Submitted by rsteel on
Handicapping is a constantly evolving process. Year by year season by season even game by game. Some people are under the impression handicapping is nothing more than a number crunching formula driven exercise which punches out plays. Nothing could be further from the truth. If the better team won and covered every game if the better pitcher won every game we would all be rich.
One of the biggest mistakes made in handicapping is to over-react to one result. Seeing a team do well in a game and drawing conclusions will commonly find you on the wrong side in the next game.
In my opinion the most successful handicappers are the ones that adhere to the 50-50 rule. 50% of my decision making process is weighted to the numbers with the focus on the last 5 games of results. The other 50% is intangibles situational issues. Such as movtivational,injuries,travel, head to head matchups, weather,coaching and numerous other issues. Your job is to convert each item to a numerical value and determine if it is accurately reflected in the posted line or not. This is how you determine VALUE.
Remember handicapping is NOT about simply determining which team will win the game and cover BUT it is picking the right team at the right price. Long term you cannot succeed without taking into account both parts of the equation.