Game Theory Picks Weekly Recap: July 27 - August 2
Weekly Recap (7/27-8/2)
What a week of sports it was, as the NBA & NHL got back into action in their respective bubbles for their first games of the summer this week! With the ups, come the downs, and unfortunately this week did not slide our way overall, particularly on the basketball courts. However, during the course of last week we wrapped up the month of July up +8.21 units, with PGA standing out with a stellar 11-5 record overall last month, and the MLB & EPL providing many big underdog wins for us as well!
Last week in particular, at the WCG Fedex St. Jude Invitational, we saw impressive work out of our matchup plays and ended the week at a clean 2-0 (+2 units) in Memphis. Justin Thomas managed to shoot a 65 on Sunday’s round and clinch the tournament with a 3-stroke lead over multiple opponents including Berger, Mickelson, and Koepka. This weekend we fast forward to one of our favorite tournaments on the entire slate this season, as the PGA Tour hosts the PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park near San Francisco, California. Tiger Woods will return to action, and he has seemed to love this course, even dating back to his Stanford days. In two pro events and six appearances at TPC Harding Park, Woods has a career perfect record of 6-0 in both stroke play & match play against his paired up competition.
MLB snuck away from us slightly last week as we finished 8-12 (-2.87 units) with two gut-wrenching underdog-ML losses late on Sunday from both the Pirates and Red Sox (in Sunday Night Baseball). However, we are still looking at a 17-17 record overall on the Baseball diamond for +7.71 units since the new season started! The vast majority of that profit is arriving from underdog ML’s, which we feel provide great value in the MLB, and should continue to showcase positions to attack throughout the MLB season. For instance, the Orioles brought in some big juice value over the weekend, as they swept their series 3-0 with the Tampa Bay Rays at Camden Yards. With coronavirus trends strickening the league currently (both Marlins & Cardinals have seen cases spike), we keep our hopes up for the individual players & the league as a whole, as they battle the struggles of this challenging virus and continue to play through the season.
The NHL got back to the ice this past weekend, as the Qualifier Round & Round Robin tournaments began on Saturday with a bang! Injuries played a big role into the first weekend of the newly arranged season, and we laid off playing most of the games due to lack of value, finishing 0-1 (-1 unit) overall in a light two days of action for us in hockey. Do keep in mind that we have a NHL futures play pending (Flames to win their Qualifier Series vs Jets) that was given out for FREE and currently sits at 1-1 through 2 series games. As more games hit the ice this week, look for action to slowly pick up and more plays to filter in from the NHL!
The NBA kicked off the remaining games of their regular season in the Walt Disney World Bubble last week, with highly anticipated matchups taking place seemingly every night for the NBA over the course of the weekend. Similar to hockey, you must try to dive into these new sports settings with a selective approach due to the value (or lack thereof) from Sportsbooks currently as sports return to action. With that being said, we looked for some totals in the NBA the first four days of play, and ended up going 1-5 (-4.5 units) overall seeing a good number of totals miss the OVER mark for us during that course. Adjustments to getting back on the court seem to be playing a major role early in the NBA’s new season in Orlando, as favorites went 11-8 ATS with 7 of those 8 losses being straight up Moneyline losses as well. We’re excited to see how the next 6-7 regular season games progress for these teams, and will look to gain some value on ATS plays alongside totals over the span leading up to playoffs. Ladies Basketball decided to take away some wins from us over the weekend too, as we finished -4.95 units overall on the hardwood in the WNBA with a 1.5-unit game total falling in the 2nd half on Friday in the Wings game. Just like the EPL, MLB, & NHL... the WNBA provides tremendous opportunities for various underdog moneyline plays, as we anticipate more coming into action as the season progresses in Florida. We’ve seen some individual 20+ unit seasons in the WNBA, and don’t foresee a remote week hindering us from the potential at reaching some valuable numbers in that league this year.
All-in-all you could not ask for a more jam-packed week full of sports (FINALLY) for the first time in over 4-months, and it was nice to see a full slate of options available at the Sportsbooks once again as the calendar flipped over to August. Games continue for each & every league this week, with some exciting games in the schedule coming up on the menu, including a Lakers/Rockets TNT game on Thursday Night!
P.S. - As a THANK YOU to our friends over at the Dirty Sports Podcast, this week you can use Promo Code “DIRTY” for 20% off all products in our store!