Sports Handicapping: Tom Donaghy Accuses NBA Refs Of Wagering On Games
In the event you haven’t seen it already, you need to take a look at Deadspin.com’s excerpts in the new Tim Donaghy book. Within the passages, the disgraced ex – NBA referee makes several fairly preposterous, yet distinct, claims about how exactly officials would go out of their own way to have an effect on NBA games. Essentially, he admits that the refs had no integrity and would mess around with results on stuff as insignificant as who didn’t need to tip the ball boys!
The most mind blowing components in the book are when he names names, pointing out specific referees and just how they enjoy manipulating games. He mentions Dick Bavetta, who had been a ref in what most individuals regard as being the worst officiated game in NBA history: Gm. 6 in the 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Sacramento Kings and L.A. Lakers. Plus although this claim is up for discussion, he also makes this particular accusation towards Bavetta:
I bet the losing team simply because I was certain they would cover the spread, even if they played the game badly. This is when Mr. Bavetta shows up.
From my earliest involvement with Bavetta, I learned that he likes to keep games close, and then when a team gets down by double- digit points, he helps the players save face. He accomplishes this act of mercy by quietly, and frequently, blowing the whistle on the team that’s having the better night. Team fouls suddenly become one-sided between the contestants, and the score begins to tighten up. That’s the way Dick Bavetta referees a game – and everyone in the league knew it.”
If this is all true, it should mean that if you wager on the underdog team in all basketball games officiated by this guy, you should have cleaned up even with any sports handicapping problems. This isn’t to say you would win every single game, but the way Donaghy describes it, he seems to have madea lot of money with this theory.
These allegations and stories got me thinking, so I conducted a number of investigations and the results were quite convincing that Donaghy is full of it! If you don’t understand, you have to hit 52.7% of the bets to even earn a profict if you are betting with common ten cent juice this means $110 to get back $100). Mr. Donaghy left from the pressure in 2007, so I looked back over the ten year period before the time we are talking about, and I found a few interesting things.
Out of the ten year stretch when Bavetta was officiating, there were only two (1998/99 and 2001/2002) that returned a profitable score if betting on the teams most likely to lose. During these two seasons, the underdogs came back at 55.7 and 57.1 respectively. For these two specific seasons you would have made money, but that’s about it. No other season made these kind of returns during Bavetta’s reign. In a nutshell, if you bet your shirt on this theory, you would have lost it.
These numbers and research proove that these allegations about Bavetta are false, and make me question the truthfullness of other comments he has makde. This isn’t to say that the NBA didn’t do anything wrong, or that yes, refs do make mistakes from time to time – sports handicapping aside, but we must ask if the rest of Donaghy’s comments are legit.
Poker: How To Improve Your Game
If you wish to improve your game, ditch the arrogance and ego involvement, and don’t depend on the constant repetition of a few rules you learned to get you safely by. The basic step to improvement is to recognize the need for it. Introspection is at the core of every good player as much as technique, luck or insight into their opponents’ minds. Perfectionism is not the answer. The answer lies in the ability to be self-critical and correctly and precisely define your strengths and weaknesses.
There are also talented players out there who do not project arrogance and do not play by a few rules they learned either from the literature or at the table. Their roadblock to improvement is to rest on their laurels and never grow. No inspiration here, these lazy players rely on rare strokes of brilliance to win a couple of hands..
A good player never neglects his weaknesses. Usually nobody is good at every aspect of any complex activity, but to rely on one or two superior skills is dangerous and is more likely to be your ruin in the long run. Once opponents have singled out what you do best, and that it is about the only thing you do, they will maneuver around your good hand. And if they are good players, they will consistently execute the maneuver even if it means giving up a they own good hand, so to speak, to land you one on the nose form the direction you hope it will never come. Because their skills are better rounded than yours, they can afford it, feeling confident enough with both their right and their left.
There are no successful one-armed boxers. There are no successful poker players with just one or two moves. A good player is at work to constantly sharpen all his poker skills. At the same time he recognizes his weak points and works at overcoming them, no matter difficult that may be.
The difficulty of this task likes in two basic concepts, you must understand that the game isn’t really worth playing unless your goal is to win, and you must take on the burden of forming a disciplined habit of consistently doing that which you do not want to do. This won’t work if you don’t understand why you are learning to form this habit. You must engage yourself in the game and blindly following a routine that is incomprehensible to you will not lead to engagement or success.
A good golfer will have visions of where he wants the ball to go and the ideal way to put it there. A good poker player must do the same: envision himself as more than a competent player of the game, feel the rush of excitement that leads to triumphant results, and come to the decision that this is a good thing. If your imagination is too stifled to experience this feeling, you need to admit to yourself that you really don’t get it and explore other opportunities that will successfully engage you. If this vision, however, stirs your passion, work on improving all your skills and the results will amaze you. As an added bonus, achieving the discipline it takes to consistently do things that do not appeal to you and you may even fear, is in itself rewarding.
