00:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Kaiser, no play true class act. Kirk Evans, ultimate scumbag. 

00:08 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
We know the clip. We know the clip for this episode Definitely being clipped by. 

00:11 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Zach for promotional purposes this week. Come on. 

00:14 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Let's go. 

00:16 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You think I'm going to come on here and put one of the Aussies in the elite tier. I'd vote for Rob of 25,000. I wouldn't vote for you. 

00:24 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
I can basically just cheat and get the same bets that they're getting. It's weird because you can also pay your bills at the same place where you bet. 

00:32 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I mean, you're a short guy, what? 

00:37 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
This guy talks a lot of trash. 

00:38 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
He's talked a lot of trash about me, rob, a lot of people in the community, but he's refusing to show his face. 

00:44 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Carding yourself is a pretty good NFL gambler. I thought you were an idiot. Say testing, testing, I'm a cuck. One, two, three, four Aussies. 

00:51 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Going head to head with the Aussies. That's what I grew up for and I said get him Kirk, and they call me a mean-spirited name. 

01:11 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I don't hang out with my only belief is that 14 to 1 will stare me dead in the face. I'm already getting a lot of early. This could be the best Circles Off episode that's ever been done. Welcome to Circles Off, episode number 176, right here, part of the Hammer Betting Network and presented by Pinnacle Sportsbook. I'm Rob Pizzola, joined by Kirk Evans in studio. Kirk, how are things? Things are good. Did you have a good Canadian? 

01:29 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Thanksgiving weekend I did. I actually had my first ever Thanksgiving dinner. 

01:33 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
First ever I've never celebrated it before. Well, sports betting's been real tough for you over the years. 

01:38 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
First time you can afford a turkey or what, no, I don't know. It's just not something my family ever did, but got invited to one this year, had some turkey, it was good yeah. 

01:48 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Are you just saying that, like turkey to me is a very overrated bird, so I like turkey in a sandwich. 

01:54 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
This turkey was honestly pretty solid, but like I love stuffing. 

01:58 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
I'm a big stuffing guy. 

01:59 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
So if I'm having stuffing with the turkey, the turkey's good, because the stuffing's good. 

02:03 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Turkey's just a vessel to get everything else on the plate into your mouth with something. 

02:09 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
And then you can chop it up, put a little mayo, put it on a sandwich. Yeah, I agree with you. 

02:13 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think the leftover turkey sandwich is better than the turkey itself. Yeah, everyone's a turkey snob, by the way, everyone's a turkey snob, anyone. I say I don't like turkey too. They're like oh well, have you ever spatchcocked your turkey before? It's like well, yeah, I have actually. You know like, have you cooked it this way? Have you deep fried it and this? And it's like. I've had a lot of turkeys before. They're all fine, I'm not here like I'm not gonna eat turkey, but it's. 

02:39 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
It's just yeah I think that's a good take. 

02:41 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think that's a regular bird, you know what I'm talking about. I'll tell you what wasn't a good take. You know what I'm getting at? 

02:49 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
right there, I know exactly what you're getting at. 

02:50 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, so you tweeted this week. I don't remember. I'm not even going to pull up the exact tweet Zach will do it here but it was about Woj and him having like an easy job. 

03:07 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
No, no, no, no, no, no stopping you. 

03:07 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I agree with kirk all right, let's go, you're allowed to agree with kirk. 

03:09 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
I also. Maybe a bad take is what I'm disagreeing with you. 

03:10 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, that's why I'm stopping you all right, not a bad, take you. You think that this is a an acceptable take. 

03:15 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Yeah, we're gonna pull up the tweet. So I don't want to say that I'm wrong, but I don't think. I don't think I actually said his job is easy. 

03:22 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, you said, woj got paid 50 plus million, which is probably a wild under-exaggeration, probably 100 million plus. 

03:30 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
I think it's a good estimate. 

03:31 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think it's much higher Retires and is talking like he had some hard job, Even in retirement. The guy stinks, so obviously there's some pre-existing Woj hate here. Oh deeply. He also has me blocked on Twitter. Well, I'm sure a lot of people do. What does that originally stem from? 

03:49 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Why would he have blocked you. 

03:53
That. Well, he must have blocked me, or some ESPN intern blocked me. That's my best guess, because I'm also blocked by Zach Lowe. I love you, zach Lowe. I don't know how that happened, but I've always not liked woj, but when it really like, internalized in me as like I deeply hate. This person was in the james harden ben simmons trade talks. 

04:14
I'm a big wind horse guy, brian wind horse, another nba reporter. He was reporting that the trade was live. It was very obvious that the trade was gonna happen. But woge is has whatever connecting to sean marks, probably caa, and he, an hour before the trade happened, backstabbed windhorse and said the two teams haven't even spoken, which obviously made no sense. Any human being with a brain knew he was just flat out lying to everyone and backstabbing Windhorse because he was saying the opposite of what Windhorse was saying, essentially saying his reporting was bad. Yep, threw him right under the bus. Threw him under the bus. He's just. I don't know what words I can use on this podcast, but I've always said he's a prostitute. He sells himself out. 

05:06 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You could say whore, if you want, he's a whore. 

05:08 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
He sells himself out to these agents for information. 

05:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But they all are now. I don't like any of them. Adam Schefter is tweeting, warren Sharpe links yes, what are? 

05:19 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
we doing here? I don't like any of them, but Woj is the trailblazer in the worst way. He started it. He knows nothing about basketball. Who does he work for now? St Bonaventure's. He's the GM. Good luck. The guy couldn't tell you one scheme what a good coach is, what a good player is. He knows absolutely nothing about basketball. He just was good at cultivating relationships and backstabbing people. And now he's crying because he had to bring his phone in the shower. 

05:49 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, okay, so sad. So here I will agree with you on the ethics of a lot of this reporting. Now some of these guys are a joke, like ian rapaport for nfl at rap sheet. If that guy tweets something is gonna be wrong 50. I think he's just making stuff up. I think he's lost connections at this point. There's so much bad reporting out there and you're listen, I don't hate Woj, I don't hate a lot of these guys, but I can see the disdain they do a lot of stuff that is scummy, cringy. It's very similar to being a tout in the sports betting space, a scam tout, in a lot of these scenarios. But I will take issue with the fact that he doesn't have a hard job. I think that that job is you have to be, especially when you're at the level of Shams Woj Schefter. You have to be available 24-7, literally, and for some people they say you know what? Fuck? Pay me 5 million, 10 million bucks a year. 

06:44
I'll be available 24-7. But it's not an exaggeration that you do not have any scenario where you, like you are not available. You have to be. Look, and that's going to weigh on people. It would weigh on me. 

06:59 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
I don't disagree. I don't think his job was actually easy. Yes, agree, I don't think his job was actually easy. Yes, but for how much money he was getting paid to not even write about basketball, to just tweet news? Yeah, yes, he had to be available. It's to me it's kind of like if an nba player was like man, I had to take a flight every other day oh, like I was talking about pre-season, flying in the preseason. 

07:22
Yeah, and he got flamed for that deservingly. I was away from my family all the time, Like there are hard parts to being a professional athlete that I think everyone would agree with. But you also look at it and you get paid millions of dollars to be beloved and play sports. Yes, you get paid millions of dollars to tweet. Not, I get it. You can't complain about it when you retire. 

07:46 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But where I push back is that it's still a very hard job. It's extremely demanding. Think about all the stuff you do on a weekly basis that you can no longer do. Like you say this to me like I wouldn't be able to golf and you'll be like, oh wow, you can't golf. But like, what's the point of making money if you can't do shit? 

08:06 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Like you literally have to have your-. Here's the point. He's retired. How old is he? 55? Well, sure, and now gets to do whatever the hell he wants with unlimited money for the rest of his life Agreed, but he left that behind. 

08:25
Like he could have kept going a high salary. At some point he just said like it's not worth it anymore. Yeah, exactly, he did a good job. Obviously he got to the pinnacle of you know anyone in terms of breaking news, so I'll give him credit for that. But I think there's a difference between your job being hard which, yes, pretty much everyone's job is hard in some ways but very few people get paid like Wodge and very few people have to do something. 

08:45 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
that's as easy as what wadge did for how much money he was making. My thing comes to like my frustration and my or my agreement, I guess with kirk was like how he acted about it after it happened, first of all, when they went on and it was like they were having like like the man died, like on like the coverage the next day was like it was like, okay, I get it. 

09:08
I'm not like. I do agree with Rob, it's a hard job, but you broke news for your career, yeah, and yeah, you did a great job at it. But, like Schefter on, the ESPN hits the next day was the most outrageous stuff. Oh, the man sacrificed his family for this Dude. He broke news. 

09:30 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But I actually do believe that I seriously do. Everyone has sacrifices. I understand, but he did sacrifice family time. 

09:40 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Exactly, we don't need an obituary for him. 

09:42 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
I think Bill Simmons on his podcast said it was over the top. 

09:45 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
He said he didn't realize Wodge was saving lives or was a frontline worker during COVID. That's what they were making it seem like the guy broke news. Sure, was it an inconvenience on his family. 

09:56 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But do you realize how reliant we were on that news being broke? 

10:00 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Well, I wasn't. I couldn't see the tweets, no you're true, true, true. 

10:05 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You messed up, you messed up. All right, listen, we can meet in the middle. I agree it was a little bit ridiculous. They were honoring this guy, like you know he was like a war hero. 

10:15 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Yeah, exactly. 

10:16 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, and you know he's tweeting, but being available 24-7,. No, I want nothing to do with that. Nothing to do with that. What I do want something to do with is Pinnacle Sportsbook, the world's sharpest sportsbook, available to bettors across Canada. Find out what the pros have known for the past 25 years. Pinnacle is where the best bettors play. Make sure you check them out. Football season's in full swing, nba right around the corner as well. Great odds for you to bet at. They don't limit you. Fair prices. Honestly, I would never even consider betting without Pinnacle. As one of my sportsbook outs, make sure they're one of yours. Head over to Pinnaclecom slash Hammer. To sign up today, you must be 19 plus not available in the US and, as always, please play responsibly. We got an interview coming up here. You're going to want to stay to the very end of this one. Some predictions given out for the upcoming NBA season, some of Kirk's hot takes as well, going in a lot of different directions. Oh yeah, this is going to go in, yeah absolutely many different directions. 

11:16
Let's get to it. Our guest this week on Circles Off is a relative unknown in the betting space but came highly recommended to us, especially leading into this upcoming nba season. He has one of the most successful bet stamp accountants out there right now. He returns nearly a nine percent roi on almost five thousand wagers across mlb, nba and wmba. You can follow him on twitter at costco croissant. Kaiser Noplay joins us on Circles Off. Kaiser, how's it going? 

11:46 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Good, how are you guys? I want to start by saying you're welcome to follow me on Twitter. It is a terrible follow. I don't post anything, but If you're a WNBA prop mover, please reach out to my DMs. Otherwise it's a terrible follow, but that is my handle. 

12:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I love that. I love that. I love that. You got that right out of the way. I want to start with the names actually Costco Croissants. What's the significance of that? 

12:10 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Not much, I just Costco Croissants are really good. I'm sure if you guys have had them you would agree. 

12:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yes, I've had Costco Croissants and I can agree. 

12:19 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
I clearly need to go to Costco right after this and grab some croissants. 

12:22 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, I don't think it's gonna be like a earth shattering experience for you. Like it's not, but it's quality croissant. 

12:29 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Well, he made it his Twitter username. Gotta like him a lot. 

12:33 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I guess. So Kaiser no Play, not your real name, assuming that's a take on Kaiser Sose from Usual Suspects. 

12:43 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
It is the Usual. Suspects isn't my favorite movie of all time. It's just kind of a well-known one with lore. But I am a movie guy. I was just trying to come up with something that wasn't my real name. If anyone who's seen it, I'm going to spoil one of the best endings of all time, but I hope you've seen it. Kaiser Sose is this mythical villain in the movie and he hides in plain sight. You know, and I think that's just kind of the significance of it. There isn't anything too deep beyond that. 

13:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, it's a great movie, but my minus EV last week was not going back and like showing people movies that you really love from your childhood, because a lot of times they just don't hold up over time. If you haven't seen the Us suspects by now, uh, I mean spoiler. The spoiler alert can't last like 40 years yeah, I agree there. 

13:34 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
I thought you were gonna say it doesn't hold up. 

13:36 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I definitely think it holds up, but I agree you if, if you're getting it spoiled now, you can't be too upset, it's funny like so many people reached out to me separately and like, ah, I just tried to show my kids Star Wars and they're like you turn it off after 15 minutes. It's stuff like that that I was saying, which I think they don't hold up. Kaiser Sose, though, definitely top-notch character. Oh, absolutely Very much top-notch character. Let's get into it here, Kaiser. It's still very weird for me to call you that, by the way, but let's continue it on. Tell us a bit about your background and specifically what drew you to the betting space? 

14:10 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Sure, yeah, that wasn't always what I wanted to do Growing up. I always wanted to be to work in MLB front office. I grew up a diehard Dodger fan. Baseball was like my one true passion for most of time and I actually ended up getting that job, not with the Dodgers but with another MLB team. I worked in the front office in pro scouting and it was great, but I think just over time it was always, you know, I think just over time it was always, you know, really enjoyable, but I think, just combination of low pay and, just you know, there's so many layers of politics in terms of like you may really like a player, but sometimes you can't go. 

14:59
You know I wasn't necessarily leaving baseball to do sports betting, but if I'm just to juxtapose the two, you are held 100 percent accountable in the sports betting world for your opinions Like no, no one else is going to be held accountable for you. You act on all of your convictions. You put your money down and you are paid out or you lose money, according to how your convictions go. You are paid out or you lose money, according to you know how your convictions go. Um, and I think that level of accountability and sort of like risk reward for your own opinion is pretty attractive to me. Um, the other thing I really like about betting is the, the feedback loop of like, if you have an opinion on something, you will find out if you were right or wrong within 24 hours. 

15:46
And I think, like I've never been attracted to the money of the sports betting. It's really, you know, fighting a really tough market and finding out if you're right or not every single day, 10 to 20 times a day, immediately, whereas, like when you work in baseball, you may like a 19 year old or even younger, and it may be five to six years or more before you find out if you're right or not about that player. And there's so many other factors. Right like, you may like a player, but he goes to a team with a different player development system than what you would have done with that player, and it's you can only evaluate based on this one simulation that we've seen. But, like, had we acquired that player, maybe he turns out differently for the positive or the negative. So, um, those are kind of just juxtaposing the two. I think that's what I enjoy a lot about. 

16:26 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Um, about betting yeah, that's really interesting. Uh, I promise we will get into sports betting and your approach and a few other things leading into nba season as well that kirk wanted to get your thoughts on. But uh, how does one get into an mlb organization in pro scouting like what was your background prior to that? Did you just intern for the org? Do you have some sort of college degree that was like very specific to what you wanted to do within that org? How did that come about? 

16:54 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
I always wanted to work in baseball, but there's no major, I would say that is like specifically for working in baseball. So I just majored in math and economics. Um, obviously you needed like a statistical understanding. Like, I think the one, uh, sort of one fallacy that I think people have about baseball is they see moneyball and they think that an analyst is somebody like jonah hill and a scout is somebody like you know, one of those those old grizzled white guys that you know talk about fitting pants and and in reality, like at some point in time, that was what it was. But I think the point of moneyball is that it caused everybody to think like that. So like a scout. 

17:39
Now, most scouts think like jonah, like everybody thinks like jonah hill, and an analyst is somebody that's actually coding and building models and stuff. So, uh, everybody needs just like some sort of like you have to understand every sabermetric that out there. I would say, um, and then you know, uh, I did. I did get hired as an intern. They just posted it online and I applied and worked my way up, um, and and, yeah, happy to talk more about what my daily routine was. But that's kind of how I got into it. 

18:09 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I'm definitely interested in that. I will say I mean, maybe, like this is just me being an idiot, but I always just assumed a scout was like the grizzled guy that like would just go watch games and be like, ah yeah, this guy looks good. I actually did not at least you know the way that you're describing it. I did not picture that being the situation at all for scouts nowadays. But, yeah, curious what your role was within the org and we don't have to get too detailed into it. I know you want to be a little bit more private with the team and stuff like that. But yeah, just what does a day-to-day look like for a scout? 

18:43 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
So I was in the front office. I was like a coordinator, so basically I would make sure I wasn't going out in the field that often. I was more making sure that our field scouts were seeing the players we wanted to see and organizations that we wanted to see. So, like you know, at the time I worked for the team we were generally competitive team. We were generally competitive and so like there's no point really in scouting a low-level minors team super extensively for a parent organization. That's kind of out of it and rebuilding because they're probably going to want to trade away their major leaders for our prospects. So just making sure that our scouts are seeing the players that we need them to see. A lot of it was reading their reports and making sure that we have, if you pull up the Cincinnati Reds or the Boston Red Sox or something, we have the top 30. We make our own prospect list for each org and making sure that maintain. My job was to help maintain those and make sure that we had current good lists for each org. And then I also helped out with some waivers. So for a while I was helping out with monitoring the waivers every day, just making sure that the players that came across, if someone was interested in making sure that we flagged them, because there are so many players that come across waivers every day. 

19:58
And then, early on, I helped out with advanced scouting, which is not scouting at all. Advanced scouting, if people don't know, for every sport is like the team you are about to play, you go watch their tendencies. Like, uh, this guy, if he tips pitches, or uh, you know they like to. You know they like to do, they like to hit and run um with this player up. Or they like to, you know they like to slash here, um, these are the guys that you need to worry about stealing bases. These are the outfielders you can and can't run on, et cetera, et cetera. Much more important in the playoffs than the regular season. But that is advanced scouting, nothing to do with scouting. 

20:34 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, that's really interesting. Kirk, correct me if I'm wrong, but you had a background with an organization as well, right, was it minor hockey? 

20:47 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Yeah well it hockey. Yeah well, it's funny because the your description of working in sports to betting, like that would essentially be verbatim what I would say of like why I did that transition and why I enjoy betting on sports more, the feedback loops, your own conviction, like. When I worked in sports I found, like it was kind of just a regular job, what I would say somewhat mattered, but realistically, the people who are in control really matter. So yeah, it was pretty much exactly, and also I'm someone who likes those quick feedback loops as well. But I was going to ask you, working in baseball as a scout and now correct me if I'm wrong you're mostly betting on basketball. How do you feel like your scouting background helps you in basketball? 

21:32 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
I thought you were going to say how does it help me in baseball? And I was going to say not that much. Like I think working in baseball has impacted my baseball betting now less than people would think. Like I'm sure there are some subliminal things that I picked up over the years of working in baseball that have helped form opinions that I can't even acknowledge or like realize. But I would say not too similar, because I was mostly looking at minor league players and stuff. But I do think the scouting background, which is your actual question how much it helps in basketball is a ton. I was going to mention this at some point. I how much it helps in basketball is a ton. I was going to mention this at some point. Kirk and I are extremely different bettors. Even though we talk all the time about basketball, I don't use a model or an algorithm or anything. 100% of my bets throughout history have been gut feel and I can go into. 

22:20
Like that sounds more, less refined than it is. Like I still have objective opinions that are based on objective things you can look at, an example being, if you're betting on someone's assists, right, like you can look at you know, nbacom has second spectrum data on it you can go look at their touch time, you can go look at their potential assists and passes Like, there are objective things you can look at. I'm trying to project minutes for people and like, even without a model, you can say, okay, I have 29 minutes projected here. This guy is x number of rebounds per 29, and then you can just adjust it for the team that they're playing. And obviously there's some little fine points that I think is more art than science about. Like, okay, well, he's more of an offensive rebounder and even though this team doesn allow rebounds, they do allow some offensive. So there's some art in terms of tweaking that and I'm always forming my own numbers. But there's no model, there's no algorithm. Everything at the end of the day is just my opinion. 

23:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I love this because this is a very unique approach and we don't hear it much. Listen, I'm a modeler through and through. I try to trust my numbers wherever possible, but I don't think that's the only way to win at betting. I think there's many ways that people can win at betting In your approach specifically. So you mentioned seeking out some data that's available online. Listen, I'm not a basketball better. I'm kind of clueless when it comes to what the best metrics are and stuff like that out there. But I'm curious how much of your opinions are formulated on eye test versus using some sort of data and just kind of spitballing what a number should be? Walk me through that. How much is just actually watching games and saying I think this isn't accounted for enough or it's accounted for too much, versus using actual empirical data? 

24:10 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Yeah, I watch a lot of ball. I would say Like I'm not sure I've missed a single WNBA playoff game this whole postseason. And like to answer Kirk's question about the scouting background. Like I could tell you all 30 NBA teams defensive schemes, I could tell you how they switch the pick and roll or not. I can, I can tell you all of that stuff. I can tell you their rotations, I could tell you their injury report. Like I can tell you like oh, this, this ninth man hop like, subbed in before the seventh man today. That's unusual. Or this player, um, didn't sub out his usual pattern. He went all 12 in the first quarter. That's unusual, um. 

24:51
So I guess, like a good example I would I would talk about is like um, I know you said you're not a basketball guy, but uh, if you're familiar with drop coverage, that's like a more uh en vogue coverage of late, where most teams are switching one through four, but they're five, they don't want to switch out, they're going to keep them by the basket. And if you run a pick and roll or pick and pop with your five, that involves the defenders, five, they're just going to stay at the basket and so what that leads to is basically the other team doesn't need to help at all off the corners. It's going to lead to a lot of ball handler pull-up mid-range shots, but very few three-point shots. So basically, what you're basically saying is your big can stay at the rim and we're going to allow catch and shoot. We're going to disallow catch and shoot threes. So that's the in vogue scheme right now. That means they don't want to allow three-point shots. 

25:39
So a lot of these drop coverage teams will not be allowing three-pointers. But, and so, like if you're a sports book and you're modeling this, I don't think there's a way that they can account for the fact that if you ran a pick and pop with your center and it's like Brooke Lopez or Miles Turner, that center is just wide open for a three every time, because in a drop coverage, the five man's not switching. The opposing center is right at the basket and only for that player will there be a lot of three-point attempts. Every other player on the court the other four players will not get a lot of three-point attempts, and so I don't think the models are accounting for the fact that this drop coverage is limiting three-pointers. But if you're a pick and popper with a three-point shot. You can get more threes off, and that's a scouting thing, right. I don't know how I would be able to model that. 

26:28 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I totally get that. It's a really fascinating approach, so I assume that this leads you to betting a lot of props. Would that be fair to say? 

26:38 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Yeah, if someone watches this and is a big mover and sees like oh's running a nine percent roi, he's let me go partner with him and he's doing nine percent same day sides. I'm not doing nine percent same day sides, like we split it up here, like it's. Like you know, props are probably like 11 to 12 percent roi, then sides are probably between three and five percent. But among the three to five percent you have, uh, I do a little bit of live betting which low volume but high ROI, like I think last year my basketball live betting was like almost 30% ROI. I would like to scale it up in terms of volume at some point because I'm probably missing out on other opportunities. But then you scale that out and then you know pregame sides become maybe plus one or 2% and then I don't know how to separate out further. 

27:21
But like I would assume betting stuff either openers or based on predicting injuries and stuff accounts for more positive I'm not a CLV truther but more positive CLV which is probably higher ROI plays. So if you really break it down, I might be negative on same day. Stale sides I'm not sure I could beat the market on an NBA side an hour before tip. Like I'm not sure I could beat the market on an nba side an hour before tip. Um, so, uh, I think that's important to note. Uh, yeah, sorry, I wanted to interject because you asked about props versus size and I think it's important to note that not all all plays are the same roi uh, I'm glad that you did. 

27:58 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think context matters. Um, there's so much that I want to unpack here. Uh, let's start with you're not a CLV truther, because I think I'm glad you went there. 

28:09 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
I very much am a CLV truther. But yeah, give the people your opinion on why you don't think CLV matters. 

28:17 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
I wouldn't say it doesn't matter, for two reasons. One is that I think all successful bettors unless you're betting right at tip I think all successful bettors get CLV. I do believe that fundamentally, but I don't believe the opposite being true. It's kind of like a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square. I don't think that you getting CLV is a sign that you are a guaranteed winner. And that isn't just calling anyone out Like I can predict, I've seen enough lines, I can predict which way a market's gonna go with pretty relative certainty. 

28:50
But I won't always bet that side Like oh, I think this is, I'm gonna get at least a point of CLV here because the market's gonna go this way. But I'm not gonna bet that if I don't actually like it, if that makes sense. So If you say you're successful better and you don't get CLV and you're not betting right before tip, I don't really believe you, I don't really want any part of you. But if you say I get really good CLV, the inverse is not necessarily true. I don't necessarily think that you are good better. You might be, but you might not be. 

29:22
The other reason I think CLV is important is because if you want to fade the market. Like if you want to go, if you, if you're going to take a side that you know is not the market side, it's still important to get the best price. I don't think anyone here would disagree with that. Like, if I'm going to fade the market, I want to know at what point the market's going to hit a low so that I can get in there. And if you don't understand CLV, if you don't understand the way price which over time is going to cut into your edge, so does that kind of make sense? 

29:46
It does, or at least explain how I think about it. 

29:49 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So I don't agree with everything, but it does explain how you think about it. I think there's a lot of validity to a lot of the points that you're making there. I do a Sunday night show during the first half of the Sunday night football game with Clive Bixby over on the Forward Progress channel where we look at the early lines for the upcoming NFL week, and I will very often say things like you know, if you believe in getting the best of the number, go bet the under in this game now, because it's going to get bet Like the market's going to move towards the under. I don't want the under in this game, I want to wait for it to move and I want to bet the over. I think the over is the valuable position. So I totally understand it from that point of view. I also think that in your instance I don't think there's a lot of people doing what you're doing, so let me call that out for what it is. So I think that there's a very formulaic way to get CLV. 

30:44
In every sport there's a lot of people who are doing the same. You know it's the same methods, same methodology or similar to the point where a lot of the models are going to arrive at the same thing, and I think in sports if you are doing something fundamentally different and I can't say you know, you guys would know better than me. I'm just speaking on what I believe people, how people are modeling NBA from the people I talk to that are closest I think it's a very, very different approach. So if someone goes out of their way, is doing something different, it's gonna lead you to different results and maybe in those instances you could be right more often than not, like you're. It's cutting edge. It's a cutting edge approach. 

31:29 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Yeah, I would say I disagree with most of your. I agree with most things you say to me, and this is the one where we probably have the biggest disagreement, but I will. I do agree with that that if you're doing something specifically different, you probably won't recognize CLV and can win. But I don't really agree with the other side there. I don't think I've ever come across a better who consistently gets the best of a number and is losing better. I don't really think that exists. 

32:00 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
So I do think there's some level of like the trend isn't the case for every case and, like you said, most times, if you're getting the best number you're probably on the right side. And it would be really impossible for any of us to say, like I'm so good at betting that I can predict the times that the CLV goes one way but is not actually correct. Like that would be extremely arrogant to assume that one way but is not actually correct. Like that would be extremely arrogant to to assume that. But like, just as an example, two years ago, uh, you know, I think a lot of the biggest market movers are model based, as you said. And so, like two years ago, like the mavs were the market side, every single game, the book, you know, valued the math closer to how I did. They would open a number and it would always move maps without without, like two, without a question, and I think that was the year they didn't make the playoffs, they tanked at the end, they didn't have a very good season and at some point I could tell you when a line opens like, oh, if I want to fade the Mavs, I'm going to wait, because the market's going to move towards Mavs and it does, and it never paid out all year and over the course of millions of different opinions. Like the market is going to be right most of the time, but, like I think there are times where you can. 

33:04
If you have a good reason to explain why the Mavs are being overvalued by the market like I think there's you can be willing to be able to step out and say like I trust my opinion. Now, this is something that Kirk and I have talked about. When you're opposing the market, there's some level of humility Like you need to understand. When you need to stand down and be like I was wrong, I'm just going to sit. The rest of this, I'm not going to re-add versus. Okay, the market went against me, but I'm going to re-add at a better number for me because I don't believe that this is being accounted for or I understand why it's being accounted for and I don't agree. So I think, to anyone listening, it's important, if you're going to fade the market or you're going to fade the CLV side, to have a good reason behind why you are doing so. 

33:46 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I love that. I can honestly think to a personal example of mine. It was several years ago in the NFL and the Cleveland Browns played three games early on in the season. Two of them were extremely inclement weather where they really couldn't throw the ball in the games, and I think one of them happened to be a lot of players on the offense were ruled out due to COVID and towards the end of the year their numbers just kept getting steamed to the under over and over and I think it was like a model-based approach where someone's using you know season's worth data and saying well, you know, this Cleveland offense isn't very good, but they were not playing in like regular conditions for a lot of those games and the valuable side was the over. So I think there's that's a really good way to look at it. I'm kind of with Kirk Listen, I generally trust the market more often than not. 

34:37
I'm certainly unlike any other sports fan where I there's a little bit of ego involved where you know you oppose the market. One time you win you're like I was right, market was wrong. That can get into your head, but I do tend to respect the closing number more often than not and if I'm continuously getting opposed on something, I might take a step back and reevaluate and say, hey, like I might have to dig into this a little bit more. So yeah's a really interesting conversation. Certainly people think that CLV is the be all and end all. In some instances, I know, in the hockey market I, you know, for reasons I don't want to get into, I thought for a while that it wasn't, but I can see your approach being different and you know, the one thing I will say to you, kaiser, is you've kind of like almost hit the jackpot if you can consistently win without getting CLV. Oh sorry. 

35:38 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
I should Sorry to interrupt. I should say, if you look at my bets, I do get strong CLV. Like I don't. I wouldn't go out there and say don't. I guess what I would say is like don't chase CLV just because you know it's going to move that way. But I agree with you that over the majority of plays you should be getting CLV. 

35:58
And I think, like Kirk posted something on Twitter once that I strongly agreed with and he was saying like he was giving tips on how to get better at betting or how to diagnose your issues. And I do think, unless you've been doing this for a long time and you can specifically diagnose those rare instances where you know why the market's moving, you should use CLV as sort of like a barometer for how you're doing. I fully agree with that. If you aren't good enough to specifically diagnose why something's moving that way, then then yeah, I do think clv is a good barometer of which way you're going and, like most plays, I get you know sides wise and our clv, our positive clv, and like props I think this is also another conversation we should talk about. Like clv is worth a different amount in every single market, even in the same. Absolutely like, like I think you guys would agree with this that like, uh, nfl clv on a on a main side is probably worth a lot more than underwater basket weaving or or like some weird. 

36:55
You know some weird over on a prop right, like if, if you, if the, you know, if they open caitlin clark points at what they think is a fair number because they don't want the Sharps to kill them, and you go in right when they open and you hammer Caitlin Clark over points, and even if you're not a profiled account and it moves one point, does that CLV matter? 

37:15
I don't think it does. But if you take an NFL opener on a Monday and you get two points by the time it closes, you better believe that's pretty important. And then also, if we can get into sort of like prop CLV, because I think that's an interesting discussion as well. There are so many agencies and market movers and stuff now that they have a play under assists and it moves a full point of a of like a full assist point or something which is worth a ton, and there's just no one out there that's betting this role players over assists. Uh, I'm not saying that that's not a good play. It probably is, because someone had the opportunity to oppose it and didn't. But that doesn't mean that it's worth all that. 

37:59 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Move right, like, like I I'm sure you guys agree with that right yeah, I totally agree, and I think all clv isn't created equal is a much better take than like clv doesn't matter, like even what. When you're talking, you obviously acknowledge clv does matter. You're just maybe less on the spectrum than some. But yeah, I think I think there are like WNBA props. I will never look at where the market's moving. That's pretty irrelevant to me. It's just not that big of a market and I also do think that's a really good point of big Twitter accounts or big touts moving the market way more than they should. Perfect example last year, alex caruso not the basketball player, the twitter account was moving props, two points and now it's pretty uh acknowledged that he's just losing better. So I do agree with you there that not cl, not all clv is created equal. But also I do think if you're betting nba props and you're good, the market's probably going to move with you, right? 

39:09 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
I actually think that I get more prop CLV than, like, if you're, if you're just weighing them all equally, I probably get more CLV than most bettors, because I'm mostly betting props and through my various accounts and stuff like I'm, I am moving them a ton and people aren't usually opposing them, um, and I I should say, like I'm not saying clv doesn't matter, I'm saying that it's not, that, like it's not the end-all deal. It is more what I'm saying, do you? 

39:40 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
track your um roi when um get negative CLV, as an example. When the market opposes you do. You know how well you do. 

39:51 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
I don't. I don't Probably something that I really just track, mostly in Betstamp. Is there a function to plug Betstamp? Is there a function where you can do that? 

40:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You can run analysis on that in Betst. 

40:04
Yes, I'm just curious because, like um, everyone nowadays um limiting is very prevalent on pretty much everywhere. Thankfully we have a show sponsor in pinnacle where that doesn't limit your bets, but people get limited if they're winning and especially if they're getting closing line value while winning as well. And right right now I think there's like people are looking for ways to win without getting CLV because, listen, you still might get limited for winning, but a trader who's maybe manually reviewing your account might say well, you know what, this guy's not getting good prices, let's give him a longer leash, or you potentially might not show up in some reports that Sportsbook run at the end of the night closing line value report or anything like that. So the reason I asked was because if you did have a pretty large sample of winning opposing the market, you might really want to hone in on that specifically and you could potentially win a lot more money in the long run with that type of strategy, versus betting everything with the market moving with me type of thing. 

41:19 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
So one thing I'll say on this note. I haven't tracked my ROI on negative CLV, but I have tracked like does my sizing correlate with my edge? And that is definitely true? The higher edge plays for me do. Or my higher conviction, higher unit plays do tend to win at a higher rate. 

41:36
And so like to go to our previous point, like, especially on a prop, if it moves the wrong way or it gets hit back, I guess, like I hit it one way and it comes back, I will diagnose whether I think that was maybe just not correct, or maybe it was a smaller edge that they just moved back to what was fair, they took advantage of the reverse, or was it something that they're not accounting for and I like it and I hit it again. And, like Most times, if it comes back at the same or better price, I'm probably not hitting again, but there are times where I will, and I think generally the higher ROI plays or unit plays do win at a higher rate. So, like being selectively picked, I think the majority of the time, for anyone's listening, if the market opposes you, you should stand down. It should be very few cases where you're willing to double down and for me that is the case. I don't usually double down unless I feel very strongly. 

42:21 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Winning in sports betting is hard enough. Winning in sports betting and also having an edge that no one else knows about, there's a reason that it doesn't happen that often, because if you have that, you're not going to talk about it much and you're going to make a shit ton of money. I just think that the win without CLV have all the accounts not profile you is is a bit more of a dream than a reality. 

42:46 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
at least with people I've interacted with oh yeah, I, I, I believe it's a dream, Um, but it is. 

42:51
it is the dream to you know, it's worth pursuing because of the amount of money that you could make off of of something like that. Um, so, out of curiosity, your approach is not dissimilar from every recreational slash square betters approach, and I'm not belittling you in any way. You've obviously carved out something and you figured something else out here, but most beginner bettors will watch games and form opinions based off of what they're watching. What makes your approach or the way you do things different, like why do you think the mass, the the vast majority of people, the mass population, can't succeed in doing the same thing? 

43:42 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
um, I can go over like a few small things. I don't have a great answer for you, but like I think, like, uh, you know I, I started betting when I turned 18. At some point I stopped because I worked for a baseball team, but like, um, I wasn't, you know I, I, at this point in my life I've gotten better every year that I've I've done sports betting, uh, and and like I, I don't think I woke up, you know I didn't. I didn't just start the first day and run a 10 roi, like that's just not how it works. Like I think, um, part of it is like if you had me work for a sports book, I could tell you the points line for, like Anthony Edwards, versus the pace. Like I could just tell you what the line should be before even looking at I can make my own lines that are pretty. 

44:28
I've seen enough of them. I think there's some small stuff that I think, like recreational bettors don't do, like they love the overs on player props, they don't typically like the unders. I think understanding median versus mean is really important and I don't think people kind of conceptualize that all the time. I think people this kind of goes to overs versus unders. But people tend to be optimistic about things Like I hate when on Twitter a Twitter tat will post an over on something and then there's either any combination of like injury, which I think is kind of a bad beat, but like injury, foul trouble, blowout, blowout's the worst. 

45:06 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, or just shooting poorly. 

45:09 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Yeah yeah, shooting poorly, injury or ejection is probably the one that's the worst beat. That would be hard to account for, but that's still part of the outcomes and every single thing I mentioned is part of why the line is set the way it is Right. If they play 35, 35 minutes, their line would be higher than it is, because the books are trying to set it at the median, not the mean, and like I don't. Or the median not the mode, honestly and like I don't. Think a lot of people realize that. 

45:35 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Yeah, I also think what rob said is not true. I don't think the average recreational bettor knows all 30 teams' schemes. 

45:45 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
No, no, no, it's definitely a commitment. 

45:48 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
But what is stopping someone from? 

45:50 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
yeah, I think maybe it's just the way that you think about the sport. Is the difference here? Right, like I grew up, you know, first decade of my life of betting I was losing better. I watched tons of sports, like I consumed sports nonstop and it led me to believe. Well, you know, I'm watching football and hockey, basketball, baseball Like I understand these teams better than others and listen. This is extremely arrogant for me to say, but I'll just be honest. Like I consider myself to be at like a higher intellectual level as well, just based off of my upbringing and, you know, skipping grades in school. So for me, it was like I couldn't fathom after five years how I could possibly be losing betting on this stuff. And you know, I think the vast majority of people who bet that way if like very close to 100%, like Kaiser is a very much an anomaly are going to lose. So there's something there that is different relative to the average bettor? 

46:58 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
No, I totally agree and I think watching. No, I totally agree and I think watching. I think most people watch, especially recreational bettors. Watch for enjoyment versus watching to learn about what's happening on the court. It's just a very different situation. 

47:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, it could just be exactly that. It's when you watch a game, you're watching for enjoyment, you are watching every minute of it, but you're not really focused on certain things. Uh, you know, scheme being one of them, um, in that. So I'm picking up on something you said about 20 minutes ago. But I I would like to I'd really like to dive into how you attack the board, because for a modeler like myself, or maybe kirk, we'll run our numbers on games or props or whatever, and you just it's as simple as taking your model number, comparing it to what the market number is. You know where your edges are. You go and bet them For you. Do you have like an angle of attack? Going into a day where it's like I think the Golden State Warriors do something like this, they're playing the Nuggets and something almost like the Zach Galifianakis meme where he's just seeing a bunch of numbers and stuff in front of his face, how do you process the board and attack it on a day-to-day basis? 

48:17 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
So, to address the previous conversation, one thing I want to mention is not to be reductive about oh, it's so easy to win at sports betting. I don't want to sound like that, but like, keep in mind how much harder it would be if you were the sports book. Like you have to set a line for every single thing and people can come in and just pick the ones off that they'd like. Like, if I were forced to take action on every prop, I would lose so much money, yeah, so much money, yep, Like. What I don't think people realize is like minus 114 or minus 115 is a lot of vague on each side. They don't have to be perfect, they just have to get in the right ballpark and, like most plays or most most lines don't, especially on the prop side, don't have an edge. And I don't think people like the casual better may not realize that. You know, I have friends ask me like oh, do you like Ionescu under or over 19 and a half? And I go not really. So they're like, they're not is like. 

49:04
So you like the under, I'm like no I don't, I like it like there's no play on and that kind of ties back to, like kaiser, no play. Like it's a good reminder that, like sometimes your best bet is not to play it. Um, and there's a different level of pressure when you're doing it full time and like you feel like you have to make money but like the bets will come. Like the best way to improve your roi, in my opinion, is to cut out the bad. It's not to find some new breaking edge or to find increase the good bets. It's literally just cut out the bad bets, um, because, like, if you're unsure about a bet, just don't play it. Um, you know the house has an advantage for a reason, um. So like I wanted to note that that, like no one is holding a gun to your head forcing you to bet something. If you're not sure, don't bet it and only only the things that you like. 

49:44
I believe in stacking edges. So this can go into sort of like answering your next question. Like I will rarely play something because I have a singular, what I consider an edge on it. I like to have multiple reasons that I like it. Like, if I'm making a pros and cons list in my head, I would like there to be mostly pros and if I can find a few reasons why I don't like it, I don't play it. I also do firmly believe that you want to bet early Props sides. Whatever it's really easy to beat. Whatever trader is being paid to set the line, it's not easy to beat the trader, plus every single opinion in the market. 

50:20
Yeah. So I think, like, finding out the time that your book opens the lines is really important and and getting there sooner, like don't be late. If you're doing stuff, don't be tied. Don't have your whole life tied to sports betting. But, like, if you're not doing something, don't procrastinate. Like, if you're gonna bet it later and you have time now, do it now. I will say, like my day if I open you know I open the lines on PropBuilder, also worth noting I actually think my ROI is a little better than the BetStamp one because they don't have Builder or they didn't have Builder and I'm only betting Builder prices. I don't get a bunch of different prices. Yeah, I don't get to bet legal prices. Unfortunately, I don't know if my ROI is better. I think my ROI could be better if I had more access to more prices. 

51:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Right, I would almost guarantee that it would be. 

51:16 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Guaranteed. So you know, I opened the prop lines. I just manually go through each team, like each team, and like I say like oh, this seems higher, this seems low, based on just what I think the baseline is, just gut feel, and then I'll go back and then you know, once I'm done looking through like, let's say, the Timberwolves, I'm like, okay, this, this and this look potentially off to me. And then I'm going to go deeper. I don't do a deep dig on every single like points, rebounds, assist, threes and pra line out there, just the ones that seem off to me mentally. Then I'm gonna go do more objective stuff, like come up with what I think the number should be. Uh, account for various things. 

51:56
Um, I think a big one is like, let's say, a backup to a player gets ruled out. It won't have any impact on the side or total. Really, probably it may be a half point, but probably not. But it could have a major impact on that starter's minutes for that night and that could actually meaningfully impact a prop line in a way that the props won't account for because they're not sending someone in to change it, because they're not changing the like. You know, if Cecilia Zandal cini is ruled out. That shouldn't affect anything except for bridget carlton, and they're not going to go and change bridget carlton like that's just what. 

52:28
It is what a deep pull yeah, I've never heard that name in my life before, so um so, yeah, I think, like checking the board and making sure it checks out from like, do I actually like this play just off gut instinct, and then does it check all of my boxes and and like I do a lot of like it's not. There's still a lot of objective things that I that I look for and I want to agree with me. It's just there's no model. Does that, does that make sense? 

52:57
um, and I I don't bet nba or w totals. 

53:01
Um, I know like kirk is a big totals better Because, like I have opinions on player effects on the total, like in or out. How does this player affect the total? I also have a pretty decent way of objectively quantifying it. Like there's on-off splits, there's pace stuff, but I don't have a good way of a baseline, like in terms of like if the Hawks play the Grizzlies, I, if the Hawks play the Grizzlies, I don't have a good way of saying if everyone's healthy, what should this baseline be? So, like if the total, I just have to assume the total is set fairly and if a player is ruled out, that I think has a massive impact, like a lot, a lot less jaw and a lot more ED, like that's, that's under, and so I just have to assume that the line is fair before that news or I think that they're're gonna be ruled out or something and I'm gonna hit thunder. But I rarely play totals and I'm not very good at it because I don't have a good baseline for it. 

53:45 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
But like sides and props, like I think I've just done it long enough that I have a pretty good baseline of what they should be, without a model, that sounds really arrogant no, no, no, I think that's true and I actually think it's not talked about enough of having baselines, like plus ev tweeted this week something about like sgps, like having the understanding of correlations won't help you. You need to understand dynamic correlations, which I agreed with and then and completely disagreed with at the same time. Because, okay, yes, you won't beat the books by having, by understanding, just basic correlations, but if you understand those basic correlations, you can find the times where there are the dynamic correlations. And I think that's true of kind of everything, like if you don't know what an ant point line should be, you don't know what it should be if dante divincenzo's out. So those baselines are everything in sports betting to me completely agree with you. 

54:41 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I wanted to include that. Just missed the cut for Circleback this past week, which I wanted to roast him for that tweet. But everything you just said totally applies. I didn't think that that was an accurate tweet. I think that's just one of the issues with sports betting nowadays is everyone's like so firmly rooted in like in these cases that there's so many edge cases with sports betting that you can apply. I'm curious about overlap in sports because it seems like a lot of your process comes down to being just very in tune with the league and watching games and understanding the dynamics of specific teams. So let's say you got NBA going on with WNBA at the same time and Major League Baseball at the same time. How do you manage to balance all three? Do you balance all three of those or do you just, you know, pick a, you know League One and then kind of move your way down the list? Just walk me through that. 

55:37 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Maybe April? I'm trying to think. Is there a time when all three are on? Possibly April? I would need to look into it more, but thankfully they're different seasons so it's usually one to two on at a time. I don't want to speak without looking into it. I think there might be some point in April where all three are on and I remember just kind of like not doing MLB as much because there's so many games. 

56:05 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
I don't think the WNBA is on in April. I think really right now is like kind of the closest to overlap, where it's NBA preseason with WNBA like playoffs. 

56:11 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, NBA season is going to start in a week, basically, and WNBA finals done in a week. Right, and MLB will just be in playoffs, like with a few teams so not a great example. But even if it's two sports, right like is it, is it enough for you to do you overlap at that time? Do you focus hard on nba until that season's over and then go go into mlb like, how does that? How do you go about that? 

56:38 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
um, well, my edge is higher in basketball than it is in baseball. So, um, generally if it's two sports, I'll probably do basketball before baseball. Um, yeah, I think also just the nature of like, where I'm betting, like, I don't have many mlb prop outs the night before, right, um, so like it kind of divvies up that way where I can do basketball night and baseball in the morning. But if I were forced to choose, with not enough hours in the day, I do think basketball would probably take precedent, because I have a higher edge and I'm betting those at higher amounts. 

57:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm really interested in the baseball side of things because you work with a baseball team, but baseball is a I mean, it's a numbers game, more so than any other sport, I would say. There's just so much data available to you and your processes involves a lot of watching games. Does that also apply to baseball? Like, do you know specific pitcher tendencies from watching them and saying, well, x, y and z type of batter might have success against this type of pitcher, but these other players won't? Is it applicable, this process you described from basketball, is it also applicable to baseball? 

57:59 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
I think so and I think there are better ways than I do it to objectively account for things like, for example, michael King, the Padres starter, like kind of a lower slot, sinker, slider, crossfire guy, like very his pitch profile is very horizontal. He's going to do better against righties than lefties, like I think that's, if you follow baseball, like that's pretty not controversial and you can look at his splits splits like the splits are there too. So, like, if you're facing a team that is forced to play a bunch of righties like when he faced the braves, uh in the postseason that was one of the easiest over strikeouts I've ever seen, because like the braves were forced to run out seven righties like he's gonna face mostly righties, like that's a good matchup for him. Uh, if he's facing mostly lefties, he has to go more change, like he probably doesn't have as many strikeouts. Um, I should do a better job and maybe that's something I should look into the future about actually quantifying, like by pitch type, how how these teams are facing like that kind of thing. Um, and maybe that's more work for down the road. Um, but then there's also like some art in it, just like in basketball. So, for example, um taking into account. Uh, man, this mlb team just used um seven of their eight bullpen arms yesterday and they're in the middle of a road trip with no off days in sight. Like they're going to their baseline for letting that starter go longer. If he's getting beat up is higher, they're going to leave him in longer. Um, today. 

59:15
Um, so that could be like over pitching outs, that could be over strikeouts, that could be honestly over hits or over earned around, because earned runs are such a weird thing to bet on, because on one hand, you're going to pull a miss as they get in trouble, but also if they leave with runners on, that's still their responsibility. 

59:29
But, like, if there's other external factors why they might leave that pitcher in, like over earned runs becomes a great play versus like. So if you're looking at a playoff team, that's uh, or like a team that's hopeful for the playoffs in the playoff hunt in september, like where every game matters, they're probably going to be more likely to pull their starter when they get in first sign of trouble a shorter leash whereas like the angels or the white socks, um, even if a guy gets beat up, they might leave them out for five or six things. That's a young guy. They don't. They're rebuilding. They don't care about wins, um, they don't care about development. So they're going to leave them in there to take their lumps, like that's an art thing. That would be hard for a sports book, I think, to account for. 

01:00:06 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, that's interesting. I want to push back on the Michael King example really quickly, because this is where I have a hard time fundamentally understanding this, because the reality is if a pitcher struggles or, like let's say, is very successful against righties, that's going to show up in their data over the course of the year and you would think that someone who's modeling baseball would be able to account for that and have an advantage betting that. And you're coming in after the fact and saying, well, this is an easy over strikeouts because of I know for these reasons, over strikeouts because of I know for these reasons. But I mean intuitively, for me I would feel like that would already be accounted for in the line because that data exists. Like, am I out to lunch here? Like, walk me through, I'm having a hard time processing how you would be able to find an edge on that specific type of example that you used that isn't already accounted for in the market. 

01:01:08 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Well, so I guess like my best counter example this is sort of me being hypocritical because I just said that CLV I'm not a CLV truther but like I got that price at plus 102. It closed at like minus 160. Like I might have moved it like eight to 10 cents because, like I move my accounts move basketball props way more than baseball props, right, and also there's MLB props are so widely available. Like I didn't account for 60 cents at that move. And also like even if I had accounted for 40 cents of it, someone had the opportunity to go under and they didn't. So like this sounds like such a flippant response and I don't mean it to come off this way, but like this sounds too. I don't mean it to come off any kind of bad way, but like your skepticism that it could be true is just not really reflective in the market. 

01:01:58
Like the book did set this price, I did disagree. I moved it to a number. It moved to a number without me. That I thought was fair and it stayed that way. So like I do think prop lines get sharper every year, um, but like I guess I don't think we're anywhere point where there aren't edges, and like even in a playoff line, that should be heavily diagnosed and they should like, they shouldn't miss anything for when they're setting a playoff line, when there's like four games going on, like they were still off by 60 cents. If we, if we assume that the closing line was kind of the fair line, which is what I assume in this specific case- the longer this podcast goes I guess the more the more you turn into a clv truther. 

01:02:39
I know I guess I is like I welcome your disagreement and I'm happy to have the conversation, but like I just have like lots of proof over like many years of like it not being efficient, and that's totally fair. 

01:02:51 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Like for me, I had an assumption, I guess, that the market wasn't as soft as you're describing, and I think the way that you're describing it is like yeah, it's just a trader who's opening a number and I am very quickly able to identify that this is a bad number, and that's a totally reasonable answer to me. I just figured that, listen, we're in 2024, the days of, you know, when I was betting MLB strikeout props in 2018 that were you know, I'd be betting the same prices, like plus 100 to close minus 200. They'd move a strikeout prop, an entire strikeout, which is unheard of sometimes, like I didn't think those still existed, and that's just me not betting those markets. So that's a totally reasonable answer to me. Um, I want to talk a little bit about this upcoming NBA season. Let's do it. 

01:03:43
And Kirk has some hot takes that he wanted to throw out there. I'm not going to be the guy to challenge him on these takes, because he came on circles off last year before NBA season, gave out three hot takes and they were disastrous and I couldn't challenge him on them at all. I was just like all right, I'll take this guy's word for it. You know he bets NBA seriously, but I would be interested in your response to some of his hot takes. 

01:04:08 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
So these are hot takes. I wouldn't say all of them have necessarily have markets and I wouldn't say I think these are more likely to happen than not. But I would say I'm closer to these hot takes than the market would be Like there's not necessarily a price on it, but you could conceptualize a price based on other prices. So let me hit you with a few of them. First one the Wizards will have the worst record or win percentage in NBA history. 

01:04:37 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Ooh, it's a hot take and it's hard to say like, oh, I agree that they'll have, they'll set the record for for fewest wins. But like I'm I agree with you more than I directionally agree with you. They're a terrible team. Uh, we've talked about this offline, like they're. They're really bad. 

01:04:53 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
I, I, I, I side with you directionally all right, good to hear that's a good start also just looking for market agreement. 

01:05:01 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
He's a clv truther and this is this is his version. This is podcast clv. 

01:05:06 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Um, yeah, and every preseason game it gets worse and worse. This team's unbelievably bad. All right, this one's a hot take and really there probably is a market for it. I'm not. I'm not. I don't think we've talked about either of these teams offline. The brooklyn nets, or yeah, brooklyn nets should have a higher win total than the chicago bulls um, I'm gonna say disagree. 

01:05:31 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
um, for two reasons. Yes, the bulls are signaling that they're tanking but, like they have tried harder every year for the last six years, the nets have openly admitted their, their, their rebuilding. Um, I think, if you plugged it into an objective player-for-player model, I think it's close, but I think the Nets are more likely to trade DFS and Cam Johnson than the Bulls are. Who, realistically, is going to trade for Vooch? Who's motivated to do so and take on that contract and give up the assets? Maybe Levine's gone to do so and take on that contract and give up the assets. Maybe Levine's gone, but like, and then I think, yeah, I think directionally agree that it should be closer than the prices currently are, but no, I don't think the Nets should have a higher win total than the Bulls. 

01:06:13 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
I think that actually is a really good point of the Nets have players that other teams want versus the Bulls have players that are nearly untradeable. But yeah, roster for roster to start the season, it's definitely pretty close. The Nets honestly might be better, but I think that's a fair point. They're also nine wins away from each other, so it's definitely pretty. It's a pretty hot take, but I think I am more. I think the Bulls are going to tank very hard. 10 this year, I think Caruso for Giddy, plus letting DeRozan walk for nothing, is enough signal that they're going to really tank. 

01:06:53 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
So I think one thing that I'll say is like in MLB, you can just put together a player, you can get a player rating model and it should come pretty close to evaluating how good that team is. But for basketball, like fit is a huge part of of things which I think you would agree with and like absolutely. For the last two years, I thought the nets have had incredibly good players like dfs is an incredibly valuable player royce o'neill, mikhail bridges, but they've never had like it's just a bunch of like role players and they've never had like it's just a bunch of like role players and they've never had like the offensive hub. So like they've always underperformed their player ratings added together, yeah, that makes sense. 

01:07:29 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
I would agree with that. But I would also say this Bulls team specifically fits pretty terribly together considering they have they have the least amount of positive defensive players on really any roster I can ever think of yep, yep, um. 

01:07:44 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
So I we're kind of two for two, we're like 1.5 for two, because I agree direction with the first one and I kind of agree directionally with the second one too. They shouldn't be nine wins off nice, all right. 

01:07:52 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
I think these takes keep getting hotter as we go here. Perfect, um, actually don't. I actually don't know if this one's that hot. 

01:07:59 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Behind boston and okc, the calves should be listed as the favorite for the most wins in the regular season not championship, not playoffs most regular season wins um, I disagree, but I directionally agree again because I have the knicks as the answer for this, for this, really, I'm happy after the hot, I'm happy to give out a couple. I came prepared to give out a couple picks of my own after this. 

01:08:26 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Nice, beautiful. 

01:08:28 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
This is not an officially sanctioned Kaiser no-play pick, but I did bet a little Knicks best regular season record. 

01:08:34 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Interesting I actually think. I directionally disagree with you there. I like the Knicks as a team, but they're so shallow post-trade with Mitrov injury, so I could see them reaching really high highs, but I just think they're going to be too injured to really reach like 55, 60 wins, which they're going to need for that. 

01:08:59 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
I think it's just the Tibbs effect and they're running like a bunch of mega durable player outside of OG, like every other player that they're running in their rotation is like extremely durable and I think Tibbs just tries so hard in regular season. But I don't want to spend too much time on the Knicks. I want to answer your, your, your, prompt. I, I directionally agree. I think Kenny Atkinson ball is gonna. You know they're increasing pace. I don't. I don't think Bickerstaff is like particularly good. So like I was high on the Cavs the last two years, I actually had Cavs division last year which they had, and then they purposely tanked on the last day of the season so that they could get a different seed and I lost a plus 650 that way. 

01:09:41 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
I also lost on that bet. Yeah, that was a tough day. All right, I've got two more for you. This one's definitely the hottest take. I bet it 25-1 last year, now we're getting 250. Walker Kessler has a path to depoy Disagree I disagree, I disagree. 

01:10:06 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
This is the first one I disagree with, mainly because I don't think that the Utah Jazz have a path to being a good team defense, and there's just never been a time. That's also why I think Wemby's probably the favorite, but he shouldn't be minus money, because how can you give a defensive player of the year award to a bad defense? I can't remember that happening much. 

01:10:25 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
I don't think it ever has. 

01:10:26 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Voters will reward that. I love Will Hardyy. I don't like his scheme where they just allow a ton of threes and like they shouldn't, with kessler playing a center they shouldn't need to, but like they have thus far, and like it's just hard for me to see the utah jazz having a good enough defense or walker kessler playing enough minutes to get there. Um, I I bet a little ad depoy because I think he's the most talented, a top three talented defender in the NBA, and the Lakers under JJ Redick could actually have a good defense. 

01:10:55 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Yeah, I think that's fair. I think the path for Kessler would be they overperform. They're way better with him off because they're actually starting a decent defensive starting lineup, and then everything past him is terrible. So when he's off he has crazy on-offs and maybe it's a weird year for Depoy Webby doesn't play enough. All right, last one for you here. The Oklahoma City Thunder should be the favorites to win the NBA title. 

01:11:20 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Disagree because the Boston Celtics exist, but directionally agree. 

01:11:24 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Oh, you're off the Celtics train, Kirk. What the hell's going on here. 

01:11:27 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
They cashed my bet that was last year. 

01:11:31 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
New year, new team. 

01:11:36 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
New year new team. 

01:11:38 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
We're all in on OKC If we want to get into it from a more technical standpoint other than the Celtics exist. I think OKC is incredible and could have an incredible defense, but they don't generate enough three-point attempts. They are just kind of weirdly constructed where they have a lot of interchangeable pieces. But I guess there are paths where outside of Shea the rest of their offensive efficiency could go down with more volume, because we haven't seen them be pushed to those kinds of limits. And there's also the size aspect of Hardenstein's not out there or the weird fit if he is out there with chet. So, uh, I I have tickets the minute caruso got traded, because I think caruso might be the most underrated player in the nba. Agreed, I ran to go take okc chip futures because I there were no western conference uh bets available to me, knowing that I could just hedge out of them if okc gets there. So so like directionally, agree, it's just Celtics exist. 

01:12:32 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Yeah, I think that's fair. I think the argument for OKC is they are the most asset-rich team in the NBA and could pretty easily add an offensive player if one comes available. They haven't. Yeah, that's fair. My spicy maybe-could-happen take is Kawhi, for their picks back Could happen. 

01:12:54 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
My dream every year has been marking into the thunder. 

01:12:58 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, that's a perfect fit, as well, right, we got some directional agreement, some directional disagreement and a straight disagreement as well. 

01:13:07 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
It's funny because when we text kaiser disagrees with me way more than on the pod. 

01:13:13 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, yeah he doesn't want to show you up on the pod. 

01:13:16 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
No, no, I. He brought out the good takes for the show, I guess the texts are only the bad takes. Yeah, yeah um, do you do? Is it cool if I give out two pick? Let's do it is that? 

01:13:27 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
yeah, yeah, absolutely. If johnny was here, he'd be asking you for more than two picks, so just just go for it. 

01:13:33 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Okay. 

01:13:34
Obviously you know we're recording and it's gonna go out of thursday. So these are both futures. Um, the first one is toronto raptors. Under 30 and a half wins um, I think current crisis now you'd have to find like a minus 125, but I think it's also fine at 29 and a half. Um. Uh, disclaimer that I've kind of strayed away from futures over the last few, like more recently. I've strayed away from futures just because, especially for regular season win totals, I'm not interested in tying up my bankroll for seven months or whatever for a minus 115 payout. It would have to be like a banker where I think it's like mega roi and I do think this is the case. 

01:14:09
Um, the raptors won 25 games last year. Uh, they traded everybody and post trade deadline the last 27 games, basically the last third of the season. They went 3 and 24. Um they did tank egregiously in that they would often like sub, like sub in a bad unit for parts of the fourth quarter when they're in it. So I'm not saying that they weren't tanking, but like outside of scotty barnes and yaka hurdle who was hurt, like they didn't tank that much in terms of like many games in that 3 and 24 stretch. They started the starter like the best players that they had available to them. Yeah, um, they were just bad and like their rotation is very, very shallow. They were playing so many players that are like among the worst players in the NBA. And then on top of that we have, like their GM and their starting center acknowledge openly in an anti-tanking world that they are deliberately tanking this year, even with the East having a bunch of like fellow tankers, like it would be a disaster of a season if they are targeting to tank and they win 31 games. Like that seems hard to do if that's what they're trying to do. 

01:15:14
Uh, emmanuel quickly is fine but he's a bottom, probably bottom 10 starting point guard. Just it's a deep. It's a deep point guard, you know starting class, but like he's bottom 10 probably. Um, rj barrett has had two months of showing he's an efficient player. Um, scotty barnes is good, but you know his jumper that he you know he found last year like was good to start the year and then it regressed by the end of the year back to what old scotty barnes jumper looks like. Um, yeah, I, I just fail to see how they're going to objective, achieve their, their team objective if they win 31 games, um and and kind of like. I think kirk originally disagreed and then maybe has come around to agree on this because when I said this originally he's like I don't like that. Like Charlotte is 30 and a half. I think my friends and I joke that Charlotte's a championship roster. They're not, but they're a really good roster. They're much more talented than Toronto lined at the same. So that's my first pick. Do you have any thoughts? 

01:16:07 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Any thoughts? Charlotte's a championship roster. It's an egregious take, but I agree with you. Otherwise, do you directionally agree though? Yeah, no, no, no, the Raptors stink. I think Grady Dick might be the worst starting player in the league to start the year. Yeah, no. And also, we're starting the year with RJ and Quickly Hurt. No, it's an amazing bet. I totally agree. 

01:16:36 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I like how you said we, as if you're part of the organization as well. Classic, classic toronto, classic toronto, right there. Uh, yeah, it sucks, listen. I mean I want, I want to watch the raptors be competitive, but uh, there's not a lot of excitement brewing in the city for this season but it's better for us to win 20 games than 35, so so I don't hate that right, um, the other. 

01:16:51 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
One other one I had is a coach of the year future. It's Mike Budenholzer. Coach of the year. I bet it at 22 to 1. I checked today. I think 20 to 1 is still available on DraftKings and FanDuel. I believe I would play it down to like 14 or 15 to 1, which should be everywhere. 

01:17:09
Basically, I think, to win one of these awards you want both a reason that they could win and sort of the narrative behind it that the voters seem to love. He's an elite regular season coach. He was fired in his last playoff series against the Heat because his brain malfunctioned but his brother had just passed away that week. And you know, I think most people respect bud as a coach. And then you see, sort of like it helps that it juxtaposes that the coaches that came in after him were pretty bad. So, like all bucks fans want boone holes are back because they've had a lot worse since, and like he was carrying them to easy one seeds every year, um, without really even taxing his starters minutes he goes to to Phoenix, sort of like the third coach in three years fixing the unfixable team. If he can do it he already knows about the math problem. He has them shooting more threes in the preseason, a lot more threes. Tyus Jones is a really underrated addition that I don't think like. 

01:18:04
If they win, if they go one seed in the West this year, I do think people will mention Tyus Jones, but I think a lot of people will mention Mike Budenholzer as the main reason, especially if they change up their play style. I also think it's kind of like revenge season for Kevin Durant. I think he's kind of had a chip on his shoulder this year. I think Bradley Beal is kind of set up for success this year. I really like his play. I looked into Suns Futures but they're the favorite. I was going to bet their division but they're the favorites, kind of as they should be. I think they're going to take the regular season seriously and Budenholzer has shown himself to be an elite regular season coach, so I think he should be one of the favorites. 

01:18:42 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
All right, I did check to see that exist. Agree. 

01:18:46 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
No, absolutely agree. One of my hot takes that was left on the chopping block was the Phoenix Suns end up with the number one offense this year. So no, I totally agree. I actually was looking at Suns championship futures today but it steamed a bunch. But I just totally agree with you. Wow. 

01:19:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Look at this Way too much agreement today. Look at this. I know We'll have to re-record it. It's not normally like this. Yeah, I was expecting you guys to go toe-to-toe, but yeah, I did check. The 20-1 is out there at several spots right now. I'm not going to bet it and I'd love to bet it in real time, but this is pre-recorded. I'll give everyone a chance to at least get down on it and hopefully it'll win. 

01:19:35 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Yeah, lots more agreement than I thought because you're a pretty polarizing guy, kirk. 

01:19:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, no, I, I would have went at you and I know you would have went at me if we disagreed. Absolutely that's good. Um, kaiser, you have recently joined establish the run as well. Uh, very recently, I don't want to turn that. We've had some establish the run guests on, including adam levitan recently, last week. Um, this was not planned to keep going down the etr um to establish the run run yeah, it is. It is a run. Uh, what are you working on for them? 

01:19:58 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
out of curiosity, uh, well, so first of all, like when, when, when, uh, kirk told me like oh, you know, unreal etr run on the pod, I'm like that's like if you saw michael jordan and leaky black on the street on the same day, like, wow, like I'm seeing all these unc players today. Like, um, I'm, I'm simply a henchman. Uh, I I haven't started yet other than some onboarding. I was hired, you know, to help out um with their props team for nba props team for this coming season. Um, they are among the best in the business. I don't know that I can improve their roi, but I think you know I've fired off a lot more props on my own in the past than they have and I think helping find more bets at similar roi could be, could be, of benefit to them. 

01:20:41
Um, I, part of the agreement is that I am not going to go rush the the prop market overnight, so it'll probably, um, I'll probably make less this year. Um, just I I think it'll cut into me financially. But, to be honest, like I'm getting kind of tired of, like you know, you lose all the offshore outs and then you have to deal with the pph world and I I just hate dealing with bookies and getting money out, or you know, people bring me accounts, which is cool because they handle it, but it's just like it's not in me. It doesn't feel good. I don't need the money. It doesn't feel good taking money from regular people that are really pissed when you do or deal with stiffs or whatever so, um, part of it's working with it I'll interject there. 

01:21:20 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
For me, it feels great knowing that they don't want to pay me um and will do anything that they can not do. Sorry, so I had to interject there. I actually have the complete opposite experience, but you're entitled to your own Kaiser. Sorry about that. 

01:21:35 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
No, you're good, You're good. I probably have too much of a conscience for this space. Rob has no problem with that. I'm so gullible dude. A bookie will tell me any sob story and I'll just be like whatever man, keep your money. Yeah, I think the appeal of maybe there's a future career here with ETR, just working with a team, sounds fun. Again, collaborate, I love collaborating. But then I think, just most importantly to me, I was drawn to just some of the smartest people in the industry. How could I not get better as a better and as a handicapper and has just a ball nowhere than working with some of the smartest people in the industry? So, yeah, I haven't really started for them, but I am going to help out with their props team this coming year. 

01:22:24 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Love that Establish the Run. I'm a big fan. I buy projections from Establish the Run, I use them as like, in addition to some of the stuff that I do, and I'm a big fan of the brand overall and a lot of the personalities associated with it. So best of luck to you on that. We'll close off with our personal reflections section, which we like to do here, starting with plus EV. Minus EV and we'll start with you, kaiser Doesn't have to be related to sports betting. It can be if you want it to be totally up to you. One thing that you think is plus EV in life, one thing that you think is minus EV in life plus EV. 

01:23:02 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Um, I mean, my real answer is pets, specifically dogs, but I think that's kind of a boring answer, so I I came up with a different one, but that's my true answer um is pets, um plus EV. Uh, I'm gonna go with changing your mind and, and what I mean by that is like I have struggled with this for a long time and it's a big thing in like working in sports, because everyone has their own opinion and like you're kind of tied to your like you get credit when you have a good opinion and you want to get tied to like I you know, credit me for liking that player, flagging that player that does well, and and I think like there's ego attached to like when you change your mind. You were had a lot of conviction on on something and you are willing to admit that you were wrong or that that was not. You know, maybe, like you're, you're willing to to to change uh your opinion on something that you had so much conviction in prior, and it feels like almost changing your character. Like I people just get attached to their opinions and I think, like the more time I've spent uh working with co-workers, and then in the betting sphere too, like being able to take in info and from everybody else and say, like you know what I wasn't right about this, and and then having the humility to change your mind about something is something that I don't think I'm great at, but I think I'm improving and I think that's a huge plus EV. 

01:24:18 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I like that. 

01:24:19 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Talking about us agreeing. I'm pretty sure that was my plus EV when I did the pod the first time. 

01:24:24 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I think you'd be like, I think I'm changing your mind. Wow, we're really on the same page today. 

01:24:29 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
It's a great take. 

01:24:30 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's a great take I've never once seen. 

01:24:34 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Kirk change his mind, but it's his plus EV. I was going to say, yeah, yeah, he might acknowledge his plus EV, but he hasn't done it yet. 

01:24:40 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Disagreed. Disagreed. Kirk, do you have a plus EV? I do, got it written down right here. Realizing you're dumb. I had a conversation with friends last night about the housing market stock picks, and when I'm in these conversations my only answer is it's all price debt. You don't know, people do this for a living and they barely even know. So you know people get so stressed. Is it the right time to buy a house? Is it time? Should I be buying this stock? Should I be buying that stock? If you need to buy a house, don't way overpay in terms of like, go way over ask or pay way more than the houses in the area, but but you're probably just getting what the fair price is. You don't need to stress so much about it. Just do it. Or, if you're buying a stock, don't try timing the market. Just, you're dumb, you, you don't know. I don't know. I have no clue. Just do it. All right, you're realizing you're dumb. 

01:25:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Realizing you're dumb. I didn't come, I don't, you know, listen, positive, rob, didn't last too long. So I don't have a plus EV this week, I only have a minus EV. But I'll throw to you first, kaiser, for your minus EV. 

01:25:49 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Yeah, being late to events, and this is actually one that I do struggle with. I'm habitually late, rarely egregiously late, but also rarely right at the time. I'm usually between five to 10 minutes late and like my rule, above everything else, is to treat people with respect, and I think I do that in almost every regard. But like being late to something where other people showed up and were waiting on you is like pretty disrespectful of their time, I would say, and it's something that I consistently do and I like I try to get better at, but I think like it's never bitten me too badly, like I've missed a couple flights, but like it's more just couple arriving, arriving late to the airport. 

01:26:28 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You've missed flights before. Yeah, I have, I have. Well, at least we know you. You're willing to push the limits on the arrival, because we? Don't like I don't like getting to the airport early I'm, I'm a man of efficiency to a fault. 

01:26:40 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Like I've driven my, my miles range on my car down to I've seen zero, the number, zero miles, twice. Um, and like to me it's just like oh, I'm accounting for this much time to get here. I I don't want to get here early and leave, leave early. But in reality, like what was I doing at home that I couldn't have been doing there? And like you, like I, you can't account for certain things Like I'm good at accounting for, like injury, you know, like foul trouble, risking basketball. Why can't I account for traffic? Or like unforeseen circumstances. So that's my minus EV. 

01:27:07 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I will say I'm a very judgmental person for those that don't know, and one thing that irks me is people who arrive late. It feels like a slap in the face to me when I'm there, when I'm waiting on that first tee box, and the starter says you're up and like one guy in the foursome just isn't there yet. Nothing makes me more upset than people arriving late. 

01:27:28 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
So I actually really like that one. I like that. This isn't really a minus EV, it was more just something that pissed me off. I got a Starbucks before we recorded this podcast. First thing, when you go to pay 20% tip, that's not reasonable. When you're picking up a coffee At a restaurant, when they give you service, absolutely I guess my minus EV is paying that, that 20 at like a takeout fast casual type of place. Like it's just not reasonable to to have that 20 be the first option when you're picking up. I literally got a black coffee. 

01:28:01 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
yeah, they, they hit the thing all this time. I'll just brew you a coffee here, like it's totally fine, yeah. 

01:28:07 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
All positive towards service workers. I'll always tip at restaurants, but come on, it's just an egregious trend. 

01:28:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Got it. So Kirk didn't come with a minus EV, he went with a tips that trigger us this week. Doesn't like tipping no? 

01:28:23 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
I don't not like tipping. I get it Fast food restaurants. 

01:28:26 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I completely agree with you. It's getting egregious. It's getting. I don't want the narrative to start that Kirk's about to touch up there. I was recently at the airport with my wife. She's trying to get on the Wi-Fi at the airport. 

01:28:39
The minus EV move here is putting in your email to get on any Wi-Fi, because you actually don't have to put in your email for the vast majority of places to connect to Wi-Fi. People don't ever read the fine print or anything like that. But you log onto a wifi. It takes you to a website. There's a little box there that asks you for your email. In upwards of 95% of instances, you do not have to actually put in an email. All you have to do is click a box saying you accept the terms of their wifi. Don't put your emails in. Don't do it. My wife's always wondering why she gets so much spam. She's getting stuff that she's never signed up for. It's because she's connected every Wi-Fi in the city and put in her email every time. I don't. You shouldn't either. Don't give people your information for free, just to connect to their internet. 

01:29:27 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
You don't have to do it. That is a great tip, but also shows me how your brain works, cause that's so easily. Could have been a plus EV of just not putting in your wifi, but your brain goes negative. You made it a minus EV. You know what? 

01:29:39 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's actually a very valid point you bring up there. Easily could have been my plus EV move of the week. 

01:29:44 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Not putting in the email. 

01:29:45 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I guess it's a very Well, yeah, I guess. 

01:29:48 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
When I was thinking about this prompt, I was like, well, minus EV could be not having pets right. Like plus EV could be arriving on time and minus EV could be changing your mind. 

01:29:57 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Don't poke holes in the game. You can't think about it through deep play. 

01:30:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
We never really thought this through. It was just a random segment that we came up with. I love it. Yeah, in hindsight could have easily just made it one or the other, but it is what it is. We'll end it here. Kaiser, if you could go back five years and talk to a previous version of yourself, what advice would you give to your former self? 

01:30:18 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
Well, I'm big into time travel movies and I believe in like the impact. Like it might not turn out the same If you go back in time and talk to yourself. It's not going to turn out the same way, but I'm gonna take this question at face value. Um, I'm pretty happy with, kind of how things have played out. I don't have a ton to tell myself. Um, I thought about this for a while. Actually, this is the one that I struggled with the most. 

01:30:37
My final answer was just um, like go order the appetizers that you wanted five years ago, because, like five years ago I was making minimum wage, uh, in an expensive city, um, between rent and pets and, uh, food and and all that other stuff. Like I was arguably losing money. Like I was, uh, you know I was. If I ever was on the streets, I think my family would have taken care of me. 

01:31:02
So it's like I don't want to act like that, but but at least to my name, I didn't have much money, uh, until I, until sports betting, really, um, and, and you know I would always this kind of tied to Hertz, a minus EV. It's kind of like a disagreement with his minus EV, but like I would always be like, oh, if I got it to go, I don't, you know, it might be cheaper. Or I don't want to order the chips and salsa because and maybe that was rational thinking at the money I had then. But I would tell myself five years ago like, just you'll, you'll do fine in the future, just order what you want. That money is not doing that that's your five dollars isn't doing anything for you and your bank account. And I actually, ever since COVID, I do not to one up, I do tip, even to go orders because not to one up, but a big one. 

01:31:48
Service workers, like it's just not fair that service workers don't get paid enough and wait tips are part of their quote-unquote wages, and like, depending on where you work, you just might be a job or a restaurant that happens to serve more people. 

01:32:01 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
Um, you know, yeah, but but to be fair, a starbucks or mcdonald's worker is getting paid, that's not like an exception. They're not getting paid on tips. 

01:32:11 - Keyser NoPlay (Guest)
That's not like their expectation versus like if you're at a restaurant and they're serving you, the expectation is the tips because that's like kind of factored into their salary sorry, I don't want to come across as like everybody else should do what I'm doing just more that, like the 15% on takeout, I don't need that money imminently anyways. So so I would tell myself five years ago all this little stuff on the edges Because a sports bettor's mentality is so price sensitivity, right, you want to get the best price and stuff. And then in real life it just starts bleeding into like, oh, let me cut out this coupon. Like, ah, dang it, it actually expired yesterday. I won't get $2 off this meal and it's just like. That's so irrelevant. Like I wanted this, I was so psyched to get this meal, I'm just gonna go order it anyways. 

01:32:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yep Kaiser. No, play true class act. Kirk Evans ultimate scumbag. 

01:33:02 - Kirk Evans (Co-host)
We know the clip. We know the clip for this episode Definitely being clipped by Zach for promotional purposes this week. 

01:33:08 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Kaiser, appreciate you joining us this week on Circles Off. If you enjoyed the episode, smash that like button down below. Leave us some comments as well. It also helps in the YouTube algorithm and if you're not subscribed here on Circles Off yet which, like 60% of you who watch this video aren't subbed yet hit that subscribe button down below. You'll get notified of all the content we put out in the future. Thank you to everyone who tuned in this week. This was Circles Off, episode number 176. We're back next week for more Peace out.