Things to Do Tonight Other Than Watch the #BeemieAwards

Jason Beem

As y'all know, tonight is the 37th Annual Beemie Awards. Congrats and best wishes to Carly and those who make it go.

It's usually a raucous time on horse twitter, and year after year some twitterites want something to do besides watch that boneheaded awards show.

I'm here for you. Here are my top X (I am using X because I am doing this off the top of my head, unlike most of my supremely researched and grammarlied blog pieces) things to do to pass the time:

• Post the Cal-Expo pick 4 ticket you just took and ask Inside the Pylons what he thinks of your ticket construction 
• Tweet, "I started playing more California races since they changed the whip rule" to @racetrackandy
• Tweet "I hate the Beemie Awards". Do this from a burner account. 
• Ask @o_crunk to list his favorite Phish concerts in descending order from 100. 
• Tweet "Why don't you sponsor the Beemie Awards?" to the Runhappy twitter feed over and over again until the horse answers. 
• If the #BeemieAwards trends, tweet about it, if it doesn't, blame the Trump rally where he's riffing about canned ham.  
• Tweet your new research paper "The New Stronach Group Graphics and Tetris, A Case Study" and ask for comments
• Go over to @superterrific's house and watch Law and Order
• Start a buzzer cheating conversation that doesn't involve a jockey. 
• Keep refreshing that Sham I Am dude's twitter feed, hoping he's going to post a Beemie Awards Bingo board. 
• Misspell #Beemie #Bernie and tweet that you like Liz Warren. 
• Tweet to Clark Brewster asking why he isn't on the Trump legal team after his success in freeing Steve Asmussen from the damning clutches of PETA. 
• Tweet out your Derby Top Ten List
• Ask Marcus Hersh what he likes best about NFL Football. 
• Tweet pictures of Alex Ovechkin holding the Cup to @gregreinhart
• Tweet the Churchill Downs historical share price chart and plot the price movements with racetracks they've crushed. Ask horse twitter to share their thoughts
• Read the new paper: "The Gulfstream Non-Championship Meet vs. the Gulfstream Championship Meet - Core Differences"
• Tell everyone you're not watching the Beemies because you have to wash your dog

Have a good time tonight if you're watching, and if you aren't, well there are a few things you can do instead. 

Have a nice weekend, and as Marcus Hersh would say, "enjoy the football on Sunday!"

* Many years ago, a friend asked a girl out on a date, she clearly did not want to go, so she said she had to stay in and wash her dog. Some things stick with you all these years. It's my favorite excuse of all time. 

If You're Going to Cheat Bettors, Cheat Consistently

The completely unconfirmed report that buzzers were used to signal Astros hitters like Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman have set MLB on fire today. The repercussions from this, if true, for the game and the games' integrity is formidable.

If you read much of the press you'll hear and read some talk about the integrity of the game framed with wagering. I agree it's not great, but only to a point.

Let's say these hitters were using buzzers as a matter of course. If so, the edge they had was already incorporated into their batting averages and assorted analytics - the things we all use to wager. It's nothing, because a fake baseline is still a baseline.

Like in horse racing, a trainer that has some sort of rocket fuel and is winning at a 37% clip, with turnarounds galore, is doing so consistently. It's all built into the price.

To be clear, the issues with these examples - whether it be an Astro or a Supertrainer - are real and important in terms of the game, and the businesses themselves.

Fans don't plunk down all this money to watch their teams wondering if they're cheating. A supertrainer using something illegal upsets an entire ecosystem - they take horses from honest horsepeople, they take purse money away that was someone else's, they cause investment into horseflesh to fall. It's bad.

If an NBA referee is throwing *some* games, or signals are used only *sometimes* or a super trainer only uses rocket fuel on *some* horses, we as bettors have a big problem, right, and yes, the betting side of the game will be affected.

But, and perhaps this is a sad commentary, I think if you cheat, most of us will wager, as long as you cheat consistently.

The Jeopardy GOAT Provides a Great Betting Lesson

Spoilers for the west coasters are revealed in this post, but really, since no one reads this blog other than Russian bots who hacked the result months ago, I'm probably safe.

Ken Jennings won the Jeopardy GOAT Tournament tonight with a pretty amazing display of knowledge. I don't think anyone who watched it could conclude it was anything but deserved.

However, as per usual, we'll focus on one slice of that beatdown.

The betting.

James went on a storied run last year and used great knowledge yes, but mostly scored by using optimal game play. The man, without question, knew how to bet. When this tournament rolled around he had to lean more on knowledge because Ken - while watching James' run - learned how to bet, too.

Ken sought out the daily doubles, because he knew the edge in finding them. Ken, when landing on a daily double, bet more than he ever has because he knew he needed to score. When Ken's gameplay changed, James' chance of winning got walloped big time. He lost his edge, and had to compete with a smarter player. It got so frustrating at one point that James remarked, "I want royalties on this" when Ken found a daily double before James and bet a bundle.

For Ken to beat James, he didn't have to study more; to read more books, or pop culture; to pore over Encyclopedia's or reread Greek Mythology. That would take more time than there are minutes in a day.

For James to beat Ken, on the other hand, he had to do exactly that. He had to become smarter.

For us as bettors, this is tantamount to a decision we all tend to make: We want to be better handicappers. We want to spend all of our time learning more about speed or pace, downloading software, building databases, and God knows what else. We want to become smarter.

What in fact most with a modicum of handicapping ability should be doing is spending our time learning exactly what Ken did: How to extract more money from the pools using our current knowledge base.

Why do we put so much time on the former, and so little on the latter? In some cases, I think it's a big reason why we lose.