Betting: Week In Review (February 6th to 11th) (Week 4)

The NA Pidgeon illuminati, the return of SK Telecom's balls, and a European superstar that has just decided to win games. Oh yea, and we crushed the books this week! This one was a bit wild with some upsets but we were spot on and our system and strategy are starting to pay off big time. 

Winners:

Moneyline: Golden Guardians +355 @ 100 Thieves

Wager: 1 unit

Payout: 4.55 units

This makes the cut because you can't just throw away units on underdogs unless you have good reason to believe in an upset to happen. Even the worst teams get a few wins and at least this GG team has some pride and showed some fight even when getting whooped by Echo Fox on Saturday night. 100 Thieves have been exposed for the overrated bunch of washed up veterans collecting paychecks that they are so this was a perfect spot for the underdog to attack. Good call by BFF Jim on this one he had the hard reads on momentum and turned me on to the idea.

Moneyline: FlyQuest +173 to defeat 100 Thieves

Wager: 2 units

Payout: 5.46 units

I'm gonna ride this overrated 100 Thieves team all the way to the bank. As I wrote in my paragraph on this game it had everything to do with a stylistic mismatch as well as FlyQuest being at full strength with their complete lineup finally. In hindsight I should have gone heavier on this with how confident I was the two unit wager didn't reflect my personal confidence. I was maybe a bit skeptical that Anda and Fly would have it together yet but they appear to be good to go.

Moneyline: Fnatic -154 to defeat Giants Gaming

Wager: 4 units

Payout: 6.6 units

We likely won't see Fnatic at this good of a number the rest of the season and if I believe they're the best team in Europe by seasons end and that they appear to have figured themselves out then I need to get the money on them while I still have good value. They'll be 250 or more favorites against pretty much every team the rest of the season.

Moneyline: ROX Tigers +119 to defeat Jin Air Green Wings

Wager: 4 units

Payout:8.76 units

I correctly identified that this was a severely inaccurate line that was based on win percentage and baseline metrics and not at the actual game play and strategy and took advantage. There's another lesson here which was that ROX had played 19 games and Jin Air only 13 so the win percentages were similar despite ROX having significant improvement in recent weeks. Underdog teams that know how to scrap and be proactive are excellent choices for upsets. ROX Tigers, SK Telecom now (jeez what universe is this), and the full lineup of FlyQuest seem like great candidates for the occasional upset with their uptempo, aggressive playstyles. These teams don't just roll over and die playing passive and safe, they attack and sometimes that works.

Moneyline: SK Telecom -143 vs BBQ Olivers

Wager: Initially 2 units followed up by a string of live bets totaling 9.5 additional units over the course of the series.

Payout: 12.87 units  all told with one of the live bets (map 2) losing.

I correctly identified that SKT looked good despite the loss against Afreeca with this new lineup combination and happened to be awake to live bet this game and capitalize on it.

Moneyline: SK Telecom +164 to defeat KSV

Wager: 2 units

Payout: 5.28 units

Identifying good signs in losses is crucial. This ties in with game film and evaluation. I saw that in SKT's loss to Afreeca that they played two competitive games with this iteration of the seasons lineup. Afreeca are just one of the best teams in the world right now having rattled off a sizeable undefeated streak. The fact that these games were competitive against a good, high speed team and that SKT wasn't just turtling they were making proactive plays made me realize that had potentially turned the corner. I'll discuss more in a lesson below.

Losers:

Moneyline: BBQ Olivers -263 to defeat MVP

Wager: 3 units

Payout: LOSS

This isn't a spot to bet the mediocre team that's heavy favorites but I think I convinced myself that MVP had just taken two of their maybe handful of wins for the season within the week and teams would wake up and throw the rag doll around again so to speak. I'm going to discuss this one more in my lessons for the week.

Moneyline: KSV eSports -556 to defeat ROX Tigers

Wager: 5 units

Payout: LOSS 

KSV are a good team but they've been struggling as of late and the ROX Tigers have shown a lot of fight in all of their games no matter the opponent. I've known this about ROX but I needed to ask myself is KSV -556 better than anybody in their current state? The answer was no. I'm sure they'll get it together but when a team is in the middle of a psychological slump where they haven't looked themselves and haven't shown a willingness to adapt you need to jump on the underdogs. This should have been a one or two unit ROX wager. They're scrappy, aggressive, proactive, and are perhaps the most dangerous of the bottom tier teams in Korea (SKT won't be there long everyone relax). ESPECIALLY against an upset capable team like ROX I can't lay 5 units on a struggling favorite.

Lesson Learned:

1) Don't bet a lot on heavy favorites that are in the bottom four:

BBQ vs MVP is the specific game I'm talking about but it applies elsewhere too. If a team is around the bottom of a league they're likely there for a reason, especially in the LCK and LPL where we get a much larger sample size. BBQ are sloppy. They can pull upsets sure but they're a sloppy team which means they can just as easily lose to other bad teams like themselves. Just because I thought they were better than MVP doesn't mean I should have placed that wager a lot especially if they're heavy favorites which leads to my next lesson for the week...

2) If a team isn't X amount better than ANY team then that's a spot to bet even if it's for a small amount:

"CLG shouldn't be favored by this much over anybody besides Golden Guardians and maybe FlyQuest." (-208)
"100 Thieves aren't -556 better than ANYONE and that's what this bet is" (-556)
"BBQ arent -263 better than anyone........

These were all sentences from the past.... well not that last one, I wish that last one was there. These are all from the couple days alone. It's always worth asking the question "Is this team that much better than anybody?" It's a useful question to ask because while playing moneylines is predominantly about picking the winner, at least in esports and for small stakes like we're playing, it's also about finding grossly inaccurate lines. Even if these are small one or two unit wagers it's almost worth betting on the upset as a hedge when a line is severely inaccurate like this. 

3) Identifying good signs in losses is crucial to success:

A middle of the pack team might get 2-0'd by one of the best teams in their league but most people will only look at the scoreline or the match final and not the film. The biggest case for this concept this week was SKT vs Afreeca and the following SKT vs BBQ and KSV. SKT had struggled all season to find themselves and a style and were just lost but they finally looked like they had a decent lineup with rookie jungle Blossom bringing some aggression to the table. The most important thing was realizing that they just played two really close games against a team that is, for all intents and purposes, the second best team in the world at this moment in Afreeca. Jumping on those moments is crucial in collecting value.

4) Two and Three team parlays can be good value in favorite heavy slates or situations where you have an underdog pinned to win and other selections are obvious favorites:

I played a couple two team parlays with heavy favorites. If I think they're essentially a lock I might as well put half a unit on a two teamer to collect that near 2 for 1 value. I like adding in an upset pick that I'm confident in to really collect on these as well. I might toy around with playing parlays more this week. I did some on Saturday but we'll see how it's looking.

Week Four Roundup:

NA LCS: +15.3 units

EU LCS: +3.89 units

LCK: +7.49 units

LPL:  +0.767 units

Parlays/Combos: +1.261 units

TOTAL FOR THE WEEK: +28.708 units

• This week we were 15-6 in LCK selections (plus an additional loss in a map 2 live bet)
• 10-2 in NA LCS selections putting us to 16-4 in the past two weeks
• 6-4 in EU LCS selections bringing our two week total to 14-6

This week I plan to do a Mid Season Review of NA and EU LCS as well as LCK where I'll re-evaluate my preseason predictions and see if we can establish a new tier list in each as well as discuss some of the relevent upgrades and downgrades in combination with my Overrated/Underrated column.

Looking forward to continuing our domination next week. LET'S GO!!

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Preaseaon Predictions Articles can be found here:

NA LCS Spring 2018 Predictions and Preseason Bets

EU LCS Spring 2018 Predictions and Preseason Bets

Overrated / Underrated Teams Page Updated Weekly (2/6/2018)!!