The Crooked Link

Life of a Low Stakes Gambler...

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Weekend Recap...

Lets review how the weekend went, shall we? So Saturday I had to wake up super early for Saturday school. It was such a drag and I slept through half the class, but so did everybody else so the teacher didn't really care. I got out at 12 and I walked back home. I chilled around the house, then I placed my first bets on Bodog for the weekend. I lost a little bit on a 2 game soccer parlay but I made some profit for the night with Santos crushing Atlas 5-2. Sweet, Saturdya night and I was already half way there in terms of my weekend goal.

So I was supposed to go to some thing called Trails of Terror, but I went to pick up my ex, and we ended up going to see Halloween instead. The movie sucked big time. Ain't got nothing on the original. After the movie we drove to Evanston to get something to eat and then I drove her home.

Sunday morning I made two soccer parlays. One was a three game parlay from Spanish division games, which I won. The second was a two team Mexican soccer parlay which I lost. And then to the good stuff...NFL Football!

I made two different parlays;

#1

Colts -350
Giants-600
Titans-320
Chargers-550

Risk $10.00 to win $13.27

#2

Browns-105
Colts -350
Giants-600
Steelers-210
Chargers-550
Buccaneers-200
Saints+105

Risk $2.00 to win $29.42

So I spent the whole Sunday glued to my TV watching football. My 4 game parlay was a lock, and my 7 game parlay, in which I was getting 15-1 odds, all came down to the Tampa Bay game. They screwed me over obviously, but I didn't feel to bad considering I only lost 2 dollars. I think I would have felt even worse if I HAD won the parlay, and only having bet 2 dollars on it.

So anyway after football I made one last parlay for the night with the Chivas v. America game and the Red Sox v. Rockies game. The Chivas game was pretty awesome but they lost 2-1 so gg me.

Oh yea, sometime during halftime of the Tampa Bay game, I rode my bike to Gamespot and bought Madden 08. Pretty Random I know. So I played Madden til' pretty late at night. It's a freaking awesome game, and I ended up going to sleep at 5 am. Yea, that meant no school the next day obv. I spend Monday afternoon again playing Madden until I left for work around 3:30.

Work was super slow as was expected from a Monday night, so I spent most of the day on the FCP forums just lurking and laughing my ass of at a guy who laid down $500 on some long shot parlay that paid 180-1. Then I logged onto Bodog and placed my bet for Monday Night Football. After a little bit of researching I decided on a teaser. Greenbay +10 and Under at 51. So I won that for a nice $15 bucks.

So overall, I think I surpassed my weekend goal, which is sweet. I'm at school right now and I'm about to leave for night school, so that's it for me. I'll probably lay down some money on the season opening NBA games tonight and update tomorrow. Adios!




Friday, October 26, 2007

Weekend Goals...

So the weekend is finally here. Time again to grind it out and win some money. Last week's action was crazy as I literally had something riding on almost every game on NFL Sunday and spent most of the day glued in front of my television. Had some wins and some heartbreaks but overall I was able to pull of a profit. Lets hope this week goes just as well.

I originally had set a monetary weekend goal of $20 but this week's games are a lot tougher than last. And not only in the NFL. The weekend is going to be crazy as far as Mexican Soccer goes also. The Super Clasico on Sunday between Chivas and America is going to be insane. Bodog has Chivas as a +170 underdog on the moneyline right now. But this game is going to be so tight. America is at home, and they've got a little bit of confidence with their win over Pachuca last week.Chivas is running good as well. Man I'll probably go with Chivas and hope they can pull it off.

Anyway like I said, a $20 goal now seems a little difficult unless I hit a decent parlay. So I'll make the goal $10 instead. That's doable right? lol Let's hope so.

As far as the NFL goes, I'm betting on the Patriots v Redskins and Colts v Panthers games for sure. Bears game I'm still undecided. I've gotta see how much the lines have moved from now until Sunday morning.

Alright so I don't plan on spending the whole weekend in front of the tv. Just most of it. lol. I do have other plans. I've got Saturday school in the morning, and I was suppose to have lunch with a friend afterwards but she canceled on me last minute so I'm free for most of the afternoon. Later around 6ish I'm going to some Halloween thing called Trails of Terror at Peterson Park. (this means I might have to miss the Santos v Atlas game!!!) My ex asked if I would take her, and I didn't wanna be a douche so I said yes. I'll bring my little sister along so that I will have done something Halloweenish with her this year because I might work on Halloween Night, so I'm a super cool brother like that. haha

So I'm typing all this from work. I get off in about 40 minutes, and I just want to get home and sleep! Work was pretty hectic today. We had people lining up all the way out into the street. Things calmed down around 11ish though, so I had time for a quick $5.00 HU match on Bodog. I took it down in 3 hands, but I was freakin lucky. On the second hand I end up pushing with AQ v 88 and I hit runner runner for a straight. I felt like a donk, but hey, I've taken my share of bad beats so it's all good.

That's all for tonight. I'm tired and I'm not looking forward to waking up at 7am and being stuck in a room for four hours learning about fucking trigonometric functions!

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Stupid CPS...

So I managed to drag my ass to school this morning. I was so comfy in my warm bed and the mere thought of having to walk to school in the cold almost made me go back to sleep. But the hardest part is always getting out of bed, so I just got up and jumped in the shower real quick before I changed my mind.

I'm at school right now, and since this is my lunch hour I thought I'd get in a quick session of .5/.10 on Bodog and maybe a HU match. But it seems the CPS (Chicago Public Schools) network here at school prevents me from accessing t he Bodog Software on my laptop. Same thing with Pokerstars. The only thing actually working is Full Tilt Poker. Only problem is I have no money in there.

So I guess I'll have to get trough this lunch period with no poker unless my friend furcio is up for another beating in .5/1 HU.

Last night I worked til 1am. I made a super small bet for the Colts v. Jaguars game parlaying the Colts -175 plus the Over (451/2). The Colts won, but my over didnt get covered so I lost that.

Work was extremely slow yesterday. I spent most of the day reading The Kite Runner. I might write about it in here sometime this week. Anyway work was really slow and by 12am there were absolutely no calls coming in so I played some poker on Bodog and ended up losing like 5 bucks.

I've got night school today so I probably won't be home til around 8pm so I'm not sure if I'll be playing any poker tonight. Depends on how tired I am. Anyway, I'm gonna go take Furcio's money for the remainder of my lunch period so I'm out!

Monday, October 22, 2007

No School Today...

Man, I'm really going to be close to not graduating if I keep ditching so much. So last night, I was going to go to sleep earlyish because I had school. But I ended up going to sleep at 5 am. I was playing on Bodog and making a little bit of money, so that's why I went to sleep so late. Class starts at 7:55 and I wasn't going to function on 2 hours of sleep, so I decided to sleep in. I woke up at 12 today. Took a shower and then got on Bodog.

I started playing some .5/.10 and getting some nice hands early on. But then I went card dead for a bit so I was around even for a while until I got felted with a busted nut flush draw. So I rebought for another 5 dollars and again went all in on a flush draw and lost. (Sound familiar from last night?) So I thought I was done, but I decided to try a $10 HU match for the hell of it. Man, did this guy suck or what. I beat him in less than 20 hands. I was making some great calls, I think I lost like 3 hands to him altogether, that's how bad he was playing.

So the $20 brought me back to even for the day, and I don't think I'm going to keep playing today. I've got work in a couple of hours and I probably won't be home til' 1 am.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Sunday Update...

So it was a day of nothing but watching sports and making money. Well kind of making money lol. I started the day with a soccer game from my 3 game parlay. Toluca took care of Puebla and the Redskins and Cowboys did their thing as well, so I won $27 dollars from that parlay to bring my Bodog account to $47. Man I wish I would have added the Santos soccer game, as they won as well. I also played with the idea of adding the Bears game, but I didn't have enough confidence that they would get it done, although they did. So if I had made it a 5 game parlay, the payout would have been huge, considering the Bears were underdogs. But whatever, I hit my parlay and I was happy.

So then I made a second 2 game parlay with the Steelers and the Red Sox. I swear I was tempted to just have the $47 ride on those two games. But I decided against it and I only bet $10. The Sox killed the Indians, but the Steelers couldn't get it done. What a game it was though. Just like a week ago with the Bears game, it all came down to a Field Goal at the last second. Boy was I glad I only bet $10.

Still, after the Steelers game I was steaming a bit so I was like, "ok it's just 10 dollars. I'll go make that in poker in like an hour." So I sit at a .5/.10 table on bodog with 5 dollars and lose it immediately. Ok, rebuy for $3 more dollars. Lost that real quick. And then, I almost did the stupidest thing. I was on tilt to the max and I sat at a .10/.25 with half my roll from Bodog. Thankfully I came to my senses before the Big Blind got to me and I realize I was just going to donk of my money. So I cooled off for a bit, and sat down at a .5/.10 table again, with 5 dollars.

I was a lot more calm this time around and I played pretty well. Tripled up actually and left the table with around $15ish. I wanted to keep playing, but I decided against it. I wanted to end the day with a profit so I guess I did the smart thing. So my Bodog account again stands at 38, and I might bet on the Colts tomorrow night.

Anyway, that about sums up Sunday Gambling Fever. I'm going to go read a few chapters of The Kite Runner (great book) and then go to bed. Hopefully I make it to all my classes tomorrow. Adios.

That's More Like It...

After running so bad in everything the last couple of weeks, it felt good to turn in a nice profit in poker for a change. Wasn't online though. It was from my friend Furcio from work. We played Heads up .5/1 NL Hold em at work for a couple of hours. Now, with a 10 dollar cap, this thing got pretty crap shooty because we were either calling and check/folding if we missed the flop, capping if we hit the flop, or capping pre flop with any semi decent hand. It was still really fun though, and I had my laptop with me so I was jotting down how much I won or lost per hand just to see the good old Variance at work. Went something like this:

-.5
+.5
-10
+.5
-.5
+10
-1
+1
+2
+2
+1
+1
-1
+1
+1
+1
-.5
+1
-1
+1
-.5
+1
+10
-10
+10
+1
+1
+10
-1
+1
-1
+10
-1
-10
+1
+1
-.5
+10
-.5
-1
-1
+10
+1
-1
-1
+1
-1
-10
-1
-1
-10
-10
+1
+10
+1
+0
+10
+1
+0
+10
-1
-10
+1
+10
+.5
-.5
-10
-1
+10
+10
+10
+1

I went on tilt a little bit when he started going Cappy Happy as I called it, capping with hands like Aces rag or connectors and I started calling with marginal hands. I was really close to just quitting when I was up like $30 dollars, but I decided to keep playing a little longer, and I caught a bit of a rush and ended up up around $77 dollars. After poker I made another 18 dollars on black jack so a total profit of $95 for the day. I'll take it.

Sports gambling is back as well. My Bodog account was busto but my guy wanted me to place a couple of bets for him so I Deposited $30 yesterday. He gave me like $16 for his bets and I figured I might as well deposit a little bit to grab some action myself.

My 1st wager was on the Chivas vs Atlante game from last night. Now, I had no idea who to pick. Atlante was undefeated until last week, and Chivas is playing really well right now, plus Chivas was playing at home. Since I couldn't make up my mind, I decided to wager on a Draw. The moneyline was at +240 for a draw so I was getting almost 2.5 to 1 for my money.

Now watching a soccer match, were you're hoping the final score is a draw, gets pretty interesting. I found myself cheering for both teams while they were on Defense, hoping neither of them conceded a goal. And by halftime I was looking like a genius with the score 0-0. But 15 minutes into the second half Chivas went up 1-0. Hey at least I had some to root for now, and Atlante was getting some good opportunities but they weren't capitalizing. It wasn't until there was like 2 minutes left in the game that Nkong from Atlante hit a beautiful shot from outside the box to tie the score up 1-1 and giving me the win on Bodog.

Then I made a 4 game soccer parlay, mainly on games that were going to be on tv today, because I wasn't planning on betting on the NFL. But my action got killed with the first game lol. I woke up at 9:30 to watch the last 15 minutes of the AC Milan game, which was the first in my parlay, but they lost 0-1. Oh well.

I just finished making another parlay, hoping this one works out. It has two football games and a soccer game;

3 Game Parlay

Deportivo Toluca -170

Washington Redskins -400

Dallas Cowboys - 480

Risked $20.00 to win $27.98.00

So, like I said, let's hope this one works out. Two of these games are about to start, so that's it for me. I'll maybe update later tonight to see how things went. Peace.

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Here's a couple of pictures I took from Friday night gambling at work.
The camera on my sidekick is really shitty but w.e.


Guy at the top is my guy Furcio. He looks like he's 12 years old but this bitch will bet on anything.

On the right is Manuel. He sucks at playing cards but he doesn't know it, and it would be unethical on my part to let him know.

Bottom guy is Alex. I got him hooked on Bodog. lol. Pretty good card player also.





Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Friggin' Adrian Peterson...

and no, not the Bears Adrian Peterson, but the Vikings'. Ahh, what a crazy game that unfolded on Sunday. Bears managed to score early and the Vikings would just come right back. At one point the Bears were down by a couple of touchdowns and I stopped watching. Then I come back in time to watch Hester's 80 plus TD reception. God damn it Hester. Must you get my hopes up? So with 1:38 remaining the Bears decide to kick it to Peterson. (WTF!!!) who manages a nice run to put them in good field goal position. They convert a 54 yard Field Goal and there goes my $250 dollars. Damn did that suck. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. I've just been losing way more than what I've been winning lately.

Not much went down on Sunday. One of my guys came over to play poker. But just for fun. He doesn't gamble. So that was alright. I really wanna get back to playing poker though, but both my Pstars and Full Tilt Accounts are busto right now. Maybe I'll set up a home cash game for sometime next week or something.

So me and my girl finally broke up yesterday night and the weird thing was, we are kind of still cool. I really wouldn't have minded if she never talks to me again, but apparently that won't be the case. She still wants to hang out and be good friends, so I guess I'm cool with that too. (Friends with benefits anyone?)

I'm in school right now, and I should be working on creating some website but I haven't been to this class in a while, so I don't know how to do any of this shit we got assigned. Hey at least I'm here though. I actually managed to make it to all my classes yesterday and today. I feel good about that because I was seriously ditching way to much. I've still got about another hour to go and then I've gotta walk about a mile and a half to make it to my night class that runs from 4:15-7:15. I don't mind walking except for the fact that it might start raining so whatever.

I think that's about it. I don't know when I'll post again because I don't have much gambling action going on anytime soon. Maybe next week? I don't know. I'm out!

Friday, October 12, 2007

Bears For The Win!

So I haven't played online in ages. More like a couple of weeks or so, but it seems a lot longer than that. However I have been playing live, mostly with one of my friends, who's as much a gambler as I am. But I'll talk about him in a second. Let me first run through what I've been up to as of late...

So I was extremely disappointed about the Cubs getting swept in the NLDS. Forget that I lost $50 Dollars on the last game, it was more painful to watch them get swept at home, against a team that on paper, the Cubs should have dominated. But I guess baseball isn't played on paper. I was actually around Wrigleyville with my girl during the last game. We were just chilling and we stopped by a bar to watch the game for a bit. God it really stung to get swept. At least make things interesting and send it to game five or something. But oh well, they had a good season and hopefully we can get deeper in the playoffs next season.

I've also been missing school. A lot. I've probably been absent about 8 days already and lets not talk about how many times I've gotten there around 11:30 when class starts at 7:55. It just keeps getting tougher and tougher to wake up in the morning. And knowing that the classes I'm taking right now don't really matter towards graduation is a big incentive when deciding whether to wake up and go to class or sleep in all day. And it's not like I do anything productive when I'm at home. I usually wake up around 1, then watch tv until it's either time to go to work or to night school. But I really want to stop this habit. School's only been on for a month or so and I'm already getting scolded by teachers for missing so many classes. I'm actually going to try and go to all of my classes next week. It's going to be really hard, but I'm actually going to try. I'll update ya'll on how that went later next week.

Besides school, something else in my mind has been this girl situation I'm in. I'm currently dating this chick, and we've been together for about a month but we've been kicking it for a lot longer than that. At first I really liked her, and I guess I still do, but being with her just isn't the same anymore. I always had my doubts about whether we would work out because before we were dating, she had another guy who she'd been for almost a year, but she was messing around with me on the side. So I thought to myself, if she was willing to cheat on her previous man with me, who's to say she won't cheat on me with some other dude. I still decided to give it a try anyway, but lately I've kinda sensed something might be up. She's been acting kind of shady, and a friend told me her and her ex had been seeing each other. When I found this out, I actually wasn't too angry, because I was sort of expecting it, and I had been looking for a way out of this relationship anyway, so that might be it. I'll probably talk with her tomorrow to break up.

So back to gambling. I have a friend who I've known for a couple of years and he's the only one of my close friends who's as much a gambler as I am. We'll call this friend "Furcio." Furcio and I not only gamble at school, but he also happens to work with me, so Friday nights here at Gigio's pizzeria is all about the gamble. We'll gamble pretty much on anything. From coin flips to blackjack, to whether the next person who calls in is a man or a woman. And not just bubble gum change stakes either. There's been times were I've won upwards of $300 dollars in a single night on nothing but coin flips and blackjack. Today it was all about Poker though. We played Hold Em' for about 4 hours. We played $.50/$1 with a $10 cap per hand. I was on fire today. I ended up $51 for the night, although I gave a little bit of it back in coin flips. (Don't ask me why I do coin flips for money. It's the most retarded thing ever, trust me, I don't recommend it.)

No day at work with my buddy would be complete without some sports betting. I made the biggest bet I've ever made on any sport for the Bears to win against the Vikings this Sunday. Me and Furcio put up $500 ($250 each) against these other two guys from work. So 1,000 is at stake, which me and Furcio would obviously split if the Bears can get it done this Sunday. It's going to be such a crazy game to watch with so much riding on it, but lets hope for the best.

That's about all that's been up. I'll try to update Sunday night, hopefully with good news about the Bears game.

Friday, October 5, 2007

On Life Tilt...

No other fuckin way to describe what I'm going through right now. This past week has been the worst gambling week ever for me. At least on the sports betting angle. I mean, hell, I'll be the first one to tell you that sports gambling is and always will be -EV. But are you freaking kidding me? I just can't seem to catch a break. I'll break down some of the bigger bets I've placed.

Italian Soccer (2 Team Parlay)

AC Milan -450

Palermo +130

Risked $10.00 to win $18.00

This was basically two of the top teams in the league against two of the bottom ones. As you can see from the moneyline, Milan was a huge favorite, but that game ended in a 1-1 draw, so the second game was irrelevant.
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NFL (4 Team Parlay)

Baltimore Ravens -220

Chicago Bears -105

Pittsburgh Steelers -260

Indianapolis Colts -550

Risked $10.00 to win $36.47

This was originally suppose to be a 6 game, $20.00 parlay that I was going to do with one of my friends and he picked most of the games but I ended up shaving two of the games because I was a bit skeptical of his Football wits. According to him all these games were a lock. Apparently not..
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MLB (Prop "Will there be a run scored in the first inning?")

No -155

Risked $20.00 to win $12.90

This was me just goofing around. I was bored, and the only baseball game on TV was the Rockies v. Padres Wild Card tie breaker.I just wanted some quick action, so I laid down this prop bet. I was getting horrible odds as well. But I guess I was just looking for a quick "high". lol
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MLB & NFL (2 Team Parlay)

San Diego Padres -126

New England Patriots -426

Risked $7.10 to win $8.75

lol This was a desperate attempt at winning back some of the money from my previous bets. I knew the Patriots were a sure lock, but if I had only laid a single bet on that game, the payout would have been horrible because New England was such a big favorite. So I had to parlay it with another game, but it was a Monday night so the only other game going on was the Padres v. Rockies. I really thought the Padres would get it done, but after what became an unbelievable game, the umpire blew it in the bottom of the 13th with a horrible call at home plate.
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MLB (Cubs v. Diamondbacks NLDS Game 1)

Cubs +104

Risked $10.00 to win $10.40

So this was the game I was really pumped up for. I mean, we had Z going. And I would have laid more money on this but I'd made some smaller prop bets on the game so I decided to only lay down 10 dollars. Wise choice I guess. Z did what he had to do but the Cubs offense was horrible and Marmol, our bullpen "MVP" fucked it up.

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UEFA Cup (3 Team Parlay)

Tottenham Hotspur -250

Lokomotiv Moscow -300

Hamburg SV -550

Risked $8.88 to win $10.71

What the fuck. Tottenham crushes this team 6-1 the week before and they only manage a
1-1 draw this time around? Ahh...if Sports Gambling is -EV then Soccer Gambling is -----EV.
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So that about covers the biggest bets on Bodog from this past week. I also had this bet with a guy from work. It kind of worked like a 2 game parlay. I bet $25 dollars that the Cubs would win the NL Central and another $25 that the Bears would beat the Lions. So in order for either of us to win any money, we would have to win both of our bets, otherwise we'd even out. So after the Cubs clinched the NL Central last Friday, I was on somewhat of a freeroll, because if the Bears won, I'd collect $50 dollars, but if they lost, we'd even out and I wouldn't owe him anything. Well the Bears blew a ten point lead going into the 4th quarter and that was that.

So to recap. I'm on life fuckin tilt and I hate sports gambling with a passion.

p.s.- I've got the Cubs for $70 in tomorrow's game and the Bears for $20 on Sunday...