UFC Fight Night 187 Post-Fight Analysis

Main Card 

As usual, I had a horrible main card. I did not get a single pick right. Obviously the Edwards fight was a push after horrible eyepoke ended the fight prematurely. Co-main... well sometimes Cirkunov looks great, sometimes gets folded by first shot he eats. He is not someone you can reliably bet on... just one of those things.

Not much to say about Ige v Tucker, Ige finished with first punch. Kind of a random thing, Ige is good but never seemed that powerful and Tucker didn't seem that chinny, but when you hit the sweet spot while you are still fresh anyone can KO anyone.

Jonathan Martinez had great first round against Davey Grant, even dropped the guy, but when Grant landed as clean on him on the second round, Martinez was out. Power kinda bailed Grant out, that being said he had good 2nd round even before the KO.

Matheus Nicolau and Manel Kape had extremely close fight. Most people seemed to have it for Kape, but I did not get lucky with split decisions tonight.

I was lucky on the other hand to have my Stewart bet turn into push after NC for illegal knee. I expected Stewart to be comfortably outstriking Anders but Anders showed he can still be dangerous. Don't know if it was more under-estimating Anders or over-estimating Stewart, but in hindsight I would pick Anders. 

Prelims 

My prelims were as usual much better than main card, but not winning this time. I found myself 2.5 bets behind after them - which by itself would have been a tolerable loss.

Picking Yoder for "too wide odds" was the retard move of the night for me, if anything she was so awful odds should have been much wider.

Marcelo Rojo was my big underdog pick for the night and did not look half bad in the initial going. Still, as the fight went on he started fading and Jourdain put a beating on him in the end.

Rani Yahya completely dominated Ray Rodriguez. Nasrat Haqparast was also very dominant again Rafa Garcia, but Garcia never stopped walking forward. He took a lot of damage for his toughness and durability though.

Felt like Cortney Casey did enough to beat JJ Aldrich in a decision, but no, it was another unfortunate split for me. Casey still has only herself to blame - she was far superior fighter and only lost through her own poor decisions, she certainly should have coasted to a 30-27 here. Aldrich is not a good fighter.

I almost made the good play on experience by betting on Jing Yu Frey, but didn't in the end. De Paula had her moments, but overall looked green and has poor wrestling.

The night started well with Matthew Semelsberger making quick work of chinny Jason Witt.

My bets 

Obviously 14 bets down after 3 picks out of 11 going right is my worst ever performance, but there is another issue here aside just me getting picks done that has been making my losses worse in the long-term and that's chasing. I guess I would not mind a little bit of increased stakes once in a while to gamble a little, but it definitely got bit out of hand this time.

The problem is that chasing makes me double my stakes only on bad nights, so when I get a winning night its only like 5 bets up instead of losing nights which have lately ended up being at least 5 and this time up to 14 bets down. I mean its impressive lose 14 bets of your average betsize on a card of just 13 fights, especially when you did not even get everything wrong.

In the end the card was only moderately bad before prelims and had I kept the stakes normal, I would have only taken maybe like 6-7 bets up the ass. Still terrible, but in long run if you turn 14 bet losses to 6 bet losses its gonna make big difference in the bottom line. I need better discipline in many ways.

Aside that, what was the difference between last week's big win and this week's big loss? I would say I just got lazy this time around. I had my reasons but the lesson is clear - every detail matters in this game and I can't be making picks lightly. Especially the main card shit shows have to stop - how do I consistently make the wrong pick about the fighters that you have the most tape available on?

That being said, just the Casey split swings me 3 bets down, and Kape split bets, so I get those right and I am breaking even and never have to even start chasing. Little bit of bad luck compounded the poor picks.

Worst pick was definitely Yoder. There was precedent that Hill had beaten Yoder, and I myself said Hill had improved more since the 1st fight. So it's only logical to pick Hill? Best pick is hard to pick since all my correct picks were so obvious. Guess the first pick of the night with Semelberger was the best bet, but saying Haqparast will box Garcia's face off was completely on point as prediction - but I can hardly say I was the only one to call that right, pretty obvious already beforehand.

Honestly this was another one of those nights where I felt it might be time to retire, but I don't feel like this was a talent or intelligence issue, more just discipline issue. If I keep diligently studying the tape, mind my Ps and Qs and don't get reckless chasing, I believe I can make much better picks than this.

Theee is some good cards coming up, I just gotta put this one behind me, act like it never happened and build on the good momentum I had in the last event. This wasn't so much terrible reads as it was just laziness compounded by bad luck and reckless betsizing.