Coast2Coast wrote:
I have no problem with people liking TT. And you nailed one of the fundamental reasons they may cover this week. That's not my issue. Picking winners is an individual thing. It's the price. I understand that prices move with demand, but at some point, teams become unbettable. If somebody liked TT, why the hell didn't they buy them Monday at a 30% lower price? Would you buy a car, house, or anything of value at a 30% higher price today than you could have bought it for on Monday? Then why would you buy a football team that way? There is a precedent I suppose. Some people buy stocks only after they have risen substantially in a short period of time. They follow the herd thinking the herd must be right. Some people have that mindset I guess. I just don't understand it. It's hard enough to win without giving 30% away in the price.
I agree in part and disagree in part. Three points is a pretty substanial move, regardless of what numbers it crosses over. I would be very reluctant to play on the short end after a move that large for the reason you mentioned. I wouldn't play Texas Tech this week, although I will be rooting for them and I do think they have a very substantial chance.
Where I disagree is that I really don't make too much out of half point or even point moves, unless it crosses three. Even two point moves don't scare me in the abstract, as long as +3 doesn't get crossed. Here's my theory: a lot of people are really, really good at fundamental analysis of games. Vegas has a ton of them. They create a number that is more or less accurate more times than not. A lot of times, I don't think they have a very firm position, so if the money is lopsided, they'll go ahead and start moving it to balance things out. This is especially true when the money is coming in hard on the underdog; that tends to scare the books, from what I can tell, and I think they come to regard that number as inaccurate. So let's take a game where a line opens +6.5, the underdog gets 70% of the money, and the books move the line to +4.5. I know there's some value lost in the move, but in my mind there's value gained for me, personally, knowing that Vegas was willing to move this line. They're not confident. At the same time, there are limits to how far they realistically can move the line; they don't want to lose on both ends of the equation. In that circumstance, I'd much rather bet the underdog at +4.5 than the favorite, even if I could have had the underdog at +6.5 a couple of days ago. In other words, for me at least:
Value from knowing what the books think about a game > the value of those two points.
As I said above, there are exceptions, and I'd almost never cross 3 to 2.5 or 3.5 to 3, just because there is so much value in that number.
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Gotta love those sweet middles.
