Week six lines/thoughts

Season to date 13-9, +3.24 units.

Well boys and girls, some of the expected craziness that is common in the CFL has been sadly lacking this year so far,  until this week when the  Travis Lulays generated a big comeback to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat over the Peggers.  There will be times in the CFL, it's inevitable, that defeat will be snatched away from the jaws of victory don't you worry about that in the CFL.  Did I tell you guys how much I LOVE, LOVE LOVE Lulay?

The normal dog and under plays haven't done too well this year, until UNDERs went 3-0 this past week, which means that things have returned more towards  normalcy.   For those that like tailing winners, there's plenty of them in the King of Covers  CFL contest, I'm not even in the top 50% in the KOC contest I believe.

My lines are my relative strength of the teams, so they're my opinion, which will vary from the linemaker's, guaranteed.  The linemaker, besides having quant-type computers to calculate their lines, also has to consider evening out his action, most of the time, though Vegas on occasion will be bettors themselves and put out a line that will attract money on the opposite side of who they like.   

I don't believe Vegas lines in the CFL are all that sharp in at least 1/3 of their lines they put out, but the CFL (and other sports like the WNBA) are low market sports, that I don't believe they worry about too much.  Good for bettors who are serious about winning, obscure markets are often what people can hang their hat on.

Indigo lines for week 6.

Home           line              away            total

Hamilton       -6'          Saskatchewan      50

Ottawa          -5          British Columbia   53'

Toronto         +2'        Winnipeg              54

Calgary         -14        Montreal               48

I'll make the Stamps -14 if Mitchell is announced as the starter and -12 if he isn't.

Early leans to the:

1)  Tiger Cats

2)  Lions

3) UNDER  Pegger/Argos

4)  UNDER Als/Stamps

Almost have to "Auto-Lean" Unders in this League.

BC will have a lot of momentum going into Ottawa, but how far can that sustain them?

Ottawa cannot look as bad as they did last week...but how much of their issues are systemic?

Indigo , have a ? when looking at some of these queries what book or who's lines do they show , lets just say some books had Win at -4 last night and some at -4.5 , who's are they using ?

That question has been posed to the sportsdatabase and the killersports people and they didn't elaborate what book's lines they are using.  In football it is not too problematic, in a sport like baseball it has been, where there was one query that I was following that did poorly and later someone with another database said that their totals were not accurate, so it ultimately cost me money.

Short answer, they tell you what they are using.

I guess I will bet all unders this week. am I stupid? yes. but...

they don't tell you whose lines they are using.

Lines are out, mine in parentheses....

Hamilton -11  (-6')     Saskatchewan     51'  (50)

Ottawa -6'      (-5)     BC                      53'  (53')

Toronto  pik    (+2')   Winnipeg             50'  (54')

Calgary   no line

No offence but how could Hamilton be -6.5 when they were -6 in Regina? I know the Roughies won but can't see anyone taking them at less than double digits this week.

I am not predicting what the line SHOULD be.  As I stated in the first paragraph I am listing MY relative strengths of the teams.  

As I also stated in the first paragraph, how I value the teams will be different than what the linemaker values them.

As I stated in the first paragraph, what you feel the teams' lines should be will vary from what I have.

Good luck Buddy.

Plays:

1)  BC +6'  

Western division teams have been 57-38 ATS (60%) versus the East during the regular season as away dogs.  If the week number is less than 7 this moves to 22-9 ATS, (+2.83) and 17-14-1 (-1.11)  straight up.  BC will be undervalued with Travis Lulay quarterbacking them for a few weeks.

2)  Tiger Cats/Riders UNDER 51'   

Teams that score <20 points on the road cover slightly less than 20% of the time and go UNDER 78% of the time.  I am betting that the Riders don't score more than 19 points.  Same exact situation last week where Toronto went on the road to Edmonton after upsetting them as a home dog their previous game.   Final score for that game was 15-16.  Just praying that Duron Carter doesn't allow 5 touchdown passes against his man.

3)  Winnipeg -.5

Teams that had a better record season record than their present opponent from last year that lost last week on the road and are on the road again this week in a non-divisional game have been 18-7 ATS (+4.94) and 14-11 straight up (+3.00).  Bombers have been stellar on the road the last three years, but were giving the most points to an opponent in the last three years on the road when going down to the Lions giving 4 to 5 points.  I'll take a team that is 16-5 on the road the past three seasons, including losing their last two. 

Teams have been 5-19 ATS before week 11 if they won their previous previous game at home than lost their last game on the road and now are home, which fits the Tiger Cats and Argonauts this week.  Will go against the defending champs one more week.

I like all 3.

Best of luck Indigo 

Defending champions their next year have not performed too well.....

tpS(W@playoffs=1,N=1)=1 and playoffs

86-94 ATS in the regular season, and if we subtract the one team that won it that was a <500 team, the Redblacks, we find those teams to be 74-88 ATS, and 71-90 O/U.

To break it down further:

CFL champions from the previous year, excluding the Redblacks, during the regular season...

Home non divisional game    15-22-1  ATS     19-19 o/u

Home divisional game          22-22 ATS          15-28 o/u

Away divisional game           19-25-1 ATS       17-26-2 o/u

Away divisional game           18-19 ATS          20-17 o/u         

last line should read 

"away non divisional game"

Teams that won >10 games last year that:

1)  DIDN'T win the championship

2)  Lost on the road last week

3)  Are on the road again this week

4)  Are playing a non-divisional opponent

have been 10-2 ATS (+6.67)

Bombers

tpS(W@playoffs=1,N=1) = 0 and playoffs = 0   and PRSW>10  and not DIV and p:AL and A 

Yards per pass besides turnovers is the the highest predictor of point spread success, throw the ball down the field more effectively than your opponent and you will cover a high percentage.

Here are the yards/pass stats for the year so far.

Team            offensive ypp                    defensive ypp

Hamilton           9.0                                    7.2                

Edmonton         8.9                                    8.2

Calgary            8.6                                     5.6

BC                   7.3                                     7.8

Montreal          7.0                                      8.0

Winnipeg         6.8                                      7.2

Saskatchewan  6.7                                      7.7

Ottawa            6.5                                      7.5

Toronto            6.5                                      9.2

"Great", you're thinking, "we have found the magic bullet and we are on our way to riches and beautiful women."

Except when we run this query......

tA(YPPA-o:YPPA)-oA(YPPA-o:YPPA)<0 and week<7 and A and not  DIV

we get 34-19 ATS

Roughriders, Alouettes...the team with the passing yards/pass DISADVANTAGE has covered  64.2% of the time.

Yards per pass differential, like turnovers tends to be regressive in nature, which means that what happened before tends to regress to the mean and everything tends to go back to zero advantage.

Play:

4)  Roughriders +11, -114

This is a left brain opposing right brain play.  It is purely data driven as my feelings about teams with questionable quarterbacking on the road have been frequently documented and how exactly are Bridge and company gonna score against the Tiger Cats?

For the data, we have a 34-19 ATS query listed in the post above this one related to an inferior passing yards/attempt team on the road in an early non-divisional game.  This game is the exact replica of last week's game when Toronto went into Edmonton and almost won the game as >7 points away dogs......home dog winner the previous week versus the same team they're playing this week, the only difference is that there is a bye week in between this game, when there wasn't in the Argo game..

Also, we have the fact that away dogs have not too well so far this year, when every other year except one has had away dogs have ruling in early season CFL action.  This is due to regress back to what it usually is.

Then we have a 11-0 ATS angle that says to play on teams with two wins in a non-divisional away game in games 4-7.  The caveat with this is that couple of those teams that should be indicated this week along with the Riders, which  includes the Bombers and the  Lions, are not listed in the query box as they should be, which may mean that the database is not producing totally accurate results.....a possibility.

Here's the query, which has covered by an average of over 10 points/game.

8>game number>4 and A and t:wins=2

I bought out of my Riders' pick of +11, -114 and re-bought at +10', -110

My four plays now are:

1)  Riders +10'

2)  BC +6'

3)  Riders UNDER 51'

4)  Bombers -.5

1)  Riders +10'  winner

2)  Riders UNDER winner

Lucky win on the UNDER, helped the old  lady across the street yesterday is why it won.

3)  BC +6'

4)  Peggers -.5

I wrote to the head guy at sportsdatabase (killersports.com).  My query was not returning all of the indicated plays and I was concerned that the data was corrupted or there was a glitch in his system.

A couple of days later I ran the same query was many more results, so something must have been fixed.

Here's the initial query I ran....

t:wins=2 and A and 4<game number<8          which gave me updated results of 22-10 ATS, with many more results than what I got earlier with indicated plays this week of the Lions, Bombers and Sasquatches

However, when adding the parameter of a non-divisional game, our numbers are even better.....

t:wins=2 and A and 4<game number<8 and week<8  and not DIV

13-0-1 ATS (+5.81), which hasn't updated the Saskatchewan/Hamilton score, which would make it 14-0-1 ATS.

So, we'll see what the gambling gods have to say about our last two plays, the indicated plays of Winnipeg and BC.

3 minutes left, 22-22 BC ball on their own 20......We'll see what the Lulays can do.

Wow!  Lulay threaded the needle to Arceneaux for 70+ yards.....perfect pass.....luvin' it.  

You throw the freakin' ball down the field and good things happen.

Sheesh!  BC gets held to a field goal and Ottawa marches down the field and scores a TD....CFL at its finest in the last 3 minutes,......... the longest 3 minutes in sports.

Ottawa gets a penalty for excessive celebration on the TD and BC gets an extra 10 yards.....Ottawa 29-25....these are the times one is happy they didn't take the moneyline.

Take care of the ball Lions!