What is going on? What's with the slump? Is everything okay in your life? These are just a few of the questions a handicapper will get from his clients when dealing with a slump. The key for the handicapper? Staying the course. While it is important to consider minimizing the number of plays and/or reducing the star rating of plays during a slump, the key is not to allow one's philosophies to be totally impacted. In other words, it's a time to stay the course. What has worked in the past will continue to work in the future but some slight tweaks to adjust are okay. It's the wholesale changes that one must not be tempted to employ! That's when the trouble starts. If a handicapper suddenly changes their philosophies based on a tough slump it almost always actually end up prolonging the slump. That's because slumps are actually part of the cycle in handicapping. Therefore, the key is to minimize the duration of slumps. To do that, stay the course. An example of how all this occurs follows here.

In baseball – or in any sports for that matter – no matter how hard you work at handicapping, you're invariably going to hit a slump at some point where even being right can be wrong. What we are talking about here is playing an over expecting both pitchers to get hit hard and then watching bases loaded, one out situations get ruined by double plays. Or watching guys hit line drives for much of the game but seeing those line drives being hit right at fielders throughout the game. In uncanny fashion, games like this tend to come in bunches. It's one of those phases where anything that can go wrong will go wrong. All cappers hit a streak like this occasionally. The best way to react is to keep your systems in use but minimize the number of plays or the rating of plays. The cycle will reverse and, before you know it, you'll be on a tear again in no time - in a positive direction. Because of the bounces of the ball, we can all encounter tough stretches from time to time. The key is how we, as cappers or bettors, react to a rough stretch. Ride it out, stay strong, stay confident, and expect success. It's happened before, it can happen now, it will happen again. Stay the course...reap the benefits.