00:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Bryson, to me, if you're going to pick one athlete that I think you can insert into sports betting and they would become like a winner very quickly, it would be Bryson. Come on, let's go. Welcome to Circles Off, episode number 159 right here, part of the Hammer Betting Network and presented by Pinnacle Sportsbook I am Rob Pizzola joined for the third time. 

00:22 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Third time, do I get like a jacket or something? No, we don't do that stuff. No, five times on snl you get a jacket. If I hit five, I think I should get one there will be some, some merch eventually some swag the pinnacle, where we're still determining what that's going to look like. 

00:36 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I guess we could give you like a circles off pinnacle jacket or something, if but I want like a big three on it, yeah but three times guest. We might have to use you more in the future, so fair. 

00:46 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
But then I get another one. 

00:48 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, that's the problem, right, Actually, no, we had a guest last week, drunken Goon Adrian, who was a soccer better, and he was wearing the pinnacle 20th anniversary jacket. We're on the 25th now, but it still looks fine. I think you can wear a 20th anniversary if it's 25th. That's fair play. Yeah, it's like the people who buy like the soccer kits and stuff that have the number of stars for as many times their team won. You know, they win again afterwards. It still looks fine. 

01:15 - Zack Phillips (Other)
See the risk that we run here with doing something like this if we did it for Kirk, is that like a scumbag, like Knish is gonna come around looking to collect. He's going to be like three five. 

01:23 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
But if you guys start giving it, I'm going to come look to collect as well, for sure, yeah. 

01:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, we'll do something. We should do something for in-studio guests definitely. 

01:33 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I'm honestly surprised Kanish comes on without demanding getting something. 

01:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Oh, he loves I love the sound of my own voice. He loves it to like the exponent 69, basically Like he loves to hear himself talk and be the center of attention. So in fact, I'm pretty sure next week's episode will be with Kanish. We got an idea brewing that we'll see if it's the last one with. 

01:59 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Kanish was a big hit. Kanish is an electric factor. Yeah, I will always watch Kanish on hit. Yeah, kanish is an electric factor. Yeah, there's he. I will always watch Kanish on here. 

02:07 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yes, um, speaking of electric, for those that don't know, this is obviously Thursday when it comes out. We record this earlier in the week. The final round of the PGA championship. Excuse me, the U S open was electric. 

02:21 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
It was, it was. I'm not even much of a golf guy, but I had to tune in. Yeah, so did I. 

02:27 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I had the best sweat of life. By the way, I don't want this to be like the biggest, like pat yourself on the back moment because I made a horrible bet, by the way. 

02:34
So I bet Bryson to win the US Open at minus 122 on pinnacle going into the final round. Okay, I thought I'm like three stroke lead. He's dialed in. He's playing Like. This is like a pure amateur hour, casual fan bet where it's just like of course he's gonna play really hard. There's no way someone's gonna go really low and he's not gonna blow up. That was the logic. I actually saw Rufus post his numbers on Twitter and he made Bryson minus 123 to win. So I bet him at minus 122. 

03:06
Yeah, not the type of edge you would hope to have not bad for for just throwing it out there though oh yeah, but like the ups and downs of the final round were amazing, but ultimately, like the, the whole Rory blowing up thing, it's it actually pains me a. I don't know why I have such an affinity for Rory. I don't know if anyone can explain it, but a guy hasn't won a major in 10 years and it was just like really painful. 

03:33 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I don't think it was particularly Rory for me, but it makes me sick. Watching a golfer choke yeah, Unlike any other sport, I guess because you're just all alone out there watching a guy miss three foot putts to lose a big tournament. Just I can't even stomach it. 

03:49 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It makes me ill well, see, to me it's, it's, it's the likability of of Rory, because when Jordan Spieth blew the masters against Danny Willett where, like I, was in heaven that day that was the. I hate Jordan Spieth, by the way. 

04:04 - Zack Phillips (Other)
The only reason I tell. 

04:06 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, first of all, I hated Jordan Spieth at the time because I was betting golf, not seriously, casually and he was just winning a bunch of tournaments and I was never betting, he was putting like crazy as well. 

04:18 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah, exactly, it was just absurd performances. 

04:20 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So when he choked, that that was amazing for me. I'm like this guy, like he was hitting shots, like he looked like an amateur, like there's so much pressure on him on the back, nine and a he was chunking balls into like the river, the street, like it was crazy. It was crazy, but uh, it is kind of I. I, you know, I think I've talked about this on the show before. Maybe not, Maybe it's been behind the scenes. I love Bryson because, bryson, to me, if you're going to pick one athlete that I think you can insert into sports betting and they would become like a winner very quickly, it would be Bryson. I totally agree with that he's looking for edges everywhere and people. 

05:01
That turns a lot of people off because they're like, oh, it's not in the spirit of the game and oh look, another set of clubs like all of the stuff's within the rules 100%. 

05:09 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
And he's just finding edges. He puts his balls in salt baths. 

05:13 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I saw that this week Epsom salts just because of like there could be imperfection on the inside, like back in the day. I'll never forget when his Back in the day, I'll never forget when his he would always try to mimic the conditions of the course on the driving range. So he would have his caddy like spritzing balls in the morning before he would hit them to mimic the dew that was on the course Like that's next level. And I don't know if it matters, but to him it matters. But I've always rooted for him, even when people like turned turn you know, thought he was the bad guy, because I guess he's very competitive and can come across as an asshole at times yeah, for sure, he's got a youtube channel. 

05:55 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
He definitely like okay, he's a bit of a cocky guy. But I also kind of hate the like. I don't like athlete x because they're cocky. Like to become a really good athlete. You're probably going to be pretty arrogant and you're also making hundreds of millions of dollars, you're probably going to be a bit arrogant. So I don't love that as like a reason to not like a guy. 

06:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's actually funny because in some like behind me, I think I have the Kobe Bryant dish in the shack behind me here, like Kobe was a very cocky, arrogant player. Dish into Shaq beat behind me here like Kobe was a very cocky, arrogant player and actually people loved him for that. 

06:28 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
that was like the mamba mentality right, it really depends on the guy it really does like Jordan as well. Is there anyone more arrogant than Michael Jordan? But like people, love him for it right um. 

06:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
What's depressing about the win, though, is that I've been trying to get Bryson on this show for a long time now, and I thought I was getting closer, and I think it's just done at this point. 

06:48 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
The. 

06:48 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
US Open win. But he's already won one, I know, but it's been a long time and like people didn't really view him as because he went to live, took the $100 million or whatever, and maybe that's another reason like people hate him even more on top of it. But yeah, I think that dream might officially be dead at this point, which is sad Because I think there's a lot of parallels between what he's done with golf. If just a casual sports bettor listened to how he came up with edges in that game, it probably learned a lot. That applies to sports betting. 

07:19 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
He edge stacks. That's all he does. Little 1%, 2% things that just all make you better, agreed. 

07:26 - Zack Phillips (Other)
I don't think he's as hated anymore, though no, he's not. I think that perception has really changed. 

07:30 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
The YouTube channel turned it around so. But you know not that I need to promote Bryson's YouTube channel cause he's got like millions of subs or whatever, but I watch Bryson's YouTube channel religiously. That's the kind of stuff I'm into lifestyle golf content. I think it's like again people who think that this is a guy that's like oh, it's just like all these uh, he's doing all these quirky things or whatever. I mean he's doing YouTube videos where he's playing other YouTube golfers and professional golfers using like thrift store clubs and like junior sets. I watched him play with a hickory set like the driver. The driver head is basically the size of the ball and he still pures everything. He's hitting shots blindfolded on like he's absurdly talented. 

08:10 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
He's unbelievable. 

08:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Absurdly good. But yeah, that was an interesting tournament. We did see Rufus post that he bet Bryson not to win the tournament for a very large amount of money this week. 

08:25 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Definitely a big amount of money, for sure. 

08:28 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
This is Rufus's, I guess, Steve Fezzik-Purdue moment. 

08:33 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Well, he didn't post it before, so he really voluntarily dunked on himself, which I think is a better luck than Fezz posting it so people can take it and then losing. But yeah, I think it's interesting. I think the betting community is very split on posting something like this. 

08:52 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah. 

08:53 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Okay. So where do you stand? I like it a lot. Okay, I get the perspective of like, oh, he's just posting this to show that he loses big, because obviously if you lose big you win big. And maybe and maybe he mentions you know, I think he just absolutely crushed on sander like two weeks ago. But I think in the betting community, even among people who are pretty close to each other and know each other well, the idea of earn what people are betting that stuff is very mysterious. So anyone kind of willing to go out there and post you know, I lost X amount of dollars is something I appreciate. 

09:28 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm kind of mixed on it. We live in a society nowadays where you're basically like one extreme or another. I find myself in the middle on a lot of issues where, like, I just kind of see both points. I get it. I think it's actually a good learning point, especially the thought of taking a minus EV bet in order to minimize your damage and basically maximize your bankroll growth in the long term. 

09:58
Most people don't understand that or will never understand that concept. I don't necessarily think this is going to change and honestly, I would advise most people to just like not make hedge bets generally speaking. But I get it from like a learning. I do think that there, you know, a lot of people will say, oh, rufus just posts this stuff to, like, you know, show how much he's betting and his success, and I think that there's some validity to that and Rufus is a friend of mine and I'm just pure speculation. But I also do think that there is actually an educational component to everything he does as well, and it actually can be both of those things, for sure, for sure. 

10:37 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I, when I was younger and dumber, did not understand this concept of all of maximizing bankroll growth even though it's a negative ev bet. Um, I got dunked on by one of the uh uh seville guys. 

10:51 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Seville guys, which one? Uh, frank fajolas or whatever oh, yeah, I I I talked to that guy every now and then I'm trying to get him on the. 

10:59 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I'm trying to get him on the program can be a bit of a dick, but he's smart. He's smart guy, no doubt about it. I think that that's a pretty good description for a bunch of those people. Guys, I think for joel is the can of beans exactly. You know, it's always a rough day when you're getting dunked on by a can of beans. Yeah, um, no, but he's really smart and and he taught me that lesson um very publicly and embarrassingly, but no, it's absolutely a teaching moment. 

11:21
I would say even you know rec plus bettors, the idea of a negative ev bet building your bankroll is something probably they don't get or don't think about. I will say I don't think it's that relevant. The amount of times I've thought about it is maybe once on a bet I have. Yeah, once or twice um, but yeah, it's definitely an interesting thought experiment and I've actually seen people disagree. 

11:45
I've seen people talk about him showing bryson minus 123 and being like what are the actual odds? That he shows value on bryson right now and is right about that right, which I thought was a fair point. And also, you know, is it worth spending time thinking about this potential hedge versus? You could be out there betting on other stuff, which I think is fair, but I also think it's as, as I went through my worst stretch of betting uh, november to december, it is hard to, you know, be a robot. Everyone's a person. He talks about the emotional hedge Like it is the worst thing in the world when you're running bad and you think you're doing things right and things are just not going your way. 

12:32 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yep, totally agree. We're going to talk about your worst possible stretch here shortly. So this week's episode we're going to kind of do a year in review, not, like you know, team by team, but Kirk is predominantly an NBA better, that's fair to say. 

12:48 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Basketball, but yeah, I would say NBA Okay. 

12:51 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm predominantly an NHL better. The seasons as we're recording this are not done yet, but very close to being finished. 

12:59 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Hopefully the NBA is done when people are watching this. For your sake, yes. 

13:03 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I know you've been preaching the Celtics for a while now. 

13:05 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
If the Celtics go on and blow this series, I might need to delete my Twitter. 

13:10 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, hashtag, delete your account. Yeah, it might actually have to happen. So we're going to do that over the course of this episode. Before we do, though, I do want to remind you all if you're betting over the course of the summer, we got Euro going on Copa America starting tonight, as of the release of this episode, big match Argentina-Canada leading off the Copa America let's go. 

13:32
If you're looking to bet some soccer or anything for that matter, make sure you do check out Pinnacle Sportsbook. I do practice what I preach. I bet at Pinnacle. I've bet there for a long time. If you're price sensitive, which you have to be to make money in the long term in sports betting, I'd highly recommend you check out Pinnacle. I did bet Bryson Final round minus 122 there, crossed the board. Everywhere else, Minus 130, minus 135. Got myself a good price. So check out Pinnacle. If you are in Canada, use code HAMMER if you want to sign up. It does support us here on Circles Off. On circles off, you must be 19 plus, not available in the US and, as always, please play responsibly. All right, let's get things started. I wanted to go through season highlights and low points as well, for sure. So November to December rough stretch for you. 

14:22 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah, it was definitely the worst stretch I've ever had. I would say every year of my gambling life we've had one instance where we get punched in the gut and it's like, wow, what is going on? One of the years, I would say, was when, like the crypto crash happened and I was just holding a bag of crypto, kind of incidentally, but twice was just losing bets at like just an incredibly high rate. It's always tough because you start looking at your process. I'm a big closing line value guy. I'll always tweet about it. Whatever we're closing on everything Big market, nba sides and totals, everything's kind of going as expected. But then we were losing everything and it honestly felt like we'd bet over 210, would close 212 and a half, maybe three minutes into the game, live totals 199 and a half. 

15:13
It was one of those runs, um, and every time you go through it you get a bit stronger right and you start to learn how to deal with it. Um, I don't think we're doing anything wrong or over betting. I think all our positions were strong. But you know, variance is a crazy thing. I always talk about how, um, people kind of look at regression to the mean yeah, in the wrong way. They kind of think okay, well, you went down, so you're going to regress back up over that mean, which obviously isn't regression to the mean, it's just more you're going to regress to that mean over time. But I will say, luckily enough for us and maybe this is me being like Rufus we did regress very hard the other way. 

15:49 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Nice ended up being our best NBA season, but, yeah, that that month I, I'll be honest, I'd be questioning everything, no doubt yeah, so when we had Telemachus on and someone else following Telemachus can't remember who they had talked about using secondary metrics to determine. So, like when you're going through a rut like that, you're reliant on closing line value, which is great or whatever. But there's some situations where I don't know, maybe the market is overvaluing something in a short period of time, or the edge is really eroding and you can be quicker to pick up on that by having like are you using secondary metrics when you're evaluating your performance as a better? 

16:29 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
For sure. So props, which is a big thing, we do 100% because generally the secondary metric for a prop is the more accurate one. So you know, if you're taking a player over points, rebounds, assists you probably are showing either a usage bump or minutes bump. Yep, so that's kind of an easy one. Okay, if you're projecting 35 minutes, you think the market's at 32. You know, if the guy plays 32 but goes over PRA, it was probably a bad bet. Yep, maybe, not probably. But if he plays 28, it was probably a bad bet, assuming no foul trouble. So for sure there. And yeah, we have our own expected scores for every game. Okay, so we'll definitely reflect on that. But for size and totals, especially in the NBA WNBA may be a bit of a different story, but especially in the NBA I'll rely on closing much more than anything else. 

17:24 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
How much are you doing in the props markets? 

17:27 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I would say it's probably like 20% of our action in the NBA and a decent amount for W as well. Shout out Caitlin Clark. She's definitely made it a bit of a bigger market, so has definitely helped us yeah. 

17:41 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Now I have to bring this up just because, like in fairness, I do the last time we had you. I had you on here uh, we asked you to throw out some some pre-season bold predict. We said bold predictions, so so I will preface this by saying, like you know, kirk was not here giving out, you know, minus 1000s or anything like that, uh, but we got uh, k Kirk's three bold predictions from the last episode uh, raptors, over 45 wins not great. Walker Kessler wins. 

18:11 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Defensive player of the year that one honestly went about as bad as as could have possibly went and then uh, cavs best record in the east which that one I'll I can live with. 

18:22
So I'll talk through all three of these bets. Cavs' best record that's a bet I'd probably make again. They won, I think, 49 games and were up there of the most injured teams in the league and they were a pretty high upside team in terms of Mobley obviously had a chance to be a better player. They're one of the younger cores of the good teams in the league as well. So that one I'll call a normal bold prediction gone wrong. Yep. The other two I gotta eat some crow walker. 

18:50
Kessler had one of the best uh defensive rookie seasons I've ever seen and he just he was just terrible this year. The funny thing is his defensive metrics are still really, really good, but he completely lost the trust of his coach. He didn't play, he was coming off the bench most of the year, so that was a terrible bet. And then the Raptors that was maybe me zigging while everyone was trying to zag and me trying to be a big Galaxy brain. They were just pretty good two years ago, like the year before this one, but yeah, that was just terrible. They traded everyone Again. I was again. I mentioned this pre-show. I was on them the first month of the season, pretty much every game and I think it might have contributed to your bad november exactly. 

19:32
I think if you look back, most of those bets were closing and they were getting they. They won like 25 games. They were. They were nearly the worst team in the league. They put on a tanking performance as well, which was awesome, and I maybe made a little bit of. The Raptors lost money, but it's tough Toronto team just doing me dirty like that. 

19:50 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It happens. I mean, the Toronto team's been doing me dirty for a long time. So yeah, that preseason future. I fire on the Leafs every single year. 

20:01
One day one day, let's hope Out of curiosity. So a big difference for me in hockey this year. I often preach the importance of record keeping and just tracking your bets so you can notice patterns over time. I have a very poor track record early on in the season in NHL betting Usually I would say roughly the first 15 games for each team. It's been, it had been four seasons in a row where we were consistently digging out of a hole. So my takeaway from that was probably we do a bad job of evaluating how new players will fit into players will fit into a new environment. So free agency trades, all that in the off season, but once we get full data, like 15 games worth for those players with that team, we're lights out. We can do a really good job. 

20:52
For the first time ever this year me and my partner said we're not. We're actually not gonna. We say it every year, we're not gonna bet early on in the season. We didn't. It made a massive difference because now we're not digging out of a negative in late November, early December and it was honestly a solid year. Volume is lower in the major markets than it used to be, but that was really nice this year. I wonder if you notice any stuff like that with the NBA. I mean, this happens to me in the NFL as well. Actually, interestingly enough, most people think like, well, you'd have more success early season NFL because the market isn't as efficient. Yet Once you start to build up six, seven, eight games of data for all the well, everybody's got that and you know the lines are tighter. I've personally not found that so um, but I'm curious in NBA if you see any of the similarities in like offseason stuff. 

21:49 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I wouldn't say so similar in terms of I find we struggle really early in the year. But I do think the NBA has like different pockets of the year of of different kind of characteristics, like the early start of the year generally offense is a bit down, generally pace is a bit high. From a betting perspective, I think those really early lines can be soft and then, like the first game, first two games, then I would say I get a lot more confidence in our numbers, kind of like you said, past 10 to 15 games. But then you definitely get to points in the year where you know not much is changing, the market starts to understand these teams and there's a bit more of a lull of you're still getting action, the action's still good, but it definitely decreases. 

22:35
Then there are things like the trade deadline obviously injuries are happening throughout the all-star break and then kind of the end of the season tanking which it completely shifts the market. Then you're the end of the season tanking, which it completely shifts the market. Then the end of season tanking is you're betting. That's more like the beginning of the season than the beginning of the season is, because you're pricing out. You know the Memphis Grizzlies were playing a full G League roster by the end of the year and five of the 30 teams in the league you have to price okay, how badly do they want to lose? So that's more of an even start of the year market than even the start of the year. But I wouldn't say I find that any of my results are consistently like oh, we're losing the first 10 games. But I definitely look at the NBA schedule as different pockets and different kind of seasons within the season. 

23:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah. So for me, just in evaluating past performance, it's a lot of similar trends which is early year, late year, not good Post-trade deadline, something similar for us, where we you know we struggle to price games or you know we're like break even, slight loss, post-trade deadline usually and again that's players that are going to other teams, oftentimes playing like a completely different system, playing with different line mates. I think that's really challenging. That's something that I'm going to kind of look into in the off season because I don't want to just throw away a quarter of the season and say like I'm not betting this, but right now it seems to be the most logical. Overall, the accuracy of your preseason expectations versus where we're at right now how would you? How would you grade yourself? 

24:07 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
um, I would say this year futures probably weren't as strong as two years ago. I had some big misses. I was really low on OKC. They finished with the best record in the west. Um, I think the big predictions I got pretty right. Like I was very big on Jokic MVP. That one was one I was kind of touting pretty often um, celtics hopefully win the championship. That was also one I started adding pretty early in the season and just kept adding. They were also another team that I felt like I was on pretty much every game, yeah, um. But yeah, I actually felt like the market was pretty good. Like there were some big pre-season moves of, you know, the Pacers team. People really liked that. Pacers over. People really liked okc. I thought that people were maybe jumping the gun a bit on these young teams, but market got it pretty right. So I would say, uh, over under wins was not a great market for me this year, as opposed to two years ago where we crashed yeah, pretty similar for me. 

25:03 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I played 17 NHL point totals and went nine, and eight basically broke even because of the VIG on the losses, and to get that ninth win, the Arizona Coyotes, I believe, won their last four or five games of the year, but I had a sweat on their final game of the year for them to go over their point total. A piece of betting education which I need to remind myself. On a yearly basis as well. You project all these teams out at the beginning of the year. Nba wins in NHL it would be points and typically all the worst teams in the league you're going to find that you have an edge on the over and all the best teams in the league you're going to find that you have an edge on the under. Well, that's the case if those rosters were going to stay intact for the entirety of the season. 

25:53
But you get teams like the anaheim ducks who start hot and then they fall off and they're like yeah, you know what? Like this is not our season. We're playing young guys. You really have to take into account the likelihood that teams that are that don't have high expectations going into the year. I don't want to say that they're going to tank. I don't think that's the right word, but they're going to see what they have from their younger core. They're going to trade away players. That doesn't make sense for their roster right now. So I messed up on a lot of these and I convinced myself. I'm like well, you know what Worst case scenario, this and this and this will happen. And maybe this is like a break-even bet instead of and I played those anyways, but those were basically the big losers for me. I played over on a bunch of teams like the Chicago Blackhawks, anaheim Ducks. I played some unders on some of the top teams that I think ended up losing really close to the end of the season. 

26:51 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Just anyways, lesson learned I was on the Wizards over, yeah, and it was like 21 and a half games, something like that. So I agree, I agree. Also, jordan Poole is. He was kind of good in Golden State for a few years and was probably the worst player in the league this year from just like a pure destructive standpoint. But yeah, I agree, I think it's hard to remember. You say you don't like using the word tanking. I think that's fair. In the NHL they kind of have respect for the sport. They love it. Basketball teams are not like that at all. Basketball teams will absolutely try losing undeniably like. That's not the players. The players are trying out there. But if you're putting, you know you're a bench player from the g league. He can try as hard as he wants. 

27:36 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Of course they're not going to win yeah, so the the disparity between the top players, or even like a role player and someone who's coming from you know, the g League or whatever, is going to be much larger than in the NHL where, you know, basically all the third liners across the league are like the same. I don't want to say the same, but like there's just not much of a tangible difference between each. You take a couple third liners out, a couple second liners and you promote some fourth liners. It's not having a massive impact. Yeah, it's not having a massive impact. Yeah, not having a massive impact In terms of trends and patterns for the league. 

28:06
So the one that comes to mind for baseball as just like another example I've talked about this on the program before, but everyone's always looking at, like that first month of the season of are they using a different ball? Is the ball juiced? Is it dead? And I have known betting groups who, based off of maybe like the first three days of the season data, will just go ham, like the ball is different. This year we're betting over on every single game and they will do that for weeks on end. Do you see any sort of trends or patterns similar to that in NBA? 

28:44 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Oh, absolutely so this year in the NBA. I'll remember this year as kind of like a trends year or I don't even know kind of exactly how to describe it, but I like to think of this year as the NBA media contract year. So after the all-star break, teams come back and we're picking up in the data. They're no one's scoring anymore. Okay, scoring's down a ludicrous percentage and we pick it up. You can. You see that sometimes in other leagues you know we're doing the wnba right now there was just a pretty low scoring trend but we couldn't really say like, okay, why is? It was like three point percentage down, two point percentage down, a little bit stuff's down. But in the nba fouls were down a huge amount, like it was very clearly fouls our way down and also fouls trickle through right. So if less fouls are getting called, two point percentage is going to be down because you can be more physical and instead of free throws, which counts as zero field goals attempt, that's probably going to be a miss on what was a foul. So we see a massive decrease. We have no idea why. Yep, um, I started messaging people like are you seeing similar things? Like what's going on? Like games are going under by huge amounts, we pick it up, but again we didn't really have any reason why. Um, and then, you know, four or five days later, articles start coming out like scoring's way down, scoring's way down. And now we're really factoring it into our betting a lot. I I gotta be honest if I had obviously a lot of hindsight bias, but I wish I was round robinning these unders like that's a gambling opportunity. That'll stick with me for a little bit, because because we were on it and you know you know I talk about CLV. Clv couldn't have been less relevant for this week in the season. Scoring was way down. It didn't even matter what these numbers were closing at. 

30:35
Now that you obviously look back and then two months later, adam Silver comes out and says, yeah, we told the refs to stop calling as many fouls. I remember that which was a very underreported story in my opinion. Like I don't really think that's particularly fair to the teams. I know people say, oh, okay, well, fouls are being called evenly throughout. Yeah, but one. The team should be able to know about it. Like I know some people who work in the nba and I message them saying have you seen anything? And they're no, we haven't heard anything. Look, they could have been lying to me and maybe there was a memo sent out, but my understanding is that there was nothing sent to the league. 

31:11
I think point totals were really high. I don't know if you remember, but Joel went for like 72. Luca went for 70. Maybe Joel's wasn't 72. So players were scoring these absurd numbers. Scoring was ridiculously high and the fans started kind of complaining about it. And there was a media rights contract, which really is the most important thing that happened in the nba this year. Doesn't matter if the celtics win, doesn't matter if the mavs win, the nba signed a mega contract. Yep, um. So I think adam silver thought you know, I want to make sure that our media guys don't come to us and say what the hell's happening with scoring? No one liked to see this. It looks like every game is the All-Star game, right? So, yeah, that was a huge trend and I think it's a really interesting question of you. Know where do you start that mean and median next year? Because fouls never came back up and maybe it is just a thing they want to change completely. But we'll see. 

32:05 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah. So first and foremost, on that one in particular obviously unfair to the teams, but the gambling implications of that you would think that the league would want to be more forthright with that information because if it happens months later and I'm surprised there wasn't more of a shitstorm from people who were like what the hell is this? Know, it's like insider trading or whatever and I agree, like I would figure nowadays, that the leagues would want to get ahead of anything, especially with that, because they're taking on dollars from betting companies for sure and and I don't even think like there's not really, you know, he came out later and said it. 

32:46 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
It was undeniable For two months fouls were down, whatever 15%, let's say. I don't remember the exact number, but I think it's somewhere around there. He came out and admitted two months later. I don't see why he couldn't have just said that we're doing that midseason, even though I do think there is some fairness of like. You shouldn't really be able to change how things are being called mid-season. But yeah, that was. It was definitely a really interesting gambling question of okay, well, we know the scoring's down and we know why it's down in terms of fouls, but we don't necessarily know why fouls are down. 

33:17 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Right right. You mentioned that the round robinning like if I had known this, I should have been more aggressive. So there's always like learnings in sports period Over time in anything the more experience you have with something, the more key learnings that you're gonna gain from that. I'm at the point now where I've missed a lot of those opportunities in life where you identify something that's happening in a league quickly and should capitalize on it a lot more. One example in hockey would be when the NHL introduced the bye week, for each team had to take a week off. They were not practicing, it was like they just everyone had a week off. And we have very, very limited data previous to that on long rest situations. But typically long rest situations are not good for teams, counterintuitive to what a lot of people believe. A lot of people naturally think well, yeah, I know, they can get healthy, they can rest up, they get their legs back mid-season. This is not good to break a team up mid-season. I knew this or had a very good feeling that this was going to happen the first year that the league introduced bye weeks. Those teams I don't know the exact record, but it was a, it was a debacle like these teams were not winning the first game back at a very, very high rate, should have capitalized on that. 

34:40
So what did I do? This year? During March Madness, there's's the ball trend. Do you know what I'm talking about? I don't. Okay, they use a different ball during March Madness than they do during the regular season, and this is now public, so there's probably no edge there. But my thought process is worst case scenario I'm paying VIG on these bets. That's the worst case. I'm paying minus 110. I'm coin flipping. 

35:11 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I can get lucky, or whatever Best case scenario this is a big edge and I'm compounding these through parlay and in March Madness there was unders were hitting at a huge rate. The first like last few years, if I remember that right. 

35:18 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
There's lots of March Madness specific trends, especially the size of the stadium that they're playing in. There's all sorts of different things, small sample size things that you can look at, which may be something or may not be, but I went through every team's social media accounts to see which balls they were practicing with before March Madness Smart, to see if they were using the new ball or the old ball, and identified the teams that were playing with the new ball and I was taking their team totals over and the ones that weren't. I was taking their team totals under. 

35:54 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Would that make more sense to take them? 

35:56 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
side. We were doing that as well. 

35:58 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
We were doing a lot of stuff Because it's possible the new ball still was like kind of a negative, but less negative for them. 

36:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, new ball still was like kind of a negative, but less negative for them. Yeah, and like, listen, I, I will say the the market was betting this stuff. Sure, I I firmly believe that there was someone else had the same uh thought process, because games involving those like if you had two teams that were using, uh, practicing with that march madness ball, I'm telling you the game would bet over and opposite would bet under. Now I'm pretty sure, like I don't want to be that guy, that's like I think I broke, even though, like I don't know, off the top of my head, we didn't win a lot, we didn't lose a lot, it was right around break even. But I'm way more likely nowadays where, if I think that there's something there, I'm just gonna go because, again, worst case scenario, you're paying minus 110 and and, honestly, missing out on one of those like big time opportunities. 

36:56 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
It sticks with you. Of course. It's just a horrible feeling, yeah and and not even like the wins. When you hit on something like that don't feel anywhere close to as good as the potential wins that you could have had, even though obviously there's so much hindsight bias of when I look back. It was a hard time. No one I knew was kind of saying similar things. The market wasn't really reacting, but yeah, no, it's a tough thing to miss. Yep. 

37:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I mean, listen, that's my suggestion. A lot of people will be like, ah, it's only this happened in the NFL a few years ago. I want to say three years ago whether it was. I don't have the exact. It's all coming back to me now. 

37:39
I don't know if penalties offensive holding penalties were way up or way down, but it happened for the first two weeks of the season and it was a significant difference from what was called in previous, previous years. So I'm just like, yeah, maybe this, this is, this is probably something like. I have to think that maybe there was like a memo to the refs in the offseason of we want to get scoring up. I think they were calling less offensive holding penalties which was happening, and everyone's like, oh, the chiefs, you know the chiefs, nobody ever calls anything on the chiefs, they just pick that one team. But yeah, I was betting a bunch of vote and like that worked out well for me. Uh, foggy memory on those. But my suggestion too often in the past I dismiss things as small and, by the way, I still very much believe in sample size when you're evaluating data. But sometimes you can just apply like a logical hypothesis to the data you're seeing and be like this is well within the realm of possibility here that something's happening. 

38:40 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
For sure, and it's easy to get wrong as well. It's easy to see a small sample size and think you've got something big and totally whiff. So yeah, it's definitely case by case, but I would say there've been more times where I've held back and wish I loaded up versus the other way around. 

38:58 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I'm with you. Last time we were on, we talked about some metrics and like common pieces of analytics that are used in the NBA. Anything different like that's coming down the pipeline with NBA now, because you know and again I'm just gonna repeat myself from previous episodes, but it's easy to call back to baseball when, like, statcast came across and they were measuring new stuff, any new measurements happening that you're going to look at in the offseason. 

39:28 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Honestly, not really that I would pinpoint. I would say, like the main metrics I used prior to the season which we talked about last episode, you know, like EPM, darko, stuff like that I wouldn't say have changed drastically. I would say my understanding of them maybe has advanced a bit. Um, and you kind of try figuring out edge cases of, okay, there's a big disagreement between you know my priors and this model and you try understanding why. But nothing, not, not a specific new metric that I'm like oh yeah, everyone was using this that I don't really remember people talking about prior. 

40:06 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, hockey is gonna be very different because there's gonna be player level tracking on like speeds and I honestly doubt that it's gonna make much of a difference. I mean, we have already a lot of data on like player outputs. Whether or not they're doing that because they're faster or slower, I don't know, but that'll be really interesting to see next year. I definitely noticed the broadcast this year leaned a lot more heavily into advanced metrics than previous. Zach, you probably noticed this, but like you know a lot of high danger chances you wouldn't you would never see this stuff expected goals on broadcast Like that never happened before. But the problem is there's still like a lot of flaws with that data and a lot of that is with the hockey market and this probably doesn't happen in the NBA. But you have a company called SportLogic that produces its own expected goals data that they sell privately to teams. 

41:02 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Yeah. 

41:03 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's very different from the public models that are tracked and a lot of the broadcasts have access to this data as well. There's a TSN in Canada will weekly post the expected goals data not on a daily basis, but it's quite different for a lot of teams and I wonder how much of that is leaking into the market, because in seasons past there's been this like expected goals movement in hockey. It used to be okay. Corsi was the main metric shot attempts. Um, honestly, like if you, even if you didn't know how to model or anything and you were betting openers overnights, you could probably just sort by Corsi yeah, and the market's gonna move that way sure now it's it. 

41:54
You know, last couple years it was kind of the same thing for expected goals, especially like that. The early morning moves right before limits, right before circles came off at pinnacle, so like six to 9 am Eastern time, you'd get someone just. Okay, this team's got better expected goals in like their last 15 games or something. The markets would move towards that this year. Not really a strong correlation there and um, I picked up on some teams. 

42:26
I I really paid attention over the course of the year to the bigger differences between the sport logic expected goals and what evolving hockey, a natural stat trick and uh money puck were showing and uh, the teams that were um where there was a larger discrepancy, they actually were getting bet towards the sport logic numbers in market. So I'm not I'm not like uh, I'm not accusing sport logic of selling information, like I'm not saying that, but I think there's somewhere where it is getting um to certain sources and it sources and it's having an effect on the market. So I'm like I got to get my hands on this data man. They don't sell it publicly. I've inquired before many years ago but I believe they're just selling to teams right now. 

43:14 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Gotcha. Yeah, I remember I'm not much of a hockey guy now, but I've said on the show that I used to work for the Frontenac doing analytics for them and during that time I remember it used to piss me off so much when coaches would come out and and the media would ask them you know, the date on this player you know has been really weak. Like what are you thinking? Our internal data says something different. That was like the most tilting thing to me, because it's the easiest guys, you can say that about any player, about any metric, because well, we don't have that data so you can be lying, you could be telling the truth, who knows? 

43:49 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
but I remember that would always really grind my gears completely off topic, but I just because you mentioned it and it came to mind, I was at mit sloan maybe five years ago, sports analytics conference and there was a hockey panel discussion. One of the panelists was Dan Bilesma used to be a head coach in the NHL, and someone asked when you're on the bench and you're brought data or whatever, how do you react in real time? And he was just like well, we don't. It's like, in my opinion, it's like completely useless and I'm like who invited this guy? 

44:27 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
to the sports analytics conference. 

44:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Like everyone on this, I guess maybe to get the other perspective, which is interesting, but he was just like yeah, no, I don't. He's like what I'm seeing out there. Somebody presents me numbers that are different. 

44:45 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
He's like I just throw the numbers in the garbage, fair, yeah, that's. That's tough to have a guy up there like that. But I will say, for a hockey coach specifically, it's probably pretty hard to it to, you know, be able to digest numbers and implement them. Yeah, but they'll catch up eventually. Like other sports, they you see them looking at numbers all the time. I think most NBA teams have like some analytics liaison on the bench. So yeah, but that's funny. 

45:05 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think the big thing now is that the players can just like watch their video on the bench right, like they just get to the bench, they get given an iPad Like here's your pre and like it's sort of a form of analytics, but it's like they can just see their movement and where they had opportunities and that's enough for now. For sure, I would never be going and handing like a player here's a chart of your numbers Like you have a 58.7% expected goal percentage when you start in your own zone. You got like that's not gonna be helpful whatsoever he talked about earlier. Actually, before we do that, if you enjoyed the conversation so far, smash that like button down below. Hit that subscribe button Every single week. I do check the numbers. 

45:47
Over 50% of the people that watch these videos on a weekly basis are not subscribed. Just hit that subscribe button Goes a long way in helping us grow our channel. We get to 10k. We got a lot of swag incoming. So we're around 7,300 subs right now. Let's get us to 10K. We'll get some swag out there for the community Betting market. Efficiency is what I want to talk about. You're a firm believer in the efficiency of the NBA market. 

46:14 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
For sure I'm a big believer in the efficiency of most markets. I think, out of the people I talk betting with, I have more of a belief in closing line than pretty much everyone. Yeah, I would say, based off of your tweets. 

46:32 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I would agree. Yeah, you would probably be 1A and Spanky would be 1B. 

46:38 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah Well, spanky, you have to be to be a top down better right, we can give Spanky 1A. Yeah, yeah Well, spanky, you have to be to be a top-down better right, we can give Spanky 1A. Yeah, I think that's. He deserves that spot. 

46:45 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, if your bread and butter is top-down? 

46:48 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
slash, but also is Spanky a top-down better. 

46:52 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I don't want to speak on his behalf. I actually don't know what he does anymore from a betting perspective. 

46:57 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Fair, I would say I think theoretically top down, but not really the top down that you know. You see, on Twitter from like you know, fraley, yes, I think they operate a little differently, got it? 

47:11 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I know what you're getting at NHL. I believe that the major markets sides and totals are fairly efficient as well. I do notice a little bit more competition in market now and especially maybe the hour before game time you typically wouldn't see like a line move and then get hit back, which has been happening a little bit this year where I would push back, and this is a different market by the way altogether. And this is a different market by the way altogether. But I think the NHL props market might be the most exploitable market going right now. And at first I didn't think so because I don't do a lot of prop betting myself. My prop betting is top down for the most part, except for NFL. 

48:00
If I'm betting top down NBA, I can bet a hundred edges a day, more if I'm on top of it, like there is just so many in, like book to book, there are so many inefficiencies and like off market prices, you can make a killing doing that as provided you can continue to replenish accounts. Sure, the nhl pricing from book to book is basically the exact same. Like across there's there's so few edges to be had top down and even though the the very obvious edges which, frankly I will say that at times I completely obliterate. The market barely moves and barely moves for the next game. It's not so. And listen, people are always like oh Rob, he never gives away edges and whatever. And the reality is I don't love to give away like stuff that's active, okay, but this is one thing. That in any other sport, mlb players out of the lineup, big, big name players out of the lineup, major market moves side and total of the game moves and then the props start to move on that game NBA Cause I do bet NBA props Now the same thing happens. 

49:20 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
They come off pretty much right away if it's a reasonably good shot. 

49:23 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Agreed. Nhl major player is injured. The major market moves side total. Now, granted, an NHL player again is not worth the same amount, like a first liner on a team could be worth less than 1% if they're out, depending on the team. So you might not get like this significant move. The props just stay the same. 

49:49
Like you got a guy, you got a guy that's going from third line to first line, first line minutes playing power play, one that you got a power play goals markets, points markets, shots on goal markets and they, they just stay there for hours and you can bet them and okay, they'll move a little bit Next game. They just reopen at the same shit price, even if, like, it's really the weirdest thing and I know that there's a company out there I wanna say it's Swish Analytics that produces, I believe, the data that the sports books price the NHL market with and it's pretty savvy. Like, don't get me wrong, if it was a game where you know there was not a lot of moving parts or not a lot of changes, they would price everything fairly accurately. But you get these changes in the NHL and it's like the only market where it just it's fun. 

50:41
Like I can sleep till 11 and like, if I want, I can never do this before um, I can never do this with other um markets. So my whole thing is, if you want, if people ask all the time, like if I wanted to bet one thing and get good at one thing or whatever, I would just say, like, honestly, start with nhl props. There's just so much top down bettors are like NHL is no edge. I'm like you're insane. 

51:03 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
You're nuts. 

51:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Like they don't react. How it's just no reaction to a bunch of this stuff. 

51:09 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah, I wish that was true in the NBA. Honestly, nba props, I would say has become a super competitive market. Well, like ETR, they're pretty big. They'll blast props and see massive movement. There are definitely books that are much slower, like, like you said, if you're doing top down, you can see like a couple main books move and the other ones tend to follow. But there are a lot of smart guys who have twitter accounts now who you know are are waiting till open and props open and they're competitive and they'll go. 

51:45
I think there's still pretty big edges in the NBA prop markets for sure, but no that I would say the sides and totals and prop market all took a pretty big step to efficiency this NBA season. No doubt that openers were opening sharper. I don't know if I would say prop openers were opening sharper, but I would say people were coming in earlier for sure. Like I would say, two years ago I would be scrolling through, kind of like you said, waking up at 11, looking through whatever. Now I would say I have more of a question mark if I'm blasting a prop, you know, two hours before game time, because there are a lot of smart people in the market who chose not to bet that line. 

52:24 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, yeah, I it's. It's very. Nba and NHL are very different, um, but I I've noticed the same things. If you have with NBA in regards to NHL, anyone who says like, well, what, rob, why would you be sharing this? I'll tell you honestly cause I actually still think the edge will exist for a long time, because I think the solution for most sports books right now in regards to a problem like the NHL is a smaller market. Let's call it out for what it is right. Some US sports books will do bigger handle on NASCAR than they will on NHL, like it's not a big market. 

52:54
The solution here is not gonna be to find a more accurate data set to price these props. It's just gonna be to limit bettors is the reality of the situation. So you can still find good stuff and I would suspect that this will be something unless the NHL blows up in popularity across North America. I do think it will exist. However, you do take the downside of it, which is, if you're betting NHL props pretty frequently, you're probably gonna see the account limits slashed. Bet at pinnacle. 

53:22 - Zack Phillips (Other)
You won't. I obliterated an account on one single bet. It was Noah. Greger was playing on the fourth line on the Leafs. They announced that Matthew Nyes was out six, so Greger was going to play on the first line. He was listed plus 950 anytime goal scorer on the one book I'm like he was going to play on. No, he didn't. The Leafs won 7-1. He didn't score. I hammered this thing, lost the account, lost the bet, lost the house. That hurts. 

53:49 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Losing an account off a loss still hurts, bad yeah. 

53:52 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Line shuffling in NHL is the best thing that can happen to you as a better, because, again, this is just all priced off of previous games. Like you, you plot someone's anytime goal scorer price in the any any time point or whatever. It's just pretty flat for most of the year, unless you see a huge spike in performance and then it'll be adjusted um. 

54:13 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
These line shufflings are the are the dream yeah, and I was gonna say for for the NHL. It's a lot of manual labor to follow all 30 teams' lines and you know there's underdog NHL or whatever. I think that exists right. I don't know if that exists. 

54:31 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'll tell you right now, not to make myself seem like a big shot or anything, but we pay people to handle the news for us, for NHL. 

54:40 - Zack Phillips (Other)
It does make you sound like a big shot. Well, but it's a competitive advantage right. For sure. 

54:45 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So there's not a lot of great NHL news sources. So if you have one or two people that are constantly monitoring and they know the right places to get, like some teams they don't even send a beat writer onto the road games. So by just knowing someone who can get access to the lines that they're skating in pregame, it could be a pretty big edge, especially on prop, if you see a guy that's been elevated to another line. 

55:09 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Absolutely. But yeah, what I'm saying is it's just not worth it for a book to pay someone to figure that out. They'll let you bet it the limits are pretty small and they'll kick you off Sure. 

55:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
And there's still a million people out there that are going to bet, thinking they have an edge, when they have no clue either. So it's not like it's the end of the world anyways. No, I'm going to print money regardless for sure, one way or another. Um, any in play betting stuff that you've been doing. 

55:34 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Uh, so I'm not a big in play better, but definitely the in-season tournament was an interesting one. So there was a point differential. What was the factor and it was kind of the classic playbook of this is something that is going to have some sort of edge, new rules into the market. The games are. They're just regular season games so they're not being priced differently. But yeah, point differential was important. There were probably two games where it ended up mattering, but the Celtics one was for sure the most interesting one. They needed to win by like 30 to make it into the tournament. It was interesting because Missoula who now there's been more light on how strange of a guy he is but he said like we don't care at all, we're not going to go for it. I'm paraphrasing, I don't know if that's exactly what he said. He, they play the starters up 50 right and they they absolutely destroyed that game. So that was an interesting live betting thing for sure, but I'm mostly not so much of a live better. 

56:35 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I'm kind of in the same boat as you. There still is, I mean, the same edge still exists in live betting hockey. That's existed since the beginning of the time which, which is related to the goalie poll, sure, um, which I like I don't want to, I don't. I know other people that are betting this like pretty heavily, heavily. It's very labor intensive. You're obviously watching every single game that's going on every single night. There's not a. Some books take, take the prices off the board, some. So I you know, but that should be enough for anyone out there to basically understand what I'm talking about. 

57:06
I've been really interested. Johnny actually got me going on like a little side project. You probably remember this, zach, like three months ago. He's like dude, when these good teams go down, like just like they're going to win the game, they are like you got the Colorado Avalanche down like three nothing to Anna, like just bet them, like it's a great bet, like that bet is going to be plus EV at some point or another in the game, no matter what, and there's a very high likelihood that they're going to win the game. So this is an off season project for me that I'm going to be, uh, looking into. 

57:42 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Sorry, johnny, for exposing that now I gotta be doing this anyways. By the way, I gotta be honest that I've I've heard people have told that to me and I do not think that's true I honestly I get. I get told that about the nba all the time. Good team goes down 15, just bet them they're gonna win. Yeah, I don, yeah, I don't know, we'll see. I'm interested. I guess we won't hear about it if there is a big edge on it. 

58:05 - Zack Phillips (Other)
But well, I think he said it on the show by the way. 

58:08 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think you I think we did cover it on the show as well Um, I kind of pushed back a little bit on it as well. I. I just generally think that the algorithms are pretty decent at pricing these things unless there's a material change in game. Agreed Right, like it's one thing if, like, okay, one of the starting goalies just took a shot off the neck and he's left the game, and now we're like, okay, you have now an edge For sure, because that's not immediately priced into that model. I can't say for sure, like, how quickly the algorithms would pick up. Usually I guess a trader would just take the game off, is what I guess what would happen. But these, I gotta feel like they're pretty accurately priced. 

58:47
The challenging thing for me is that so the first couple of weeks after he mentioned that, I'm like you know what, subjectively, okay, maybe there's something. But the problem is you then like you see a team go down to nothing and then you go and look at the price to bet them and you're like, okay, they might come back and win, but like this isn't even a good price. Yeah, it's like plus 150. Yeah, I'm like this is okay. Yeah, carolina's down to nothing in the first five minutes of the game to you know, whatever stinker team they're playing, playing okay, like they're still favored, like that's an extreme example, but it's like I don't want to bet it at this price. So you got to obviously account for the price of what's happening in the game as well no doubt. 

59:28 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah, when I'm thinking about live betting, typically I'm thinking about stuff that kind of like you're saying is materially different, or really test the bounds of what the model would be. 

59:38
So like you know, a team's up 50, a team's down 50. Yeah, you know, I remember a few years ago Derek Cole got hit for like eight runs in the first inning. I'm like all right, that probably tests the bounds of what a normal model would show, because he's literally the best pitcher in the league and he got absolutely pieced in the first inning. I don't even really remember what we did on it, but that's typically what I'm looking at, something that if the model has run on it it's a very limited amount of games. It probably has a lot of assumptions baked in and what the team's decision-making is going to be very unclear. You know, garrett Cole gets pieced up for eight runs in the first inning. A team could just decide you know what we're putting in our absolute worst pitchers and trying to go, or they could think you know what this is Garrett Cole, we're going to let him go for a bit and figure his stuff out. So that's really what I'm looking for if I'm betting a lot. 

01:00:27 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I actually love that you said that, because there's a real life example for me that I didn't bet because I didn't see the messages in real time. But a few years ago in a group chat of mine can't remember why I was just wasn't checking my phone regularly A couple hours later I'm checking it, I've missed like 150 messages. I'm like what's going on here? And one guy's just like we're getting to the point here. This is a blowout. This team has used their bullpen in the previous. You're going to get a position player pitching for this team at some point. They're just going gonna throw some guy out there like bet the over, bet the the run lines in this game. Um and uh, he was right. There was a position player that came in and he actually didn't fare all that bad, which is surprising. They usually bring in like a center fielder or shortstop or something just to lob balls over the plate and he only gave up like three or four runs, but it's still enough to have a tangible impact. 

01:01:22 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Probably two years ago. That was like I think they changed the rules for when a player could come in. I don't exactly remember what it was, but yeah, I think we even maybe built a bot to send us a message when games were like in a particular zone, we would sit there and just jam it and jam it and jam it when a position player was coming in or gonna come in. I'll say this one time. So I live right next to the rogers center, right here. Yep, jays were up. Sorry, I think jays were down 11, nothing. Yeah, it was like the seventh inning. I went online, I bought a ticket for 10 bucks, walked into the stadium, checked what was happening in the bullpen in the ninth inning because that's what happens no one, no one's really warming up in the bullpen. They're playing throwing in a position player. They threw in a pitcher. The Jays actually hated putting in position players that year. I just walked out of the stadium. I don't even think I saw a live pitch. 

01:02:13 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I used to do the same thing, by the way, I used to live right behind this building or across the street from this building and just go catch man. Those are the days I'm just like reminiscing on better days. Just go in in like the third or fourth inning, for like cheapest ticket imaginable. Walk around the stadium, love to do that. One thing that sucks, though nobody's going to know what the hell I'm talking about. I don't actually think it would have impact. How long have you been living in this area? One and a half years, okay. So worst thing for me was Jays used to hit a home run. This is the Josh Donaldson, jose Bautista, edwin Encarnacion era. And there was this the horn that used to go on. 

01:02:54
So I'd be in my living room watching TV and I'm watching the Jays game and I just, and like 10 seconds later I see the at bat and I couldn't watch baseball for my own play set. I would have to wear like noise canceling headphones to watch the game, literally piping in the audio. Yeah, that was tough. 

01:03:13 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah, that's tough. I honestly I'm right there, so I don't know if they still do that. 

01:03:17 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I sometimes can like see the lights. No, because they turn the lights off now, right, like they do some sort of light show. 

01:03:21 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah, exactly, I can see the lights reflecting every now and then, but I don't watch very many Jays games, so not a huge problem for me. 

01:03:26 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, they don't hit very many home runs either. 

01:03:28 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
That's true as well, but yeah, the traffic's the thing that really gets me. Yeah, that's tough, tough break. I remember those days. 

01:03:40 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I remember those days, future predictions and expectations. Anything you see as like that might affect your betting strategies going forwards for NBA. 

01:03:52 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah, so one thing. So we kind of mentioned the total points and fouls being down. But I think the other one for the NBA media contract that was relevant was players did not rest. This year rest was way down. They implemented the 65 games rule, where you don't qualify for award unless you play 65 games. I don't know if that was the reason or if they kind of had a bit of a discussion between the players like no, you guys need to play this year. Yeah, we need to prove to our media partners that we can get you guys to play. 

01:04:28
Yannis was injured in the playoffs. Kawaii, like kawaii, actually was playing 38 minutes a game. Yep, back-to-backs knee inflammation. Is there any injury? That's more, you know, this guy is hurt because they played him too much than knee inflammation. Joel, you can name a whole list of them. Tons of guys were hurt late in the year. 

01:04:52
So, yeah, that's kind of the thing I would say I'm mostly looking at is you know, is this a trend where players just kind of want to play? Now you know, the NBA released a thing that there's no proof that load management works. I've gone into some arguments with some guys about it. I think that's kind of propaganda. So, yeah, that's to me a big question. And then, yeah, probably going to be dealing with a bit of a sharper market year over year, but other than that, pretty standard. 

01:05:23
And then I the last one I'd say is we're clearly in an era of parody. In the nba, you know, there's really no super teams. As much as I love the celtics, they're not on the same level as, as you know, those warriors teams weren't. And now we're coming into, uh, the new cba, where the second apron of, like, if you get over x amount of dollars, is super punitive. So yeah, we're gonna be in a serious era of of parody, which I actually don't think people have quite caught it on to of. You know, man, it's kind of like the nhl teams can win who are, who are big plus. 

01:05:59 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think it's good for the sport honestly. Well, it's good for a casual fan. I agree. I just listen like respect to the Golden State Warriors, but I really hated those years for a while. New England Patriots like I'm not, I would rather see some parity. 

01:06:14 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah, I think there are pros and cons. I think the Warriors with Durant was clearly too much, like that team was just way too good. They were like the Cavs were a pretty historically good team and they lost in five to them, absolutely stomped them. But I think, like Warriors-Cavs when there was no Durant, like that series to me, like I'll remember that my whole life, like that was so unbelievable. But yeah, then you think back, the rest of the playoffs were absolutely terrible. So I think it's a bit of a push-pull but I agree. 

01:06:50 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think overall, for the health of the league, it's probably better. Last thing for me I just want to touch on which we've touched on on the show before. You probably are doing something similar, but bookmaker like innovations and changes, right. So we've seen the emergence of same game parlays in the last couple of years, which have a super high hold. Most of the public numbers that are out there are in the range of like 15 to 20% hold, so for someone who doesn't understand that, every dollar you bet on a same game parlay, you basically expect to lose 15 to 20 cents on that. The more you do, obviously, the more money you're going to lose. There are times, though, where they can be used heavily in your favor, like the Jonte Porter situation would have been an example maybe not the greatest situation. 

01:07:40
But what I mentioned in hockey, um, with the, the juggling of lines and stuff like that, has all these trickle down effects down a lineup which are all correlated and are all these minor edge, small edges, that can be compounded, um, and that has been very successful. The reason I mentioned that as well is that same game parlays are generally viewed as like I wanna call it a sucker bet. Like I don't think we're at risk. Maybe over time we might lose a lot of these secondary markets because of fixing you know again Jonte Porter's situation Like why would you be able to bet on a bench player under, on rebounds and stuff like that? We may lose that, but I do think that when you identify edges nowadays in nhl, I almost never would have thought of doing this before at any point, because this bet type well, this bet type never existed, but then, uh, now, just with the emergence of it, it's like it's a really easy way to to bet an edge and prolong the account in doing so no doubt. 

01:08:45 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah, well, I think parlays in general are really good for prolonging accounts. Typically, if I'm working with a new account, I'll pretty much be round robin or parlaying everything to start. I think starting an account with sgps is also really good. But I will say SGPs are a dangerous game Like that if you have, you know. Obviously it's easier to see if you're parlaying four games and they all get close, that's still pretty easy for a trader to know that that was a plus EV bet, which isn't true of an SGP. 

01:09:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But the beauty oh sorry, isn't true of an SGP, cool, I was gonna say the beauty in hockey is that the market barely moves. 

01:09:22 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah, no, I'm saying an SGP. For a trader to see an SGP with plus EV is really hard. Yes, but the reason for that is because pricing an SGP is very difficult. Yes, so you know I will bet SGPs this year. 

01:09:36
My biggest win ever and I got into a mega Twitter fight about it as well was Mikael Bridges, when he played the first 12 minutes. I've actually never sweat a bet like that in my entire life. I was refreshing, refreshing, refreshing. What was the full bet? For people that don't know? So, mikael Bridges and this is honestly something that can easily be talked about now, because Jacques Vaughn actually got, got fired and after this game happened, mikhail bridges was kind of pissed about it. So I think this one's a pretty retired edge, but mikhail bridges played every game in his, I believe, high school, college and nba career. 

01:10:13
Last year they rested their main guys, but mikhail bridges was active. Um, and mikhail bridges only played the first quarter and then sat the rest of the game. Okay, I actually did bet an sgp on that one as well, but it was one that stuck with me forever, of like I could have gotten unlimited down on that right and I didn't. But then this year, exact same thing. All the players rested Immediately. I knew I got to get on this right away. I start betting it. I start betting it. I start betting it. 

01:10:51 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
And then some Twitter account tweeted like oh I remember this. 

01:10:53 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
yes, and look, I'll be honest. My phrasing of what I said to the guy was way too mean. 

01:10:56 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, I agree, you can continue. Yes, so. 

01:11:00 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I alternated. I took all his alt-unders, parlayed them in an SGP. It was definitely my biggest win in my sports betting career. But, yeah, he tweeted it like literally 15 minutes after it happened and then I was on it very early, thankfully, but then you weren't able to do it anymore after that and, honestly, the reason I was tweeting about it so much and this is going to make me sound like an idiot, honestly, but I truly believe this is true If you are a guy who's you know you win betting, you lose betting, maybe you're a rec plus and you think you have a mega edge. Dm Rob Pozzola yes, actually do that and you think you have a mega edge DM Rob Pizzola. 

01:11:43 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yes, actually do that. Dm me, if you have a mega edge DM someone? 

01:11:46 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yes, because there is way more capability than you think in the market of how much you could get down on this edge. And if an edge is, you know, I hit a bet that was like 80 to 1 on McHale Bridges Unders, yep. So if you have that big of a bet that was like 80 to one on Mikhail Bridges' unders so if you have that big of a bet, you can make legitimate yearly salaries on this one opportunity. So tweeting it out probably isn't the best idea. 

01:12:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I would agree with you there. So, well said, I do. So. The pushback I will say is that so when this type of stuff happens and this happens over the years and I've been involved in one as well, the guy recording the Superbowl National Anthem with the stopwatch and post, like so I had that same reaction that you did because that's an edge, that's like an I don't wanna say infinite money edge, cause you can't bet infinite money, but like Pretty close. Yeah, you know the outcome To be fair the Bridges one. 

01:12:46 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I didn't know he wasn't going to play, Like that wasn't reported, but whatever, In my estimation it was probably a plus even before the game, like thousands of percent ROI, yes. 

01:12:57 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I eventually got over this, that one and as much as like I can. You know I thought the guy was a complete moron at the time. He didn't know. He literally hadn't. He thought deep down. He thought he was helping bettors. He said I'm going to record this, I'm going to post it and, like all these people are going to, he had no idea that it was going to take ruin the Superbowl and the market forever. 

01:13:20
Forever he had no idea that it was gonna ruin the Super Bowl and the market forever. He had no clue. So at the end of the day, I can't blame the guy, because he just didn't have the knowledge, and a lot of these people, especially nowadays, that are producing content I'm a content creator. I would say it's a 1A and a 1B, with betting for me now because I wanna grow the hammer as best as I possibly can. I put a lot of my own time and resources into the hammer because I wanna see it succeed. But there's a balancing act. A lot of these people and it's not to diminish, but they're betting $5, $10 to each their own. It's not a problem. Content is first for them, for sure. So this guy he believed he had an edge, has no idea how much he can make off of it, probably has no idea that if he reached out to the right person, he wouldn't even have to risk his own money. 

01:14:11 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Any money yeah. 

01:14:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It would have just been a free roll for him and he could have made, but they people don't know um psa. 

01:14:19 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah, if you have an edge, like the mikhail bridges edge, wait an hour or two before you tweet it out. Do some experimenting. Yeah, message some people, I would. I would honestly say just don't tweet that out ever. 

01:14:30
I agree, that would be my my opinion because that was that was what people were getting mad at me about yeah was he's a content creator, he's doing what's right for himself? Yeah, I guarantee you that's not the case. Obviously, he tweeted out like five minutes after it happened. Obviously, if he could have gotten down the money he could have gotten down, he would have done that. Yes, he just kind of didn't realize the scale of what was happening and he tweeted I'm not, it wasn't like he did something like bad or malicious. Yeah, and then also, tweeting that thing out does kill the edge for everyone. So just take a bit of time, get yourself paid and then, if you want to tweet it out, tweet it out my. 

01:15:09 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
My perspective on on this is that the betters who suffer from that have a right to be angry. You always have a right to be upset about something. If something impacts you negatively, especially when it's hurting your well-being like you bet for a living and it's hurting you, you have a right to be upset about that. That guy I don't remember who it was, specifically the name, we don't have to get into it but has a right to post it If he wants. If his number one goal is to grow his social media accounts and wants to be the go-to content creator everyone has a right to do these things. But there's probably a better avenue, like if you put a monetary value on what he would have gotten. Even if his goal is to grow his content network, he could have maybe made like a thousand dollars with the new followers he got or whatever, which pales in comparison to what he could have made off the edge and he still could have tweeted it out, just not immediately after it happened, right? 

01:16:16
But it's a race nowadays, because if he doesn't, somebody else might tweet it out. Fair. 

01:16:21 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I totally agree. He has the right to do whatever he wants. But I think if you gave him truth serum and said you know you could have tweeted out a half an hour later and gotten down whatever amount more, I think he would take that if he was being honest, yeah, I would agree. 

01:16:39 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Plus EV, minus EV. I just want to start with one. I don't think I've ever given it out on this show before, but because it ties in so nicely to what you just said, I think it's very important for people to put themselves in someone else's shoes whenever an argument is happening, because that doesn't mean like you have to change your opinion, but just understanding where someone else is coming from. I think is very important in this space. Right, like you know, I see people all the time that are like you'll have content creators out there who are promoting maybe like other recreational sports books. And there's people like in the messages, like, oh, they will limit you if you, you know you win money there. Or it's like okay, calm down, buddy. Like you know, 99% of the people is not applicable to them whatsoever. They just want to bet for entertainment or recreate. 

01:17:39
Like put yourself in someone else's shoes, and I'm not saying that like obviously there are situations that are just morally, ethically, like wrong or right. There's like not even an argument or debate, or there's situations where someone is right and someone is wrong. We get into like these math arguments on gambling Twitter all the time. It's very clearly a right answer there. But take a step back. Put yourself in the other person's shoes. It will go a long way in terms of just like general mental health, I would say, because these types of arguments really they can really cheese you every now and then I agree, but just understand where the other person now and then I agree, but just understand where the other person is coming from. I think that's important. I don't know that people will take that advice, but I think it's important. 

01:18:24 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I think it's good advice generally putting yourself in someone else's shoes yeah, I mean like Just a good thing to do. 

01:18:30 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I think when someone comes back at me with like something that is insanely different from my point of view, I I do have a tendency now to be like okay, why would this person be, especially in the sports betting space? Like forget about politics, you can apply this to anything, right, but in sports betting, when someone will reply to a tweet of mine and be like, well, you know this is wrong or I disagree with it, like Understanding why their perspective is shaped that way, makes a lot of sense. We did that reaction video to Kyle Kerms the sauce. Yeah, that me and Johnny did right, and a lot of the comments on that were like well, kyle's a good guy. Like why pick someone else to go after? I still stand by the video. I mean, I think it was a pretty poor video in terms of, like the messaging that he was getting across there. 

01:19:21
But I've spoken to him a couple of times after the fact and like a lot of people were going into his DMs and being like, oh, you know you sell picks, you're a tout and whatever. He's like Rob, like I don't claim to be winning better to anybody. Like I don't sell pit I, he's like I sell a community, literally. People just want to pay to chat with me every single day. That's how I monetize. Of course, I post picks Cause I bet on sports. I bet the stuff myself. I don't claim that this stuff is the be all and end all. And I got all these people that are just roasting me because I'm a tout and this and that and, uh, I completely get that like it's, that's fair it's just a different way to monetize in the sports betting space. 

01:20:02
But um, anyways, very long-winded, but put yourself in other people's shoes. I think that's important. Agreed, you got anything. My plus ev, you could do plus ev, minus ev, whatever you want? 

01:20:12 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
oh, I've got both. I would give literally 10 million to one odds if you guys would guess what my plus EV is going to be. Nasal strips yeah, incredible. I go to sleep with them every night. Okay, there's this weird trend of people using mouth tape like literally taping their mouth. 

01:20:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
My wife has suggested I use mouth tape, torturing themselves at night, okay, not even able to open your mouth. 

01:20:37 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Before you do that, before you go crazy, put on one of these nasal strips. It opens your nose pathways. It lets you breathe a hundred times easier, massive, plus EV, way less intrusive than taping your mouth shut like you're a prisoner somewhere it's called hostage tape. 

01:20:55 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Hostage tape who? 

01:20:56 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
wants to put that on themselves. Yeah, I agree Like, okay, fine, if no strips don't work, they're going to work. They're incredible. I got real sleeping problems. Extra strength, though Extra strength, real sleeping problems. 

01:21:08 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Me too. My wife wakes me up a couple times every night, because if I roll onto my back, I don't snore, I poof apparently. So I apparently just. 

01:21:24 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
That's not that bad. 

01:21:26 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But when she's awake and it's like the only sound she keeps hearing, I get it. So she'll try to turn me back over onto a side. I'm gonna look into like a sleep apnea mask. We'll get a sleep study, yeah. 

01:21:40 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
But start with a nasal strip. 

01:21:42 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm going to try the nasal strips first. 

01:21:43 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Extra strength Also. Maybe it's a gambler's thing. Maybe Tell a what's his name, Telemachus, that he was on the phone Telemachus, telemachus. 

01:21:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I don't know how the hell this is. 

01:21:54 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
He mentioned, buy a bed like I. Have that as well. 

01:22:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Eight Sleep. Also amazing Bryson promotes eight sleep. Oh does he? 

01:22:04 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah, another reason to love Bryson. Yeah, it's great. I do recommend they're expensive, but it's just really good being able to control the temperature of your bed, like I like. Keeping my room really cold, my bed a little hot, helps me sleep. I love that you got anything? 

01:22:18 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Zach? Uh yep, plus EV walking. Um, great, plus EV, totally agree, I, just I, I am very active. Um, I run, play sports. I talked about it last week but like got a big gash on your leg there, yeah, what's that? What's that from I got? I play men's league lacrosse. Oh, you got hat slashed. 

01:22:39 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Wow yeah. 

01:22:43 - Zack Phillips (Other)
I have like a big, like bruise on my arm yeah. I can see. I don't think the camera can, but yeah, but yeah, walking I Think Kirk talked about it there with like the traffic in Toronto earlier in the show. Here it's hell to get around the city. Now that it's really nice. I walk everywhere To everything I do. Dinner is fine. 

01:23:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I wouldn't call this really nice. By the way, Today is 33 Celsius, 90 Fahrenheit with humidity. 

01:23:12 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
You're out of your mind. If you're complaining about the heat, we live in a tund're complaining about the heat. We live in a tundra most of the year. Give me 33 and sweaty over it. 

01:23:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I would rather this than the cold, don't get me wrong, but I would not call this a really nice day. You cannot breathe when you step out the door. 

01:23:28 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I'd prefer not. I don't mind that, I love it, it's basically a sauna. 

01:23:31 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You're basically walking in a sauna, but it just like yeah, it feels like I've accomplished things. 

01:23:36 - Zack Phillips (Other)
If I'm walking, you know I go to the store, I go pick stuff up, I go out, I walked, I feel good and it's just like a good way to get out, get active, like do something, especially like I'll take off days so that I'm not doing something every single day. That's strenuous walking and doing that, I Walking and doing that. I feel so good after and it just in my head it also feels like you've done something and it's like something to check off and keep going of, like, hey, you've got some stuff done today, you've been active. 

01:24:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I get it. I've made a complete 180 on walking. I was a no walk like even when I golf. Now I will, actually I will let him turn off a big apology. I used to just roast that guy for for walking, provided it's not too hot, but it's. Uh, walking is good, man, it's good. I'm a skinny like. I'm a skinny guy. I weigh 180 pounds and, uh like, I've just been around that my whole but, like, if I put on any weight it goes directly to my stomach at all times. I can't put on weight anywhere else. The only way I can get rid of the stomach fat is walking. I just walk, walk. If I walk like five, 10 kilometers a day, which sounds like a lot but it really isn't. Once you get going, you're in, you're in a good spot. So, uh, I like that one, I like that one, I like that a lot. 

01:24:45 - Zack Phillips (Other)
You got a minus CV or uh, yeah, it goes along with the walking. Um, it's not necessarily like a minus EV, but here's a PSA to people out there. One do not, under any circumstances, if you're walking in a group, take up the entire fucking sidewalk, please. If you are walking with more than two people, I don't care if you're the odd man out. You have to walk behind the other people because it is just a disruption to people walking past you in the odd man out. You have to walk behind the other people because it is just a disruption to people walking past you in the same direction and people walking past you in the opposite direction. Yep, that's part of it and it pisses me off, because then you have to navigate like passing storefronts, trees, like all this shit, because you're trying to pass them now. 

01:25:32
Um, then the other part, that goes along with that if you're gonna walk slow, please do not walk in the middle of the sidewalk. If you're doing this, like you are such a disturbance to everyone out there, do not walk slow in the middle of the sidewalk. I don't like people walking slow. Anyways, I walk fast, yeah, but like, okay, I can understand some people are just gonna do it. Move to the fucking side, please. It's like driving like if you're gonna drive slow, driving the right yeah, I'm gonna do please just do not walk slow in the middle of the sidewalk. 

01:26:03
It's not necessarily minus ev, but like no. No, I agree with you listen. 

01:26:09 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think the rules of the road should also apply to the sidewalk. I agree, left lane is for like, left side for passing. If you're gonna be slow, be on the right. You shouldn't have to say this, zach, but this happens to me every day with some sort of slow walker on the sidewalk. So I'm with you, just get out of the way. 

01:26:25 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
And I find it very awkward trying to pass a slow walker Like you're like about to go, but then there's someone and then you're really close to them. Behind them it kind of looks like you're a freak. I agree, just get out of the way. 

01:26:36 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Yeah, you feel uncomfortable. I'm stutter stepping. 

01:26:39 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Exactly the stutter step behind them. They look back. They think you're trying to pickpocket them. No, I totally agree. But also just walk faster. Yeah, pick up the pace please Not everyone can I get it? 

01:26:52 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
you're older or whatever but have some common courtesy and the large groups that are walking together have some common courtesy here. People, please Do either of you guys bite your nails. Yeah yeah, sports better. 

01:27:06 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Not really anymore, okay. 

01:27:08 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm a chronic nail biter. I have been pretty much my whole life. So I have this here, which is I won't name the brand or anything like this For those who are listening I'm holding up a nail polish in front of me here. So this is a bitter apple nail polish, so you put it on your fingers. That way, when you bite your nails you're like, ah, this tastes horrible and you're supposed to not want to bite your nails anymore. 

01:27:36 - Zack Phillips (Other)
That's how I stopped. So just so you know, my mom used to make me do that when I was like a little kid. 

01:27:40 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Okay, so we're having a very different experience here, because I've been putting this on for three weeks and I still bite my nails chronically. And now it just tastes fucking gross and I cannot. So I didn't know that this actually works for people, because I started reading reviews online and they're all like, yeah, it doesn't, it tastes like shit, but you're going to keep biting your nails and whatever. This is my experience. 

01:28:03
So, zach, actually he's good, he's he's taking my minus EV and dumping it in the trash. But I guess, to each their own. For me, I've been trying this stuff and it just like Hot take take. 

01:28:17 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
biting your nails not bad. Well, who does it hurt? 

01:28:19 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Me it hurts. So why I get like a finger infections? I can't even like swing the golf club anymore. It's like without pain I start. 

01:28:28 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
So there's levels of nail biting. Are you sure you're biting your nails? Are you like chewing your fingers? 

01:28:32 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, so here's the thing there's levels of nail bites so I remove enough of the nail that I'm like I can't go any deeper here or else we're going to have a real problem, because anyone who bites their nails knows that one out of every like thousand. You go a little too deep and then you're just. You're just mangled for like and you got like some like weird part of the nail sticking out that it catches up I don't want to describe. So I move on to biting the skin around my nails. 

01:28:59 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
You do this as well, a little bit, but that I'm good at refraining from yeah. 

01:29:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So I got like, and then like I'll bleed for one, and then occasionally it doesn't happen. Maybe once a year I can feel an infection Got it. 

01:29:13 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Okay, yeah, so you should put more of the toxic polish. It doesn't do anything. 

01:29:16 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
The toxic polish doesn't do anything, though, and I just sit there and I still bite my nails and it tastes disgusting, but I cannot stop myself If anyone has good suggestions. I've heard hypnosis. Honestly, I'm not joking. Make it an episode of Circles Off. I'm not even joking. This is a true story. Um, I don't believe his show is in Vegas anymore, but when I was younger probably we're talking about 10 years ago or so, right around that time Uh, whenever I used to go to Vegas, there was a hypnotist show at planet Hollywood. 

01:29:50
Uh, the hypnotist was named Mark Savard. There used to be actually a hockey player named Mark Savard at the same time. Um, hypnotist was named Mark Savard. There used to be actually a hockey player named Mark Savard at the same time. Hypnotist was named Mark Savard. He used to do a show, bring a bunch of people up on stage, hypnotize them, and he would pick like eight to 10 audience members to be part of the show. One year, my friend Jerry went. He went up on stage, he got picked to be part of the show, got hypnotized, doing hypnotized, doing all this shit in front of us. At the end of the show, he tells everyone that he's going to have some private time with them after the show. There's something that they want to get out of their lives or whatever. He'll put them under hypnosis and um and and do it sure. My buddy jerry was a a cigarette smoker and he told the hypnotist like I, I want to quit smoking cigarettes. He never smoked a cigarette after that. 

01:30:36 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
That's pretty unbelievable. 

01:30:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
They didn't even have the appetite, like it was almost repulsive to him. He went from like I don't want to say packet, but he would recreationally smoke, and he went to zero Cold turkey. Never picked up a cigarette again in his life. 

01:30:51 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Maybe I'm too dismissive of hypnosis. That sounds pretty good. 

01:31:01 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I've seen a lot of hypnosis shows and there's certainly like people are. They're being manipulated into doing stuff that, yeah, they wouldn't do. Yeah, there was some adult stuff in this show. Let's put it that way. There was some serious adult stuff Minus. 

01:31:10 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
EV for you, Minus EV. Just being too emotionally tied to your opinions, Like I find if you are emotionally invested in an opinion it makes it much harder to change your mind, or kind of, like you said, see what being the other person choose. So that's really something I feel like I used to be like if someone would challenge me I would kind of take it as like an affront. But now I've tried to really distance myself from. These are my opinions, but they're not who I am and if someone provides better information I'll change my mind. 

01:31:43 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I actually really like that one. I also think it's very applicable to sports betting too, because lots of times people go into the year and they're like, ah, this team's going to be terrible and they're actually not terrible, but you can't let go of that previous opinion and it really hurts people. You know, I look at a guy that I have a lot of respect for on Twitter NFL pinnacle beater. He loves Ryan Tannehill to a fault almost, and he just can't let it go. You gotta let it go. Man. Tannehill's fine, by the way, Don't get me wrong, but like we're he loves him maybe a little. 

01:32:12
He puts him in a different stratosphere of uh of quarterback than than he actually is. Uh, appreciate everyone who tuned in here today. Again, make sure you smash that like button down below. If you're not subbed here, please do consider subscribing. It helps grow our network. Thank you to kirk evans for joining us in studio. Maybe next time you're here there will be some gear I expect a jacket we'll get you my name. 

01:32:34 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
That would be my fourth appearance Like a Letterman jacket. No, no, no, no. 

01:32:39 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Exactly, circles off nasal strips is what he's going to get next time he sees me Okay. 

01:32:42 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Branded nasal strips, I would love that. Branded nasal strips I would love that. 

01:32:46 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Sorry, the extreme ones though. 

01:32:50 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Like the high. Now that you've got extreme in my head, I can't remember High strength. 

01:32:55 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Extra strength, extra strength extra strength. Extra strength for Kirk Evans nasal strips next time he's here. Thanks for everyone who tuned in. We'll catch you next week for Circles Off Peace out. Thanks for watching.