The A2K football pool

No need to go any further. Good luck pal

It is a beauitiful fall day in Vieginia; too nice, johnboy was told, to spend inside watching football. So johnboy spent this afternoon planting daffodil bulbs that will come up next spring.
But I did check in to see how we did in the early games. NE: ha, ha, but johnboy is happy to be wrong about that one. My ESPN schedule showed the KC-Philly game as being a 1 pm game. Evidentally wrong.
Most of us look okay so far.

And now all of the Sunday day games are over. And look at Child of the Light: 11-1! I think that it is an iinsurmountable lead.
cowdoc did well (10-2), a few folks at 9-3, and there were a couple of swampdwell..I mean fine folks at 5-7.
Two more games to go. I am curious, pan, about something. We play a very simple version here, not worrying about the point spreads etc. How are you doing taking that very big variable into consideration?

I could win every A2K pick and lose all my spread picks. It's much trickier. I did well this week 8-5 so far. Anything over 500 is good.

Congrats to C of L. Back to last years mid season form.
You got me on the Philly game .

Oh boy what a week. Despite that ugly Niners game, it was a great week for football.

Wow I can't believe I forgot to make picks this week. Sucks because I do this in another forum and I went 10-2 (including that important chargers over pats). O well count me in this time I'll try not to forget.

I tried to give you a nag, el-diablo, but it was too late.

So child of light and cowdoc are locked in this duel. Each is at 10-2 and each has Carolina tonight. Child with total points of 49; cowdoc going for a mere 31.

I can appreciate, pan, that this game is far different from one where you have to bet against the point spreads.
I may have told this story before, but when johnboy was in undergrad school he spent far more time than he should have in a pool hall across from my dorm. I learned a lot about the bookie business. I was a pretty good pool player; winning a few bucks a day.
But then I hooked up with a guy named Lee Angel (at least that was what he claimed his name was). My job was to lose 20 bucks and then the cocky frat boy would get nailed for $100 or so by Lee. I'd get my $20 back plus another $20.. It was amazing to me how many cocky frat boys there were out there and how many came back to try again.

"I'm a hustler, I'm a-I'm a hustler homey"

Lots more offense tonight than I expected. But, Brett Favre on Monday night??? Shoulda known better.....

Hey Panz,

How much do you actually pay attention to the spreads?

There is a guy I listen to on the radio who is a handicapper. His advice is don't pay attention to the points because 90% of the time if you can just pick the winner the points aren't a factor. After week three he said there were only like 3 games in the season so far that the spread actually factored in.

That is true to a point. For example about 30-40% of the games the underdog wins (more lik 60% the past few weeks lol) and so the point spread is immediately not a factor in those games. About 50% of the other games left are won by more than the point spread by the favored team. This means about 70% of games the point spread does not factor. But it doesnt have to. That's not the point of it. The point is to try and equalize the number of bets for each team.

That is coming from a bookies/Vegas point of view. Coming from a gamblers point of view... ignore the spread, pick the winner, make more money.

The point is. No bookie is going to offer odds on Indy vs San Fran, no matter where the game is if the bet is straight up. Which means win-lose no spread.
Everybody would bet on Indy and the bookie would be bankrupt.

So in order to make each game competitive the Las Vegas line gives the underdog points to start the game off. Usually home field advantage is worth 3 points.So bookies think Indy will beat SF by 17,take away 3 for home and the spread is Indy -14. San Fran will start the game off leading 14-0.

To Child of Light this is an attractive bet so he'll plunk down money on San Fran. Jpn on the other hand thinks the world of Indy so he plunks money down on Indy.If tons of bets are put on SF, Las Vegas will lower the point difference so that they can't be hurt.

The point spread really has nothing to do with our game, straight up. It's only used when gambling real ducats.

I understand the point of the spreads and why they are used. What I am saying is that the points rarely factor into the end result.

In other words, using your example above, simply bet on Indy because more often then not the spread is covered. If you think SF is going to win, then the spread doesn't factor in either.

I'm not saying find a bookie that offers straight up bets, just play them as if they were straight up.

Good afternoon. Ray was the only player who picked Green Bay over Carolina. Close to a big upset.

So, in Week #4, Child of Light and Cowdoc finished at 12-2. Well done! Based on the tie-breaker Child wins the week (49 points predicted; 61 actually scored).
At 11-3 were Liontamerx and Panzade; at 10-4 were George and Dragon; Bbaptiste was at 10-3 (neglecting to pick one game); Realjohnboy was at 9-5; Ray, Jpinmilw and Region finished at 8-6; and Fbeaser and Gus ended at 6-8.
Three experts on ESPN finished at 11-3; the rest at 9-5.

On the cumulative Wins-Losses scoreboard, we find, through Week 4:
Panzade (+18); Cowdoc (+14). Region (+12), Child and Gus (+8); Bbaptiste (+7); Dragon and George (+6); Johnboy and Liontamerx (+4);
El-Daiblo (+2); Jpinmilw (-4), Fbaezer (-6) and Ray (-8).
As a group we did quite well this week. Either we are getting better or most of the games are easier.

The schedule for Week #5 follows shortly. Johnboy did a rather sloppy job last week. He will do better. I hope, this week.

Week #5 Schedule:
At 1 pm on Sunday:
--Tampa Bay (4-0 so far this season) @ NY Jets (1-3)
--Seattle (2-2) @ St Louis (2-2)
--New Orleans (2-2) @ Green Bay (0-4)
--Chicago (1-2) @ Cleveland (1-2)
--Baltimore (1-2) @ Detroit (1-2)
--New England (2-2) @ Atlanta (3-1)
--Tennessee (1-3) @ Houston (0-3)
--Miami (2-1) @ Buffalo (1-3)
Around 4 pm:
--Indy (4-0) @ San Fran (1-3)
--Carolina (2-2) @ Ariz (1-3)
--Wash (3-0) @ Denver (3-1)
--Philly (3-1) @ Dallas (2-2)
Sunday night:
--Cincy (4-0) @ Jacksonville (2-2)
Monday night:
--Pittsburgh (2-1) @ San Diego (2-2)

14 games require 14 picks plus the total number of points in the Pitts vs SD game. Deadline is kick-off on Sunday. New players always welcome.

Get use to that everybody. I'm good at picking football.

Here goes for week #5:

Chicago
Green Bay
Tampa Bay
St Louis
New England
Miami
Detroit
Tennessee
Indy
Carolina
Philly
Denver
Cincinnati

Pittsburgh (47)

Puhleeeeeze. One win and the kid's istruttin 'round the joint :wink:

well put, pan. The child skips out on the first three weeks, comes in on an easy week 4, does well, and is now strutting around proclaiming himself/herself to be the resident genius. Pick them this week, child. Or are you going to turn out to be a one-week wonder? (12-2 was good though).