Finding Your Best Play

Written By Corey D. of Surepick.com



Your favorite team is playing in a big game and you and some buddies have made
the trip to Vegas for the weekend. It time to party and have fun. Your plane
takes off and all you can think about is how your favorite team is going to
crush those poor fouls. You're so sure in fact that you have set aside some
money to lay down on the game. You have followed your team all year and you
could name every player at every position and what college they played at, as
far as your concerned it a "lock". Your plane lands and your head is already
humming with the sweet sounds of a casino gaming floor. You can already see all
those big screens lined up on the wall as 8 games are played out at once. Final,
its game time and you walk up to the sports desk and throw down you money and in
your best "Casino" DeNiro voice announce your bet. You take your seat and order
a frosty beverage from some scantly dressed waitress and prepare to enjoy your
investment. Two hours later you have switched from the simple frosty beverages
to the small strong ones that come in tiny glasses as you just witnessed your
"lock" unlock right before your eyes. Sound familiar? If so, you're in the right
place. Roll up your sleeves cause if you want to avoid situations like one
mentioned above then we got some work to do. You ready?

First off, I want you to know that the situation I described above was one of
the many that I personal experienced before I finally relieved what was obvious
to so many others. I liked to gamble and that wasn't going to change. Another
thing that wasn't going to change was my losing more often then winning unless I
changed how I gambled. It wasn't so much what I bet on but how I bet on it.

Using the example above what do you think the first mistake our gambler made?
Any idea? The first mistake he made was letting his like or dislike of a team
influence his betting. This is a big time no-no, one that Vegas is counting on.
How many people do your think lose money at a casinos on any given weekend
because they bet their favorite team instead of the best play. You cannot let
your personal feelings about one team or another affect the way you place your
bets. Never let your emotion cloud or distort logic. In the example I used
there were 8 other games being televised right? What do you want to bet that at
least 3 to 4 of those games were better bets then the one that our now drunk and
disgruntled gambler placed. When it comes to gambling I only have one favorite.
Benjamin Franklins. The cheddar. I could care less about some of the teams that
I have bet on but you can bet I liked them a lot better when I won. Finding the
best play is the biggest part of winning. It may not win every time but you will
greatly reduce the chance of losing. That leads me to the first, and what I
consider the most important, lesson. Finding the best play.

This was one of the hardest things for me to learn and it may take some time for
you to pick it up but I cannot emphasize enough how important it is. It is hard
not to go with your "gut" so to speak but if you do the research you will see
that your gut feeling is only a reaction to what you know or what you think you
know for that matter. There has been many a night when I have researched a full
sheet of games and have been unable to find a play I am comfortable betting on.
My "gut feeling" has lost me enough money, I will stick to what I know and not
what I feel. Now everyone has their own style, methods of research, and puts
various values on the aspect or stats that they use to handicap a game but there
are some basics things that people look at. These are only a two of the many
important things that I personally use to handicap a game but they are more then
enough to get you started on the right track.

The first thing that you have to know is that Professional and College sports
have two totally different types of spreads. In the College game you will see
games where one team is favored by 20 to 30 points whereas the Professional
games will have more tightly laced spreads. You may see a professional team
favored by somewhere between 10 and 15 points from time to time but often then
not these spreads range from the 0.5 to 9 area. That is because in the pros
there are not only fewer teams but quality of the players are more alike. In the
college game there are thousands of schools and they all vary in strength, style
and degrees of success. Therefore when a team like Duke or Stanford, a
powerhouse team, plays a team like Providence or Kent a larger point spread will
be applied. Knowing that, and assuming that you keep fairly up to date on the
over all sports scene (Thank God for Sports Center @ 11pm!), you can look for
any spreads that appear way to high or to low. This includes the totals. If the
Grizzlies are playing the Wizards and I know that both these teams lack any type
of defense and I see that the total is only 184 points I am going see research
it further. This is the basic weeding out process. Look for the spreads that you
seem odd and for the teams that you know the most about first. This is where the
second part picking a good play because these games are the ones that we are
going to research first.

The research part is where you find you find out which plays are the safest and
which ones are not. This is where you get your hands dirty. There are hundreds
of things that you can look at when you are researching a game and I am going to
tell you one of the ones that I use. It is one to the most basic and most
important handicapping tools out there in my opinion. It's Trends. In any sport,
at any level, teams develop trends. They get in slumps or they go on amazing
winning streaks. They win 20 straight at home, they lose 20 straight road games,
the over has hit in 8 of the last ten games. These types of things are important
when trying to decide if you want to risk money on a game. Do you think that it
would be important to know that last 5 times Arizona played Arizona State,
Arizona won all five and did it by a average margin of 11 points? What about
that the last ten games Arizona State was 3-7? How important these things are
will depend on the spread. If the spread is 20 points then these trends could be
taken lightly. But if the spread is only 8 points then these things could be
very important. Trends are not a definite sign of a good play but they can lead
you in the right direction as to the current state of affairs for a team or how
two teams play each other. Trends are only one of the many things that one
should look at before picking a good play but it's a good place to start. And
remember, you may research 15 games and still not find anything you feel
comfortable with but that is a lot better then throwing cash away on a game your
gut tells you is a "lock".

By simply researching the games before you place your bet you will find that
you will increase your winning percentage drastically. You have to view at it
like any other kind of business venture so do your research. Sports' gambling is
fun and exciting I mean really why else would I get fired up about a Bengal's or
Chargers game? But if your losing all the time it isn't much fun anymore is it?
But if you take your time and research the games that interest you, you will
place smarter bets and get bigger and better payouts. Now that's what I call
fun! Good luck and remember sometimes the best play is no play!

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Corey Dragge runs www.surepick.com where you can find all the sports
handicapping information that you could ever need including FREE picks.
Surepick.com also publishes a free newsletter that includes the free pick,
interesting articles, and news updates as to the much new functionality that
Surepick is adding daily.

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