East Coast Gambler

I stayed away from a football picks contest against individuals for a while, but since I’m not doing a fantasy football league I figured I might as well.

Meet The Turd.  He’s an Ohio State Buckeyes fan and borderline obnoxious about it.  I’d probably be the same way if I didn’t grow up in a city with 9 professional sports teams and zero major college sports teams or go to a minor Division 3 school.

We’ll be going head to head with 5 weekly football picks.  This week we both happened to choose all different college football games, but we may mix NFL as the seasons go on.  All picks will go up on Friday for those that want some time to process.  I rarely bet that many games at once, so keep an eye on twitter and tumblr on game day for my picks.

All lines are courtesy bet revolution at the time of the writing of this post.  Of course, the lines may move.

ALSO: remember that you can still get a free $10 bet with Bet Revolution. Click this link and enter code EAST10

On to the picks where you’ll notice we both pick a lot of home favorites.
The Turd
MICHIGAN over Connecticut -3
NEBRASKA over Western Kentucky -37.5
Purdue over NOTRE DAME +11
CLEMSON over North Texas -27
FLORIDA over Miami (ohio) -36.5

Marc
TCU over Oregon State -13.5
NOTRE DAME over Purdue -11
ALABAMA over San Jose State -37.5
OKLAHOMA over Utah State -33.5
AKRON over Syracuse +7.5

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Football season is upon us so it’s time to get fantasy football teams in order. I tried my first auction draft and I don’t see myself doing another one. It took over 3 hours! I have little patients so that was VERY annoying.

Once again JMP will be doing weekly NFL picks, but this week he will also begin with his fantasy football position by position preview. Previews continue with Running Back.

ALSO: remember that you can still get a free $10 bet with Bet Revolution. Click this link and enter code EAST10

Due to time constraints, JMP didn’t have time to provide capsules for each player, but we both feel it’s important to get the information out before this weekend where there should be a bunch of drafts.  I’ll add comments where I have them.  Like usual.

Adrian Peterson (MIN)
Chris Johnson
Ray Rice
Maurice Jones-Drew
Michael Turner

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Football season is upon us so it’s time to get fantasy football teams in order. I tried my first auction draft and I don’t see myself doing another one. It took over 3 hours! I have little patients so that was VERY annoying.

Once again JMP will be doing weekly NFL picks, but this week he will also begin with his fantasy football position by position preview. Previews continue with Tight Ends and will continue for the next few days.

ALSO: remember that you can still get a free $10 bet with Bet Revolution. Click this link and enter code EAST10

I thought long and hard (heh, I said ‘long and hard’) about leaving tight ends for last and declaring the position the most important one this year.  It is for me, but I play in one league where only the TE gets a PPR bonus and in another all-PPR league where I just convinced the commish to add a WR/TE flex (which I promptly filled with Brent Celek after taking Dallas Clark as my ‘regular’ TE).  Still, most of your leagues are probably different, so here I am, doing the TE rankings second.  Here we go…

Antonio Gates – as recently as 3 days ago, this slot belonged to Dallas Clark.  I drafted Dallas before the pre-season even started and now I start hearing about how he’s not practicing nor playing.  So Gates takes over the #1 spot, as Rivers will look to him much more now that VJax is gone.
Jermichael Finley – I’ve seen a couple of Packers pre-season games and they’re using Finley the way the Colts used Clark  last year.  He vaults all the way to #2.

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Football season is upon us so it’s time to get fantasy football teams in order. I tried my first auction draft and I don’t see myself doing another one.  It took over 3 hours!  I have little patients so that was VERY annoying.

Once again JMP will be doing weekly NFL picks, but this week he will also begin with his fantasy football position by position preview.  Previews begin with quarterback and will continue for the next few days.

ALSO: remember that you can still get a free $10 bet with Bet Revolution.  Click this link and enter code EAST10

It’s the most wonderful time over the year!

Welcome back to another year of fantasy football!  It was a long off-season for me, as I wallowed in finishing 3rd in one league (out of and 5th out of 12 in another (good enough to make the playoffs, but I lost in the first round).  I enjoyed the real NFL playoffs purely as a fan and then bided my time until the NFL Draft and free agency.  That’s when I got back to work.  Over the next few days, you’ll see how all the changes affected my rankings, but for now, let’s reiterate the driving principals I play by:

1)      The ‘experts’ write in order to get paid.  If they all write the same things, then they’ll lose their jobs, so they each try to be cute and different and that’s why some still think you should take MJD if you have the first pick.  Experts who work for ESPN/Fox/CBS/NBC are doubly worse, as their networks show NFL games and so they have to say nice things about all players.  I’d much rather trust what I see with my eyes or, at the very least, read in an independent blog.  It was this realization that turned me from a fantasy also-ran into a force to be reckoned with!

2)      Big players make big plays in big games.  A tweener who becomes the ‘start of the week’ has a decent chance of flopping.  Call this the ‘MNF test’.  If you can’t bear to watch your benched player shine on Monday night, then you’d better start him.

3)      Keep your ‘dumb observables’ down.  People remember the stuff you do, both good and bad.  That said, dumb waivers moves are better than dumb trades.

4)      It takes luck to win a title.  It takes skill, or rather the lack thereof, to lose it.  Don’t be so ‘skillful’ that you sabotage your chances.

Let’s get started, shall we?  I don’t want any of these articles to run too long, so I’ll start with QBs as there aren’t as many viable alternatives here as there are at other positions (and, no, kickers and Ds don’t count as ‘positions’).
Aaron Rodgers – last year I said I wanted to see one more good year from him before moving him up.  I saw a GREAT year from him so he vaults to #1.  He can pass, he can run a little bit, he can play in the cold and his team may not have anything locked up by week 16 so he may have to play.  Can’t say that about…

Peyton Manning – I had him #1 as recently as last week, but then I saw the stats about Aaron’s running prowess and Peyton’s proclivity to sit during the fantasy playoffs.  Naturally, I learned this b/c I was paying extra special attention since I drafted him with my first pick in one of my leagues!  So, I’ll make the playoffs and then have to start Chad Henne.  Can’t wait!

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This was my first time staying at the Venetian and I still like it as a casino, but probably not as a place I’d like to stay.

The vibe in the casino is nice and relaxed but fun and the crowd is in the middle of the age types – somewhere between younger people and older people.

One of my favorite places in the casino was the sportsbook.  It’s pretty big and since it wasn’t NFL season it felt like a respite from the rest of the casino.

One great thing is that the Venetian sportsbook still gives out drink tickets with bets.  I received a few with my losing bet, but at least I was able to cash them in for a few awesome glasses of Blue Moon.

While I was at the sportsbook bar I cashed on 4 aces in Double Double Bonus Poker!  I was only playing $1 since I threw it in waiting for my beer.  Too bad.

I found the Venetian pretty crowded all day and night as there were a lot of tourists and families with children.  I’m a single dude and screaming kids are not what I want in Vegas.

The Grand Canal Shops were crowded with browsers, shoppers, eaters and drinkers.  I tried to avoid the shops during operating hours because of all of the people, but was happy to sneak in to grab some coffee at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.  Also, during regular hours the shops also had this CREEPY live statue.

The Venetian has done a great job branding themselves as a semi upper class family hotel without being stuffy.  It’s taken years to get that kind of equity.

On the other hand the Palazzo, which is relatively new, has not yet reached a similar critical mass.  The Shoppes were dead like they were on my other two visits.  However, for the first time in three visits the casino floor was PACKED on a weeknight.  Maybe there is a turnaround slowly happening at the Palazzo.

Food options are another thing I liked at the Venetian.  There is both quantity and quality.

The food court by the casino is easy to get to and has a nice variety of food as well as free wifi.  The full service restaurants are good as well and Delmonico is one of my favorite steakhouses in Las Vegas.

I tried First Food and Bar, which is hidden between the two hotels, and it was excellent.  It wasn’t too crowded and had interesting food such as cheese steak dumplings and ahi tuna nachos.

One negative for me as a solo traveler this trip was that there was no iphone reception inside of the Venetian Grand Lux Cafe.  I hate eating alone and keeping my head buried in my phone is usually a good trick to pass the time.  Unfortunately I couldn’t do that while eating lunch inside the restaurant.  So I scarfed down this BBQ pork sandwich and headed out ASAP.

On a better note, I was able to sit “outside” the following morning and grab some steak and eggs.  My favorite hangover remedy.

Overall, I enjoyed the Venetian and will likely continue to make it a place to visit when I’m in Vegas, but I don’t see myself staying there again. There are a lot of positives about the casino, but the wear on the rooms and the hordes of families and tourists give me reason to go elsewhere.

However, the Palazzo is both empty enough for me most of the day, but crowded enough at night in the casino to feel alive.  If given the chance to return, I would highly consider the Palazzo.

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I started to get some stuff up from my trip to Vegas 2 weeks ago.  Of course, now that I’m caught up on sleep I’m off to another destination.  Postings will be slow, but keep an eye on twitter as I’ll always pass on anything good I see.

Funny enough I was working on ECG 4.0, when I decided to work on an idea I had last year and was never able to get to.  If I did things right, that will launch shortly after my next trip.  Here’s the fun from this past week.

• In Running Sports Betting Comes To Hard Rock Hotel
• Guest Blog on Vegas Chatter
• Harrah’s Not Going Public…Yet
• Connecticut Slot Revenue Increases For First Time in 2 Years
• Gambling In New Jersey
• Vegas Cab Drivers – Good, Bad, Ugly
• Bally’s Tower Room Review
• Cosmopolitan Will NOT Have a Poker Room
• Atlantic City Partnership
• “Airplanes” by B.o.B. Featuring Haley Williams of Paramore
• Second Quarter Casino Earnings (Updated)
• Pictures From Las Vegas
• AC Hilton’s New Full Pay Video Poker Section: It’s Real and It’s Spectacular
• Rex Ryan Rules

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