Not that I'm supposed to but I've had a brief existential ... inconvenience, yea we'll call it that since it's not particularly to crisis levels yet with my poor performance so far this week. I'm normally pretty good at detaching results but I think this week reminded me of something that's been missing from my selections this year and it's likely going to trigger a lot of the hardcore/system types.
I don't do this for a living, I don't even claim to be good at it. I also could probably benefit from a more methodical, mathematical approach to things but I'll admit that I've been really, really tame this year in comparison to last year's aggression and it's from a combination of factors two of which I wanted to talk about today: fear and instinct.
I've been betting like I'm afraid to fail. I've mostly been taking safer lines and more conservative approaches. Perhaps that fear of the public eye, perhaps it's self shame, maybe it's nothing, who knows, but I've definitely altered my approach this year and I'm beginning to wonder if I'm getting a bit too bogged down by metrics and numbers which leads me to my next point....
I was discussing this with the cast guys earlier and I'm quite sure what to call it but I tend to think when you're dialed in and highly aware of the environment you're in, in this case pro League of Legends betting but this applies to anything, especially if you're at a high level (not that I am) there is a certain credibility to your "gut" or instinct. I listened to a podcast once that had a very high level Magic: the Gathering player (Luis Scott Vargas in case you're wondering) describe how he diagnoses complex board states and when asked he simply said "I don't." Weird right? He went on to say that when you are well practiced and you've seen hundreds or thousands of iterations and samples and have mastered process and basic technique you're almost better off allowing your brain's computing power to do the work. In other words his interpretation of "gut" feeling is that it's your brain spitting out an answer to a problem faster than you realize you're processing it.
Now whether or not you agree entirely with this or not is up to you but I tend to think there is at least some level of accuracy to it as long as the instinct isn't motivated by emotion. Last year I made a handful of seemingly impossible called shots. Stuff that made little to no sense. Maybe I got lucky or maybe there was something to it. Perhaps both.
I'm not a professional capper and I'm sure this would be blasphemous to say in those circles but I tend to look at this kind of stuff as 95% logic, research, math, and strategy and 5% art. Maybe it's the artist in me coming out but I think I've lost a bit of that this season. I'm overanalyzing way too much or way too little. I know a hell of a lot about this game and these players and coaches and leagues and I'm letting other sources define what I'm doing just a little too much. It never hurts to have more information but I think I'm letting it influence me a bit too much.
From this point forward what I'm going to do is actually track what my initial reaction is on my picks. I'll do this on here too. I'm also going to include a confidence rating and value rating. I was explaining to a Twitter follower how I come up with my wager weights (typically 1% of BR per unit) and it's simply a combination of confidence + value. Typically it's a 2/1 split so I might wager three units on a pick and if the value is there I'll tack on 0.5 - 1.5 more units depending on how off the line is. It's not an exact science and that's why I'm not a professional!
There are other "systems" that actually do the opposite to help fend off variance. In other words they wager more against value than with it so if a line is severely inaccurate in OUR favor they just accept it and don't add more. lot of merit as a more stable strategy but I digress, perhaps that's a podcast topic. I'll be putting my confidence and value ratings as well as my "gut" on all of my picks moving forward. I usually mentioned if I had a feeling before but I wasn't always doing it and I think it might be helpful for you all to see what my brain is telling me vs my research and allow you to draw your own conclusions.
And now, in completely unrelated news (I swear it's just a really weird coincidence).... my pick of the week!
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LPL Spring 2019 - W8D3:
I don't do this for a living, I don't even claim to be good at it. I also could probably benefit from a more methodical, mathematical approach to things but I'll admit that I've been really, really tame this year in comparison to last year's aggression and it's from a combination of factors two of which I wanted to talk about today: fear and instinct.
I've been betting like I'm afraid to fail. I've mostly been taking safer lines and more conservative approaches. Perhaps that fear of the public eye, perhaps it's self shame, maybe it's nothing, who knows, but I've definitely altered my approach this year and I'm beginning to wonder if I'm getting a bit too bogged down by metrics and numbers which leads me to my next point....
I was discussing this with the cast guys earlier and I'm quite sure what to call it but I tend to think when you're dialed in and highly aware of the environment you're in, in this case pro League of Legends betting but this applies to anything, especially if you're at a high level (not that I am) there is a certain credibility to your "gut" or instinct. I listened to a podcast once that had a very high level Magic: the Gathering player (Luis Scott Vargas in case you're wondering) describe how he diagnoses complex board states and when asked he simply said "I don't." Weird right? He went on to say that when you are well practiced and you've seen hundreds or thousands of iterations and samples and have mastered process and basic technique you're almost better off allowing your brain's computing power to do the work. In other words his interpretation of "gut" feeling is that it's your brain spitting out an answer to a problem faster than you realize you're processing it.
Now whether or not you agree entirely with this or not is up to you but I tend to think there is at least some level of accuracy to it as long as the instinct isn't motivated by emotion. Last year I made a handful of seemingly impossible called shots. Stuff that made little to no sense. Maybe I got lucky or maybe there was something to it. Perhaps both.
I'm not a professional capper and I'm sure this would be blasphemous to say in those circles but I tend to look at this kind of stuff as 95% logic, research, math, and strategy and 5% art. Maybe it's the artist in me coming out but I think I've lost a bit of that this season. I'm overanalyzing way too much or way too little. I know a hell of a lot about this game and these players and coaches and leagues and I'm letting other sources define what I'm doing just a little too much. It never hurts to have more information but I think I'm letting it influence me a bit too much.
From this point forward what I'm going to do is actually track what my initial reaction is on my picks. I'll do this on here too. I'm also going to include a confidence rating and value rating. I was explaining to a Twitter follower how I come up with my wager weights (typically 1% of BR per unit) and it's simply a combination of confidence + value. Typically it's a 2/1 split so I might wager three units on a pick and if the value is there I'll tack on 0.5 - 1.5 more units depending on how off the line is. It's not an exact science and that's why I'm not a professional!
There are other "systems" that actually do the opposite to help fend off variance. In other words they wager more against value than with it so if a line is severely inaccurate in OUR favor they just accept it and don't add more. lot of merit as a more stable strategy but I digress, perhaps that's a podcast topic. I'll be putting my confidence and value ratings as well as my "gut" on all of my picks moving forward. I usually mentioned if I had a feeling before but I wasn't always doing it and I think it might be helpful for you all to see what my brain is telling me vs my research and allow you to draw your own conclusions.
And now, in completely unrelated news (I swear it's just a really weird coincidence).... my pick of the week!
-----------------------
LPL Spring 2019 - W8D3:
(Update: This line has moved to -185 and -1.5 @ +163)
(Update 2: Fenfen has been announced as starter for Snake in mid lane over Mala and Andy. Rest of lineup the same.)
Knowing their fate, Snake opted to march poor Fenfen out against Xiaohu and RNG and the result was more or less as expected. I'm not going to put too much weight on that series even in my sense of recency for each squad here but what I will put weight on is the first two games of the Team WE series. Snake took game one in the classic matchup of late draft vs early draft. Snake had the potent mid/jungle combination of Lissandra and Lee Sin against Team WE's all in on scaling composition with a classic 2-core. It was ugly and they were looking at times like they wouldn't be ahead enough but they got the job done in game one. They had a similar situation in game two with the same mid/jungle duo (both players and champions) and WE wen't even more all in on late game with a Fiora pick in the top lane. Snake lost and hten proceeded to lose in game three.
Now WE have been performing slightly better as of late including a victory this morning against the surging BiliBili Gaming but this is still a heavily flawed team and Snake really struggled in multiple scenarios where they should have had the upper hand. Snake are a strange team because they often play their way out of a paper bag so to speak. They team fight well enough to mise wins out of nowhere. Not quite to the level of the original iterations of this team but in some ways they're still decended from that lineage. The problem is that they also lose games in much the same fashion. Snake are incredibly inconsistent.
Prior to their easy victory against Rogue Warriors this weekend, Victory Five had faced a tough run in the schedule of IG, RNG, and JDG. If we look at their whole season they've gone a combined 8-1 in individual games against "bad" teams. In this case I'm considering bad teams to be ones that I'd power rank lower than they are regardless of record. Their one loss was to the ever vigilant Vici Gaming who also took an upset game today coincidentally. To me, Victory Five are going to hover around the 7th-9th position in the LPL. They're clearly better than the bottom half of the league but they've struggled against the more elite teams. Snake are, sad to say, towards the bottom of the table this year and they're wildly inconsistent to boot. Even if we bake in some improvement and side selection as well as "homefield" in Snake's favor I simply can't come up with a justifiable reason for Snake to take a game here. I know I've been burned at the stake for my handicapped bets this week but we're taking the Victory Five handicap here. There's a bit too much overeaction to V5's recent tough schedule when looking at this line. This is also my largest wager of the year to date.
**Since I feel strongly enough about it I'm going to shift some of my ML confidence towards the handicap since the value seems absurd to me for what's likely the most likely outcome so this bet is going to look at little bit weird.**
"Gut": Victory 5 -1.5 @ +163 (heavy bet)
Confidence: 3/5 (handicap), 4.5/5 (ML)
Value: 1.5/1.5 (handicap), 0.5/1.5 (ML)
Handicapped: Victory 5 -1.5 maps @ +163 (6 units)
^ PICK OF THE WEEK! ^
(Update: RW is starting Huanggai at support.)
(Update 2: this line is now -1667, -1.5 @ -294)
Huanggai is going to start at support in his first LPL game of the season. He plays support for Rogue Warriors LDL team. I understand that you're mailing this season in and you want to see what you have in your farm system but honestly ZWuji and Killua together have been literally the only redeeming characterstic of the worst team in the LPL this season besides a few isolated games by KongMing their sub mid laner. Not entirely sure why you'd break what's working but hey, if you need to see your prospects then you need to see them and who better to test a new guy out in the chemistry lane out against than arguably the best of all time...
Look, maybe the new guy shows us why he's earned a shot. Hell maybe Uzi and Ming straight up troll this game but what I'm saying to you is that Uzi and Ming COULD straight up troll this game and likely still stomp this. This feels like welcome to the big leagues and even if, by some miracle, the Rogue Warriors bottom lane can get out alive Xiaohu has been playing out of his mind and Karsa is maybe the best jungler on the planet this year if you ignore that one bad series.
If there was such a thing as shoebox bet this is it to me. I can't imagine any sort of universe where RNG even drop a game here even if the'yre trolling. RW are the worst team in the LPL and they just broke up their only redeeming characteristic which was their bot lane. I know the lines are completely outrageous but if you want "free money" this is about as clear cut as it gets. I'll be parlaying this with the moneyline and handicap from the first game for a heavier amount than usual. I might change my mind on this and just throw 10 units to make 3.4 later which would make tomorrows LPL slate my most bet slate by a ridiculous margain this year but it's that chalk but I'll probably just parlay it in case something really weird happens. I could live with a 6 unit loss but not a 16 unit loss in a day if the truly miraculous happens.
"Gut": +34% seems like freelo but we usually don't touch over 200, that's a bit much
Confidence: 5/5 no force in the universe can stop this (handicap and ML)
Value: 0 /1.5 (handicap and ML)
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Parlay (2): Victory Five ML + RNG -1.5 @ total +106 (1.5 units)
Parlay (2): Victory Five -1.5 + RNG -1.5 @ +252 (1 unit)
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