#caveat: i have read the first book and played the first two games and 150 hours pf the third game

[whollyunnecessary]

Okay bear with me here–Dijkstra should have been Jaskier's weird crush in S3, not Radovid.

Radovid turns out to be SO awful, anybody who goes to the games after the show is going to be perplexed and sad. Radovid begins and supports a witch hunt that moves seamlessly into an attempted genocide. I'm restarting the third game because I accidentally messed up the chance to assassinate him because when he's gone the world becomes provably better. He's a monster.

They had to age him up and change his relationship with the king from son to brother, both of which mean there's no real regency and any of his ire at Philippa and Dijkstra manipulating him is going to be plainly stupid and make him a worse person in the end, because he's an adult man when he assumes the throne and he should be able to think for himself.

Jaskier's astonishment at his own feelings is weird and rushed. Maybe I'm too ace for this but I don't understand the distinction between the way he seemed to be pining over people before and the way he pines over Radovid. I feel like a more interesting choice would have been for Jaskier to get caught up in the force of personality of someone who's not traditionally pretty and swooning over him.

[rickjsposts]

Superbowl Sunday, my analysis, my value added services to my service. My thoughts for a Sunday morning

New Post has been published on https://www.rickjshandicappingpicks.com/superbowl-sunday-my-analysis-my-value-added-services-to-my-service-my-thoughts-for-a-sunday-morning/

Superbowl Sunday, my analysis, my value added services to my service. My thoughts for a Sunday morning

Superbowl Sunday is finally here with KC matching up with TB.

First, let’s start out with This season’s record for my plays in the NFL:

Season to Date Sides:  17-8-2 or 68%

Season to Date Totals: 8-7  or 53.33%

Combined Season to Date: 25-15-2 or 62.5%

If you are laying -110 on these picks you would be +8.5 Units for the NFL Season.

Not a lot of plays, but it was a very steady NFL season with virtually no drawdown.  I will take these results every year:)

As those of you that have been following me for the last 12+ years I have been online, the NFL has been as steady a sport for me as you will find. While most struggle every year in the NFL, for some reason I find it the easiest to handicap.

All my past year records are available either here on this site, On slack, or on Google sheets. If anyone has any interest in all my past records just send me an email and I will provide them for you if you cannot find them.

So that brings us to today’s Superbowl.

Every season I give the caveat that you do not have to wager on the game. I look at it as one game of many. Unless you are a fan, which I am, as a gambler you only make wagers if you feel you have an edge.

That is the purpose of handicapping, to try to determine if there is a positive EV wager on a game.

No two handicappers have the same methods. Some use an analysis of the player matchups, some use external variables, many use a combination of techniques.

One thing is certain in all of this. While handicappers may share their picks, the good handicappers will not share their methodology. This is something they have generated over many years of hard work.

I have been handicapping now for over 40 years:)  I can tell you when it comes to handicapping sports nothing is static. What worked 5 years ago most likely does not work well now. So you have to constantly evaluate your methods and adjust when needed. It is time-consuming and requires a substantial amount of knowledge of various handicapping methods. Including the ability to develop your own methods that few handicappers use.

Years ago I wrote a 2+2 article named ” A Technique to improve your handicapping results”.

You can find the article at https://www.rickjshandicappingpicks.com/about-2-2/

or you can go to Two Plus Two Magazine Vol 7, No. 12 and read it there.

But much of what I wrote years ago still has some significance today. I typically do not write articles, but a poker player who I became friends with worked for 2 +2 and asked me to write an article for them as he followed some of my handicapping.

Now, let’s start my analysis of today’s game:

Let me start out by saying as I always do every Superbowl, that you do not have to wager on this game. Most bettors feel some compulsion not only to wager on it but also to wager more than they typically do over the season. It is similar to poker players who play 8/16 Omaha 8 all year round trying to grind out a few 100 a day. But then the world series rolls around, and you see the same players in the 75/150 Omaha 8 game. It’s the same mindset. What they have done is essentially have their entire year depend on how they do in 4 to 5 weeks of 75/150  after spending the other 47 weeks playing 8/16.

Saying that let’s look at the game to see if I see something worth betting on here. The models lean toward TB. Of course, at +3.5 there would have been enough EV to wager on the game. At +3 your edge if you have one is so slight its not worth betting. Remember the lower the edge the higher the variance. The variables lean even less to TB than the models. The public % edge is absent. At 41% on a +3 game, there is no edge. And there is no line move edge as the line has stayed pretty steady on this game. I look at Cris for that number. Pinnacle’s line comes out after Cris. You want to use the book that puts out the line first for that.

As far as the Total I do not see any value at all in the total. No leans either way on that wager.

Myself, I will not be betting the game. At least as the numbers stand right now. If the line were to move to +3.5 I will take another look at the game.

Now I know some of you are going to ask why I did not take +3.5 when it was available. The way I handicap most sports is I look at a number of things that move around right up until game time. So I did not know what all the numbers were going to be weeks ago.

Good luck whatever you decide to do on this game.    Rick

This is what I sent out to subscribers to my service earlier.

As a subscriber, you get access to all of my handicapping picks, which covers the NFL, NCAAFB, NCAABB, NBA, NHL, and WNBA. In addition, you get access to my political odds picks along with where I think there is value in the political odds arena.

I also added another aspect to my handicapping service. As I am an active trader I share most of my trades with subscribers.

These trades include Mean reversion trades, swing trades, income trades and options trades. The option trades are restricted to selling puts and calls for income.

When sports betting was shut down completely I started doing some research on a short put selling technique where you would sell a put that expired after the close the next day. These trades are made on Thursday morning and either expire Friday after the close or you take delivery of the stock if it closes below the strike price. (which rarely happens)

Since I started sharing these with subscribers this is a graph of those trades:

As you can see there have been 265 trades with a 93.58% win rate and a profit factor of 4.57

A few things to note on these is that most have annualized returns of over 40% and the drawdown has been minimal.

We had a brief consolidation around trade 81 and pulled out of it around trade 110 and then had our only drawdown around trade 143 and recovered it all by trade 172. Other than that it has been virtually straight up.

It’s rare to find a trading method as consistent as this. Although, We are only looking at 265 trades. I suspect we will be over 500 trades by year-end and will have a better picture of whether these numbers are going to hold up.

Now These short puts are only those I sell on Thursday for Friday expiration. There are other short put sales I make where I would not mind owning the stock at the strike price. These typically are 1 month out short put trades.

Since posting these trades I have only made 8 closed trades with 7 winners and 1 loser for a profit factor of 11.85. I have at last count 4 or 5 of these trades pending right now for expiration Feb 19th. All are far away from the strike price.

In addition, they all produce annualized returns of over 40% if they expire.

The mean reversion trades I have posted have a 70.83% win rate with a profit factor of 6.34.

So far I have posted 24 of these types of trades.

Many of my subscribers have found this to be a very valuable addition to the service.

Here is the graph of the mean reversion trades:

All in all, I would put my service up against any other for value. While most charge 4 figures for one sport in a lump sum that is non-refundable. I charge only $49.00 a month which you are free not to renew at the end of each monthly period.

This price has been constant now for the last 10 years with no increases, despite the fact I keep adding value to the service.

If you wish to give it a try you can go to the drop-down menu and subscribe via the PayPal button and get a 3-day free trial, or you can subscribe via this link with no free trial.

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/Rickjsports/49

Once you sign up I will have you up and going within minutes:) Hope to see you join us for the rest of the NCAABB season including March Madness along with the NBA and NHL.

RickJ

rickjshandicappingpicks.com

Twitter: rickjsportplays

Slack: rickjsports