NickCave
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Posts posted by NickCave
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I think MMA betting remains profitable forever, indefinitely, for two reasons.
1) Dumbest fans of any sport (myself included), who in turn influence the line.
2) The super-mega geniuses who beat other, vastly more efficient sports are almost always lacking the much lower intelligence type of being able to watch two guys fight and make a good guess on which one's more likely to beat the other one up.
I think you vastly underestimate the allure of money. If the lines are inefficient, and the limits are high enough, the money will come. Those super-mega geniuses who are beating NBA totals, Mountain West football, and NCAAB spreads have never had any problem wagering large sums of money on boxing, and MMA isn't much different. As the sport grows in popularity and more data becomes available, the smart money will make the lines harder and harder to exploit. Count on that.
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This brings up a intresting question for me. Has anyone here had expirience betting on a fight where a fighter won but pissed dirty? I wonder what the recourse is because theoretically you could cash out right after the event but if your on the other side of the bet You'd be pretty pissed if the book didnt reverse the outcome.
I've lost money betting on cycling and Olympic nonsense, contests after which the winner was shown to have cheated. Every book pays once a result is posted or certified, and in every sport I've ever wagered, that happens within moments of the finish. The idea is that, on some level at least, steroid/blood doping/cheating rumors are public domain, and if everyone has equal access, it's fair game. If somebody is gaming the system, however, the books might go after big individual winners, in conjunction with the Federals.
I swear, my heart ****ing broke for AmScray watching that fight. The first thing I thought after "YES!!!" was, "Ah, man...." I've taken a few shots in my life, and I've been lucky to have won more than I've lost. I asked him if he thought he took a beat because, honestly, there is no worse feeling than taking a huge shot, having the right side, and still going broke. It's... just terrible. It makes you feel helpless, and you're angry and all sorts of other stuff.
I've also taken a shot and lost, and immediately known it was the wrong side. That's a different kind of pain, still extreme, but there's a lesson to be learned. I don't know. Tough beat, Scram. Hope you come back.
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I kind of forgot how huge this was for you, AmScray. Losing like that has to be extra-painful, because it has to feel so flukey. I ask this out of curiosity, and not some annoying kind of celebration, but do you still feel like you had the right side? If they fought again, would you still bed Silva? Would you bet him for the same amount at the same price? I only ask, because I've taken countless beats where I've lost and thought to myself, "God damn if there were a rematch tomorrow I would bet THREE TIMES AS MUCH," and those are, paradoxically, the painful ones, despite the fact that the process was good.
Anyway, sorry for the beat. I've been there. Hope you come back, etc.
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I feel like I'm going to drop a ****ing bomb on whomever the **** Anderson Silva is fighting. Chris "the all american" Weidman? That name is so ****ing gay, so taking him is going to be god damn painful.
****ING NAILED IT
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I was at the UM/OSU game. Went to Ann Arbor that morning to meet a friend at a bar and watch the game, and we kept getting closer and closer to campus. Eventually ended up at a tailgate, and two drunk chicks offered us their tickets for close to face value because they had their parents' tickets on the 50 or something. Whatever. Who cares.
Amazing game. I ended up going on an epic bender with some people I met at the game.
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Diaz @ +140 from a live book is very decent.
Did he offer that or did you negotiate it?
I like Maynard overall but I don't think he's going to finish Diaz, Diaz is a danger on the mat, Maynard is by no means a slam dunk but I am absolutely convinced this price on Maynard is 25% of the people viewing Nick and Nate as one, amorphous fighter named Diaz. Nate ain't Nick. Also, Maynard 1-2 in his last 3 which per monkey-mma-math will impact the line and make him cheap. Fights like these, you aren't shocked if you lose. If Nate triangles him in the 2nd round, it's not like it would some huge surprise however I am (literally) betting that isn't going to happen.
I very well may be 'all in' on Silva. I've been scaling into him at basically even money since the lines opened. The 'near-fight' trickle-down is starting to occur. He's now in the -130 range, expect to see him pushing -200 prefight. If you can buy him locally at any + amount, you're very lucky. I'll probably wind up having 80% of my roll on the entire fight, which is a pretty significant amount of money (to me, not by balla standards) the byproduct of two consecutive winning years. The 20% I'm keeping out is in case Weidman does win and I have to write off 2014 as a rebuilding year.
I asked my local where he was on the fight, and he told me he was taking mostly Maynard action, at which point I suggested I was willing to bet Diaz at the right price. He was looking to lay it off anyway, and the easiest route was to sell it to me, especially because he was probably like 15 cents off book on the fight, anyway. When it comes to NFL and NBA sides, locals don't have much leeway. MLB (and NHL I guess) lines are a little more malleable.
But when you get even further onto the periphery, like with MMA and boxing, it's really easy to set lines your clients would be insane to bet into. Like, say Vegas has a fight at -155/+135. Local books might set it at -170/+135 if they expect to take favorite action, and then either let it ride with a huge edge, or just sell their action by betting the favorite at the "real" -155 price. Or, maybe somebody else comes along and is like, "Hey buddy, make me an offer," and it makes more sense to offer a trusted customer a chunk at +145. Everyone wins.
Also, I want to make it clear I will be fading Silva in that fight. I plan to bet King Goofball All-American Weidman.
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I hope you
Almost done with Justified already, embarrassingly.
Decoy is a great episode. Oswalt is a horrible actor who takes me out of the show.
I can only hope you love "Decoy" as much as I do. I truly believe it is among the greatest episodes of television ever filmed.
I'll skip everything before the title sequence, because all of that is too easy, except to say, I absolutely love the way Boyd enunciates.
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The entire Decoy caravan is brilliant
Gutterson: "For all I know I'm having a full blown PTSD episode."
You get those a lot?
Gutterson [dryly] "Only when I'm handling firearms in public."
Gutterson: "PULL UP BEHIND US AND STAY OFF THE GOD DAMN RADIO."
This entire conversation between Gutterson and Rhodes is perfect television. It's one of the many reasons why I love this episode so, so much:
- TIM GUTTERSON: Hello, Bagram.
- COLTON RHODES: Well, hello, Deputy Dawg.
-Am I right in saying that you were in the sandbox before Afghanistan?
-I am a double winner. Is that why you called, to ask me that?
-Oh, why? You busy?
-I am in the middle of something.
-All right, I'll make it quick. I'm writing a book set in Iraq. There's a chapter where a convoy of military police is transporting a criminal, and Lieutenant Dan... He's our main guy, he gets a bad feeling.
-Forrest Gump.
-Huh?
-There's a Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump.
-Oh, shit. You're right. I'll change it. Lieutenant Colt.
-I would like a young Gerard Depardieu to play me in the movie. I'm honored.
-Well, you should be. He's a big guy, real badass... Or he was. He's kind of losing his grip. When we meet him, he's lost someone. He started using dope that he confiscated.
-Yeah, but then we find out that he's kicked again. And anyone who thinks he's in any way diminished is in for a big surprise.
-Yeah, but he's the kind of character might say he's kicked, but we all know he's just one broken shoelace away from saying "screw it" and picking up again.
-How about you have him go into a bar and pick a fight with some rangers, and he sends a couple of them to the hospital?
-It's not a fantasy. Anyway, he gets a bad feeling when they pass an abandoned vehicle,sees a second and a third, so he's thinking IEDs triggered by cell. You ever come across anything like that?
-Me, personally? No. But I did hear about this one convoy, couple of Frankensteins and a gun truck on Highway 10. So, the spotter, he calls a halt between the first two cars, thinking the hajis will blow the second if it moves forward, and the first if it tries to go back.
-Well, how'd they get out of it?
-Yeah, they didn't. Because they were too afraid to move, they just sat there in their vehicles, pissing and shitting in their helmets, too afraid to toss it out the windows on account of possible snipers. Then they ran out of food. They started eating each other till there was only one left, and he blew his brains out. Do you want to know the sad part?
-Oh, there's a sad part?
-Yeah. Because they were so afraid to move, they never found out whether or not the cars had explosives. So basically, they all died from being pussies.
That's one of the best scenes ever, but as much as I love it, the episode would still be great without it.
Anybody who doesn't love the YOLO/Sweeney scene, **** you Sklansky, is just a sourpuss.
- Drew? The doctor on TV?
- I'm a say... like Nancy Drew?
- I wanna tell you, I know, Jesus, Drew, Drew, ach, Drewbacca, Drewbacca
- Drewlala!
- Ahhhhh! Drew, Drew, Drew, Drew, Drewmama!
- Drew, ugggggghhhh, Drewsutania, Drewsutania, Drewsutania......
I really like Boyd when he storms the school.
"Raylan, I was the one enamored of space flight..."
"Why don't you just hand over Drew Thompson to these... well, I won't say nice...but, people."
I also love when Raylan takes a stand, because he is so cool and I wish I were as cool as him.
"Well first off, I ain't handin' over anyone or, generally speakin', doing anything either of you say. And secondly, perhaps more important, youo two come any further, you're gonna have a bad afternoon. It's just the two of you? Whyontcha come back when you got a few more guys. Meantime, I'll be upstairs. You want to continue this conversation? I won't be too tough to find."
Then, Mike O'Malley and Ava. Dicks, dicks, dicks. "You must be good at that machine, because it's hard to get something."
And then, I like that Raylan says,
"Hold your fire. He's right."
I think Raylan, as much as he's obviously trying to save his and Bob's life, he knows he's helping Boyd, too. He heard that whole conversation, and it would be easy enough to let Boyd get killed by the Detroiters for not breaking the door, or to at least let the situation escalate until it's LIKELY he dies. But, instead, Raylan ensures there's no bloodshed.
Great TV
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I am sorry.
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Haha. Female professional athletes don't menstruate.
I'm not sure if you're kidding, but there's almost zero chance professional athletes menstruate during heavy training/competition, given how easy it is to manipulate cycles.
I had a few (9) beers after (during) work, and decided to drop a few dollars on some fights. Decided to straight fade Scram by taking Diaz +140 (I like dogs in general, and my bookie took mostly Maynard action, so he offered me a good price on Diaz).
Took Modaferi (sp?) and Morgan around the market price, because LOL girl dogs.
I feel like I'm going to drop a ****ing bomb on whomever the **** Anderson Silva is fighting. Chris "the all american" Weidman? That name is so ****ing gay, so taking him is going to be god damn painful. My local is going to take 100% Silva action, so I'll probably be able to take a huge chunk at +150 (or whatever the closer is) off him. He'll be trying to keep his exposure minimized, because he's a fag and still doesn't understand how being a bookie works.
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Gosh, that's hard to say objectively, since I want him fired so badly.
Case for keeping him:
A very good (if not spectacular) record over his tenure. If he wins his bowl game, he'll never had less than 9 wins in a season.
Expensive to fire him, as he's on contract through 2017 (or 18, I've heard both)
Has been a good (if not spectacular) recruiter.
No great alternative to him to hire, to make it worth paying him the buy out
Case Against him:
Zero Conference titles
Many very bad losses
Very easily could have been a 5 or 6 win team this year, if they didn't get really, really lucky
Doesn't make good decisions in hiring coaching staff
Is a tilt monkey hot head who's disposition is more suited to position coach or coordinator than a head coach ( my biggest issue)
My biggest issue (other than his tilt based decision making, is more a general philosophical issue. I think Nebraska is a place that is very difficult to recruit to. IT's hard to get top tier negro recruits from florida, texas and california to come move to Butt**** Nowhere, Nebraska where blacks are a vast minority. We realistically can't expect to recruit top 10 classes, and we have to do more with less. Which is fine, TO never had a top ten recruiting class as far as I know. What you DO need, is an innovative, atypical offense coached by a brilliant offensive mind. The I-formation triple option, while not sexy, was very complex. TO helped invent zone blocking. He never had an offensive Coordinator and called all his own plays. You need someone like that at Nebraska. You need a visionary offensive mind, and one that isn't doing what most other schools are, so other schools won't be prepared for what you're doing. That's why I want Frost so badly, is I want someone who runs a dynamic offensive system.
That's why the steroids thing was so brilliant, and totally perfect for Nebraska. "No top flight super athletes want to come play in Lincoln? Fuck you, we'll feed our horses steroids and make them spend 4 hours a day during the offseason in the weight room and then WE'LL RUN IT DOWN YOUR THROATS!"
I grew up a Michigan fan, so I was always accustomed to that kind of entitled, top-25-recruiting-class-every-year attitude. Going to MSU changed my perspective drastically. It's just so hard to win in major college sports unless you have some kind of sustainable, significant edge. MSU had that way back in the day, when they were like "**** it, let's just recruit all the best negroes from all over," which gave them some national cachet that they can still trade on. Nebraska had it with the veer/power-option, Tom Osborne, and the steroids/weight training. For both schools, those advantages have disappeared, and each school is going to have to innovate or get very, very lucky to contend nationally.
At least MSU is better than UM right now, so it doesn't hurt too bad to have traded down.
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It's not even so much about the record for me. I understand that nebraska fans need to readjust their expectations. I want him fired because he's an unprofessional clown and I think he represents the university poorly.
How would you handicap the odds Little Bo P comes back?
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11 you just need to see that it's a system, and you probably need to know your multiplication tables. If you can do a bunch of algebraic steps at once, it's actually the shorter of the two.
13 is easier, but probably longer. They give you numbers that are so easy to work with that you can just kind of see right away that x has 45% equity, y has 35 and z has 20.
I mean, I know how to actually solve the problem, I was just thinking about how to do it quickly, and mostly in one's head.
But #13 for example, I got right to 45%(4800) - 1/3 (4800) in my head, and then the math was not SUPER easy. The way I did it in my head was something like "half of 4800 is 2400, less ten percent of 2400 is 240 is 2160...." and then went from there, but I didn't if there was a simpler way to do it mentally. I certainly can't do .45(4800) any quicker in my head.
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Have people changed their minds on grantland?
Simmons may be a bit of a hack but he knows how to sign talent. Zach Lowe and Jonah Keri are amazing and barnwell is decent.
I read Zach Lowe.
Barnwell is just... he's so bad. He's the worst. How can anyone not thing that he's the worst?
I can take or leave pretty much everything else. The pop culture as high art stuff is annoying.
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"That's 'H-O-R.'"
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I'd say the only way it happens is if Wiggins is hurt. I don't imagine any scenario in which a health Parker, Randle, and Smart all jumping a healthy Wiggins.
Unless....https://vine.co/v/hFKKuHwvzUl
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Bold and wrong. Wiggins is the only elite perimeter prospect playing great defense. Only way he goes 3rd or lower is if the teams picking one and two are set at the swing spot.
I'd say the only way it happens is if Wiggins is hurt. I don't imagine any scenario in which a health Parker, Randle, and Smart all jumping a healthy Wiggins.
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I read a lot and have gotten pretty good at mental math I guess (it didn't occur to me to use a calculator), but I'd be stunned if it took me 3 minutes. I do see your point though, and even moreso I see your point that a lot of these guys would just say "**** it" and punt the test. And a fair % of the population shuts down at the sight of numbers, regardless of how smart they'd otherwise seem. I'm sure we all would be shocked by how poorly a lot of people we know would do. I think part of my point was more of a subconscious (i.e. conscious) brag.
Let's also keep in mind that these people are being given this test as students, with math and test-taking skills still practiced regularly. I'll bet if they gave them to veterans, the results would be even more hilarious. I doubt Brett Farve does a lot of practical arithmetic, day to day.
What methods did you use to knock out #s 11 and 13? I'm no mental slouch, but I am pretty sure those questions are designed to be skipped, for the most part.
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If that's truly an accurate reflection of the test, it's pretty shocking.
It probably is, but remember, the big thing is the time. You've got, I think, just about 3:30 to finish all the questions in that example, and two of them (#11, #13) are intentionally designed to take longer than the 16 or so seconds most people would need to read the question, determine what is being asked, figure out the method to solve, and then do the math. When I took that ESPN PAGE 2 version all those years ago, I actually did it with a timer set to 3:45 (even though the site says 5:00) and no calculator.
I screwed one of the questions up because I was rushing through (the one about the matching sets of names), and I never caught it.
I got #13 (the one about the three investors and the proportions and whatever), but only after I skipped it and went back. It took me kind of a while to figure out, and without a calculator I actually, embarrassingly, found that my crude method involved a little guessrithmatic that worked out well.
I didn't have time to finish #11.
So, with what I'm sure is an easy version of the test, I got 13/15. It could have very, very easily have been worse if I'd gotten hung up on an easy problem and burned off 40 seconds, or if I hadn't realized that two of the questions were DESIGNED to burn up 1m+.
I can easily see how a bright guy gets lazy and scores a 20-24, especially if he's a slow reader, a poor test taker, etc. I've known a number of brilliant ****s that are terrible in test situations, usually because they read shockingly slowly, something I have never struggledwith.
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Uncle Fritzy won’t be around the next couple days. have a happy turkey day, drive safe kids.
Incubus77546, JasonBo, Jennings7, SuitedAces21
Bruce Lee and Jimi Hendrix
Thanksgiving b’days
Stiles2004, hartman72, JIMMY-THE-FISH (caps fag), CodyDean, oldskoopimp, tomvdw, jcplas5555, gokiljerry.
Ed Harris and Chamillionaire
I can handle birthday duties through Sunday, assuming you don't have a celebrity guest lined up
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Double headshot
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15 is rock bottom for a QB, there hasn't been another good-great QB with a lower score than that. For example, for all the QBs that were starting this year ( at the start of the season) the lowest was Jake Locker at 20.
http://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/1hfmp1/wonderlic_scores_for_each_teams_starting_qb/
Marino's greatness inspite of having a low wonderlic (for a QB) is an outlier.
McNabb scored lower than Marino, I know. Not sure about anyone else.
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I can't imagine Dan Marino got out of single digits on the Wonderlic.
I spent a chunk of my afternoon reviewing notable results, and I think he ended up scoring somewhere around the 15 mark. Below average, solidly so for a QB
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I imagine their urban, hip-hop school systems do a pretty good job of identifying and treating things like that though.
"Check yo'self [for dizziness, headaches, or stomachaches while reading, common signs of dyslexia among teenagers], before you wreck yo'self. Boyeeeeee."
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**official Mma Thread**
in Sports- General
Posted
You underestimate smart people. There's not as big a division between Quant/Qual as you think. Most people I know would suggest I'm a quant, but I'm also good with words and feelings. My best friend got his masters in Analytics. Neither of us is a ****ing faggot. We both watch sports like normal people.
You're hostile to Quants. I get the impression you believe quantitative analysis is juvenile, or... limited? Like, sure, quants can know some things, but QUALS understand the mystery of the universe and universal truth and truth as more than just a concept and conceptual... whatever.
Sorry, I'm being kind of dramatic and hyperbolic. I'm pretty drunk. I guess what I'm trying to say is, you are drawing lines that don't need to be drawn. Quants are not computer programs. Quants are not spreadsheets or collections of data. Quants are people that, for the most part, interpret the world in a small-packet data-driven way.
The guys who beat hoops and football aren't going to look at MMA and be like, "DURRRRRR MATH IS MATH AND EVERYTHING TRANSLATES DURRRRRRRRRPSI." They're going to be skeptics and scientists, and they're going to be ruthlessly hungry for data, but not blinded by it. They're going to be people who understand how to blend all sorts of analysis and draw rational conclusions.
Basically, what I mean to say is, if you honestly believe the thing you're smart about is impervious to other intelligence, you're deluded. Maybe you're good enough to beat MMA right now. Maybe. If you are, you won't be able to use the same tools to beat the game going forward unless you're the only person in possession of that knowledge.