Never Assume the Obvious Is My Heartfelt Advice
Joe Duffy (JoeDuffy.net)
I don’t want to toot my own horn, but too late, I’m going
to. I have had many a webmaster, content
manager, editor etc., tell me that they love my articles because I actually
have original ideas and substance.
But I don’t want to toot my own horn.
The horror stories are the same regarding the gobblygook from the touts-come-lately: 95 percent of the
articles submitted fit into one of three categories. The first is the cheesy sales pitch, “It
takes contacts, information and hours of work.
I have that…yada yada.” No elaboration or substantiation follows,
just a rambling sales pitch in which a tout thinks qualifies for publication.
The next is the ever popular money management article in
which half the touts only expose that they don’t understand the concept
themselves. Finally there is the overstating and regurgitation of the self
evident. Topping the list of toutspeak is “bet with your head, not with your
heart.”
While I can’t deny there are degenerates who must be
reminded of that no-so-enlightened epiphany, every wannabee
handicapper believes they are speaking from
Yet in the favorite-team-of-the-moment that is sports
gambling, there is a less glaring truth within the heart/head rule. Bet with
your head and not your broken heart.
It’s amazing how many intelligent people with total seriousness have
told me that for example the last four of five times they bet for or against
the Sheboygan Shamrocks they lost. Hence
they refuse to bet on a game involving them. “I just can’t seem to get a handle
on them, so I avoid them altogether” I’ve heard.
Sometimes I hear somebody tell me that Team X has been
“too good to me when I’ve bet on them. I can’t bet against them”. Save your loyalties for your spouse or
girlfriend…or both. Betting is often
about loving and leaving at the appropriate moment.
Simply put it comes down to what we call “psychological
juice”. The best handicappers will lose
40 percent of the time and accept it as the cost of doing business. When the
square player loses with for example Duke over
he seems to find consolation in knowing he lost with a superior team.
Smart players find solace only if they canceled it out
with two winners. Yet if somehow the
typical gambler has
they lose by 26, it becomes once bitten, twice shy. Losing with the greatly
inferior team causes the gambler to second guess himself much more than a chalk
coming up short ever will.
The same can be said with totals. There is no glory
seemingly in betting the Phoenix Suns to go under the total. And while I will admit to despising it when my
handicapping comes up with Phoenix under, or for example the Rams under in the
Martz era, I can’t allow the fear of heart stomping sweating out the total
until the end get in the way of my bets.
It takes a lot of guts for me to publicly admit to knowing
Bee Gees lyrics, but in their song “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” they ask
“How can a loser ever win?”
A loser can win by not betting with his broken heart.
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