Something that comes up often with gambling is bankroll management. I won’t belabor the points I have said repeatedly in the past, but something to keep in mind - you should NEVER be sweating losing 1 unit. Yes, you would WAY rather win than lose, but 1 unit should be a relatively insignificant amount of money to you.
While I personally believe folks should never go more than the 1% = 1 unit rule, but if you are sweating/worrying about losing 1% of your bankroll you can ALWAYS make it a smaller percentage. If let’s say $100 = 1% of your bankroll (10k bankroll) but you were really concerned about the top 20 bets last week, then you can always do $25 per unit. I say this because I know our guys got into the Top 20 but it was tight and I got A LOT of messages early in the round.
Remember, you should ONLY risk money you are okay losing. Further, as you will see in the report below, this month has not been great by my lofty standards, but I am more than comfortable as I am up 22.9 units on the 2022-2023 season and 82 units since I launch v2.0 on May 11, 2022 (less than a calendar year ago). That allows me to be aggressive with my personal betting which results in me taking more risks. If you are not comfortable taking that amount of risk, then do not take that risk. This will be important for your own personal gambling journey but also this week when this is a week field so I am taking a fair bit of risk that could easily see us lose every bet.
I know many of you probably read the above and say “DUHHHHH”, but we had what I would consider not even a significant loss last weekend (and I would have said that if we lost anything less than 5 units) and you should see the whining / bitching / moaning in my DMs, especially during the tournament.
If you are going to be upset losing a bet - you should not make that bet. What I am showing you here is what I am doing. I am not you. I do not manage your bankroll or your emotions.
Gamblers Paradise Discord
Once again, I highly recommend going to this discord as we have some lively discussions AND I am running a free-to-enter bracket challenge that comes with real money prizes (see the Promotions and giveaways section).
Recap - THE PLAYERS Championship
What a performance by Scottie. He started to make his move on Friday and just absolutely steamrolled to the victory over the weekend. Really well done by him.
As I said on the discord, it was hard to be anything but very happy with how things looked after the first round. We had Morikawa 1 back and a bunch of guys well-positioned. Round 2 saw a number of our guys fall away and all of our longer-shot T20 guys missed the cut. Round 3 saw a few of our guys make runs up the leaderboard but really no one was going to catch Scottie. Round 4 saw most of our guys struggle, but the 17th hole was out there taking peoples’ souls and got out guys JUST inside the top 20.
So we walk away with a very small loss and we lick our wounds and get ready for the last tournament in the Florida swing.
Note: Next week I am going to try something a little different with the recap section so please make sure to give me feedback.
Valspar Championship
The PGA Tour wraps up its Florida swing as it heads to the west coast of Florida to the Tampa Bay suburbs to visit Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club in Palm Harbor. The Copperhead Course plays to a par 71 across ~7,340 yards.
This tournament has a tough spot on the calendar given that it is behind 2 back-to-back events and ahead of the Match Play tournament. It lost some of its depth from last year but still has 5 of the top 20 players and 10 of the top 50 players by OWGR.
This is an interesting course for a number of reasons, but one of them is because it actually has an extra Par 3 so as we think about the golfers we may want to bet on this week, the ability to play Par 3’s well is something we need to keep in mind! This is another ball striker’s paradise and a short game will be key on these Bermuda greens.
The 2022 edition saw Sam Burns defend his title when he shot -17 and beat Davis Riley in a playoff. The 2021 edition saw Sam Burns (-17) capture his first PGA tour title when he topped Keegan Bradley by 3 strokes, and 2019 saw Paul Casey (-8) capture his 2nd Valspar title when he beat Jason Kokrak and Louis Oostheizen by 1 stroke1.
The event’s 72-hole record is -18 (266) which was shot by Vijay Singh in 2004. Four players have won this tournament including KJ Choi, Retief Goosen, Paul Casey, and Sam Burns; both Casey and Burns won in back-to-back years.
This is a top-heavy field and like I try to do in horse racing, I am going to try and beat the favorite with some shots. If I wanted to go all in on a favorite I would do 1u on JT to win, but I am not going to do that so let’s get to this week’s card (about 8.1u of risk):
Outright (0.25u on each):
Brian Harman +3500
Stephan Jaeger +6000
Nick Taylor +6600
Tyler Duncan +7000
T10 (0.25u on each):
Tommy Fleetwood +265
Brian Harman +375
Nick Taylor +600
T20:
1u on Sam Burns +105
0.5u on Brian Harman +165
0.25u on Gary Woodland +230
0.25u on Tyler Duncan +285
0.25u on Luke List +300
0.25u on Sam Ryder +335
Miss cut2 (0.25u on each):
Davis Riley +175
Ben Griffin +190
Matchups
1.4u on Stephan Jaeger over Will Gordon -140
0.69u on Nick Taylor over Nate Lashley -138
0.575u on Lee Hodges over Webb Simpson -115
0.3675u on Mark Hubbard over Ben Taylor -147
0.3225u on Adam Schenk over Akshay Bhatia -129
As always, I am using BetOnline and Bovada to pull these odds.
Daily Fantasy
Last week was a total loss of the $40 I risked. I am going to take a pass this week given this is a lack of depth in the field.
Good luck with all your action!
The 2020 edition was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic
By special request!