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Baseball Primer 2004
It is absolutely essential that we get the format correct up front and without doubt about where we are going and how we will get there. The following are the rules and procedures I use for baseball and any other method or procedure is irrelevant. If you want to follow your own betting theorems that's fine, but the results are your responsibility, not mine.
1. Baseball, more than any other sport is a flat unit wager. If the basic player unit is $100, then a one unit wager is $100, NOT $100 plus the juice. A -140 favorite pays $71.43 profit if it wins, NOT $100 because we bet $140 when our basic wagering unit is $100. DO NOT ADD THE JUICE TO A FAVORITE, accept the lower profit. The rule is, only risk is controllable, not profit. Nor do we reduce the wager amount on an underdog. Rememeber, the terms favorite and underdog refer only to who the betting public and linemakers believe to be the more likely team to win. When I handicap an underdog to win outright we have accepted the underdog as the favorite, IN OUR OPINION, and therefore the underdog is no less worthy of a full unit wager than the "public" favorite.
2. "VALUE PLAYS" are easily the most misunderstood and hardest plays to manage in baseball. A "value" play exists when the underdog is NOT the most likely winner of a game, BUT, the payoff is far too high versus the probability of winning. For example: team A is favored over team B by -185 to +170. Now, Riddle computes the probability of team A winning at 55% so team A is the correct favorite. However, if at +175 team B actually wins 45% of the time in this supposed matchup, they will win 9 of 20 times and return +4.75 net units of profit. That is a "value" play. The odds are against our winning, but the play is worth making, believeing we will turn a profit in the long run. For "value plays" which I will specify as such, it is entirely permissable to lower the risk amount. We can make the basic $100 the target, instead of the risk. We would wager $58.82 at +170 to achieve a $100 profit.
3. Baseball absolutely must be played against the best possible odds. All 10 and 15 cent books are usefull for underdog plays as they usually penalize the favorite first, knowing that is the side they will probably get the most action on. 7 and 8 cent books are nearly always best for favorites as they are the ones who fear wise guys and do not want to get wiped out by lots of action on big underdogs. 20 cent books are absolutely verboten! Both sides are penalized and only the biggest amateurs and suckers will play baseball at 20 cent lines.
4. Absolutely NEVER, under any circumstances, fail to specify pitchers and then come back to Riddle bitching about a loser. No matter what you think, the starting pitchers are still the most critical element in baseball. No team in any other professional or amatuer sport is as dependent on one player as a baseball team is on the starting pitcher. All other factors are important, but pale in comparison to the role of the strarting pitcher. That is why on run lines and totals the sports books state "listed pitchers must go". They aren't out to protect you, my friend, they are out to protect themselves from unknown or inside information
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Riddle Sports
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dC
