Fishy Line of the Day

Great question. 

I don't want to give away the secret sauce quite yet, but I can answer your question - 

1) System threw out the -7 line. There's one offshore book that really throws the "opening line" number out of whack. It's funny, I'm amazed they make any money with how soft their opening lines are. So, I'm dealing more with the -5.5 and -5 numbers. This is a change I have tinkered back and forth with and I think I'm going to settle on a full point move from a more sharp line making book. PS - I hypothesize their business model must be to make such attractive lines that they attract money early and try to steal all the early action.

2) Consensus isn't high enough. It's getting there and has crept up throughout the day, but it's still slightly below where it should be for the line to be marked "fishy" by me. 

Then, I ran the simulation on just this game just because you asked and I came up with 5-6 points. KenPom has 8 because he rates Missouri so highly with AdjO and their SOS has moved up into the 80s while I believe he overrates the Big12. 

I'm just a guy with a computer like everyone else. I'm no tout. Just because I don't list something as a play doesn't mean that's not an attractive game to bet on. There are guys here that know A LOT more than I do who have much longer track records and way more successful threads out there like the KenPom thread. This is just a "I'm a programmer I think I can beat the system" hobby right now. 

Good luck everyone. 

Well, the consensus is moving up, but the line hasn't moved in every book to a level that I'm looking for. 

If the line moves to -4.5, I'm going to run this again, but I have a feeling that it may not get flagged still because the Hilton had this at -4.5 and that number didn't last for very long. I almost think this would need to move to 4 for the system to flag it (just guessing doing the math in my head). 

Opening Line: -6

Current Line: -5.5 almost everywhere, a few places down to -5 and money lines creeping downwards from -240 to -230. 

Why Fishy?: Here we go again with Creighton. I have this at an 6 point line in my system, KenPom had this at 7, there is a huge consensus on Creighton and yet the books seem to be protecting themselves against an Evansville outright win. Also, here's the first time this has happened since I started this thread - my system can sim games in a vacuum (pure numbers) and then based on schedule/situation. In a vacuum, this line would have been 8, but based on the 2nd road game for Creighton and the fact they are coming off a loss simmed this game down. Evansville has the 3rd best EPP in the MVC even though they are under .500 in the league which accounts for their almost bottom D1 Luck score. 

Note - If this line creeps back up to 5.5 everywhere, this becomes a no play again, it's right on the borderline even at 5. If even a few big books have this at 5, it's a play so we are right at the number. 

Good luck to everyone tonight. 

Keep watching the lines for this one, definitely something going to happen here late I think. 

This isn't nearly as fishy as it was at 1pm today, but the consensus is still high for basically no line movement in that direction. 

Good luck, signing off for tonight. 

...based on the fact they came out -7.5 and are now -9 w/ 90+% on both the ML and spread for MD?

It's -6 everywhere now - this is a no play for sure. No longer fishy. 

Sorry, I'm getting to you late here game is in progress. For this game, the reason why this game didn't get flagged looking at the numbers now wasn't because of lines or consensus, but because an extremely large % of my simulations fell within both ends of the line. I tend to fade my own simulations because I hypothesize that I am working with less information than humans (if my predicted number is very wrong) so when my number is off from the line, it gets flagged. When my number is within the line, it's not "fishy". 

As an aside, this is why my system sucks at totals - I only bet when it's off by a lot and no matter if I fade or follow my simulations, I lose. 

Underdog: 6-0

Favorite: 0-6

Line Move Direction: 5-0 with 1 game no real move either way

Road Dog: 4-0

Home Dog: 2-0

Unranked vs Ranked: 3-0

# Games Within +/- 3 Points of Line: 0 out of 6

Recap: So, the thing here that I'm modifying for going forward is that plays should remain strong plays if there is a huge consensus and there is no real line movement - i.e. no line movement is evidence in of itself. I think I'm going to set the threshold at 70% consensus for no line movement as being a game to analyze further and put in on the list of potentials. 

As for the game itself, Creighton is the 2nd best team in MVC, but Evansville has such a high EM that they are third in the MVC and much better than their record would indicate. Evansville is also an ATS monster and I do have a +.5 modifier for them as being a non-public team. 

Best of luck to everyone, we're definitely getting somewhere with this I think. 

Opening Line: -4.5 in several spots.

Current Line: -3.5

Why Fishy?: Wow, after a few days of borderline flagged plays, this one comes up big time. Huge consensus on UMass and the line continues to tank. I have this as a 4.5 point game, KenPom has 4 and even the Luck flag hits - UMass with a very high luck score and the Bonnies with a bottom third luck score. I personally don't know much about these teams (A-10 basketball isn't my favorite) so I can't offer a single ounce of human insight, my system values are all the defaults. 

Good luck, I think there might be some more plays, but this one came up first and "strongest".

Opening Line: -11

Current Line: Some books down to -9, but you can still get 9.5 some places.

Why Fishy?: Yikes, because I had George Mason circled before I ran my sims as a play since I live close to Hofstra, know the program well and I know that the players have sort of checked out already. But, a system is a system so here goes ...

High consensus on GMU, line movement away from that consensus in a big way, and yet another high luck vs extremely low luck team where the line moves towards low luck. KenPom has this as an 11 point line, I actually had a 13 (see above, I manually adjusted their rating before sims for my belief about their program). As a side note, this high luck vs low luck thing isn't something I thought would be a flag, but it definitely seems to indicate that "someone" is using predicted winning % vs actual to bet lines somewhere - it seems to happen in almost every game where I see a weird line move. 

I'll be extra curious in the result of this one because my "eye" test and inside knowledge says Hofstra doesn't come close to covering (lose by 15 or so), but the system says otherwise. Let's see who knows more. 

Good luck to everyone as always. 

the reason these lines are moving the opposite way of the public betting % is because all the "big dogs" with the big money are betting on these teams.  Tonight, a sharp play looks to be St. Bon (although i wouldn't touch it unless you're buying points).  These lines don't move off of betting percentages, they move off of money 

You obviously didn't comprehend a single word I have written - I've pretty much spelled out this point in 40+ posts, but thanks for playing. The fact you even mention buying points shows you're beyond help anyways and you should probably go read POY threads.

Underdog: 6-2

Favorite: 2-6

Line Move Direction: 5-2 with 1 game no real move either way

Road Dog: 4-2

Home Dog: 2-0

Unranked vs Ranked: 3-0

# Games Within +/- 3 Points of Line: 1 out of 8

Recap: Tonight is a perfect example of why I'm not a tout, I'm just a guy with a computer and people need to remember that before tailing blindly. 

Depending on what number you got, you either won, lost or pushed with Hofstra, but I marked it as a loss since I posted at 9.5 and they lost by the hook. This was a tie game with about 6 minutes left, 4 points with 2 minutes left and GMU just closed out well. Still feel like the system picked properly here. 

I think the system failed UMass and St Bonnies. In another thread, a user JFen alerted me to a tempo play style with UMass at home and when I started looking at the numbers it was clearly obvious that when they play at home vs good competition that makes them play slightly slower, they actually play better than the frenetic pace of their losses. They play closer to 60s, lower 70s in their best wins and they play faster in their losses (tempo stats by KenPom). My system doesn't account for tempo at all and that seems to be where the failure is. I'm not sure how to account for this and how to remove these plays from getting flagged incorrectly so I am open to advice. 

Again, please don't tail blindly, I'm just a guy with a computer and obviously, I'm still working out the kinks. 

Dude you're solid so far.  You can't win em all and no one should expect that. You seem to be onto something here so keep it up.  Thanks