again, looking at the four remaining teams (UNC, Syracuse, Villanova, and Oklahoma, it’d be hard to say who I’d pick on Saturday and then in the final. One less thing to think about this week!

Photo: “NCAA Basketball,” Phil Roeder. CC BY 2.0.

63 Winners, 63 Losers

Taking another short break again today from my survey of poker “precursors” -- that is, card games (mostly European) that preceded poker’s initial appearance in the early 19th century. Have so far discussed mus (Spain), poch (Germany), primiera (Italy), and brag (England), and have at least a couple of more I’d like to add to the list next week.

Today I’m distracted, though -- like most of my readers, I imagine -- by the start of the NCAA tournament and another entry into a pool. Writing here at the start of the second half of the round of 64, I survived yesterday in decent shape and so am still enthused about the prospects of maybe winning the sucker (as I once luckboxed my way into doing a few years ago). In other words, I haven’t burned my bracket just yet.

Incidentally, inspired by picking all of the games and the sort of faux “favorite/upset” dichotomy created by NCAA seeds, I wrote a strategy article yesterday for PokerNews titled “Pumping Up the Variance Against Better-Skilled Opponents,” if you’re curious. The idea I explored there had to do with the way lesser-skilled players in poker can sometimes reduce an opponent’s edge by making larger bets and raises and generally trying to play “big pot” poker and increase the luck factor. You know -- bigger preflop raises, more all-ins, and so on to reduce the decisions after the flop. I also mentioned how faster-structured tournaments function similarly, reducing the number of hands per level and making the stacks more shallow more quickly.

The fact that the NCAA changed the shot clock from 35 to 30 seconds this year has encouraged many to observe that the underdogs (theoretically) should have less of a chance of topping the favorites because there are now more possessions per game (about five more per team). I suggest that is analogous to playing more hands and thus giving better-skilled performers more chances to benefit from their edge.

Like I say, you can check out the article to see how I explain all of that and decide whether or not there’s something to the observation. Meanwhile, let me share a couple of other thoughts that occurred to me as I filled out this year’s bracket.

I found myself looking very closely this year at how the teams who made the tournament have performed in the NCAA recently, looking specifically over the last five years. Just felt like I’d been burned a few times picking some team to make the Elite Eight and then realizing as they were getting smoked in the first round they’d never gotten out of the first weekend before.

Interestingly, out of all 68 teams there are only nine who have played in the NCAA each of the last five years -- Michigan State, Gonzaga, UNC, Wisconsin, Duke, Cincinnati, VCU, Kansas, and Villanova. The average for all the teams was only a bit more than two NCAA appearances out of the last five years.

Ultimately I just used that as one factor that in a few cases swayed me one way or the other when making a selection. That said, I did pick a team to make the final four who has lost in the first round the last three years’ running, and didn’t even make the tournament the two years before that (Oklahoma).

To be honest, even after putting in the effort to figure out every team’s recent history, I couldn’t make myself actually adhere to those findings in any sort of systematic way. As I think pretty much all poker players know, it’s hard to let go of “feel” and give yourself completely over to what math and logic are telling you is the right play to make. That’s not to say recent NCAA history is going to be an infallible predictor of success, but even if it were close to being so, I think it would be hard for me to subtract my own “gut” entirely from the equation.

One other kind of weird thing about my bracket. Partly motivated by the impression that there are a number of teams this year that can win it all -- perhaps more than most years -- I ended up going against the grain in another big way by not having any No. 1 seeds in my final four, and four No. 2 seeds. I didn’t plan for that, but when that’s how it ended up I decided it was weird enough to try, if only as an experiment. Haven’t looked, but I’d be surprised if there were any other final fours in the pool comprised of Villanova, Oklahoma, Xavier, and Michigan State.

All four of those teams play today, so if one or two fall I will be doing some burning.

(EDIT [added 5 p.m. ET]: Oh well, it was a fun few hours, anyway -- my chosen winner, Michigan State, dropped their first-round game this afternoon, the first time in a quarter-century of filling out these pools my winner was out so soon.)

The Futures Is Now, Bro

Was listening today to the new episode of Chad Millman’s Behind the Bet$ podcast for ESPN, a show I tend to enjoy despite not being a huge sports bettor.

The focus of the episode is the upcoming Major League Baseball season, and the conversation between Millman and his guests ranged over several topics although mostly had to do with futures bets, including those “over/under” bets on total games won as well as bets on a team winning their division, league, or World Series.

The conversation began with the Chicago Cubs, who Millman pointed out had opened at 10-to-1 to win the World Series (following last year, I assume) and now had moved all of the way to a kind of ridiculous 4-to-1 (I’m not sure which sportsbook he’s using). As the group pointed out, that’s more of a favorite than the most favored team often tends to be going into the playoffs, let alone to start the season.

The Cubs talk was interesting enough, and I imagine might have disturbed my Cubs-hating uncle who wants nothing more than to see them miss the World Series for a 71st-straight year. But I was intrigued by a point made by Paul Bessire of PredictionMachine about how much these World Series bets tend to favor the house -- indeed by a margin much greater than lots of other bets, including other futures bets.

The example of the Cubs who no one is giving more than a 20% chance of winning the World Series right now (what you’d need to break even on a 4-to-1 bet) is obvious enough. Bessire said after crunching all his numbers he personally had the Cubs at about 15% to win, the best of any team but not close enough to the odds being offered to make that a worthwhile bet to make.

Really, though, there are no good World Series futures bets. “If you dig into the numbers,” Bissere explained, and “look at all the confidence that you would need or at least the break-even points for all of the individual teams on the World Series odds and add them altogether you would get almost 200%, meaning that there’s almost 100% juice built into that.”

Like I say, I’m not a big sports bettor, but the point Bissere is making is one I’ve noticed before when perusing these kinds of futures bets. Offering the Cubs at 4-to-1 suggests they are 20% to win the World Series, if the line weren’t overvaluing the Cubs (which it is). The next biggest favorite is the Los Angeles Dodgers at 9-to-1 (or 10%), followed by the Houston Astros at 10-to-1 (about 9%) and so on down the list. What Bissere is saying is that when you add all 30 teams’ odds up, the total is close to 200%, which means collectively the 30 teams are being overvalued by nearly 100%.

I found a list of World Series futures -- not exactly the ones they had on the show, but close (including having Chicago at 4-to-1) -- and just for fun decided to add up the percentages. They actually only totaled about 125%, so unless I’m missing something, which I could be, the futures list I saw (at VegasInsider) wasn’t as punishing as the one the guys were referencing on the show.

Something similar, actually, usually results from these odds on final tables in poker tournaments such as we’ve seen at the World Series of Poker now and then -- namely, the odds are way too short for everyone. I know I’ve written about this at least a couple of times here before, such as in 2012 when I discussed odds being offered at the Rio Race and Sportsbook on the nine players making that year’s WSOP Main Event final table.

That year you could place bet on chip leader Jesse Sylvia to win at 3-to-2 (no shinola), which if taken at face value would suggest he was 40% to win. The odds for eventual winner Greg Merson (third in chips heading into the final table) were 5-to-2 (about 28.5%). Adding up the nine players, the total was close to 175%, illustrating the same point being made on the show about the exorbitant juice in World Series futures.

The majority of those making these kinds of futures bets are more likely to be seeking entertainment than value, of course, although I know there are some sharps who manage to find bets worth risking among the offerings. If I remember correctly, before the season my Carolina Panthers were something like 40-to-1 to win Super Bowl 50, a game they managed to enter as a heavy favorite. Alas, those who made that bet, like the Panthers, were unable to cash in.

For me, listening to the talk about over/unders and futures works as a good preview of what expectations are for the coming year, something that for me can make watching the actual games a little more interesting -- even without having bet on them.

Photo: “race & sports book” (detail), fictures. CC BY 2.0.

Hellmuth and Gold, Political Pundits

Today is Tuesday, which often makes me think of the “Super Tuesday” -- that is, the $1,050 buy-in weekly no-limit hold’em tournament on PokerStars. Of course today that phrase has a different meaning for many as both the Democrats and Republicans are holding primaries or caucuses in a number of states.

If I’m counting correctly, the Democrats are having primaries and caucuses in 11 different states with about a third of the total delegates up for grabs. Meanwhile the Republicans are holding primaries and caucuses in 13 states with about half of their delegates in play. In other words, after today both races will suddenly move from the early levels to the mid-to-late stages, with nominations perhaps even being all but locked up depending on how things go.

Speaking of poker and politics, I saw a couple of items pop up yesterday in which poker pros were being asked to weigh in on the ongoing presidential race.

First there was Phil Hellmuth tweeting about an article on the website The Street concerning Donald Trump running away with the GOP nomination and the efforts by some in the part to stop him. The article is titled “How Do You Beat Donald Trump? We Asked a Poker Champion,” and has Hellmuth characterizing Trump as a “loose-aggressive” (LAG) player and offering ideas for how to win versus such an opponent.

Nothing too unusual about seeing Hellmuth appear in such a context. I mean we all consistently go to Hellmuth for commentary on all sorts of things besides poker, seeking his thoughts about, say, Jay-Z’s latest joint, the Golden State Warriors, or Carl’s Jr. Texas BBQ Thickburgers.

In the article Hellmuth unsurprisingly advises patience and waiting for a strong hand with which to defeat the player getting involved in too many pots (and betting too much when he does). Of course, that strategy hasn’t worked very well for Trump’s opponents thus far, perhaps because they themselves are too weak as candidates to have much with which to play back against him.

To Hellmuth’s credit, he also outlines a Plan B which involves essentially being even more loose and aggressive in response. It’s a more interesting article than you might think, getting a bit more specific and going beyond that earlier attempt at casting Trump as a poker player appearing in Time a month ago.

The other item that came up yesterday was Jamie Gold (of all people) appearing on Fox News to talk about the presidential race. It was a short three-minute bit in which Gold, introduced as both a former “world poker champion” and an “expert odds analyst,” shared a few thoughts about betting on the election.

Gold talks a little about how betting odds perhaps provide more accurate indicators of what will happen than polls, then offers some ideas about how to bet the election, including explaining the idea of “middling” (here relevant if, as Gold suggests, “it’s about a 99% chance” Hillary Clinton and Trump will be the parties’ nominees).

Gold’s appearance predictably earned some funny and cynical responses yesterday, although it made me think back to his expressed desire after winning the 2006 WSOP Main Event -- on High Stakes Poker, I believe -- that he one day become known as the greatest bluffer ever. Have to say, his commenting on a major news network as an “expert odds analyst” is getting there, wouldn’t you say?

Gold was fine in the short segment (I thought), which you can watch here.

Photos: “Phil Hellmuth” & “Jamie Gold” (adapted), flipchip / LasVegasVegas.com, CC BY-SA 2.0.

On the Square

My Pop gave me a call about a week-and-a-half ago. He had a question for me. Having retired, he’s living down in Florida now in a pretty great community where he’s spending a lot of his time fishing, playing golf, playing music (he’s a guitar player), and having fun.

A Super Bowl gathering is being planned there where he’s living, and the organizers of it had an idea to raise a little bit of money for use in future activities. They’re going to do a “Super Bowl Squares” pool, and while he had an idea what that was about, he was wondering if I could describe to him what it involved.

I was able to explain it to him fairly well, noting how I remembered at last year’s PokerStars Caribbean Adventure a game had been organized during the playoff games one weekend. You probably know how the game works, too.

A 10 x 10 grid is created with the rows and columns each numbered 0 through 9. Players contribute whatever the entry fee is to the pool, then put their name or initials in one of the squares. Each side goes with one of the teams, so, say, the rows are the Panthers and the columns are the Broncos (as above).

Then at the end of each quarter, whatever the score is determines who wins that quarter’s worth of the cabbage. Say the first quarter ends with the score 13-7 in favor of Carolina -- that would mean whoever had the square in row 3, column 7 would win the quarter (the last digit in each team’s score). Same happens at end of second, third, and fourth quarters, too, with the pool divided up among the four winners.

Unfortunately for him there’s no choosing squares -- they’ll just draw ’em out of hat -- otherwise there would be some strategy involved. Upon learning how the game worked, he noted how it’d be great to draw 0/0, then for the game to go to overtime as a scoreless tie, thus giving that square all four quarters. I noted how there ain’t gonna be a scoreless tie on Sunday, but he knew that already.

Curious, I looked around a little and found an article on The Harvard Sports Analysis Collective website offering “The Optimal Strategy for Playing Squares.” Of course, these were the guys who also published something last July suggesting the Miami Dolphins would be making the Super Bowl this year (and giving the Carolina Panthers a 22% chance of making the playoffs, ranking them 22nd out of 30 in the NFL), so I suppose we should take this squares advice with a grain of salt.

Even if the game won’t be a scoreless tie after four quarters, the 0/0 square is actually one of the best squares to get (unsurprisingly). 0/3, 0/4, 0/7, 3/0, 3/3, 3/4, 3/7, 4/0, 4/3, 4/4, 4/7, 7/0, 7/3, 7/4, and 7/7 are also good ones. Meanwhile pretty much any square with a 2 or a 5 in it is terrible to get, with the ones with a 1, 6, 8, or 9 also pretty bad -- no shocker there for those who know how scoring typically goes in NFL games. That said, the new 33-yard extra point increasing the chance of a miss (and perhaps encouraging teams to go for two) may affect things a bit this year.

The Harvard article actually factors in the favorite-versus-underdog variable to create its chart, although I think that’s probably more fiddling than you’d really need to think about when picking a square (if allowed to pick your own). Even so, for them the 7/0 square in which the 7 is the favorite side is worth about twice what the 0/7 square would be, so perhaps it is something to consider.

Would taking the faves/dogs distinction into account be how the sharps play squares?

Image: PrintYourBrackets.com.

Season of the Witch

Sometimes in all-in situations, say, when there’s one last river card to come, players will entertain themselves by calling out specific cards a beat before the card is revealed. “Eight of diamonds!” will shout a player, enacting a kind of prognosticator’s freeroll that gets promptly ignored if wrong, but celebrated if somehow the guess proves correct.

That celebration is usually forgotten fairly quickly, too, as it should be. But it still can add up to a fun moment for those involved, the way it goofily suggests the gambler’s dream of extra-normal powers of perception.

Last week while in Brazil, I was chatting with Reinaldo on Wednesday about the upcoming NFL games. He and I are both in the same Pigskin Pick’em pool and while we’re both far out of the running overall, we’re neck-and-neck with each other, and so are having some fun going back and forth about which of us will end the season with more correct picks out of the 256 total NFL regular season games.

My Carolina Panthers played on Thanksgiving, and somewhat hilariously were an underdog to the Dallas Cowboys despite Carolina being 10-0 going into the game while Dallas was 3-7. The reason for the line, of course, was the fact that Dallas starting QB Tony Romo was back in the line-up, and so far during the year Dallas had lost exactly zero games when he’d played (three) and won exactly zero when he hadn’t (seven).

Laying on a little bit of fan-fueled hyperbole, I pretended to express outrage about the Panthers being somehow disrespected by such a line. But in truth I knew the Panthers outmatched Dallas, even with Romo. “The Panthers will roll tomorrow,” I told Reinaldo. “In fact, they’ll knock Romo out of the game.”

As I mentioned last week, we were able to keep tabs on the T-giving games while at the tournament, and so I greatly enjoyed watching Carolina fulfill my prediction as they jumped in front of Dallas, then continued to pull away as the third quarter neared its close. It was about that time I shot my buddy Rich Ryan a message.

“Saw this coming all the way from South America,” I boasted. “I’m just surprised they haven’t knocked Romo out of the game yet.”

Less than a minute after I hit send, Romo was sacked hard by Thomas Davis, reinjuring his collarbone and having to leave the game. Indeed, his season is over.

“Sick timing brah,” replied Rich before I could even fire back an “ahem” to punctuate the uncanny coincidence of the message.

Reinaldo was impressed as well, and after asking me what the male equivalent of a witch is, promptly called me a warlock. (That picture up above, by the way, is one of your humble scribbler from long ago, one Vera coincidentally found while I was gone.)

Even though I have no particular feelings about Dallas, I’ve always liked Romo. And even if I didn’t, I obviously was not glad to have seen him get hurt. Even so I’ll admit to having experienced the momentary, frivolous pleasure that comes with guessing correctly.

The DFS “Boom”

Heard on the radio what I thought to be a remarkable statistic today regarding the fantasy sports site DraftKings and its ubiquitous advertising campaign. Went looking online afterwards to find out more, and found iSpot.tv’s list of the “Top 10 Spenders in TV Advertising this Week.”

That’s a screenshot of the top of the list at left (click to embiggen). Over the last seven days, DraftKings has spent more on TV ads than anyone else in the U.S. -- a whopping $16,488,346 on 4,910 commercials. Also in the top 10 at No. 7 is DraftKings’ biggest DFS rival FanDuel who spent $11,467,852 on 2,710 ads.

In truth, the last seven days haven’t been the biggest for DraftKings of late. During the first week of September they spent over $24 million on 6,749 TV ads, according to Legal Sports Report. That article points out how DK had suddenly ramped things up here with the start of the football season, having spent about $82 million during the first eight months of the year. There’s more than TV ads, too, of course, as anyone listening to the radio or surfing online well knows. I’d estimate they’ve already spent more than half that total here in September alone.

The stat I heard on the radio, though accompanied by some of these figures having to do with the amount DK has spent on ads, was a different one -- namely, that over the last week more than 1 million had opened new accounts on DraftKings.

This New York Post article from yesterday notes how DraftKings had 1 million users total back in April, so a gain of a million more this week is something else. With the recent surge, DK now has 4.5 million accounts. It’ll be interesting to learn how many it has by the end of the month.

For those of us who were playing online poker every day over a decade ago, all of this seems more than vaguely familiar. That the law that led to the eventual destruction of the game for American players -- the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 -- in fact today serves as a kind legislative linchpin around which the fantasy sports phenomenon currently revolves suggests another connection of sorts, in an ironic way. (See this interactive timeline of DFS history, with the UIGEA marking the industry’s origin.)

The online poker “boom” saw a game that had already been played for nearly two centuries suddenly explode in popularity over just a few years, not long after the internet had become part of all of our lives. Televised poker -- in particular the first World Poker Tour shows and ESPN’s World Series of Poker coverage from 2003-2005 (discussed some yesterday) -- contributed mightily to the game’s growth, too.

Online poker attracted many live poker players, a segment of those who enjoyed other kinds of gambling, and a lot of others who didn’t otherwise play poker or gamble at all. It also drew in a few sports fans lingering after the game had concluded to watch the WSOP shows.

Meanwhile “fantasy sports” per se has been around for just a few decades, more or less starting with those “rotisserie” baseball leagues in the late 1970s and 1980s (a tiny, tiny niche), then growing in popularity more recently with the season-long contests and leagues. The “daily” games only began popping up over the last few years. The first DFS site to launch (Fantasy Sports Live) came online in June 2007. FanDuel started up in July 2009, while DraftKings staged its first contests in January 2012.

The online poker ads were pretty frequent back during the “boom,” but I’m going guess none of the sites ever came anywhere near to topping biggest ad spenders lists the way DraftKings has over the last few weeks. Would be curious to learn how much the poker sites did spend on TV ads back in the day, and try to draw some meaningful (adjusted) comparisons.

The DFS growth is getting noticed by legislators. One -- Frank Pallone, Jr., a Democrat Congressman from New Jersey -- just this week requested the House Energy and Commerce Committee on which he serves to look into the legality of fantasy sports. There’s one more thread that will be interesting to follow. Other less-than-sanguine stories about the DFS are circulating now, too, including several about how hard the game can be for the casual players and others about how everyone is growing tired of all the damn ads.

I’ve mentioned here before several times how no matter how I try, I just can’t make myself get that interested in playing DFS. But I can’t help but be interested in the fast-moving story of DFS at present.

Pigskin Pick’em; or, the Agony and Ecstasy

The NFL season has begun, and with it another foray into the agony and ecstasy of Pigskin Pick’em, a.k.a. “the pool.”

As I’ve covered here many autumns before, we pick games straight up (not versus the spread). All 256 of them. I came out of the weekend having gotten 10 of 14, and since that wasn’t 14 of 14 I am necessarily full of second-guesser’s remorse.

I was thinking this afternoon about the relative degrees of pleasure and pain these picks produce. Poker provides a starting place for such a discussion.

It’s a common aphorism in poker to talk about how winning a pot produces less pleasure than the pain produced by losing one. Also relevant, of course, is the extent to which one’s winning or losing is the product of having made a good or bad decision as well as how much luck (also good or bad) affected the outcome.

There’s a lot of luck involved with how NFL games go. But when it comes to picking them, I can’t really blame bad luck on having chosen this team or that one. That is to say, I think I play each “hand” here with equal “skill” (or lack thereof), with some being more difficult than others but my own action (the pick I choose) entirely determining whether I am successful or not.

Thus when discussing how the pleasure and pain of each game compares, I’ll divide the games and outcomes into four groups as follows:

most pain: making non-consensus choice (usually an underdog), being wrong

least pain: making consensus choice (usually a favorite), being wrong

least pleasure: making consensus choice (usually a favorite), being right

most pleasure: making non-consensus choice (usually an underdog), being right

On the one hand, these rankings are essentially emotion-based. However, they also directly correspond to the actual value of the picks, relatively speaking.

The most painful example of going against the grain and being wrong (as I was when I picked Oakland yesterday -- why!?!) hurts worse than missing a game everyone else does, too (as when I picked Seattle, like nearly everyone else). Meanwhile the most pleasurable outcome of going it alone and being right (as when I took Buffalo, as few others did) helps me more than getting the same game right everyone else does (such as when we all took Green Bay on Sunday).

I’ve written before here about the “hero pick” (i.e., the non-consensus selection). I suppose if I wanted to lessen the emotional “swings” of the game, I’d avoid those or at least minimize them. But who wants to play that way?

Heart vs. Head: Top Seeds Collide

Gearing up to watch some more basketball this evening, further energized to do so because (1) my UNC Tar Heels are still in action, playing a Sweet Sixteen game tonight against the West region’s top seed, Wisconsin, and (2) I’m still alive (I think) to cash in the tourney pool.

Of course, if I’m going to be at all realistic regarding both of those points, I’d have to admit that the prospects for Carolina aren’t so sanguine (they are six-point dogs) and my prospects for getting into the money in the pool aren’t so bright, either. That’s because I have Dook losing this weekend, undefeated Kentucky getting knocked out in the semis, and Arizona winning the sucker.

That is to say, I have a chance not unlike the player with nothing but an inside straight draw with one card to come can still win versus an opponent’s two pair.

If I could redo my bracket I would have Kentucky beating Dook in the finals. They are the two strongest-seeming teams right now (by a lot), and in truth if I hadn’t been more governed by my heart than my head when filling it out originally, I’d have done it that way in the first place.

But I don’t want to see Kentucky run the table. And it goes without saying what my feelings are about the Blue Devils.

I used to enter a pool each year with a lot of fellow UNC grads, most of whom every single year would pick UNC to win it all and Dook to lose in the first round. It was a fun pool to play because of the huge edge many who played automatically gave the rest by picking according to what they wanted to see happen as opposed to what they thought might actually play out.

If you think about it, though, all NCAA pools are probably affected similarly -- if not so severely -- by participants’ being overly influenced when picking games by their desire to see a certain outcome in the actual tournament than by the desire to win the pool.

Incidentally, I picked the Heels to lose last round, but since I have Wisconsin winning tonight, it’ll be a win-win!

Says my heart, anyway. My head insists it’s a lose-lose.

Short-Stacked Again

Enjoying March Madness this afternoon, despite the fact that one of my Final Four picks has already been thrown over the side before the tournament was even three hours old.

Of course, with the two big upsets this afternoon -- UAB over Iowa State (my Final Four team) and Georgia State over Baylor -- “busted bracket” is already the theme all over. Saw a stat a short while ago that after the first three of 63 games were done, just 86,737 of the 11.57 million entries in the ESPN Tournament Challenge had picked all three winners.

The analogy between the NCAA tournament and a poker tournament doesn’t really work, unless, of course, we’re talking about a heads-up event. But those of us in NCAA pools are very much like competitors in a poker tournament, with the “stacks” (or possible points) all starting out even and then instantly beginning to differentiate with the completion of each game.

A few years ago I remember coming on here and whimpering a little about having dropped to the bottom of the “counts” after the first two rounds. But with all four of my Final Four teams still intact and seven Elite Eight teams still alive, I was short-stacked but still competitive -- kind of like being below the average in chips but still okay in terms of big blinds.

Meanwhile, just like in a poker tournament, those leading after the first rounds (or “levels”) are hardly guaranteed to win or even make the money. Picking later round games correctly earns more points as well, just like the pots later on are bigger and the significance of winning or losing has a greater impact on ultimate results.

And while my poor start doesn’t make me want to consider it that closely, it’s certainly possible to bust altogether early on if one has played (or picked) badly enough -- or suffers enough bad fortune.

On the Props

Was spending part of today considering all of these Super Bowl prop bets. I was put in the mood to do so after having posted a discussion with Rich Ryan over on PokerNews the focus of which was Super Bowl betting -- this week’s “Inside Gaming” column.

As mentioned there, last year the Nevada sports books took in more wagers than ever before, besting the previous year’s record by a lot. They also profited considerably thanks in part to heavy action on favorite Denver and Seattle ending up crushing, earning more percentage-wise in nearly a decade.

Super Bowl prop bets are significant for the sports books, with many of them longshots and thus great opportunities for the books to win. The lines can be a bit skewy on them, too, which perhaps opens up some opportunities for savvy bettors. But on the whole they’re hard to read (at least for an amateur like me).

Among the items I read today was USA Today’s “19 craziest prop bets for Super Bowl XLIX.” Like a lot of folks this week, they look to Bovada -- the site we online poker players know better as the-one-that-used-to-be-Bodog -- as their source of props. Bovada has more than 500 prop bets listed, with practically every detail regarding what might happen in Arizona on Sunday covered.

These “19 craziest” ones include many with nothing to do with the actual game itself. Those include bets on Katy Perry’s wardrobe during her halftime performance as well as how many times she will be mentioned during the first half, whether or not Idina Menzel will forget a word of the national anthem, Bill Belichick’s hoodie color and type, which team owner (Robert Kraft or Paul Allen) will be shown more often during the game, the number of times Gisele Bundchen (Tom Brady’s wife) will be shown, the number of times deflated balls will be mentioned, the number of viewers, who the Super Bowl MVP will first mention after the game, whether Marshawn Lynch will grab his crotch after scoring a TD, and whether Bill Belichick will smile. Of these I most like the one about whether or not Al Michaels will make any gambling references during the telecast (i.e., to the point spread, over/under, game odds, prop bets).

Even the game-related ones have to do with extracurriculars, like the parlay pairing whether or not Punxsatawney Phil sees his showdow and the game’s outcome, or the one comparing the length of the Silva-Diaz UFC fight and LeGarrette Blount’s rushing attempts. In fact among these “crazy” bets are only four football-only ones -- whether or not Tom Brady will throw a TD or interception first, whether or not one of the kickers will win MVP, which Seattle player will catch their first pass, and how many field goals Seattle will make.

Every one of these feels like a sucker bet, as do many of the other props even if one might legitimately have an edge betting a particular side of them. Heck even the game itself -- which Rich tells me the Football Outsiders guys are describing as historically remarkable in terms of how mathematically even the two teams are talent-wise -- feels especially hard to predict.

Who do you think will win on Sunday? Other than the sports books, that is.

Fantasy Draft and Relying on (Andrew) Luck

If you read this blog you might follow me on Twitter, and if you follow me on Twitter we might follow a lot of the same people, meaning you very likely saw all of the poker pros and others tweeting about this $20K freeroll that happened over the weekend on this new Fantasy Draft website which is still in a “beta” stage and not quite up and running.

I’ve written here before about how fantasy sports don’t exactly grab my interest, but like almost 2,200 others I decided to sign up and create a team for this past weekend’s NFL games in order to take a shot at the free cabbage due to go to the top 300 finishers.

In truth what was being awarded was “fantasy cash,” not actual scratch, which I assume is money that can’t be withdrawn but which can be used to play in future tournaments (once the site starts having them).

The site is actually very slick and easy to navigate, and it was easy enough to follow how things were going with my team on Sunday as the games played out. There are obviously some elements that are still in development, but I’ll confirm the site is simple enough for a relatively untutored fantasy sports player like myself to be plenty inviting.

I had loaded up on some players in the Monday night game -- specifically Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck and a couple of his receivers -- and so was sitting only in the middling range after Sunday’s games were over. But thankfully Luck had a big night versus the Giants, both my receivers caught TDs, and I grabbed enough points to make it into the money to earn $20 of “fantasy” cheddar. Was nice to win something, at least, as my Pigskin Pick’em entry this year is pretty much in shambles -- not quite #LOLJets bad, but close.

We’ll see how things go with the site once it gets going for real, but if you’re curious about it you can sign up for an account by clicking here. Links to the site from this post contain my referral code, and it’s clear referrals are part of the overall strategy for the site -- a strategy that seems to be working somewhat well so far, actually, considering how many people already seem to be on it without the games having gone live yet.

Still much prefer performing risk/reward calculations on flops, turns, and rivers than attempting the same with yards gained, receptions completed, and points scored. Feels a lot like making those WSOP predictions I was referring to yesterday -- a lot of shots in the dark.

But given how fantasy sports are wholly legal here in the U.S. while online poker continues to be much less available, I might have to get over my aversion to the fantasy thing and figure out a way to make it palatable to me.

Winning in freerolls is a start.

NJ Sports Betting: Leagues Throw Out the Challenge Flag

Was curious this afternoon to see what might happen up in New Jersey regarding its efforts to legalize sports betting.

You might have heard the legislature in the Garden State rushed a bill through both houses last week and a day later Governor Chris Christie signed it, and all was in place at Monmouth Park to start taking bets on the NFL games this Sunday.

Earlier this week came the complaints from the NCAA and the four major professional leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL) who took the position that the New Jersey law which would allow casinos and horse tracks to take sports bet was “in clear and flagrant violation of federal law” (the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992).

The leagues sought an injunction to keep New Jersey from going forward with sports betting, New Jersey filed a response to the complaint, then all waited to see what U.S. District Court Judge Michael A. Shipp might do. Without any sort of ruling, bets could be taken, but Shipp could step in to issue a temporary restraining order so more time could be taken to decide on the case.

And that’s what Shipp did just before the end of the business day today, although it sounds like the order only prevents bets involving the NCAA or the four major leagues, meaning they actually could take sports bets at Monmouth on golf, tennis, NASCAR, and other sports, or so points out an advisor to Monmouth. (Not sure that’s actually the case, though.)

Here’s an article in The Press of Atlantic City detailing Shipp’s late afternoon decision. For a good and quick overview of what’s happening regarding these efforts to get sports betting in New Jersey and Shipp’s decision, check out this radio interview with John Brennan of the Bergan Record. (Thanks to Grange95 for tweeting that one out, and check his blog for more good commentary on this topic.) [EDIT (added 10/25/14]: And for another interesting read, here’s Brennan delivering a blow-by-blow account the scene in Shipp’s courtroom when he gave the decision.]

In the interview, Brennan spells out how it was a little extraordinary for such a restraining order to be granted, but Shipp had a history of ruling in that direction on this issue and so his decision wasn’t a surprise. So they’re on hold a little longer in New Jersey on the sports betting front. Meanwhile they’re still playing online poker and gambling in other ways there, and of course fantasy sports continues to be enjoyed all over the nation.

Allowing sports betting in the ailing Atlantic City casinos (those that remain, anyhow) and at the horse tracks doesn’t seem terribly out of place from afar, and the leagues’ complaints against it seem disingenuous when sports betting already happens legally in Nevada (and illegally everywhere) and the leagues have continued to survive. Will remain curious to see if it ever comes about.

Picked Apart

After six weeks of the NFL football season, I’m feeling as though I’ve been thoroughly picked apart as far as trying to pick winners in the Pigskin Pick’em contest goes.

A month ago I was cheerily writing here about getting an average of two out of three games correct and how that wasn’t too bad, but by now I’ve fallen off that pace considerably and am already in a desperate spot in the pool near the bottom and a dozen games out of the lead just over a third of the way into the campaign.

While yesterday didn’t go well at all for me, last week was even more difficult to get through after losing three early games in which the teams I’d picked all blew big leads. Even worse, all three were meaningful games as far as the pool was concerned, for which the picks were evenly divided and thus getting them right or wrong affected one’s standing more significantly.

Below are the win probability graphs for those three games as calculated by Advanced Football Analytics where I’ll sometimes find myself much as when playing online poker I would end up over at Two Dimes after suffering an improbably bad beat -- kind of a masochistic seeking out of an answer to the question “How bad was that, really?”

That’s right -- I had Chicago, Tennessee, and Detroit, all of whom had a WP of 80% or better in the fourth quarter of their games only to lose. The Titans were up 28-3 at home versus Cleveland before blowing their game 29-28. I also had Houston beating Dallas in the early game a week ago, and the Cowboys won in overtime, completing a four-game sweep of close ones going the wrong way.

This week’s games featured fewer heartbreaks but a lot of surprises (at least for me), thus hurtling me even further down the leaderboard in the pool. Like can happen in poker after enduring a long stretch of losing, I’ve now entered a zone in which I’m doubting my ability to play this game at all. Sure, I might have won at it in the past, but was it all just dumb luck?

I take a little bit of comfort knowing that I’m not gambling serious cabbage on NFL football -- indeed, I don’t bet on games at all. For those who are, I have great sympathy, especially after yesterday saw not one but two games end with “pick-6” interception returns for TDs that helped teams (Denver and Arizona) cover spreads during the final seconds.

Speaking of, check out Nolan Dalla’s post today titled “Anatomy of an NFL Apocalypse” in which he spells out in profanity-laced detail the “impalement of the heart, mind, and wallet” that was NFL football yesterday.

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Daily Fantasy Sports Players Griping About Bad Luck

Am in another airport terminal, awaiting the first of a couple of flights today that will be taking me to Las Vegas where I’ll be helping cover the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio. Looking forward to it, but to be honest I’m also kind of looking forward simply to disconnecting for the next several hours and relaxing aboard my flights.

Was writing here a couple of weeks ago about fantasy sports and how the daily/weekly site DraftKings had hooked up with the WPT as a collaborating sponsor. In that post I was drawing a few parallels between poker (especially the online variety) and these daily games I’ve been playing occasionally on sites like DraftKings and Draft Day.

Haven’t done so well during the last few days of playing these daily games, and in fact some of the “run bad” I’ve encountered is making me think more and more how fantasy sports are not at all like poker.

About a week ago I set a line-up for a night’s worth of NBA games, then to my dismay discovered after the games had begun that my star player, James “Magical Beard” Harden, was suited up for the game -- i.e., in a suit, not a uniform. (That’s a pic of “Dr. Harden” above.) Was a last minute decision, apparently, not signaled by any of the injury update sites (or at least any I check), and thus I was essentially sunk before the night had even begun.

Then a couple of nights ago I screwed up and after having reserved a spot in a Draft Day game and set my line-up, I forgot to save my selections until just a few seconds after the deadline had passed, and thus had entered a fantasy team with no players. Oof!

Finally last night came another bad beat as I had taken Tim Duncan to fill one of my power forward positions, and in fact was doing okay and probably on my way to winning in the double-up game I’d chosen. Then came word that the Spurs-Timberwolves game -- scheduled in Mexico City, actually -- had been postponed due to a fire near the arena filling the place with smoke!

Again, I was sunk, as was everyone else who had loaded up on San Antonio or Minnesota Timberwolves players. It had been an attractive game from which to draft selections, actually, with a high over/under line of 205. But only around half the guys in our game had happened to take any Spurs or Timberwolves, and we all finished out of the money.

Such a situation is handled much like a rain-out in baseball for the daily fantasy players -- i.e., those who have chosen guys in the cancelled game are screwed, and it’s all chalked up to being “part of the game.”

But what kind of game is this?

I was trying to think of parallels from poker, and the only one I could really come up with was the situation of getting disconnected mid-hand when playing online. Or perhaps we might add a glitch occurring on the site’s side, in which case many times the site would refund entry fees or try somehow to accommodate for the disruption.

I’ve mentioned before how tough it is to bet on injuries, coaches’ whims, or other unexpected vagaries of professional sports. Hadn’t thought of an NBA game getting postponed as being a factor, too, though. I guess daily fantasy sports are still like poker insofar as they combine luck and skill, but a fire in Mexico sure is making it seem like luck matters a lot more at the moment.

Putting it behind me, now -- and everything else for the next 10 hours or so as I wind my way westward. Talk to you on the other side.

Thx

Quick one today just to deliver thanks once more to everyone for stopping by.

It’s already shaping up into a fun day at Chez Shamus. Not even halfway through the first game of the NFL triple header, and Vera and I have already enjoyed a big meal of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and brussels sprouts.

Speaking of the NFL, I keep making my picks even though I’m essentially out of contention in the yearly NFL “pick’em” pool. Two weeks ago I was chirping here a little about having followed nine weeks of mediocre picking with a best-of-the-week showing after hitting a couple of upsets.

The next week I was back to so-so status, but last week I again tied for first by getting nine correct out of 13 (not counting the 14th game, the 26-26 tie between Minnesota and Green Bay). Enough to keep me wanting to submit picks, although being 11 games off the leading pace means all I can realistically hope for is perhaps to lead another week or two as the gap is much too much to narrow.

Doing what I can, actually, to take a little bit of a break from poker, as it has felt I haven’t really had one for most of the year, especially since the summer and the WSOP. Will be picking back up the poker thread next week as I’ll be heading out to Las Vegas to help cover the World Poker Tour Doyle Brunson Five Diamond Classic at the Bellagio that starts up at the end of next week.

For now, though, gonna focus on the football. Thanks again!

Drafting Your Players, Playing Your Cards

At the WPT event this past week in Jacksonville, the fantasy sports betting site DraftKings had a presence as the entity throwing the players’ party, sponsoring the final table live stream, and in other ways.

It’s a relatively new partnership, just announced within the last couple of weeks, I believe. In fact, for the upcoming WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic (where I will also be) there will be some contests on the site via which players can actually win seats into the event.

I’ve gotten an account on DraftKings and have played some free games with friends. I’ve mentioned before having played a little on Draft Day, another fantasy sports site, as well as how I find the games diverting though not nearly as engrossing as some.

It’s kind of intriguing, though, to see how the games on these sites resemble online poker in their formats, with large field games with top heavy payouts being like the MTTs, smaller “sit-n-go” styled games with a limited number of opponents, “double-or-nothing” type games, and heads-up games, too. Even the range of buy-ins and the “rake” resembles online poker in many ways.

There are more analogies. In the games the players (i.e., the pros making up the NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL teams) kind of exist as the cards -- that is, they are the element of the game that unequivocally exists outside of the players’ control. Some of the pros are shared among fantasy players when different entrants select the same players for their teams, much like “community cards” are shared in flop games. Most teams are unique, just like in hold’em when players’ hole cards make their hands unique, although like in hold’em you’ll occasionally have players playing “hands” of identical worth.

There’s a mix of chance and skill, too, in the fantasy sports games, and I’m convinced that those who put in the hours and genuinely research their selections in constructive ways have an edge on the average opponent, in fact a very large one. I’m also convinced the chance element introduces huge variance into the game, with players’ individual performances subject to a myriad of influences including injury, penalties or suspensions, coaches’ whims, and even the weather.

I continue to be intrigued by fantasy sports -- especially this short-term daily (or weekly) version of it offered by sites like DraftKings and Draft Day -- which I guess is like poker but ain’t poker.