Aikido Blog Update

I'm exploring Substack for my primary blog so Aikido has moved to another URL.

In order to make room for trying out my primary blog here at substack, I’ve moved this blog to aikidosports.substack.com. The content remains the same.

Unfortunately, it seems unlikely there will be too much additional content here any time soon, so I figured I’d explain why.

A lot of it is that I’ve been super busy. Doing sports betting well takes time and dedication. You need to be up on what’s happening, think about your picks carefully, execute in the right ways at the right times, and so on. I tried doing it loosely in the hopes I had enough edge for that, and it was clear I did not.

The bigger problem is that my data source is shot to hell. I was using a secondary source to get market data. That secondary source decided to switch to only using American sports betting sources, which means it no longer provides data from Pinnacle, or from the other serious places. It’s still fine if you want to vaguely know what the line is on a football game, but as a serious resource it’s a lot less valuable, and I’d need to do a ton of work to reconfigure and error check what’s left, and even more work to transition to a new data source.

Realistically, that’s not going to happen, so I won’t be back in action any time soon unless I get to a point where I can have hired help I’m willing to point at the problem. That’s likely a long ways off.

I’ll still share sports-related things here on rare occasions, but only rare ones.

In the meantime, while I have you, figure I’ll share my quick thoughts on college football betting as it stands right now.

I have been watching a decent amount of college football this year, and have various thoughts, but between the other things I have going on I’ve been too busy to write out my formal thoughts or to make picks. To the extent I did make football picks, they would be based on my heuristics and intuitions combined with the evidence I’ve gathered with my own eyes, since I definitely don’t have the time to test and run my programs right now, and they’re nowhere near as good as they are in baseball anyway.

A few quick object level thoughts right now, but please don’t take them too seriously or bet on this basis alone, these are not picks they do not count:

1. As a Wisconsin fan, I thought we were overrated when we didn’t know Mertz was terrible, and are now underrated, but claiming afterwards you knew it at the time doesn’t count. I do like Wisconsin -9.5 against Nebraska (I liked -8.5 more, although there isn’t that much difference), but I don’t have enough knowledge of Nebraska to be confident.

2. Michigan State +19.5 is a ton of points. I do realize Ohio State’s offense is insanely great and they’re one of the top three teams in the country, but man that’s a ton of points.

3. Cincinnati is less likely to make the playoffs than people think, because the committee is actively looking for how to keep them out and no one is putting enough weight on that. They still might if there’s no choice, but if there’s a choice, I don’t like their chances.

4. The disrespect being shown right now for both Baylor and Oklahoma is super interesting, and usually this means they’re not being disrespected enough. Iowa State and Kansas State are probably value if you can find a good number, and that not making much intuitive sense is the reason why they are likely good value.

5. If you aren’t betting Over 56.5 in Clemson/Wake Forest, regularly bet totals, and also aren’t betting Under a lot more often than Over, you’re making at least one mistake. And if the Under is somehow right here, I have to assume that means Clemson -4.5 is value? Also that game seems like hilarious must-see TV.

6. Utah against Oregon is different, everyone knows Oregon is a fraud at #3, hence the line, so there’s no obviously right side there.

Anyway, thanks for going on this journey with me so far, and hopefully there’s interesting additional chapters.