content below posted 18:00SAT28JUL01 cst
These Guys are Good!
Football is just around the corner but there is an idle week before the preseason starts
and we thought we would have some fun at the expense of the scamdicappers. You know the
type. They are in the bars and on TV and all over the net and in the discussion groups.
The one thing they have in common is that they are all doing better at predicting the
games than we are. We wanted to take a quick look at some of the methods they use achieve
such great "success" year in and year out.
The first type is the After the Fact guy. He always wins! You'll
meet him in person at the bar and on the net in the groups. He never, ever posts his
predictions. He just comes around after the game and proclaims that he nailed it. If you
are in the club and mention to him that you blew the Cards game, he will insist that he
had a ton on the other team. There are players out there who are being honest when they
talk about hitting a particular game, but they will also talk about the ones they lost as
well. Its the "always wins"' part that exposes After the Fact guy.
Another one is Straight Up man. He hits seventy percent winners.
What he is saying is true, its just that he forgot to mention that his plays do not
include the point spread. Anyone can hit seventy percent straight up just by taking
favorites.
Then there are the Money Moguls. You see them on the boards and on
some of those websites where they sell the picks. They are only going to play 10 G's on
the Bengal game because they are not sure who the starting QB is today. These guys have
already won enough money gambling to buy three houses with ocean views. Yeah, right. If
you get one more house you can trade them all in for a hotel on Park Place. Legitimate
gamblers rarely talk about how much money they win.
Closely related to the money moguls are the Inverted Pyramid
schemers. They will lose a few three unit plays then they will make a ten unit play. If it
loses they will make a thirty unit play. On an extended losing streak the units wagered on
a single game can jump to a thousand or more, but they will hit eventually and pocket a
tidy profit as well! Of course, this is a lot safer if you are betting units, you will
never see these guys trying it with real money.
The best we have seen is Multi-man. He's all over the boards but
you have to be on your toes to find him. Multi-man registers with a discussion group under
several different screen names. He will pick four games in week one, with each of his
aliases taking a different combination of winners. If Alf, Carl, Denny and George lose in
week one they will disappear from the group. Meanwhile Ben, Earl, Fred and Harv will boast
about how they went 4-0 or 3-1, then they will take different combinations of the same
three games. By the fifth or sixth week only Earl will be left, but he will have an eighty
percent hit ratio in the early part of the season. Multi-man is good. Often Alf will come
back to the board to praise Earl and to claim he started winning again when he decided to
go with Earl's picks, a la After the Fact guy. You have to admire Multi-man because it
takes a special talent to manage all those personalities without hearing voices.
There are several other types out there: Different Point Spread
guy, After Kickoff man, "Sorry about the typo in my
win-loss ratio, glad you caught that for me" dude. They can be a nuisance
but we like to consider them to be a source of amusement. If you come across one of these
players please be gentle. After all, if they have to go to such extremes to convince us
that they are winning, they must be having a really tough season.