Chalk Parlay

Only a degenerate like myself would be up at 6:00 am searching for the most obscure soccer leagues to bet on. I've put together a what the fuck kinda parlay with 7 teams that are each -350 or greater favorites.

This is doomed for failure given the fact that at least one of the soccer matches will undoubtedly end in a draw. It'll probably be one of the two -350 matches but whatever, the parlay's just for kicks as no real handicapping went into any of these matches. I simply searched through all the soccer games going on today, did a quick scan of the league tables and picked the biggest favorites.

Good luck me.

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7 Game Parlay ($3.96 to win $8.02)

Boston -1700
Lokomotiv Sofia -350
PFC Beroe -350
HNK Rikeja -1000
Blackburn -400
FK Crvena -700
Partizan Beo -1000


Also adding:

Liverpool v. Chelsea DRAW ($5 to win $9.50)

A little more work went into this one. This is going to be a really close and low scoring match. They finished 1-1 a week ago. Choosing a side is too risky. Although Liverpool is going to need a goal in order to advance, Chelsea is unbeaten at home in 81 straight matches.

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Day Profit: +$5.54

Day Record: 1-1

Total Record: 37-50-0


Bankroll: $174.50

Total Profit: -$25.50 (-5.0 Units)

More Feeler Bets

Such a sick day yesterday. How in the world does Boston lose to Atlanta in back to back games? Fucking gross. It cost me a total of $11 on my parlay. My feeler bets did alright although I could have gone 4-2 if it weren't for the inability of the Diamondbacks to score at least one fucking run last night with the bases loaded and nobody out .That one kinda hurt a bit. Anyway, more $2 bets for tonight...

Cincinnati -0.5

NY Yankees -0.5

Blue Jays -0.5

Texas -0.5

Minnesota -0.5

San Diego v. Philly Over 8.5

Atlanta v. Washington Over 9.5

Houston v. Arizona Over 10.5

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Day Profit: -$8.66

Day Record:2-6

Total Record: 36-49-0


Bankroll: $168.96

Total Profit: -$31.04 (-6.2 Units)

Feeler Bets

Okay, I've got the following plays for tonight in addition to the parlay I talked about in my earlier blog today. However, these are sort of feeler bets, just trying to get back into the sports betting rhythm so each one is only a $2 bet. Can't win much, but can't lose much either if I have a bad day.


Reds -0.5

Yankees -0.5

Angels -0.5

Houston v. Arizona Over 9

Oakland v. Angels Over 9

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Day Record: 3-3

Total Record: 34-43-0


Bankroll: $177.62

Total Profit: -$22.38 (-4.4 Units)

Fuck You Mr. Yucateco

Last night I had a burger with an obscene amount of this hellish yet delicious hot sauce, and this morning I feel like there’s little people in my stomach with flame throwers or some shit. And I also seem to have the symptoms of a heavy hang over despite the fact that I haven't gotten wasted since god knows when. So my best friend this morning is a big ass bottle of Gatorade and some Pepto-Bismol if the stomach problems persist.

Anyway, so this past weekend was a pretty swingy weekend as far as gambling goes. Thursday a couple of my friends and I hit up the charity casino up at the Holiday Inn in Skokie. The session itself was quite the rollercoaster. I found myself down early then ninja'd my way up to even and was on the plus side for a while before having a whopping $200 downswing in the last hour or so. I played about a 5 hour session and I definitely felt like I played my best poker during the first couple of hours. After that, I just don’t know what it was but I felt myself not being able to concentrate and that’s when $200 downswing showed it’s ugly self.

My two friends got ass raped within the first hour of play. Peter bought in so short stacked that he was basically waiting for a hand to push all in with, which is obviously not a good strategy at a cash game. He ended up running AK into AA and went busto in the hand along with the $30 I'd staked him.

My guy Alex aka Furcio didn't fare much better. I told him the 1/2NL game was soft and there was no need to bluff away any chips but 10 hands into our sessions he bluffs half his stack to this old dude. He proceeded to lose the rest of his stack with bluffs that Stevie Wonder himself could have spotted a mile away.

After he busted, he railed me for a while and then left.

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Friday night I managed to win $100 in blackjack at work and was feeling pretty good about it. Then Saturday night I had to work again, and by 7:00 pm, I'd already lost $75. I made a small comeback and was down only $50 and ready to call it a night as far as gambling was concerned. But then I went on a huge rush of cards playing $5 hands of blackjack against Furcio and I got back to $100. Combined with some coin flips and bets on a couple of soccer matches with this dude, I finished the weekend with a +$115 net profit with workplace gambling.

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I also got back to sports betting a bit. Won a nice parlay and then lost one unit in the Cubs game yesterday. Right now I have $5 tied up in a 3 leg parlay. Toluca beat Tecos yesterday for the 1st leg of the parlay so now I just need Orlando and Boston to win straight up tonight. If they do, then my bankroll will stand at around $186 and if not then $175, which is still pretty decent given the fact that I'd dipped as low as $150 a week or so ago. I'll go through my bets and update my record later today.

Home Game Report

Just got back from the home game a few minutes ago and it went alright, I guess. It was supposed to be a .25c/.50c cash game but only four people ended showing up including myself so we decided to play a couple of $10 winner take all freeze outs instead.

Out of the three other guys playing only the guy hosting the game seemed to be semi-decent. He was a cool guy and actually managed to call out my hands a couple of times. He says he used to go to law school with Vanessa Rousso and actually played a couple of home games with her.

Anyway the other two guys really had no idea what they were doing but I ended up losing to one of them when he had about a 3-1 chip lead in heads up play. On the first hand of HU, I go all in with 10 10 on the button and get called by A 9. The Ace fell on the river and good game me.

I ran better in the second freeze out where again I found myself heads up but this time it was me who had a commanding chip lead. It was a tough heads up battle though cause it was against the decent guy. I actually had him crushed in one hand where we got it all in with me holding Ks5x against his Js5x in a 3s 4s 6s board. So I was basically free rolling as the only way I could lose was if it came J J on the turn and river but he lucked out and we both hit the straight on the turn to chop the pot.

I finally took it down when I made the call from the small blind in the dark, bet the Ace high flop still in the dark and when my opponent moved all in I finally looked at my cards to discover an ace and had him almost drawing dead.

So overall a total profit of $20 which I can't complain about. It was fun and the guys were pretty cool. Hopefully we can get more people next week so we can play an actual cash game

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So tomorrow a couple of my friends and I are hitting the $1/$2 tables at the charity casino. My guy Furcio has been wanting to go for a long time but he's been hesitant cause he is still 17. He'll be 18 in a month or so, but I guess he can't wait that long for his first live poker experience. He should be okay tomorrow though because they rarely card me when I go and when they do card me it's at the cage when I'm buying chips but not when I'm at the table. So the plan is for me to buy the chips for him and then once he sits down, they'll just assume he already got carded.

My other guy Peter didn't want to go because he's not much of a gambler. I finally offered to stake 30% of his action to convince him to go.

I really want to have a good session and just hope to play some good solid poker. I plan on trying to pick up on a lot of betting patterns by my opponents and use that to my advantage.

Thank You Mr. Harrington

Yesterday I dropped $16 during lunch hour to my guy Furcio. It was a combination of me running bad in blackjack and him being a luckbox in Blast. So $16, not a lot but I was steaming because I'd been running so good against him the last couple of weeks. I hadn't lost more than $10 to him in a long time.

So after school we went to pick up our paychecks and then to the post office to mail something. On our way out of the post office we began to do $5 coin flips and in the short walk from the post office doors to the car, I was down an additional $20, lol. Now down $36, I was really beginning to get pissed about how bad I was running.

So I notice that he has a deck of cards in his car (as any self-respecting gambler should) and on the drive to the mall we begin to play $5 hands of blackjack at red lights. Yea, that's how fucking degenerate we are. So I manage to stop the bleeding and win back the $20 that I'd just lost

Then after the mall, on the walk back to the car we start talking about poker, since we're hitting up the casino tomorrow. Anyway, I don't know what exactly we were discussing but then he says something like:

"Oh yea dude Dan Harrington was talking about something like that in his new cash games book. He said you should only move up in limits when your bankroll can afford it. Like, don't be ashamed to be playing .10c/.25c at your local casino if that's all you can afford"

"You mean online, not local casino"

"No dude, he said local casino"

"LOL a casino would never run a live .10c/.25c poker game"

"Well, that's what Harrington said on the book man"

"Dude, I will bet you any amount of money you want, that the book does not say that and I haven't even read the book"

"Are you serious dude. You'd make that bet knowing that I already read the book"

"Absolutely. Listen to what your saying man. Why in the world would a casino run a poker game at those stakes. Do you not realize casinos profit from poker tables through the rake of each pot?"

"Ok I'll bet you $20 dollars that's what the book said."

"Make it $50 if your so sure that's what you read"

"No fuck it. I don't want another Poker After Dark prop bet repeat (see 4/5/08 post), let's make it $15."

So we take a short drive to a Borders bookstore and what do you know, Mr. Harrington was talking about online poker all along.













LOL.

Felt good to come back to even after being down $36 for the day although that had to have been the easiest $15 I've ever won.

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Alright so anyway, a lot of poker action coming up today and tomorrow. I'm about to leave for a poker home game in a couple of hours. Small stakes .25c/.50c but I still want to come out on top at least one full buy in. It's with a bunch of dudes I don't know so we'll see how that goes.

And then tomorrow my guy Furcio and I and possible my other friend Peter or going to hit up the charity casino at the Holiday Inn in Skokie. We'll be playing $1/$2 and it's going to be their first time playing live poker in a casino so they're pumped up for it and I really hope I get a good session in as well.

I'll be back later tonight with the trip report to the home game and I'll also be updating my sports betting record which I've neglected for a little bit now.

Freeroll Monday

I went a little parlay happy this weekend, making crazy plays that resulted in a total loss of $-14.58 on the weekend. I made like 4 parlays and they all missed, lol although two of them by only one game. The only winning play I had on the weekend was Cubs vs. Pirates yesterday.

The day was also pretty shitty poker-wise. Dropped about $85 total on PokerStars where I just couldn't catch a fucking break. I ran so bad in the 4.40s and the only one I did manage to go deep in I ended up overplaying As10s and busted out in like 25th, which was 7 spots from the money.

I also played the 32k Guaranteed on Full Tilt on Saturday which I was really looking forward to. Had a good first hour by picking up a nice pot with pocket nines and then later cracking Aces with KQ. I found myself with around 7k after the first break but it all came tumbling down in the following hand.

I was sitting with about 6.7k, good for the table chip lead and get dealt 10s10d. From under the gun I make it 240 to go (blinds 40/80.) Early position player and big blind both call. Flop comes 9s 6s Ks, giving me second pair and a flush draw. I bet out 320, a little less than half the pot and get called by one player. Turn comes 9d. I check, with the paired board scaring me a little, and my opponent bets out 1,400. I tank for a while, replaying the hand in my head. I really put him on something like A9 but my spade induces me to make a horrible call. The call doesn't necessarily commit me to the pot but when the river comes a 3s I make my flush and push. I get insta called by As Js. Whoops.

I played the hand pretty badly and even though it wouldn't have made any difference because my opponent flopped the nuts, I should have made a bigger raise under the gun with such dominant chip position over my table as well as perhaps a pot size bet on the turn. The worst mistake was obviously pushing on the river since a check would have probably induced an all in by my opponent and I could have gotten away and saved myself an extra 1.7k.

So that's the hand that kinda destroyed me. I was down to about 2.5k after that and really couldn't get anything else going and busted around 30 minutes into the second hour. Would have been sweet to have a big cash, but oh well.

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Okay, so on to today. I've managed to put myself in a position to make some profit with the Cubs v. Mets game, no matter the outcome.

So my friend has been martingaling me over a $10 bet that has turned into him owing me $40.I was supposed to collect the money from him tomorrow but he started trash talking my Cubbies again and I just was not having it, lol. So, a free roll on tonight's game. He either pays me $80 tomorrow if the Cubs win today against the Mets, or we're even and he owes me nothing if the Cubs lose.

With Zambrano on the mound, I feel pretty confident going with the Cubbies, but I knew there was a way to middle the game and hedge a profit considering the fact that the Cubs are actually -146 favorites and the Mets +124 dogs at Bookmaker.com.

So I log onto Bookmaker and remember that I've got a $25 free play that I still haven't used. So I placed the $25 on Mets +124 and now I'm in a position where if the Cubs win, I make $80 and lose the $25 free play, and if the Mets win I don't have to pay up anything for the Cubs loss but I win $31.00 at Bookmaker, (you only get to keep the profit on free plays.)

So obviously I'd much rather have the Cubs win than the Mets, but at least I don't lose any money either way.

As I'm writing this, the Cubs lead the Mets 2-1 in the bottom of the 7th inning. If the Cubs can hold the lead, I'm going to shit my pants when Wood comes in to close the game. Hopefully he's got that flaming fastball and it's lights out for the Mets.