A Couple Fezzik and Forum Thoughts

You know? I'm thinking this could be like a family thing. Helping each other with ideas and stuff. And maybe an annual BBQ at Fezzik's place. What do you guys think?

I've always wanted to have an annual picnic in the Huntington Press parking lot. Kind of the complement to the 2+2 thing at the MGM every July.

Can someone explain to me why someone who blindly follows Fezzik's picks automatically is labelled a "square". Yes, I blindly follow his picks - because he is a professional. Guess what - I pour a substantial part of my wealth into mutual funds rather than buying stocks. Why? Because I trust that the "professionals" are far better suited to manage an equity portfolio better than I can. I do exactly the same thing with bond funds, gold funds, real estate investment trusts, and municipal bond funds. I do this because I trust that the professionals who specialize in their respective arenas know infinitely more than I do. Fezzik is no different - that's why I chose him as the only handicapper that i'm currently following. He knows infinitely more about the NFL than I do. Thus, if I want to bet the NFL, I trust that a "professional" like Fezzik with his career success can do a far better job than I can. If he doesn't perform up to my expectations, then I can choose another professional. If that makes me a "square" than I don't really care. My biggest investment is in the Pimco Total Return fund run by the Bond King Bill Gross. Yes, I follow him blindly along with millions of investors who have poured over a trillion dollars into his fund (yes, a trillion). By this board's definition, there are millions of people all over the world who are investing with the best bond fund manager in history who are now "squares". He's had a pretty crappy 2 years and i'm not crying about it. I'm willing to hang in there for a while longer and if he doesn't perform to my expectations, I can choose to find another bond manager. This is exactly the approach that I take towards Fezzik. My point is that we all have to choose professionals in our life to assist us in areas of our life that we're definitely not knowledgeable enough to be equipt. Whether it be a doctor, lawyer, investment manager, equity manager, bond manager.......and NFL handicapper.

[QUOTE=helmet52;55670] [b]He's had a pretty crappy 2 years and i'm not crying about it. I'm willing to hang in there for a while longer and if he doesn't perform to my expectations, I can choose to find another bond manager. This is exactly the approach that I take towards Fezzik.[/b] [quote] Join Date Dec 2012 [/quote] Hell of a coincidence that 2 year track record.

Colonial, I have explained why personally it doesn't matter to me if this is a picks site or an analysis site that the only info I want is Fezzik's picks. That is the information for me personally. If I implied that I meant any other site or any general comment on marketing it wasn't intended. My comments are for this site featuring Fezzik. IMO you're assuming your own example is even true. "We're not a picks site but we feature Fezzik". And the customer is supposed to say "Sign me up"? Why in the world would that be enough to sign up? Now if you phrased it "We're not a picks site but we feature Fezzik AND he informs the board what he's betting on". Then I say sign up at least for myself. Fezzik is such a brand at this that his record has a great deal of leeway and there will be interest in what he's betting on. Helmet, I wouldn't call you or anyone in particular betting on Fezzik a square just because you bet on Fezzik. However, there are no doubt squares who are betting on Fezzik's plays. I think you're interpreting "sharp vs. square" to be some judgment of a person. It is a harmless term. Actually, you likely are a square with regard to your mutual funds. Most mutual funds consistently don't return their benchmarks. As a small investor you pay too much in fees. The fact you don't have the time to make yourself an expert in the field of gold investing, real estate investing does mean likely that your mutual fund manager probably just considers you a square in his world. Even if your mutual funds did better than the market and bucked those odds AND you bet on Fezzik and he did extraordinarily well over a particular year I still would label you a square. You would obviously be a very good investor and have terrific results and be much wealthier than I am. However, you're still a square for the exact reason you mention in that you don't really have the knowledge of a professional. Quite honestly I would expect "sharper" bond investors to be able to make more money than a Bill Gross managed mutual fund. A "sharp" bond investor purchased Italian bonds a month ago and made a huge killing. Bill Gross can't really do that in his fund --and if he did it can't be in enough quantity to really benefit the fund in a large way--but someone sharp who manages their own money did you can be assured of that and put a large amount of their own money into that trade to make a meaningful gain. .

Difference between sports betting market and stock market is that the sports betting market gets a lot tougher each year. The market gets tougher in some regards, but not nearly on the scale that sports betting does. Also, the market has been going up for for quite a while. So making money has been a hell of a lot easier in the market than in sports betting. So, a historical winner in sports betting with a crappy 3 year track record is a bigger concern than a mutual fund manager with a bad 3 years. But a bad 3 year track record could conceivably be due to variance, so you can never be sure.

I have to assume that those that bet everything Fezzik Plays is basing this on his wins in his contests. Consider this. Those Contests comprise 17 weeks of 5 Picks per week. (I might be wrong about the total # of Picks) but lets say about 100. So far this year including Preseason Fez has made about 360 Picks. Plus, many were not Full Game Sides which is pretty much what the contests are all about. So Following blindly on this much larger volume, and with plays that are different types other than what he has been judged on in the past, is just not smart. Period. Maybe a better idea for the Blind Bettors would have been to just bet the Hilton Picks. You would not have won the last 2 years, but you would also have not lost nearly as much... Apples to Apples.

If you look at the breakdown, most of the negative is in full game sides and totals. You know there's some negative variance when the W-L record is below 50. Now is the deviation so small that the expected return is still less than 52.4%? That's a separate question.

He has been very poor with Totals, and poor allocating weights on plays...I think this year in the Hilton he is 38-34-3 (According to a site I at which I saw it). That's a small profit with level betting assuming you could get the same lines, which in most cases you could have done better..I can't remember his record there last year..

Win or lose, tournament strategy means the Hilton record isn't a good indicator of handicapping skill. Just like a blackjack tournament. (Yes, I'm aware the same record was used for marketing purposes.)