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Recap & Week Ahead – The TSP Newsletter is now 5-1 the L2 weeks! Let’s keep that rolling for the week ahead!
Overall, it was a solid weekend of content, led by a very strong Saturday of NCAAF action. We had Lady Luck on our side as some great late game heroics helped to give us some winners, and then we finished the evening off very strongly! NFL was a slight positive result on graded content thanks to the 2-0 on Public Prop Fades this week and despite the medium Book Need on Jacksonville going down. We do have to be careful this Saturday as often we don’t get epic Saturday’s or Sunday’s in back to back weeks. Hopefully it can just be a nice positive grind…at worst!
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Now let’s get into this week’s action…
Early Sharp Buy (2-1-0 for +0.9 units) – In this section of the newsletter I look for what wager is seeing the cleanest and largest sharp buy at this point in the week. The section is graded based on the result of the play here, however this play can be used for a few things. We have seen situations whereby the newsletter’s early buy sees counter buying later in the week. These reverse buys have shown to be VERY STRONG and profitable to follow. So, keep the below game and wager in mind as the week goes along, even if you aren’t interested in the action now.
The Early Buy run of perfection went down this week with the loss on Tulsa. Let’s get back to winning this week! For the week ahead, the largest early sharp buy is on Cincinnati +15 (NCAAF). There has been a consistent fade going against Oklahoma in each of the past three weeks…and Oklahoma keeps covering. Sharps aren’t quitting and immediately came in and bet CINCINNATI +15 as the Early Sharp Buy.
Early Algorithm Look (2-1-0 for +0.9 units) – The section here is quite simple. I run my favorite NFL & NCAAF side & totals algorithms each week. I then post the play below that shows the most value out of the four programs.
A fun wager with Missouri who cashed for the algorithm last week. Let’s see what she can do this week! For the week ahead, the algorithm is showing value on Notre Dame +3 over Ohio St. The algorithm calculates that this should be Notre Dame -1 and we are getting +3, a value of 4 points. I would buy this up to +3.5 and grab NOTRE DAME +3.5 (-120) for the Early Algorithm Look!
My Handicapping (2-1-0 for +0.9 units) – I provide the same disclaimer every year…I SUCK at handicapping. If it weren’t for the information, tools and analytics that I can access and utilize, I would be like any old Joe. Thankfully, I have all those tools and assets which allow me to be a sports betting genius (we can all pretend…LOL)! However, for this section each week, the selection is just based on my handicapping of a game or price. I take pride in this section and want to end the season a winner! At a minimum, hopefully we have a few laughs.
Thank you to Sean McVay for clearly being a subscriber of The Sharp Plays newsletter and not wanting to see me lose last week. I appreciate him kicking a meaningless field goal…but not so meaningless for me! The field goal provided the nice backdoor cover and brings me to a winning season in the newsletter!
For the week ahead, I am going with the NY GIANTS +10.5 over San Francisco. I know, the NY Giants suck and we all saw them suck against a shitty Arizona team…before coming back to get a very lucky win. At the same time we saw San Francisco handle the Rams pretty good. Only reason the Rams covered was thanks to McVay helping me out. Otherwise San Fran would be 2-0 ATS this season.
The public is absolutely hammering San Francisco to start the week, and that is likely not going to let up by game time. So, I likely have at least a medium Book Need on my hands with the NY Giants. At the same time, this is a setup I like to play. The setup is betting against a big name team who lost in the stats going up against a perceived weaker opponent who won in the stats in a result that did not show it. So, we have San Francisco coming in on a good win against the LA Rams, but where the Rams had more yards than San Fran despite losing by what should have been 10. We also have the Giants who put up 439 yards to Arizona’s 379. As bad as it might sound, the Giants aren’t getting enough credit this week and the 49ers are getting a little too much credit this week…and after their demolition of the Steelers in Week #1. However, we saw how shitty the Steelers were last night. So, I am not quite sold on the 49ers to this level that the market is making them. By no means do I think the Giants win, although they could…this is the NFL. However, I do think the 10.5 points is too much. I could see a closer than expected game and a 5-7 point San Fran win…making that 10.5 too juicy to pass up! I am going with the NY GIANTS +10.5 for the My Handicapping Game of the Week of the Year (title for comedic purposes only)!
The Sharp Plays Review – I am a dedicated watcher of “The Walking Dead” on AMC. When the series came out I would wait for it each week almost like I did for the “Sopranos”. Sunday would come, but I would not watch it on Sunday…I would be watching football. Instead, I would sit in my office on Monday morning, cleaning up my files from the weekend and getting things ready for the week ahead…while “The Walking Dead” played on one of my screens. It was a ritual and it was peaceful and mindless relaxation after a busy football weekend. As the years passed, the initial energy of the show began to wane exponentially. It seemed the AMC team ran out of good story lines and simply kept playing the same rinse and repeat style of writing…create a villain, kill off a couple of beloved good guys, the good guys go into hiding, and then eventually beat the villain. Shows are often a predictable good versus evil battle, but “The Walking Dead” just made it WAAAAY too obvious. Compare that to “Game of Thrones” and you just never knew what was coming at you with all the twists and turns. “Game of Thrones”, for me, was second only to
“Sopranos” in quality…both of which were on HBO. Anyway, I digress back to TWD…I felt toward the end of the series I was just watching because I was so pot committed given the time I had invested up to that point that I had to see it to the end…not because of the quality of the series. Unfortunate because it all started so well.
During the time “The Walking Dead” was on air, the AMC team then launched “Fear The Walking Dead” which was intended to show us how the whole zombie apocalypse began…the breakdown of civilization. Now this is a dynamic I love! Someone somewhere gets sick with an unknown illness…nobody pays attention. Then it starts to grow and people begin to take notice…just think of how COVID played out. Next thing you know the world stops…except unlike COVID people are eating one another. Without going down too philosophical of a road, I am a firm believer that civilization is held together by a very thin veil. Once paychecks stop coming for a couple weeks or food is not as easy to get for a week or two…as people run out and can’t get more by means of simply going to the local grocery story…civilization would immediately collapse into total anarchy. We would be shooting our neighbors for their Kraft Easy Mac…and that 35 pack of bottled water we saw through the window. It would be so rampant the polie would be useless…and probably doing the same thing to support their families. I find this human/civilization dynamic very interesting to study…human nature, survival, etc. I was excited to see how this would play out through the eyes of professional writers…and outside just a two hour movie which is how we always would see the dynamic in the past. Well, the story started well, but instead of letting it play out longer, it seemed like 2-3 shows in and civilization had already totally collapsed. It went WAAAAAY too quick. Things would not devolve that quickly outside nuclear war. Even for me who feels the veil is thin between civilization and anarchy…this was too way too quick to be believable. It was like someone is sick, next day everyone is eating and killing one another. Come on! Since those first few episodes, “Fear The Walking Dead” has been absolutely awful. The writing is laughably pathetic. Yes, I have watched every single episode though, hoping it would get better, but it has not. It has only gotten more awful than words can describe. Lennie James, who plays Morgan, is the main remaining actor in the series is very talented, but even he can’t save it and I worry him sticking with it for so long will actually hurt his reputation as an actor…that’s how bad the show and story have gotten. With only a few episodes left until the series finale, I am once again committed to see it through. Not exactly a big selling factor for people to watch.
To continue milking the franchise, AMC then launched the “World Beyond”, I won’t waste much time on this…it was average at best. Kids coming of age in the apocalypse. Not bad but just a weird story. It was designed to only last two seasons and that turned out to be a good thing.
We now have “Dead City”, which to me is the most promising of the franchises. The premise is that two of the original cast members of “The Walking Dead” now find their way to New York City…which of course is loaded with zombies. Maggie (Lauren Cohen) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) are solid on the screen. Maggie is always easy on the eyes, even when she is dirty and coated in blood and guts…sexy!! LOL! I should note that she is also a very talented actress. JDM’s acting style just brings the energy of the character that is Negan. The combination of the two having to work together and the backstory built up between them as antagonists in “The Walking Dead” is solid…one thing AMC got right. JDM really is Negan…and has always been one reason I tuned into the dying series that was “The Walking Dead”. While the AMC team did their best to ruin this new show, the overall quality of acting carried “Dead City” to the finish line of its opening season better than I expected. Still work to do, but a big improvement over the usual AMC setup. I am looking forward to this coming back…and I hope to God AMC puts its all-stars onto the writing team for this one. It is important for you to Google the backstory between Maggie and Negan if you want to start with this series. Just so you know the premise. I would not want you to have to watch Walking Dead episodes to get it.
Now, we have the show “Daryl Dixon”. One of the most beloved characters in The Walking Dead franchise was Daryl. When the series began back in October of 2010, Daryl was at best a second tier character on the show. However, the energy that Norman Reedus brought to the character was solid. So much so that eventually Daryl moved up the character pecking order to finally being the lead on the series toward the end. Daryl was one of the few reasons, like Negan, to tune into the dying series that was “The Walking Dead”. So, given Daryl’s all-star status on the show, AMC decided to spin-off Daryl into his own series now that the main franchise had concluded. The show is named “Daryl Dixon” and we find Daryl somehow transported to France (when previously he was on the East Coast of the US). I don’t get too much into the storyline as that would take too much time. Suffice it to say the story behind “Daryl Dixon” is a little wonky at the start. Daryl does a good job, but when you have a story (zombies) that is already improbable, as a writer you need to make the rest of the story based in some sort of human reality. It allows the story to balance itself out. You have these zombies which is unbelievable but the way the action and characters play out given this unbelievable universe feels real…at least that’s the way to get people to buy in. The story in “Daryl Dixon” is already way too improbable. Daryl floats on a capsized boat to the coast of France, finds rainwater in a bucket within a few feet of the shore so he could ease his dehydration and then it only gets wackier from there…nuns who fight, a child Messiah, and of course more villains. I don’t know. I like Daryl, but I have concerns this will be another AMC quagmire. We’ll see…it is only too episodes in, but AMC ruined my patience with their previous adventures in The Walking Dead universe. So, I am already concerned this will be another waste of time.
All in all, I have hopes for Dead City, but a lot of concerns for the Daryl Dixon show. I hope it’s just starting slow and the goofy kid as messiah storyline they are playing somehow comes to a cool conclusion in Season 1. If not, AMC will be a future movie business case study in how to take an absolute goldmine and turn it into a pile of shit…and very quickly.
My Two Cents – One of the running topics, along with bankroll management, that I discuss is patience. Why? Most gamblers don’t have it and it is this lack of patience that destroys most bettors and their bankrolls. Last night is a perfect example. There was early money on Pittsburgh and then later money on Cleveland. Instead of taking a pass, I got several messages from bettors who were trying to force 1 unit wagers. The messages of “Early money was Pitt, but late money is Cleveland…what should I bet?” To me, the answer was easy…either bet pizza money or don’t bet at all. We have a mixed market and sharp money on both sides is not going to help you get a clean read here. Most bettors can’t take the pass though…it’s Monday Night Football…they need to fire material bankroll even if the reason they are betting something is as solid as a coin toss. If this is you, you will find yourself pissing away money at an exponential rate and blaming everyone and everything else but yourself.
The following is a message I got from someone on Monday (yesterday)…
“Hey sharp. I think this is my 4th year with you. Over these four years I’ve learned so much and have come a long way. Understanding how to read the markets, bankroll management and an understanding of how hard sports handicapping can be. But the biggest thing by far I’ve learnt from you is patience. After losing money for my first two years and making many mistakes, I really got my head down last year and hustled a good profit. This allowed me to really up my unit sizing for this current football season. This is the biggest my unit sizing has ever been, (although it may seem small compared to some) but is quite a lot of money to me. I knew I had to be very dedicated and patient. Saturday delivered 2 angles that qualified for me to take shots on and I went 2-0 with Wisky and TCU. However, jump ahead to Sunday and I found myself in a tough spot. One that would test how dedicated I was. There seemed to be so many angles getting real close to wager worthy but I held strong (something I wouldn’t normally do in the past) instead of trying to force something. My strategy ended up paying off as the games I would have maybe forced, both lost. I then got rewarded for all this with another angle in the Sunday night game which cashed and gave me a +3 unit weekend. It was so rewarding looking back on the last two days seeing that profit and knowing that I stuck to my guns. I guess what I’m trying to say is thank you! There is so much info/cappers/services out there with sports gambling getting so popular, but your content is the best out there and it’s not even close. I hope it’s messages like this that put a smile on your face, make you forget about the haters, and most importantly, encourage you to keep on doing everything you do for us. Without you I would be lost like 99% of gamblers out there, but I feel like the 1% just because of you and your coaching. THE SHARP PLAYS IS THE SHIT!!!! THANK YOU”
I really love to get messages like this and thankfully I get them often. It’s nice to know when the content hits the mark for someone. There will always be haters simply because a tiny minority of people are morons…or just miserable people. These folks just assume you pay for a subscription and that means you will be a guaranteed winner…no pain…easy money. When this doesn’t come to fruition, then these people lash out at anyone but themselves for their total disconnect from reality. I talked above about AMC using the same storyline over and over in The Walking Dead. The haters are the same way…always the same storyline…I bought your subscription OR I followed you and lost my bet on Jacksonville on Sunday. They don’t bring up the performance of content up to that point, the incredibly profitable grind since 2011, or the fact the TSP Live Radar went 8-2 just the day before. None of that matters, it’s a new day and they lost a bet…awful…how could that happen?!?! It shows a total lack of patience and understanding of how gambling works, something I try to teach and preach to people. Some haters actually realize how gambling works, but they just want to hate. Others are actually that stupid, and those are the ones who I have to laugh at because they are so far out of touch with reality that it is shocking…however, when they finally come around, as some former haters will tell you, I will be right there to happily assist them in their betting journey.
When someone is reacting to one loss or even a bad week/weekend…even a bad month…as though none of the past performance leading to that point nor the future performance of the content matters, it is a clear sign of lack of patience. “If I don’t win this week then TSP sucks.” is not anywhere near the right mindset you should have for gambling. You can say I suck, doesn’t change my life, but just realize how all this works…otherwise you will continue losing no matter what you do…or who you follow.
Handicappers on various websites will have their NCAAF Game of the Month this Saturday and then their NFL Game of the Week this Sunday. It makes you believe there is always a great bet every day that there are games. Nothing could be further from the truth. These folks simply know that if they take a pass on Sunday then they don’t make money selling you picks. So, they force out a Game of the Week on Sunday knowing it will catch your eye and bring them sales…whether the game wins or not is immaterial to them, they have your sales…who cares if you use that bet as a bailout and get cooked. It’s all about instant gratification for the seller and the buyer…and instant gratification and patience are polar opposites.
Going back to the person who sent the message, the important part I want you to see is he passed on everything to start Sunday. He could easily be forgiven for betting Jacksonville as a medium Book Need (the lone graded wager on Sunday 1pm or 4pm ET starts). Instead, on a Sunday of NFL, he took a pass until the evening. At the same time there are likely others out there who knew better, but they could not fathom the idea of letting a 1pm ET slate or a 4pm ET slate of NFL games go by without having 2,3,4,5 units of action on NFL active at any given time. How did that work out? Usually it doesn’t work out well. If it worked out well…consider yourself likely more lucky than good.
I had people pissed off because there were no KB Consensus angles on Sunday. In the end, it was a great thing because the sharp angles (all low level) which did show up for Sunday’s NFL went 3-4. PATIENCE!!! There will be Sundays with multiple KB Consensus or other major angles, wait for them…PATIENCE!!! KB Consensus is 5-2 so far this season and not because these angles are forced out just to have them. It’s because I let them develop organically. Sure, they could go to a record of 5-6 over the next two weeks too. Instead of panicking realize that it will be a grind. We have no idea how they will perform moving forward, but if you bet smart, and be patient, you will be ahead of 95% (or likely 99% as the gentleman above referenced) of gamblers out there.
Everyone wants to be a $5,000 per unit or greater bettor and they want to do it now! They have a $1,000 bankroll, and that’s OK, but they want to get to be a $1,000 PER UNIT bettor tomorrow and quit their day job. Being a professional bettor takes time. I started what I would consider as being a professional bettor around 2002-2003. It was when I finally not just making consistent profits betting, I did that beginning around 2000, but where I stopped a lot of my degenerate tendencies as well…which would cut heavily into my profit margins. In 2002-2003 is why I was earning a consistent and healthy income from my sports betting. Mind you…I began betting offshore in 1995…and was working in the offshore industry in late 1997! So, it took me several years of losing and poor management, until I finally got myself to the point of making consistent money. It then took another 5 years before I was picking up 6 figures on a parlay. Like myself or the gentleman whom I quoted above…you can get your bankroll to where you want to be…it will just take time…which means you must have PATIENCE! Success cannot be rushed! In the 90’s, I had visions of buying a car as a high school student and making all my dreams come true through sports betting. Eventually, that was the case, but it took over a decade to do it…and a lot of losses and lessons learned along the way.
My goal at The Sharp Plays is to teach those who are willing to listen all the hard lessons I learned along the way in sports betting. If you can learn from my experience then hopefully I can save you from the same losses and failures I experienced. Perhaps I can even cut the time it takes you to evolve from novice to professional bettor. Yesterday, I talked to a different individual than the one quoted above, and in that conversation I discussed how I know sharing the lessons I have learned and the realities of betting won’t save all of you…but if I can just save a few of you then it is all worth it! It’s nice to get messages like the one above, means the time I am putting in has been well spent…and the lessons are getting through!
When I first started betting I was a kid in middle school…like so many I have met in this business. It was nickel and dime shit with friends for a few dollars here and there…but that was good money at that time! LOL! Then, in high school, I lied about my age on a signup form that I mailed in to an offshore sportsbook…they didn’t care. I had maybe $100 to my name and I was dreaming of earning $200 to $300 a week…a millionaire in high school terms back then. All I did though was lose over and over. I had no patience. I then met someone years later when I began working in the offshore industry who took me under his wing and showed me the ways of the gambling world. He has since passed away, but many of the lessons I discuss through The Sharp Plays are simply his words that I am bringing to you…combined with my experiences on those lessons. He took me from total degenerate pissing away money…chasing chalks…refusing to bet underdogs…to starting to make some decent money around 2000 in sports betting…money which, because I still lacked good control, I would eventually blow on pressing and chasing…to finally getting to be an all around good gambler a couple years later…something I have maintained since then.
Sure, I have moments where I lack patience in my betting, but then I pay the price! At which time I remember all the wisdom from my betting Yoda and get right back on track. Nobody has perfect patience OR PERFECT ANYTHING in gambling, but you do have to have some…and you cannot do things wrong more than you do them right. Be patient, and whatever dreams you have in gambling can come true IF you are willing to put in the time. PATIENCE!!!! I sacrificed so much to be a professional and successful bettor along the way…time with family and friends…experiences…LIFE…but now here I am. I get to live the dream I had back in middle and high school…but it took me over a decade of time investment to get there…and daily discipline to keep it! There are choices and sacrifices you have to make…nothing comes easy. The first step on the journey is knowing it won’t be handed to you and it won’t be easy. If it were easy, we would be surrounded by professional bettors because overall the life of a pro is fun! However, most people don’t know a single person in their personal life who has the career of true professional bettor. If you want to be one…you need to embrace the first characteristic of a pro…PATIENCE!
That’ll close out this week’s newsletter for me! Thanks for giving the newsletter here a read today! Stay safe out there! I am always open to any feedback you may have. I might not listen to it, LOL, but I am open to it! 😉🤙🍀
Good luck in your action!
~ The Sharp Plays