Hi. Here's what I'm looking at headed into next week. Shoutout to Unusual Whales who I’ve spoken with and has given their blessing for me to provide these plays and screenshots. I recommend them bigly
I monitor flow on Barchart and Think or Swim
I’ve typically written about choosing close-dated plays, but I’m giving a little expiration room on these as I sense some sector rotation I want to feel out.
Been on a nice little streak with these of late, so I am overdue for an account correction lol. This is not investment advice.
The whale plays I am interested in:
FSLY 2/26 110c🚀 🚀 🚀
I like this for two reasons. The first is simple: I've seen repeat call flow into FSLY building up over the past two weeks, and it just can't sustain the pops yet. It's a similar pattern I saw to the DKNG and NIO calls before their pops. Continued betting OTM by whales gives me more confidence with each slip, and pressure for an upward pop is building.. The second reason is the dump after the NET ER. I love when sympathy plays get oversold, because it's easy entry into their earnings run.
How I’m going to play it: I'll follow the whale on a call spread up to 110 for 2/19, and ride it up until just before earnings Wednesday, then cut it. Successful strategy I've been employing with tech earnings runs lately; last week I just closed my eyes and threw a dart at TWTR OTM calls and rode it up for about 100% the day of. Sure, you miss out if earnings are a banger, but I have an increasingly strict no earnings rule.
Earnins run= yes. Holding through earnings= no
M 3/26 20c🚀 🚀 🚀
Everyone always brushes aside my precious M plays but they are a quiet money-maker. Once the dust has settled from the Great Memeing, M is back on watch again as a quiet beast finally waking up. ER is on 2/23, and they have a couple things going for them, including:
1) The B of A BBBY upgrade: bulls are returning on BBBY now that the squeeze is over and their reasoning is strikingly similar to the M story. Store closures? Bullish. Narrowly avoiding bankruptcy? Mega boolish. But more importantly... 2) Digital integration: the CEO of M is actually a solid leader, and has really pushed the transition to digital and online merchandising. I think this pivot will gain more spotlight headed into ER.
How I’ll play it: M is a super streaky stock that can give you 8% return multiple days in a row, but can also frustratingly do the opposite. It also tends to really crater in the mornings before stabilization and rising late in the day. I will give this manic whale a chance on the 3/26c, while also clutching a more reasonable 16c 2/26 into the ER. I will cut the 3/26 20c at the first sign of multi-day trouble
VXX 4/1 20c 🚀 😭
I have long been a consort of the mystical VXX, and here is a previous DD I did on how it works. It is approaching absurd lows, fear and greed is rising, and all that other doomed shit you hear. What really signals to me this is the time to expand this hedge is the potential for sector rotation (and the currently happening rotation). As money outflows from big tech this past week post-earnings, we are seeing an expansion of call flow into more speculative industries like again like weed, EV, and forgotten titans like industrials/cyclicals, so forth. AnAlYsTS will try to scare you in the coming weeks and say tech is overvalued and done--this is untrue, but the outflow/inflow tides of the market will present plenty of transition pain dips that feel like corrections.
How I’ll play it: a VXX 16c 2/26 feels right to purchase on a Tuesday dip meant)
CCL 3/12 25.5🚀 🚀
Another one that has seen a lot of call pressure building up. This cruise line seems like it's just waiting for more favorable news to give it a huge push. I understand and agree with the problems with travel right now: this is not an endorsement of the end of COVID, but I like the stock, and I like the potential for upward movement. I'll likely play this one as the whale has and exercise patience. Has potential for wild swings, though, so keeping a close eye on this one.
EV grab bag: TSLA 3/19 970c NIO 3/5 67.5c WKHS 2/19 46c (QS assorted strikes for ER run &?upgrades, and FSR off upgrades)🚗 🚀
Major call flow into both NIO and TSLA all week; my last DD I was able to successfully pinpoint this movement into NIO, and it feels similar. QS and FSR got lots of attention after upgrades and into QS earnings, but the titans are positioned to explode after some from frustrating coiling. NIO in particular lately has been moving slower than a white man in slippers. TSLA is a pricey ass premium, so maybe consider focusing on NIO or call spreads.
BONUS: QS earnings could be when they finally reveal their revolutionary technology which prevents dendrites. This is the holy grail of EV battery production, and they boldly claim they have figured it out. The lawsuit is standard hot air from people upset their stock tanked in this weird ass meme of a market and I am unbothered.
WKHS dip feels like it was a blessing, but I may wait for a little more dip on Tuesday because this thing is streaky as fuck. People could be positioning into the Q2 (hopeful) EV deal announcement with the USPS.
FUBO 2/26 42c and 2/19 56c🚀 🚀
As I was on my ROKU with the gf looking for the latest episode of "My 600 LB Life", got confirmation bias through an ad for FUBO lol. More importantly, Benzinga picked up that dude from Twitter Mr. Zack Morris as an excuse to put it on their watchlist. We all know how pumps go at this point: Random twitter - Benzinga (or other random watchlist) pickup -- random analyst upgrades - CNBC pump -- several crisis segments dedicated to WSB for MaNiPuLaTiOn
General theme I am seeing:
Call flow into into big tech has really, really dried up. I'm hoping this continues into next week, because then we could be in a really nice position to pick up some March and April monthlies in struggling behemoths like FB. TWTR is doing it's thing, but it seems like the looming AAPL privacy concerns have put a stranglehold on other big tech companies relying on advertising data.
Play I just like this week:
PLTR reports Tuesday Premarket and I think there is a chance to hop on no matter the outcome. Sells off because earnings these days are stupid? Buy the dip. Starts to rocket off some news or a beat? Hop on. PLTR feels like a win-win rn at this price point no matter the earnings report brings.
Fellow Bulls beware: 🐻
Quantitave Easing is taking a hit. Quietly last month, the FED announced they were discontinuing the repo program; nobody noticed this but we had a huge dip that day. Treasury yield also has been stubbornly climbing. Long story short, these are caution flags for an outflow from stonks into stable long-term securities. Not ringing the bear alarm, but just shit you should know.
I change this a bit on Mondays based on what I'm seeing, as they re the most accurate days according to statistics. (Tuesday this time)
TLDR:
Tech calls drying up for the meantime, looks like the outflow could be headed to speculative sectors, particularly EV. Potential DOW flight coming. Hedge with VXX pretty heavily, and retail that is doing digital integration may get the proper spotlight now post-meme.
VXX M CCL FSLY FUBO TSLA WKHS NIO
REMEMBER: IF YOU HIT A PLAY, IF IT IS GOOD ENOUGH TO SCREENSHOT IT IS GOOD ENOUGH TO TAKE PROFITS
Inbox always open. Check my post history for previous picks and DD's on Whales, VXX, the FED QE, etc.

From the guys who brought you The Greatest Short Burn of the Century..

Oh man, oh man, oh man.
Not again.
-Drizzy

Preface:
Please believe me when I say I really wanted to take this month off and enjoy the snow in Tahoe. But as I was driving, something caught my eye...
Make no mistake. This stock is not going to be nearly as volatile or profitable as GME. In fact, this might be so boring that most of you will ignore me yet again. And that’s exactly why I like it. I’ll do my best to make this engaging, but the fact is, this is going to be a slow grind. Both this DD and the stock.
Also, as a bonus, Reddit is currently public enemy #1 in the eyes of the media. Why don’t we do a quick heel-turn and join their side? Are they gonna hate us for buying boring value stocks? They won’t know what hit them. That will be a fun show to watch.
Anyway… let’s take a look under the hood. As always, not financial advice. Just education. NOTHING IS A RECOMMENDATION. We are just sharing knowledge here. Ok SEC?
Intro:
Ford (NYSE: $F -- NOT NASDAQ:$FORD), is another depressed deep value multiple expansion arbitrage play. No short squeeze this time. The GME asymmetry may not be seen again for 10 years.
It might seem boring and unsexy on the surface, but Ford is a fantastic company in the midst of one of the best turnarounds in American history. And with a little help from our friend Mr. Options (or as Buffett called, Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction) we can turn a boring old Ford into a lightning fast Ferrari using the quadruple income option wheel strategy. Don’t try this at home. If you don’t know what CSPs, CCs, or vega are, stick to shares. Those should work just fine.
Let’s break this down into 5 parts: electrification story and leadership, multiples expansion, technical analysis, options, and the trade.
By the way, in 2019, the Ford F-Series was second only to the Apple iPhone, which raked in $55 billion, in terms of total revenue generated. The F-Series generated more revenue than the NFL, MLB, NBA, and the NHL combined, which added up to $40 billion. Just something to think about.

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round...

Electrification story and leadership:
Let’s jump into history for a second. Ford had a meteoric rise from 1997 - 1999 from $15 to around $32 at the peak. This was due to $F reporting massive earnings increases each quarter:

• Dec 1996 - 1997 Ford F-150 - Truck of the Year
  
• Jan 1997 - Ford profits up 82 percent
  
• Oct 1997 - Ford profits up 64 percent
  
• Jan 1998 - Ford profits up 56 percent
  

They were just feasting and feasting. Jim Farley looks like the best person alive to revitalize Ford, capable of tripling the stock in 2-3 years. Look at the last two quarters:

• Q3-2020 - Adjusted EPS: 65 cents vs 19 cents expected, Automotive revenue: $34.71 billion vs $33.51 billion expected (due to pent up demand)
  
• Q2-2020 - Adjusted EPS: A loss of 35 cents per share versus a loss of $1.17 per share expected, Automotive revenue: $16.6 billion versus $15.95 billion expected.
  

Here are excerpts from the Q3 earnings and some other notable highlights:

Farley: Now that plan, which was introduced to the Ford team and many stakeholders on October 1, is very straightforward. Among other things, No. 1, we will compete like a challenger, earning each customer with great products but as well services with rewarding ownership experiences. Number two, we're moving with urgency to turn around our automotive operations, improve our quality, reduce our cost and accelerate the restructuring of underperforming businesses.
And third, we're going to grow again but in the right areas, allocating more capital, more resources, more talent to our very strongest businesses and vehicle franchises; incubating, scaling and integrating new businesses, some of them enabled by new technology like Argo's world-class self-driving system; and expanding our leading commercial vehicle business with great margins but now with the suite of software services that drive loyalty and generate reoccurring annuity-like revenue streams; and being a leader in electric vehicle revolution around the world where we have strength and scale. So now speaking about EVs. To start with, we're developing all-new electric versions of the F-150 and the Transit, the two most important, highest-volume commercial vehicles in our industry. These leading vehicles really drive the commercial vehicle business at Ford, and we're electrifying them.

Quick sidebar here from my buddy M: "Whereas traditional manufact / consumer / industrials are valued on an EBITDA multiple, SAAS has historically been valued on a revenue multiple, which translates to flat out higher valuations. EVs themselves are not necessarily a higher margin product that justifies a higher multiple (at least not that I've seen), but tech services / subscriptions are the real money makers in this game. Hint Hint companies like Apple throwing everything they have at trying to integrate services and subscriptions over the last 5 years"
This further justifies the expansion multiples we expect will catch up to leading EV automakers (see below).

We own work at Ford. And these electric vehicles will be true work vehicles, extremely capable and with unique digital services and over-the-air capabilities to improve the productivity and uptime of our important commercial customers. The electric Transit, by the way, will be revealed next month, and you heard about it here first, for all of our global markets. We believe the addressable market for a fully electric commercial van and pickup, the two largest addressable profit pools in commercial, are going to be massive.
Now you're going to see our strategy of electrifying our leading commercial vehicles and our iconic high-volume products expand very quickly at Ford.
When you look at our results, they reflect the benefit of our decision two years ago to allocate capital to our strongest franchise, namely: pickups, a whole range of utilities across the world, commercial vehicles and iconic passenger vehicles. Additionally, we saw higher-than-expected demand for our new vehicles in the quarter.
Together, these factors, plus the strongest performance from Ford Credit in 15 years, led to a total company adjusted EBIT margin of 9.7%. That's 490 basis points higher than last year.
As an outcome of all this, we generated $6.3 billion in adjusted free cash flow.
The strong cash flow in the quarter gave us the confidence and the ability to make a second payment on our corporate revolver, which we did on September 24. So now we have fully repaid the entire $15 billion facility, and we ended the third quarter with a strong balance sheet, including nearly $30 billion in cash and more than $45 billion of liquidity, which provides us with the vital financial flexibility we need.

Check out this credit downgrade weeks before Ford paid off their revolving credit facility. Smells like GME?
Alright. What about Q4-2020 and beyond? Ford is expected to post a loss. TA is signaling a beat (see the TA section). Ford is spending this money in order further restructure and deliver on the following items in their pipeline:
Bronco:

• Within the first month of open reservations, the Bronco had received an estimated 230,000 reservations. 230,000 reservations is an incredibly impressive figure, especially when put into the context of Ford’s total vehicle sales. 230,000 sales would represent 4% of Ford’s total sales.
  
• Current estimates place over 20% of reservation holders as first-time Ford buyers.
  
• The most expensive trim, the limited ‘First Edition’, has already sold out.
  

Mach-E vs Tesla Model Y. Just the fact that there is debate between the better car is bullish for Ford.

• Source 1
  
• Source 2
  
• Source 3
  

The upcoming 2021 F-150 has positive consumer reviews as well:

• The 2021 Ford F-150 Is So Stuffed With New Tech & Gadgets That Even Tesla Owners Are Impressed!
  
• DeMuro - The 2021 Ford F-150 Is Totally New and Really Impressive
  
• Some other nice features: Fold down the shifter, lay seats down completely flat, speakers in headrest, tailgate worksurface (pen/pencil holders, rulers) C clamp, 120V outlet, bottle opener, light), sensing running board, tailgate step and railing, and more. Watch the video.
  

Ford Raptor launch (just happened today, customers are excited. Look at the comments on YouTube and IG)
Further potential tailwinds:

• Ford partnering with Rivian in a $500M deal. Product yet to be released.
  
• Google partnership that caused the intraday spike on 2/2.
  
• Ford is rumored to secure the USPS contract since deal talks are falling through with WKHS.
  

The Postal Service told Trucks.com that it expects to reach a contract with one or more of the teams bidding for the business in the federal government’s second fiscal quarter of 2021. That works out to the first quarter of next year.

• There is a historical inverse relationship between gas prices and car sizing. Tell me if I'm reaching here. But as America continues to head towards electrification and energy independence under Biden, larger gas cars will be more in demand. Furthermore, the aftershock of COVID will continue to propagate the dedensification of cities. Less commuter vehicles, and more travel vehicles. And look who is conveniently positioned to take advantage of all of this?
  
• Dr. Anning Chen is also a killer CEO of Ford China. This is largely intangibles (which Wall Street cannot model), but watch his interviews here and here.
  
• Dr. Chen used the COVID shutdown to improve the operational efficiency of the company. It has not shown on the bottom line thus far, but it will later.
  
• CTO Dr. Ken Washington bio. Ex Lockheed.
  
• Kennard on the board.. PE guy, on the AT&T board and former FCC chairman.
  
• Vojvodich. Ex CRM and ADHZ.
  
• Regarding the above leadership and BOD members, experienced executives are a better fit for running the day-to-day than any other. Add a sprinkle of savvy techfin folk and you have a recipe for a elite transition.
  

English please? Ford is a strong company. Farley is delivering on his promises and can lead the company towards an operationally efficient turnaround towards electrification. Combine this with a loyal customer base rivaled only by AAPL, and you get another special opportunity. This is the turning point.
Multiples Expansion:
Now here lies the crux of the thesis. Amidst all the EV hype, Ford is being unfairly ignored at an extremely depressed multiple compared to the other companies in the EV space. Here are some comparisons (numbers may be slightly outdated, pulled earlier this week, more relative comparison than absolute):
$Ticker - Market Cap - TTM Revenue MM - TTM EBITDA MM - Revenue Multiple - Ebitda Multiple
TSLA - $810B - $28B - $4B - 29X - 202X
NIO - $92B - $12B - ($7B) - 7.6X - (NaN)
GM - $78B - $116B - $18B - 0.7X - 4.3X
F - $44B - $131B - $10B - 0.3X - 4.4X
That’s an eyesore. Let’s focus on just TSLA and Ford, because why not. Assuming Ford can quickly turn towards electrification (from the evidence above), these two companies are fair comparisons. No Tesla is not a software/energy company, look at their automotive % of revenue. Stop it. It has only recently dropped to 80% due to the expansion of their leasing division. Energy is still a tiny part of TSLA.
Revenue Multiple:
TSLA = 29X
F = 0.3X
EBITDA Multiple:
TSLA = 202X
F = 4.4X
Yes those numbers are correct. Look at them for 60 seconds and tell me what you see. Quick quote from my buddy M:

Just zoom out and think. TSLA is for sure ahead of the rest on their tech and charging infra right now. But in terms of just overall bottom line infrastructure and manufacturing capability; once the GMs, Fs, and VWs of the world can get the ball rolling, they are way ahead in that aspect. Much more experience in production and retail / distribution channels, as well as logistics sourcing. Plenty of battery makers, and self driving tech makers out there too right now. Small to mid scale M&A will probably be the name of the game if I had to guess.

This is why Burry is short $TSLA, but two scenarios can unfold: either the high-flying stocks drop, or Ford rises. I believe we will land somewhere in the middle, with Ford rising as we begin to enter the optimism phase in the final third of our bull market.
Shorting is a dangerous game anyway... So I’ve been hearing on the news...
TA, Options:
Exhibit A from our resident chart whisperer J (who will remain unnamed because you monkeys keep bothering him).
Larger view.
As you can see, the trendline has broken out.
Exhibit B from our resident quant T (also to rename unnamed):

Starting on 1/4 you'll find right tail distributions into any liquidation which represent large buying. Which has led up to a recent run-up and eventually left tail distributions which represent short coverings which lead into the gaps and thinner distributions where there aren't any major bids. Even with the pullback on 1/22 we see more right tail distribution after the profit taking from the recent run-up, which means someone is buying up the inventory.
This is unusual for F, where F trades within tight ranges. On 2/1 you can see a bimodal distribution which means a new player has stepped in, which we assume has additional knowledge apart from the larger players that were already in the market. The recent range between 10.70 and 11.20 indicates that the market has accepted this price range as fair value. Without additional research at first glance we can see that a large player (or players) is buying up a significant amount of inventory.
On 1/4 we find that the volume increased to 77,559,128 from the previous trading of 34,462,454 (125% increase) and 33,127,776 the day before that. Volume has been higher since.
On our first major left tail distribution (which represents short covering) since the buying on 1/4 the volume was at 113,707,973.

Exhibit C
250k shares of F 10.92; 100k F 11.04; 3.53m F 9.78; 708k F 9.78; 500k F 9.64; 377k F 9.50; 338k F 9.50; 201k F 9.75; 192k F 9.80; 150k F 9.77
These are blocks of shares bought in the past 7 days
Top OI changes:
+19610 F 02/05/21 11 C 43821 38% 13% 48%
+12904 F 02/05/21 12 C 31929 38% 11% 52%
Top OI positions:
170902 F 02/19/21 10 C +807 26% 49% 25%
112480 F 02/19/21 12 C +3207 29% 29% 41%
The percentages are bid mid ask.
Someone is bullish on Ford.
For an earnings play, daily RSI is oversold looking towards an uptick.
Options gamma is interesting to note as well.
Open interest on 2/5 $13 and $15Cs are also notable. Could be covered calls? Could be someone knows something?
Could be Jeff reading too much into the tea leaves. Not financial advice. Just showing you what I see.
The Trade: The simplest way is just to purchase shares and collect dividends as Ford may reinstate them sometime in 2021. Possibly leaps if you feel adventurous.
For the option junkies like myself, and as a tribute to the greatest company in American history, I will use the wheel(s). The GME trade was a very special and momentous occasion. Now that we have a bankroll, we’ll just quietly play theta gang as we enjoy our lives and spend time with our families and loved ones. Here’s a good summary.
This is not for amateurs. I mean, none of this is financial advice anyway, just educational.
But in a nutshell, I will: 1) Buy shares, 2) Sell CSPs 30-45 days out with 0.3 delta, 3) sell CCs with 0.3 delta (will reconsider this if Ford goes vertical) 4) Collect dividends.
The Wheel doesn’t work on everything. Here are the qualifications from the above post, let me know if this sounds familiar:

• Profitable company that has solid cash flow
  
• Bullish, or Very Bullish, analyst ratings
  
• Priced around $10 to $50 so that I can afford to take the assignment if needed and I stay away from sub-$10 stocks as a rule
  
• A stable chart without wild gyrations (especially those caused by CEO tweets!)
  
• A nice dividend is always a good thing, both that you may collect it if assigned the stock but also that dividend stocks tend to more stable and predictable.
  

Hmm...
Conclusion:
Ford is a massive, complex, multinational corporation so I’ve likely missed very many things, but I wanted to get this out before ER so I can flex again. (No market manipulation here lol. My buddy's multi-million dollar block buys didn't move the needle one iota.) There are many things I haven’t covered, and simply don’t know yet. As more facts begin to unfold, and as I spend more time with the stock, I’ll share the information here. Also, every time I post about an equity, it seems to go down. Lol... (GME). With all this in mind, this is still a very risky bet.
Nevertheless, I like what I’ve seen thus far. Ford looks like a fantastically healthy company in the midst of a turnaround towards electrification with a phenomenally depressed multiple according to the market’s appetite. It deserves a multiple trending towards TSLA’s, not a dying auto manufacturer. Jim Farley has shown early to be a great CEO and I think he can continue the transformation. We’ve begun to enter a phase of exuberance, so I’ll choose to long Ford instead of short TSLA.
As a bonus, we have the opportunity to join forces with the boomers and talking heads and bet on one of their favorite companies. Time for America to be on the same side again. We’ve been divided for too long.
I know my GME posts were lucky. I’ll stake my reputation on another bet. One call sure is lucky. What about two? In any case, investing is a marathon, not a sprint. Glad to be a part of this journey with you all. Note: I will not discuss GME in the comments, which all depends on Ryan Cohen. There is nothing further to add until Q4 earnings.
And finally, we’ve officially entered the last phase of our very long bull market. This is not necessarily a sell signal yet, as some of the greatest returns can come in this period and can last for a long time. I will do my best to look for the signal and sound the alarm. The world will be celebrating, and I will be bearish. Burry’s passive indexing bubble call in combination with Thiel’s government debt bubble call will lead us into a dark time of unprecedented proportions. Tail risk hedging won’t work as the declines will be slow at first, and then fast and violent and unrecoverable. Be careful. Listen to Ken Fisher. Thank you very much for your time.
Positions: Bullish shares, LEAPS, on-going quadruple income wheel strategy as Ford reinstates the dividend. Timeframe 12-18 months. Watch out VIGILANTLY for macro risks. Bear market is on the horizon. Drop some Fs in the chat to pay respects.
PT: $32 with a chance of $98 if we start to see exuberance in the broader market.
-JA

It's Wednesday Night. You Know What That Means. ​🖐👁💜

Match	Winner	Post Match Brawl?
Eddie Kingston Vs. Lance Archer	Eddie Kingston	Yes
Jericho/MJF Vs. Hollywood Blondes	Jericho/MJF	No
Hangman Adam Page Vs. Ryan Nemeth	Hangman	No
Jungle Boy Vs. Noted Weenie Dax "The Bald One" Harwood	Jungle Boy	Yes
Britt Baker Vs. Shanna	Britt Baker	Yes
Young Bucks/Good Brothers VS Dark Order	Nu-Bullet Club	Yes

Future Announced Matches
Next Week (Beach Break):

• Britt Baker Vs. Thunder Rosa
• Tag Team Battle Royale for title shot at Revolution.
• Pac Fenix Mox Vs. Omega Gallows Anderson

No Date Yet But Announced

• Womens Eliminator Tournament
  
  • Riho will take on Serena Deeb on the US side of the bracket first(!)

Revolution

• Cage/Starks Vs Darby/Sting ("Streetfight")
• AEW Tag Team Title Match: Young Bucks Vs. TTBR Winner

Outside of Dynamite

• On Dark
  
  • Proud n Powerful have a brief promo, where they say that for anyone that's been asleep, wake up and smell the coffee, it's their time to eat. We've had fair warning. Seems like maybe they're not done with the dream of being a tag team regardless of last week's match.
  • Lee Johnson, who has lost on Dark to nearly every single one of AEW's unbelievably THICC roster has finally obtained a win by defeating Future AEW World Champion Pretty Peter Avalon in the walkoff competition. Big round of applause for Lord of Dark Lee Johnson for finally finding a way to get that dub.
  • Chaos Project, perhaps recovering from their wounds inflicted upon them for the crime of.... hating children, is not on this weeks Dark, which makes this a Dark worth skipping. THROW EM THE FUCK UP ANYWAY 👉🤪👉🤪👉🤪👉🤪👉🤪👉🤪👉🤪👉🤪
• On IMPACT this Tuesday:
  
  • Welcome back to the Impact Zone.
  • Its the Tony's! It's the Tony's. Boy is it ever the Tony's Each week Tony seems more comfortable being a rich, snobby douchebag who is just here to rile up Impact fans. He's really killing it out there being a rich snobby douchebag.
  • Matt is with Private Party backstage in Impact. He says he led them to victory, PP says uh, I think our wrestling is probably more of a contributor. Matt tells them to look forward to No Surrender where they're going to win Impacts titles, but also at the TTBR on Dynamite, they gotta win that too. Matt says he's putting a bounty-- "BONUS" to them if they win. He needs them to win (Because he wants that $$$).
  • Matt Sabin and James Storm are at the IMPACT ZONE Bar and Grille talkin' shit about Hardy Party and the Good Brothers. Sabin says they're not Beer Money, they're not MCMG, but they still got what it takes to beat both of 'em.
  • fellongreydaze, or Fellon "WRONG" Grey "INCORRECT" Daze as we called them back in the navy, bet that Shawn Spears would be the mystery opponent scheduled for tonight's Impact last week-- but they were DEAD WRONG and should be shamed in the comments wherever you see them.
• The AEW Awards, Exclusively on the B/R Live Telephone Application
  
  • miber3 wrote up the winners here if you're interested.

At Dynamite

• Eddie and his Family laid out Jake, then continued to abuse Lance after they cheated to win. No one came out to save Lance or Jake, unfortunately.
  
• Moxley is reiterating how he doesn't understand the entanglements occurring in the Elite and Death Triangle, himself and Eddie's family. He says he's a simple guy, he likes his beer cold, his coffee hot, and good sex in the morning. He doesn't overcomplicate things-- but he LOVES a six man tag. Gang warfare! It'll be wild at Beach Break, he says.
  
• Darby and Sting are here. Sting says Taz, Brian, Ricky, since we're gonna be in this street sight, and you can't shut the fuck up, we're not cool. ME, A HOODLUM? he asks. Sting says, okay yeah, Darby's a hoodlum. Darby says it doesn't matter if it's clean or dirty in the streets, it's about survival. Darby calls Sting a hoodlum. They break windows together (this isn't a joke) then both agree that yes, actually, okay, they are in fact hoodlums. What a twist.
  
• Before their match MJF tells Sammy they need to talk, then insults Griff for awhile, then asks him to simply quit before the match starts. Griff pounds his face and the match gets underway.
  
• Pac is back in the den of madness. He tells Kenny he's acting like Billy Big Bollocks and that he owns this business with Callis. He says Kenny's a cheater and a slimeball. Next week, he says, bring everything you want, we're gonna hurt you back. Kenny will pay the consequences.
  
• Shaq calls Cody a little punk and says he looks like a little girl in a recorded promo from the awards show. Says he'll fight him any time. But how about specifically, March? We then cut to Tony Schiavone who is in the ring waiting for Cody's new shitty snoop dog theme remix to finish. I think that the people who despise Cody and those who don't think he's the antichrist can probably find common ground here with this theme issue. Arn also is here. Tony asks Cody to respond to both Jade and Shaq. He says he'd rather "just give you the pitch", March 7th, Revolution, Cody/Brandi vs. Jade/Shaq. But, oops, can't, Brandi's pregnant, so... Cody says he's confused and distracted, so maybe Arn can solve this as he does many things. Arn says he chewed Cody's ass out earlier because he deserved it. Arn asks for patience through his promo. He says Cody is about to be a dad, which is gonna be all over his mind. But think about it like this. June 1985. He saw Dusty fight 30 minutes with Tully, fly across country, then see the Cody Fetus being born. Arn says if you choose to fight Shaq at Revolution, you have to do it eyes wide open, no regrets. He says this is a once in a lifetime match. Shaq dominated basketball and proved he was world class. He says Jade dominates every room she's in, he assumes. But Arn sees something. He then invites the actually great Red Velvet out. She comes out looking very strong, and says she has fire. Velvet gets the mix. She says, quite frankly, she's fed up with getting attacked, she's tired of Brandi getting attacked by big mouth coward Jade. She says Cody won't hurt Jade, but she will. She will stir her bitch ass up, she says. JR responds with "She said bitch ass. That means she's serious". Good shit JR. The segment ends.
  
• Kip spills some poetry about Penelope. PENELOPE SPEAKS. She says she's excited to marry this handsome man. She invites us to Beach Break for their wedding. Miro jumps in and says Miro and Charles will be there too! What a story Miro.
  
• Matt Hardy came out during the Page/Nemeth match. He applauds Hangman after the win, then Hangman invites him over. Tony Schiavone comes over for a chat. He asks what's happening. Matt says he didn't want to make a scene. Matt just wanted Hangman to know he supports him. Matt says he's been concerned, Adam's been lost. He says he know Hangman loved his friends and they all burned him. Matt says Dark Order isn't for you. He wants Adam to know he deserves to be happy. Matt says you should come to my dressing room! Plenty of space!
  
• Tully throws powder into Luchasaurus' eyes after the match, then Noted Weenies FTR are able to destroy both Jungle Boy and deliver a spiked piledriver to Luchasaurus from Tully to finish him off. They cuff Luchasaurus to the ropes and they cut off his horns!! ABSOLUTELY UNFORGIVABLE ACT. They go to cut off Jungle Boys' hair, but luckily this is averted by half the locker room.
  
• We go to Team Taz. Taz says Ricky and Brian are ready to destroy them-- but then Will and HOOK come up to a merch dealer set up outside the arena and beat them up because they have no Team Taz merch. "First name basis, huh brothers?" Taz asks. Forgotten Son Of Taz Brian Cage rips a tshirt. The segment ends.
  
• Britt continues hear beatdown of Shanna after their match only to be interrupted by Thunder Rosa. Rosa runs her out the ring before checking on Shanna.
  
• MJF is with Sammy while Sammy is at the Dynamite Bar and Grille. MJF says Wardlow wasn't supposed to get involved in MJF's match and MJF docked his pay. Sammy says MJF doesn't fool him. He might be the only one who sees it, but he does see it. MJF says "You sure you want to play it this way?" Sammy says he isn't playing and MJF retreats.
  
• The Bucks are in the TTBR, if they win they get to choose their opponents for the title match.
  
• Dasha is with the Bucks and Good Brothers. It's been years since the last time you fought, how's it feel she asks. The Good Brothers say they're gonna crush their match next week. The Bucks say it'll all be fine as long as Callis doesn't get involved. Kenny swings by and says hey, we need to talk. Don comes by with an absurd phantom of the opera mask on because even an unsalted slug is jealous of how slimy he is, and everything breaks into an argument as the Bucks' music plays.
  
• Matt says next week the winners get a shot at the belts, and if they win, they get to pick anyone. And it can be anyone. Just then, Fenix runs in, then Mox, and chaos ensues as the show concludes for the week.
  

Post-Show Poll Results & Surprising Biblical Knowledge

• 1/13 Results:
  
  • Overall Rating 3.87
  • Best Match: Allin Vs Cage (61.3%)
  • Worst Match: Taylor Vs. Miro (50.8%)
  • Wrestler of the Week: 1st: Darby Allin (46.2%), 2nd: Brian Cage/Tay Conti (Tie: 12.4%/12.4%)
  • Full results here
• 1/20 Results
  
  • Overall Rating 2.95
  • Best Match: Adam Page & Dark Order Vs. TH2 & Chaos Project (38.1%)
  • Worst Match: Cody Vs. PPA (39.5%)
  • Wrestler of the Week: 1st: Adam Page (28.5%), 2nd: Sammy Guevara (20.6%) 3rd: Jon Moxley (5.9%)
  • Full results here
• Leyla Hirsh was just barely out of WOTW range, only 3 votes from Moxley's position, pretty good showing from someone not even officially signed to the roster. I'd expect that to change before, during, or after the women's eliminator tournament.
  
  • 28 of you goons rated last weeks show a five out of five. I just wanna know, what do you consider a FOUR? Does someone need to DIE ON AIR?
• Proverbs 6:16-19 of the Bible states as follows: There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers. However, apocryphal texts found alongside the Dead Sea Scrolls include an additional, recently discovered passage: "Woe be unto that which is most abominable to Him: His most despicable creation and most loathed enemy, Eddie Kingston, whose existence and iniquity has displeased Him greater than that of any other man created in His image. To him The Lord's curses flow freely, and the blood of his hands and the sweat of his brow which pours forth in multitudes of sorrow, He will take His greatest joy.". It's clear now to me, having read and understood these lost words of King Solomon, that Eddie Kingston may be correct about his relationship with God.
  

Hacksaw Jim Duggan Buries All Elite Wrestling
With a wrestling career that's lasted more than 40 years, Jim Duggan's power level is beyond comprehension. If he hasn't beaten an AEW wrestler directly, he's beaten them through a few degrees of separation.
Could Hacksaw Jim Duggan defeat Sting?

• 11/7/86 - Hacksaw Jim Duggan & Dr. Death Steve Williams defeat The Fabulous Freebirds in a Country Whippin' Match PS THIS SHIT RULES WATCH THIS
• 6/6/87 - The Fabulous Freebirds defeat Rick Steiner & Sting

Yes, Hacksaw Jim Duggan could easily defeat Sting.
Hacksaw has previously defeated:
Kenny Omega, Colt Cabana, Hikaru Shida, Kris Statlander, Eddie Kingston, Chris Jericho, Darby Allin, John Silver, Evil Uno, Hangman Adam Page, Private Party, Alex Reynolds, Matt Hardy, Jon Moxley, and the Young Bucks.
And has lost to only one man:
The Exalted One, Mr. Brodie Lee
Outside Links
Being The Elite on Youtube
AEW Dark & More on Youtube
Visit /AEWOfficial - The Most "Official" Unofficial Subreddit for All Elite Wrestling fans.
Visit AllEliteWrestling.com for news, tickets, merch, and other info.
Watch Impact Wrestling On Twitch

First bought in at $20, subsequently bought many more times up to $329.92.
I’m well balanced and even now average out at $131.37 including taking enough profit last week to be in the green overall(ahead of what remains invested) and taking into account I invested $4.5k on behalf of my brother which negatively impacts my position.
I’m up.
I’m comfortable.
I can remain in play indefinitely with zero impact.
Having said all that, the perfect time to buy across my whole journey is right now. Squeeze ain’t been squoze. Price is reasonable AF. Future is bright. Marketing is free, and as a side bonus there’s half a chance of breaking a hedge fund.
The future publicity through movies, docos and financial text books is infinite and I can’t see any way that you lose money in the short, medium or long term. The Social network... enough said.
Anyway, you look after you- for me though, this and $pltr are my spare change jar for the next little bit. Bet I’ll be smiling when I stop.
What’s your pick for the next few years?

The edit you’ve all been waiting for at the bottom.
I’ve been working as a technician in medical insurance for the last two years. In that amount of time I’ve out performed nearly everyone else. I finished my degree in Communication. I’ve won a handful of low level quality and candor awards.
My annual review will be completed within the next six hours. Then I will know if I get a raise, a bonus, and other privileges. 60% of technicians fall into the 3/5 point range which is considered where most techs are supposed to be. I told my manager last year I wanted to get a 5 and he told me how hard it was.
4/5 points: 30% of technicians obtain. 5/5 points: 2% of technicians obtain.
Two weeks ago he said he is going to fight to get me a 5/5 rating.
If I get this my bonus will be larger than the amount of credit card debt I’m in. My raise will be enough for me to afford a car finally.
I would like some good vibes. I’m jumping out of my skin. I don’t want to depend on this money but I really am. This year has financially killed me I’m clawing my way back up but just can’t afford to pay everything off as fast as I need to.
Edit: I’m overwhelmed with support I’m so grateful for all of you! I’m still waiting but bet that I’ll post an update once I know!
Edit 2: meeting got pushed back to 4 CST. If you think you’re bristling with anticipation imagine how I feel!!!
Edit 3: guys it’s only 3:15 CST I don’t know yet and I’m even more anxious! Thank you for all the good you’ve sent my way I’ve still got a bit to go but I will know in about 45 minutes to an hour!
Edit 4: Guys I’m crying as I write this. The fact that thousands of people from all over the world took time in their day to give me words of encouragement and support is so amazing. Thank you all.
So the reason my supervisor pushed my meeting back so far in the day is because his manager tabled the conversation on me.
My supervisor compiled every kudos, compliment, certificate, award, training document, and project I have worked on this year. His manager wanted to take the time to look through all of what he had so she paused on me and they addressed my other team members first.
He fought for 45 minutes giving every reason he possibly could to give me all 5 points. His manager was hesitant. They’d only awarded 3 other techs this year so far because of the strict criteria and her guidelines for how to award points.
He pressed her, pleaded my case, and showed all of the documentation he possibly could to prove I deserved to the rating. And I am so thankful for all that he did.
But despite all of the efforts he made I still got the news that nearly killed me.
Now that I’ve given you all the same heart attack that he gave me I GOT THE RATING.
I AM ONE OF FOUR TECHNICIANS.
Less than 1% of technicians were awarded all 5 points and I’m one of them! New car and no debt coming this January.
Edit 5: you all are amazing. To answer some FAQ:

1. I plan on buying a used car, I have owned 2 cars in the past and they were both 5 years or older and used.
   
2. A medical insurance technician processes insurance claims made by patients (I have no control whether the company covers things or not so please don’t blame the tiny screw in the giant cog of fucked up healthcare)
   
3. I am going to pay off all of my credit card debt first. If the remainder of my bonus is enough for a down payment then yes I’m getting a car I need/want ASAP but if not then I’ll be saving the remainder.
   
4. I do have a 401k and a retirement plan with Edward Jones.
   

Several times throughout this campaign so far, we've been told by multiple people that Archmages are notorious for two things in particular: Enormous Ambition, and Moral Ambiguity. I think Yussa was the first one to tell us this.
Fast Forward to now, and I think we can safely say that his warning was spot on. Now, as the M9 prepare to pay a visit to Yussa himself to ask for aid, I think this warning is more important than ever. They need to remember what they left Yussa with, and the potential ramifications.
To cut to the chase, they left Yussa in possession of Halas' Soul Gem, as well as all of his research inside the Folding Halls and the Donjon of the Astral Dreadnaught. How many months has Yussa been pouring over that research struggling to piece it together while the mind of Halas himself rests within easy reach to "interrogate" for the keys to unravel it? How long would it take Halas to win Yussa over and/or tempt him beyond his will to resist?
While we're being paranoid, is it me, or was Wensforth acting a bit... apprehensive the last couple times M9 came through? The last time they were there, he seemed very eager to get them out the door before Yussa noticed that they were there. Then the time before that when they ran into Yussa himself, he seemed a lot more terse with them than usual, on the verge of rescinding use of his teleportation circle (in my opinion).
If Yussa had suffered a sudden change of personality, then it might mean that he's actually stuck in a gem, and stuffed into an adamantine box deep within the Halls, and it's now Halas in the driver's seat (after all, shuffling souls around has kinda been a thing this campaign)
Even if that isn't the case, shouldn't the M9 be a bit worried that joining with the minds of the Somnovum might be an even more tempting prospect to Yussa than of allying with and restoring Halas?
Edit: Now that I think about it, Halas is connected to this current situation in SO many ways. He's from the same general time period as Aeor. His Halls connect directly to the Astral Sea, where the Cognouza resides. In his library was a book about Eiselcross, and in an easy-access pocket of the Ball was a set of extra warm clothes and a Heating Rod. He was dabbling in Soul transference. Then, if there is any connection with Tharizdun (as another recent post suggests) he had the Laughing Hand's undying heart sitting in a back room of his lab, which he supposedly found floating around in the Astral Sea. I would bet my last copper piece that there's a Luxon Beacon stowed away somewhere within the Halls (Perhaps in one of those Adamantine Boxes that were mentioned above), which would be the last thread needed to tie Halas to every major arc in C2.
Bonus Theory: The millions of voices, and source of madness within the Cognouza is from a corrupt and/or broken Beacon that the Somnovum had been experimenting on.

Oh hey fellow retards, I see you hopped onto the stonk train and pulled up to the WSB station. Welcome to the retarded corner of reddit - grab your wife and her boyfriend, put on your special helmets, and take a seat in your timeout chairs. Today we're going to discuss the basics of WSB culture, and a few do's and don'ts.
What exactly is WSB?
We are a sub focused on making million to one odds bets on different meme stonks, typically chosen because of a funny/memelike/autistic ticker or some creatively retarded DD posted by some idiot with no understanding of market fundamentals who likely just barely passed high school (most of us, including myself). As most of us go broke and balls deep into debt from weekly calls, a few of us get incredibly lucky and their gain porn convinces the rest of us to get a second mortgage on our homes. As the crippling debt piles on, we post our losses so that we can show off our huge karma gains to our wife's boyfriend so he thinks we're cool like him. The story always ends well.
Is WSB a movement?
No retard. WSB was never intended to be a massive movement, and no the goal of WSB wasn't/isn't to "wage war against the rich". The goal is to become rich, so to wage a war against what we ultimately aim to achieve is rather counterproductive. If you're here because you think we care about/share your political/economic views, you're on the wrong sub brotatoe. WSB is about getting filthy rich, or ruining your financial situation for a majority of your adult life while trying. We don't aim to "stick it to the man", we all aspire to BE the man. If you haven't noticed, even u/MartinShkreli is a mod here.
Emphasis: We do not care about your political views. F off.
Didn't WSB intentionally orchestrate the GME short squeeze and collapse of several financial institutions?
Well yes, and no. Yes, the GME short squeeze was a very popular DD being pushed for months - but the reasoning wasn't exactly to wage a war against big financial institutions. The main reason GME was being pushed so hard on here was because people wanted to make so many tendies that they could buy out the Wendy's they work the drive through at. The chaos that ensued because of the shortsqueeze is only an added bonus - Melvin can suck it.
"I only came here to join the movement against Wallstreet..."
F off
Do's and don'ts:
As I mentioned (so many times, here's some rockets in case you skipped everything else above 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀), this sub is NOT a political movement, posting your politics on here is not acceptable. No matter what political party is currently on top, there are different plays you can make to get those sweet tendies.
Do not post or promote your pump and dump schemes. Working together is great, what happened with GME was badass - but remember that there's a VERY thin line between teamwork and market manipulation (one of which being highly illegal).
DO enjoy and join in on our culture, call each other retards and autists, talk about your wife being gangbanged by your successful neighbors and you unsuccessfully tryna impress one of her boyfriends. Share your gains/losses - nothing gets me harder than seeing someone lose 40k. Make some ridiculous DD about some obscure company no one has ever heard about, and convince 20 retards to join you because we're all idiots.
LASTLY - Don't be a loser.
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
EDIT: Made this more PG so mods will allow it to post

Hi fellow summoners,here is a guide that I wrote a few years ago and kept updating from time to time. It is not perfect and only basic (might be I forgot to add a champ or 2 to be honest but I tried to include every champ, also some stuff might be a bit outdated, I´ll try to fix it up if I find something):
Edit: Before you read any further and be like "Eh but this and that combination isn´t really good because this champ favors this and that blablabla...This guide is meant to show Concepts of how it is supposed to be in general.You always have to adapt depending the match up, player skill, etc.
Types of Botlanes
Everyone knows it: Botlane is a case of its own. With more than 40 different champions played on Botlane, there is a huge amount of possible match ups and types of lanes.
This article is meant to categorize the usual Marksmen played on Botlane to give you an easy to find weaknesses and strengths of each Marksman.Please be aware that a champion can fit into several classes at the same time.
For that we will divide the marksmen into 5 classes:
“Lane Bully”, “Spellcaster”, “Tank Shreds aka On-Hit User” “Hypercarry aka Crit User” and “Utility”
​
Lane Bullies
What is a “Lane Bully?”A “Lane Bully” is a marksman who has strong laning capabilities and can dominate a lane if he does his job correctly. Most common examples are: Caitlyn, Draven, Lucian, Miss Fortune (most common in Low Elo) Senna, and Varus (Lethality Build). Each of them has strong laning power due to their kit:Caitlyn has the biggest auto attack range of all Marksmen LvL 1, Dravens attack damage is higher than anyone´s else, Lucian can burst down people in a few seconds due his double shot passive, Miss Fortune can zone people with her Q and deal monstrous damage, Senna has good range and built in sustain + her Q applies Glacial Augment and Varus with a Lethality Build can kill people with 3 Q´s.
At the same time these Marksmen usually fall off in the late game (please be aware of Senna here due to her in build infinite scaling) due to their early power (to make them balanced) so they tend to lose more often if they can´t end the same fast.If you play a “Lane Bully”: Try to be aggressive early game and make use of your power to snowball the game into a fast win. If you play against them: Try to play safe and go for farm instead of risky plays.
​
Spellcasters
What is a “Spellcaster”?A “Spellcaster” is a marksman who relies mostly on his spells to deal damage/ effective.The most common examples are: Ezreal, Aphelios, Jhin, Lucian, Miss Fortune, Samira, Sivir, Varus (Lethality Build) and Xayah.“Spellcaster” put a lot of focus onto their mana management but on the same time they are able to put out a lot of damage/ control on the game if they have the mana they need for their spells. Not every “Spellcaster” is strong in the early game, but every “Spellcaster” can dominate a certain state of game with their kits (Aphelios is special here because he relies less on his mana and “spells” and more about his ammunition and what guns he has and how he uses them but it is still the same idea in my opinion).The downside of playing a “Spellcaster” is pretty similar to the downsides of a mage: If their spells are on cooldown or if they are out of mana, the damage they can deal is way lower than at their best.If you play a “Spellcaster”: Play around your cooldowns and mana. Use your spells to deal as much damage as possible, back off and then go back in when your cooldowns are back up.
If you play against a “Spellcaster”: Make use of cooldowns and the enemy being out of mana. If you see them waste their spells, go in and blow them up.
​
Tank Shreds
What is a “Tank Shred”?A “Tank Shred” is a marksman who´s main damage comes from effects which get applied with every auto attack. The most common examples are: Kai´Sa, Kalista, Kog Maw, Varus and Vayne.“Tank Shreds” usually have spells in their kit which allow them to deal bonus damage with every attack/ every specific attack numbers. For example: Vayne does bonus damage with her W every three hits, Kai´Sa applies bonus damage after stacking 5 hits of plasma.Almost every time “On-Hit User” go for the same to items: “Krakenslayer” and “Phantom Dancer”. The reason for that is that “Krakenslayer” deals bonus damage every third Auto Attack and “Phantom Dancer" buffs your attack speed by 30% after attacking 4 times.
Their Itembuilds rely mostly on attack speed and their effects per attack so the damage per attack is low compared to other marksmen. The longer a fight goes, the stronger a “Tank Shred” gets.
If you play a “Tank Shred”: Play around your stacks. Depending on how much stacks you need, try to fight as long as you need. As Vayne play around your three hits, as Kalista try to stack as many spears as possible and then execute the enemy with your E “Rend”.
If you play against a “Tank Shred”: Be careful of long trades. Since “On-Hit User” get stronger with longer trades, limit yourself to do short trades to deny their strength and reduce their hp before you all in them when they can´t make use of long trades anymore.
​
Hypercarry:
What is a “Hypercarry”? A “Hypercarry” is a marksman who builds items with “critical strike chance”, the exception here is Kog Maw. The most common examples are: Aphelios, Ashe, Caitlyn, Draven, Jinx, Jhin, Sivir, Tristana, Twitch and Xayah.
“Hypercarries” rely on their “critical chance strike” to deal high amounts of damage with every attack. Critical attacks deal 175% damage instead of the usual 100%. By building “Infinity Edge” the damage gets further increased to 210%. These Marksmen usually buy at least 3 items with “critical strike chance”, with “Infinity Edge” being the “Core” of the build.“Hypercarries” usually get to their strongest point quite late in a game. They need time to farm gold to get their items but when they got them, they outscale most other Marksmen classes.If you play a “Hypercarry”: Try to play safe early on (Only exceptions are Draven and Cailyn depending on match up) and try to farm as much gold as possible to get to your items fast and then crush the game by killing non tanks with 2 or 3 hits.If you play against a “Hypercarry”: Overpower them early on before they can stack up their critical strike chance since their high damage output is based on “luck”. The item parts for “infinity Edge” are quite expensive so try to punish that by forcing them into bad recalls.
​
Utiliity:
What is a “Utility” marksman? Utility marksmen are marksmen who´s kit revolves around their team for the biggest effect. The most common examples are: Ashe, Kalista, Sivir, Senna and Varus.
They all have an ultimate which needs the team to be useable/ for the best use. They got spells for “the greater good” than just using all of their spells for winning a 1v1. Ashe can catch out a target with her ultimate, Sivir boosts the whole team with movement speed which allows them to either gap close fast to get a good engage or disengage without getting caught that easily. Kalista even need her Oathsworn to activate her ultimate and the W passive (bonus damage if she and her sworn hit the same target in a short amount of time) so she depends even more on her team/ oathsworn to be nearby. To be fair, Varus Ultimate isn´t as “good” as Ashe ultimate due to its range, but on the other hand it provides a possible bind onto all 5 targets and can disrupt the enemy formation pretty well.
If you play a “Utility” marksman: Play around your team. Use the fact that your champion is best when having back up or when trying to make a play/ making the engage. Don´t hesitate to use your ultimate to get a catch on an enemy in the mid- to lategame since this can lead to a free baron, turret or maybe even nashor. Stick with our team and create openings to decide the game in your favor.
If you play against a “Utility” marksman: Be aware of the possible sudden engage by the enemy team using their marksman ultimate. As a tank try to stand in front of your team to “eat up” the ultimate if needed so your carries are still able to respond in a fight and don´t die in the first 2 seconds. Try to catch the marksman off guard and alone (the best would be a pincer attack), so he as to blow his ultimate to escape from one side just to die to the other side and create a 4v5 scenario for your team with the marksman being dead or back to base.
​
The Triangle of Support:
There are quite a few Supports in the game so there are a lot of different match ups and how a lane can play out depending on who you play against who, etc.
This is a rough outline to group supports in a class, what they are good at and what they struggle with if played correct and how it should play out in theory.
This “Triangle” shows the idea of who beats who
Poke -> All in -> Sustain/ Peel -> Poke ( -> = Beats)
​
All in
“All in” supports like Alistar, Thresh, Leona, Nautilus, Pyke, Rell etc. excel at going in till either one side is dead or has to back off. This kind of support beats “Sustain” supports since the “Sustain” supports don´t get the time/ chance to really make use of their shields and heals. Your heal won´t help your ADC if he´s going to die anyways.
While they do have an advantage over sustain, they lose out against “Poke Supports”, because they don´t get the chance to all in due to the damage the lane already took by the poke of the enemies. The only chance for you to score kills in such a lane is by going in after coming of a recall so they didn´t have the time to poke you down.
“All in” supports are usually picked with strong early game ADC to force kills and resources from the enemy and get your ADC as much gold advantage as you can early on in the game.
​
Sustain/ Peel
“Sustain/ Peel” Supports are champions who are able to negate damage due to their kits via shields and heals. Common examples are Janna, Lulu, Nami, Sona, Soraka.
Their strong point is to keep their ad carry alive so he stays able to fight and farm in lane despite taking damage.
They beat out the “Poke” supports because they can block the incoming poke via their shields (which can´t be dodged) and are able to deny the high aggression of the enemy botlane. In case of having a heal instead of a shield they can even restore health that got lost by poke if they were not in range or their spells on cooldown to deny the poke.
A “Sustain” support is usually picked with a strong scaling ADC to make sure he survives the lane and get him to his items as safe as possible.
For the "butthurt" people :D :
As a subclass of "Peel" Supports we got the, let´s call them, "Warden" Class:"Warden" Supports are champions who protect their ADC by "thowing themselves between their ADC and the enemy". They wait for the enemy to engage and then counter after the enemy blew their shots to get back at them when they try to retreat. Common examples are: Braum, Taric and Tahm Kench.
Their strong point is that they are able to take a punch while offering safety for their allies from enemy champions that try to "dive onto them".They beat the "All in" Supports at their own game because they abuse the fact that the enemy is trying to use their strength and then "swap" their strength into a weakness when they failed.
They usually play rather reactive than proactive since they rely on the enemy to step up first.At the same time they struggle against ranged match ups since they are easy to abuse for the enemy via poke. "Warden" don´t have a good way to deal with that kind of playstyle.
​
Poke
Poke supports are often times mages who went down from midlane to botlane, like Annie, Brand, Fiddlesticks (a jungler tho), Lux, Morgana, Senna, Seraphine, Vel´Koz, Xerath and Zyra.
Each of them offers quite a bit amount of damage and range with their spells what makes them able to harass the enemy botlane from far away without fearing taking damage in return. Their goal is to harass people do death or to force them back/ to the point where they can´t fight and have to “forfeit” the lane in their favor.Keep an eye on your mana pool and cooldowns since “Poke” supports rely heavily on their mana to deal damage just like “Spellcasters”. If you play Senna out of this bunch of supports, since she has a sustain spell, you can be more aggressive and trade harder since you can heal back up ( take notice on how you use your Q, try to heal up your ADC and yourself and hit the enemy champions for best usage).
For the same reason on one hand this kind of support beats “All in” supports since they deny the possibility of an all-in by the enemy because they are too low on hp to win the fight.
You have to be careful regardless after an “All in” support comes back to lane because that is the best point in time for him to turn onto you.On the other hand they have a hard time against “Sustain” supports due to getting their poke denied or healed back up by “Sustain” supports.
Try to bait out their shield or heal and then dump damage onto them so they can´t block the damage coming in and try to kill them before there cooldowns are coming back up.
“Poke” supports can be picked with early game strong and weak ADC to either enhance the killpressure and the possible lead or to cover the weakness of a weak ADC so they get some breathing room. But if things turn bad they tend to be worse than the other support classes due to them being less “supportive” due to their kit.
​
Synergies between ADC and Support classes
Overall there are 3 ways to “build” a bot lane. Each way differs in their strengths and purposes and I will just call them “Comfort picks”, “Synergy” and “Compensation” to make it easier to understand.
Comfort picks:
“Comfort picks” is literally what you think, you just play whatever you are best at. This has the chance building a mismatch on bot lane if people don´t communicate a lot with each other because every player plays to his own tune. I bet you all already saw something like a Thresh + Vayne lane where Thresh engaged and Vayne just stood in the back, chilling her life and continues to farm while Thresh fights for his life. What went wrong? The bot lane probably didn´t talk with each other, picked whatever they wanted and now are playing for two different goals. Thresh wants to play aggressive and score a lead in lane while Vayne just wants to sit back and scale up. If they don´t “group” up and play together they are likely to lose bot lane hard. On the same time, because they picked their mains, they are more likely to perform well compared to playing other champions to “fit” something because they know their champion (damage, tankyness, kit, spikes, etc.).
Synergy:
Synergy is when you pick a champion that fits the playstyle of the champion from your partner, e.g.: Thresh-Lucian, Kog´Maw-Lulu, Ashe-Zyra, Draven-Leona.
If you partner picks something that wants to get a lead early game you pick something that is strong early game to help him achieve his goal (winning lane), if he just wants to sit back, farm and scale up (on ADC side) you pick something that excels at peeling so your ADC survives the laning phase (Nami, Yuumi, Lulu, Braum, Tahm Kench, etc.) and can wreck the enemies later on. The downside of this “strategy” is when you can´t achieve your goal (either win lane or scale up) because then you are in a really bad spot.
If you need 5-10 more minutes to hit your item spike as jinx or Tristana, Kai´Sa, etc. the game might be over before you get there and if you lost early game as someone like Lucian, Miss Fortune, Lethality Varus, Caitlyn, etc., depending on match up you might get outscaled by the enemy and will “lose” to their advantage due to their kit later on. If you play against another early game champion, he might snowball the lead onto other lanes so your whole team starts losing, etc.
Compensation:
Compensation is pretty specific and usually works only in one direction and that is the Support compensating the ADC in the early game.
The Support should play a poke/mage support to do this since these champions are very strong in lane and that´s when they want to shine. The poke support has the “duty” to get/ create openings/ advantages for his scaling ADC so he might scale earlie has an easier laning phase. A scaling ADC who can´t get touched is a happy ADC, even more if he gets a few free kills.
The Support shall make the lane more “competitive” so you are able to put more pressure on the enemy team as a whole (if their ADC has to recall 24/7 he can´t do shit + it forces their Jungler do something). Problems will occur if the Support dies while trying to get advantages since he can´t really expect help from his [still] weak ADC.
This playstyle requires a lot of work/skill from the Support since he has to do the main work in lane while he can´t afford f*ck up. If he f*cks up, he lost bot lane single handily and maybe even the game.
To the question: “Can you compensate an early game ADC with a late game Support?”:Hardly. Most "late game” Supports would be “Sustain” Supports since they excel at keeping their team alive and allow their carries to dish out the damage they need to do.
Even if you peel a Lucian really well, chances are bad that he will carry a team fight compared to a Jinx if they are on even terms.
Edit: Feel free to argue or comment as much as you like, just by doing that I got what I wanted:People thinking about it

I didn't intend on doing any write ups this year. I haven't even been following football as closely as I used to. It had become too much of an obsession for me so I decided to step back and try to make it just a game I watch for entertainment again. I've mostly succeeded in that. I've turned off games that I wasn't enjoying (for me that is unheard of) and I haven't done a deep dive into anything until now. But now that the season is over, I figure this sub could use some more wild speculation fuel to dig into and find hope in. So I'm going to break down every possible QB option for 2021. Thats not to say that I'm sure Jimmy G is done, but with a potentially drastically lower cap, a $30m 30 year old QB with only 2 seasons of experience with consistency issues and coming off his 2nd season ending injury in 3 years definitely ain't a sure thing.
In House Options

• Jimmy Garoppolo

I'm not gonna spend a lot of effort on this part because you already know all you need to here. Jimmy has been hot and cold for his entire run here. The team can absolutely win a superbowl with him if everything goes right. There's no doubt about that. Where there is doubt is whether it would be a lot easier with someone else. Jimmy is in the tier of QBs that I really struggle with. He's just good enough that you aren't desperate to try to replace him, but you probably could improve on if you tried hard enough.
Cutting/Trading Jimmy next year would free up 24m in cap space. Money they need. if the cap does fall to it's minimum of 175m next year, we're barely under that as things stand. Meanwhile half the team are FAs. Now it would be possible to work around that, but it would in part mean doubling down on Jimmy and converting some of that salary to signing bonus, adding dead money and making it harder to move on later. This, I think, is potentially the the final nail in Jimmy's 49ers tenure. They have to choose between moving on and committing for several years more. I don't think he's done enough to make that a decision they can make easily.

• Mullens/Beathard

While on the surface this option doesn't look like much of an option at all, it's still worth considering the other two QBs on the roster. Especially they both got pretty significant play time this season. We still have to have backups QBs after all.
Mullens has had flashes of being an efficient QB in this scheme, but he's also pretty limited. His arm strength is bottom tier for players in the NFL. He's also been inconsistent. For every Raiders or Jets game there's a Philly game to match. He is an RFA in 2021, meaning the 49ers can keep him fairly cheaply while also netting a draft pick if someone else wants him more. If they do move on from Jimmy I think it's a good chance they do tender Mullens.
Beathard has an NFL arm and NFL toughness, but not a lot else going for him. His pocket presence is non existent and his accuracy in the short game is weak at best. He's a solid backup option for his ability to take a hit and keep playing but otherwise I don't see enough upside there.
Neither of these guys will be the plan at QB, but either could be retained as a backup and maybe could potentially be asked to be the starter while a rookie gets ready in 2021.
Trades

• Deshaun Watson

Who the hell would have ever thought the Niners would get a second shot at landing Watson? The Texans have gone full on crazy and completely ruined their relationship with a top 5 QB. There is no question about scheme fit or whether he'd be a good add. The only questions are cost and opportunity. Watson has a no trade clause in his contract, meaning they can only trade him somewhere he wants to go. So the Niners would only have to offer enough that none of the other teams on his list are willing to match. Unfortunately I think there are several teams he'd be fine with who have way more draft capital to pull such a trade off. Also with the Niners currently having 37 free agent, they need all the draft picks they can get if they want to keep the high quality of depth the roster currently has.
I would love to have Watson, but I don't think this one is realistic. It's gonna cost in the area of 3 1st round picks + and there are QB needy teams with multiple 1s this year. The Niners would have to bet the security of their roster on Watson.

• Matt Stafford

Stafford is a clear upgrade from Jimmy, would cost less against the cap the next 2 years, and could be had for significantly less than Watson. There isn't a lot of downside to trading for him. Sure a top 15 pick and maybe more is a steep price for any trade, but I don't think there is anyone they could pick at 12 that would improve the team anywhere near as much as Stafford. The only potential issues are that he'll need to be extended next season, he's already 33, and he's had a litany of minor injuries over the years. Mostly he plays through them, but it's rare that he doesn't show up on the injury report for a decent span all the same.

• Aaron Rodgers

Keep dreamin'

• Sam Darnold

This is a weird option, but it's possible so we should talk about it. Darnold on the surface seems like a bad QB. However there are some reasons to question whether he can start in the NFL. first off, look at the jump in performance Ryan Tannehill had when he got away from Adam Gase. Secondly, look at Darnold's teammates. Aside from Robby Anderson and Jamison Crowder, he's not really had even decent WRs to throw to. From watching him play it seems most of his problems aren't from lack of accuracy or talent, but stemming from his need to play like a gunslinger on every single play. He's simply not good enough to be Russel Wilson and just wait for the inevitable failure of every schemed play and still succeed anyways. If he were in an efficiency base offense I think theres a chance he could turn out to be a damn good QB. With Saleh and LaFleur taking over the Jets, I think they might give him another go if they don't trade for Watson.
Darnold would not be someone they trade for with the intention of him being the immediate starter. He's had too bad a track record for that, however if they stick with Jimmy for 2021 I could see them replacing the backups with Darnold and giving him a chance to win the start.
Free Agents

• Dak Prescott

If the Cowboys let him walk they are insane. However I will never doubt their ability to be insane seeing as how it's insane they haven't paid him yet. Even if he did hit FA I don't think SF would be buyers. He's just too expensive for their current cap situation. If they could work it out he'd be a great fit, but it's just too steep a price tag
Rookies
There are are some really good QBs in this draft. The bad news is that it's unlikely the 49ers are going to be in a position to get most of them. Trevor Lawrence would be amazing but there no chance in hell that they'll be able to get him. However the rest of the field is potentially reachable. I'm not even gonna bother with writing up Lawrence. It's not gonna happen. I'm only gonna cover the guys who will potentially go round 1.
The trade up candidates:

• Justin Fields, Ohio State
• Zach Wilson, BYU

Both of these guys are going well before pick 12. So the Niners would have to decide if it's worth it to go all in and move up for one. Both would be good fits in the offense and both would bring a level of mobility that Shanahan hasn't had since RGIII. Fields is the better running threat and while he's a pretty damn good passer, I'm not nearly as sold on him throwing as I am Wilson. If the 49ers want a rookie who can step in and take them on a deep playoff run, Wilson is my guy. I think Fields is more likely to take some time to develop, similar to Josh Allen. Wilson, and not just because BYU, seriously reminds me of Steve Young. The athleticism and arm talent are on that tier. Whether he can process fast enough to play that well against NFL competition is the question, given he's played in a weaker conference. I see nothing on the tape to doubt that, but it's still a concern.
The pick 12 (or later) candidates:

• Trey Lance, NDSU
• Mac Jones, Bama
• Kyle Trask, Florida

Trey Lance is an interesting option. He's very mobile, has good arm strength and a pretty deep ball. I do question his ability to play at the NFL level early on. He just looks like a college QB. It's a thing I can never quite put my finger on that just rubs me the wrong way about some QBs. I also think he's the kind of QB you have to base your offense around, not tweak your offense to fit, which is problematic for Shanahan. The other obvious issue is that he only started one season and then only played one game in 2020. Obviously that isn't his fault, but it's noteworthy. He's a high risk high reward pick. If he is what he seems he could be incredible, but it's hard to believe that he is going to be the same guy who didn't throw a pick all season in the NFL.
Mac Jones is very much a pocket passer. He's got a good arm and has shown an ability to make some more complex reads, but his WRs always being open by 5 yards and his OL being ridiculous may have overinflated his abilities. I think he'd be a solid choice in round 2 as a backup to develop into a starter should they want to go that route, but to take him at 12 and giving him the start? I dunno about that.
Trask I don't really get the hype for. Admittedly I've only watched 2 games, but neither were that impressive and his arm strength is not good enough. We already have Nick Mullens.
Now I want to look at the merits of the different strategies. They have a lot of options open to them and each has it's benefits and problems. None are perfect.
This team has an open superbowl window. So their QB strategy should reflect that. That means either keeping Jimmy, who got them to a superbowl once already, Trading for a vet who will be able to step in and immediately compete for a superbowl, or trading up for a rookie who they think is a day 1 competitor. Those are the only options that make sense to me. The only other strategy that I can even reason is try to use 2021 to re-tool and not really focus on making a playoff run again immediately. That seems too risky and too pessimistic for my taste.
Going all in on Jimmy is a non starter to me. He hasn't been reliable enough. So if they keep Jimmy it should be on his deal as is, and they'd need to draft a QB either in the 2nd or 3rd tier or add a QB like Darnold as competition. They should expect to move on from Jimmy after 2021, unless he does something to shut that expectation down. I'm not a big fan of this strategy. It leaves us with a tiny amount of cap space and would mean losing a ton of depth, while still having to spend picks to provide competition for Jimmy. Another option would be to roll with Jimmy and Mullens/Beathard again with the understanding that if he doesn't take them back to 11+ wins they're gonna move on and sign Cousins in FA in 2022. Not a huge fan of that either
Trading up for a rookie is probably the best long term strategy, but it risks missing out on deep playoff runs early on. It is way easier to build a team with a QB on the rookie pay scale, but rookies rarely are able to make championship runs and if you miss on a QB you traded up for, you screw your franchise pretty hard. I think this may be worth it for Wilson, but I'm not sure I'd spend an extra 1st to get it done and I fear that would be the cost.
Trading for a vet is the most sure fire way to upgrade, but the cost is significant. IMO trading for Watson is simply too expensive. Yes, he'd keep the team a competitor for a long time to come, but I'm not sure they need a top 5 QB to stay competitive. 3 1sts is an insane price, and very likely what it would cost. You have to question whether Watson is better for the team than Jimmy G and 3 first round players combined. I can't definitively say yes to that.
After all this my conclusion is that the 49ers best option is to trade for Matt Stafford. He's got enough left in the tank that they can reasonably expect him to be the QB for 5 or more years, he absolutely has the talent to take them to a superbowl, he's a clear upgrade over Jimmy, he's less against the cap than Jimmy, he's a perfect scheme fit and has an ability to improvise that cannot be denied, his price tag wouldn't be too much to consider. I'd gladly give up the 12th pick for him. Hell it might even be beneficial to do so considering the Niners have 2021 cap issues. Not having to pay a 1st round rookie actually helps. a 12th overall pick would make around 6m a season. Using that money instead to lock up some of the depth or put it towards a Warner extension seems more useful if they upgrade at QB in the process.

And after working as a pregnant waitress through a world wide pandemic, in a state that barely took it seriously, I couldn’t have made a better decision for myself.
I’ve worked in restaurants for 11 years, my whole working life, and honestly thought I would always work in them. My husband and I always dreamt of owning a small restaurant together. I love customer service, but after becoming pregnant during all this uncertainty I decided it was best for me and my family that I get a normal job where I can have a good wage and benefits.
I was offered a position at a wonderful local bank, and I am so excited for my future now. I make a really good wage(for my location), have good health insurance, paid time off, free life insurance for me and almost free life insurance for my family (small policies), 401K, quarterly bonuses, and more that I’m probably forgetting. I am so grateful to be given this opportunity!
Saying goodbye to the restaurant industry was pretty hard, it’s all I’ve known for so long and I have always been proud of my work. But it was time!
So much love and respect to everyone working in the restaurant industry, that shit is hard especially right now, and you all are amazing. If you feel the need to get out and feel like you can’t, just keep trying. I genuinely did not think that I would be offered the position I got, but it happened!
Stay strong fellow servers.
Edit: WOW I just wanted to say thank you to all of you, what an amazing community this is!!! The support is so incredibly sweet and I hope that all of you can either be happy in your current job or find one that you will be. You guys are awesome, and I will forever have love for everyone working in this industry. And next time I go out to eat you bet your buns I’m gonna tip a ridiculous amount.

Also on my blog with better formatting, cute footnotes and inlined images.
Note that not much here is new material, mostly rehashing existing points.

Disclaimer

This article started out as research for my betting against Bitcoin on the stock market. This isn't financial advice. As a matter of fact, I encourage all readers you to not buy or short crypto, through any market or derivative. Use your money for productive uses.
Here's a TL;DR:

1. The current parabolic price increase in Bitcoin is a bubble that has started popping.
   
2. A stablecoin called Tether is either one of the largest frauds or money laundering operation in history, and is providing most of the liquidity in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
   
3. A BTC bubble pop, incoming regulation on stablecoins or the current NYAG investigation into tether will expose tether's insolvency to the crypto market. This is bigger than it sounds.
   
4. (Speculative, but one can hope) Current prices to mine BTC could end up higher than BTC market price, exposing BTC to a 51% attack.
   

A Recap: Bitcoin is useless and should go away

Bitcoin serves no purpose. Let's just rehash that by quickly debunking the major claimed uses over time as seen here

• Proof of concept: No argument here, but now that the market cap of cryptocurrencies is closing in on a $700B, this seems moot.
  
• Cheap Payment Network: Nonsense, since BTC transactions are currently >$10 and this worsens the more people use it.
  
• Anonymous Darknet Currency: I'd have said "no argument here", but apparently it's surprisingly easy to trace BTC nowadays. However, crypto ecosystem as a whole seems to do a decent job at laundering money as we'll see later.
  
• Reserve Currency for Crypto: Since a reserve currency should be useful as a means of exchange, and I wrote several thousand words on how BTC is not that, my position is pretty clear. Also, the fact that a cryptocurrency indexed to the US dollar has trounced BTC as the main means of exchange in the crypto ecosystem speaks for itself.
  
• Programmable Shared Database: You know what's programmable, shared and a database? The database we use at work. Just learn to implement access control lists on your SQL server.
  
• Uncorrelated Financial Asset: Given BTC crashed just like the rest of the market when COVID showed up, this doesn't hold up
  

The stupidest version of the "uncorrelated asset" argument I hear is "Bitcoin is a great hedge for inflation!"
You know what's a good "hedge for inflation"? Literally anything. The definition of inflation is "the price of money". If the price of money goes down (inflation) then everything else has a positive return by comparison.
People who say "bitcoin is a good hedge for inflation" shouldn't be trusted to manage their own money, let alone give financial advice to anyone.

• Censorship Resistant e-Gold: This is a roundabout way of saying "BTC is a store of value"! Which, again, can only be said by people who've never read the definition of "store of value" in a textbook.

I already went into detail into this, but BTC is a terrible store of value because it's volatile. Assets that can lose 20% of value overnight don't "store value". BTC is a "vehicle for speculation".
The only way price is sustained for BTC is that you can find some other idiot to sell it to. Just as a reminder, 50% of Gold is used for things that aren't speculation, like Jewelry, so you'll never have to worry finding a seller there.
Here are some real uses for bitcoin:

• Gambling is fun. You buy BTC, the price might go up! Or down! This is exciting.
  
• Hackers, money launderers and other criminals certainly find cryptocurrencies useful.
  

Reminder: BTC is an ecological scourge
The current cost to mine a BTC is around $8000 in electricity. This electricity mostly comes from subsidized coal in China.
And given the current amount of BTC generated each day, we're using about equivalent to the electricity from all of Belgium, largely in coal, to keep this going.
I don't mind wasting time on intellectual curiosities, but destroying our planet for glorified gambling is not something I'm happy about. I want cryptocurrencies to go away entirely on this basis, philosophically.

Current BTC prices are a bubble

Before we go into tether, reminder that at the time of writing, the plot of BTC price against the S&P500 looks like this
BTC price has increased by ~800% since March. Still, no one uses it for anything useful since the last bubble in 2017, or the other one before that in 2013. This is another bubble however you put it.
BTC is not "new technology"
10 years the internet became popular, Google and Amazon already existed. We're 8 years after the popular emergence of deep learning and it has already revolutionized machine translation, computer vision and natural language processing in general.
You could argue that deep learning and the internet existed before their emergence, but so did cryptocurrencies. Look up b-money and hashcash for instance.
Bitcoin has existed since 2008 and emerged in popularity around the same time as deep learning did, yet we're still to find actual uses for it except speculation and criminal uses. It's a solution waiting for a problem.
Institutional investors are also idiots
The narrative this time is that "institutional investors" are buying into BTC. This doesn't mean it's not a bubble.
Many of the institutions were buying through Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. Rather, many of them were chasing the premium over net asset value that hovered around 20%. Basically, lock money in GBTC for 6 months, cash out and collect the premium as profit. Of course, this little Ponzi couldn't last forever and the premium seems to be evaporating now.
Similarly, totally-not-a-bitcoin-ETF-wearing-a-software-company-skinsuit Microstrategy (MSTR) trades at a massive premium over fundamentals.
There will always be traders chasing bonuses from numbers going up, regardless what is making the number going up. The same "institutional investors" were buying obviously terrible CDOs in the run-up to 2008.

Tether is lunacy

Tether is a cryptocurrency whose exchange rate is supposed to be pegged to the US Dollar. Initially this was done by having 1-to-1 US Dollar reserves for each tether issued. Then they got scammed by their money launderer, losing some $800M, which made them insolvent.
Anyway, now tether maintains their reserves are whatever they want them to be and they haven't gotten audited since 2017.
You know, normal stuff.
There's a problem to backing your USD-pegged security with something that isn't US Dollars. Namely, if the price of the thing you're backing your US Dollars against goes down, you're now insolvent. If you were backing $10B in tether with $10B of bitcoin, then the bitcoin drops by half, you're insolvent by $5B.
And then this spotlessly clean company they somehow added $20B to their balance sheet in the second half of 2020
Reminder: one side of that balance sheet is currently floating around the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Cryptocurrency traders own it as an asset and sell it to others. The other half of the balance sheet is whatever tether wants.
There are only two possibilities that explain tether's growth:

• Massive unbacked issuances, because they're afraid their scam has run its course.
  
• Money laundering. Lots of it.
  

It could also be a happy mix of both.
One particularly interesting date is 30/8/2020, where tether added $3B to its balance sheet overnight. This is interesting because it predates the subsequent movement in bitcoin price and large movements in other cryptocurrencies.
The story from tether and tether's bank's CEO is that this money largely comes from foreign nationals through an OTC desk which implies the transaction goes as following:

1. A foreign national sends money in a foreign currency to an OTC desk. This is exactly as clean as you'd think -- often raw cash transactions in the millions.
   
2. That OTC desk converts the money to USD and sends it to tether's correspondent US bank. The OTC desk gives tether to the foreign national.
   
3. Wait tether has a correspondent US bank?
   

Oh, I forgot to mention, no bank wants tether as a customer because they obviously break KYC/AML compliance. So tether first bought invested in a bank called Noble which then lost its relationship with Wells-Fargo when they realized tether were lying to them about AML. Poor tether lost its legal access to USD.
Tether has been banking in the Bahamas with a bank called Deltec since. First they had a money launderer called Crypto Capital Corp to send funds to customers, who stole the $800M from them and subsequently went to jail.
But worry not! Tether found a way to get banked in USD afterwards. Curious coincidence, an executive at Deltec was randomly blogging about buying small US community banks in 2018. You know, that thing money launderers do.
So tether's story is that in 2020, they took in roughly twenty billion USD of shady foreign money into the small community US bank their deltec bankers bought. These transactions are necessarily breaking KYC/AML. The foreign parties to those transactions wouldn't take such a rickety route to convert billions into cryptocurrencies if they weren't laughed out of the room in serious banks.
But of course, Deltec will say it did KYC on tether. Really solid KYC, clearly, since they're the last bank on earth taking tether's business. Tether says they do KYC on their customers (the large OTC desks). And I'm sure the OTC desks would be shocked, shocked if the cash money they get in Russia and China turns out to be dirty. So everyone can pass the buck of responsibility down the road and claim "We do KYC on our customers".
Sure you do, tether. If you did such great KYC, you wouldn't have such problems finding banking relationships. I mean when even HSBC is not doing business with you you're apparently more obviously moving criminal money than fucking drug cartels.
And, according to tether's people, this money is what's backing tether's reserves. Money that will get frozen the instant a prosecutor even looks at it.
Reminder: the above is the charitable, positive case for tether.
The less charitable case is that they took crayons and added zeros to their balance sheet, and that there's a couple billions waiting to burn a hole in the crypto ecosystem.
Anyway, the $25B garbage fire that is tether will make a great book/netflix series at some point and their hilariously stupid CTO going on podcasts while flinching on questions about how BTC ended up on their balance sheet will be a fun part of it.
But I'm not here to write a book, I'm here to make money by shorting all of this. For my purposes, even in the positive case tether is a ticking time bomb waiting to burn a hole in the crypto ecosystem, because...

KYC and AML are coming for cryptocurrencies

If you listen to "crypto news", all incoming crypto regulation is just great, because that means crypto is becoming legit. However, companies investing in crypto are very angry about them.
This is because crypto transactions break the FinCEN travel rule, where KYC information should "travel" along transactions, to prevent money laundering obfuscation schemes.
Of course, according to the crypto industry this is "stifling innovation". A more reasonable take is that by being leaving the crypto industry outside normal financial regulations, we're enabling a "race to the bottom". As we saw with shadow banks in the 2000-2007 era this leads to "creative banking". I don't want my bankers to be creative, I want them to be solvent.

Tether's effect on the crypto ecosystem

When tether implodes, it's taking most of the crypto industry along for a fun ride. Tether can implode in one of a few ways:

1. A BTC price crash triggers it. If
   
2. Regulators decide they've had enough of AML avoidance and regulate them.
   
3. The NYAG investigation, which is waiting for an update in a few weeks, finds something and shuts them out.
   

Let's assume tether falls to $0 for simplicity. The analysis is the same directionally if tether significantly "breaks the buck".
This doesn't happen instantly, but it happens quickly. The peg breaks, and most people holding tether will try to sell it for other crypto (BTC, ETH, etc.). This puts downward pressure on the price of tether, incentivizing even more people to "pass the buck". Automated inter-exchange arbitrage bots might try to exploit emerging gaps in bid-ask spreads, only to end up with worthless tether instead, as their operators rush to pull the plug.
Then, we have a small village of cryptocurrency enthusiasts being out some $24B. With the trading bots turned off and the trading lubricant (a dollar pegged asset) gone, the bid-ask spreads blow up. You get a predictable flight to safety -- that is, to real money. This puts downward pressure on BTC.
While all of this is happening, there are all sorts of fun second-order effects happen. A lot of DeFi derivative products are priced in cryptocurrencies, so having normally stable prices shuffle around (eg. USDC price moving above $1 in a flight to safety) triggers a tsunami of margin calls. Some exchanges might insolvent (they're the ones redeeming tether for USD after all).

If BTC price drops below $8000, fun things happen

Currently, the price to mine a BTC is roughly $8000. Most of the mining comes from huge mining farms using subsidized coal in China, and mining costs more the more hardware there is to mine it.
Since the price of BTC hasn't substantially dropped below cost to mine we're in for a fun experiment if the price drops below this threshold. Most of these farms should turn off so that the price to mine comes back to breakeven in a case of prisoner's dilemma.
But if too much hardware turns off, this leaves mining hardware idle and the door becomes wide open to a 51% attack. It's not clear at what price below breakeven cost to mine a 51% attack becomes a serious threat, but once this threshold is crossed, we're in the "irreparable harm to BTC" risk zone.
And for a person like me, who just wants to see crypto disappear forever this is very exciting.
Maybe those mining farms could be replaced with nice forests soaking up all the carbon they emitted for posterity. One can hope.

How do I bet against all of this?

Microstrategy (MSTR) is, at this point, a bitcoin ETF wearing the skinsuit of a dying software company.
Michael Saylor, MSTR's CEO, is quite the character. I wrote a lot about his lack understanding of what a currency is, but it's on another level to look at the early stages of a bubble pop and decide this is a good time to buy $10M more of the stuff, as seen here
However, this bubble is tame by Michael's standards. Look at the historical stock of his company
What's happening on the left is that Saylor pumped the numbers with accounting fraud then the SEC took issue with the fake numbers. The stock dropped 90% practically overnight. Their accountants, PWC, paid $51M in fines. Saylor and friends paid fines, partly with company stock.
You could also short GBTC, but when Mr. Saylor provides you with an options market instead, why not use it? Shorting on crypto exchanges that might become insolvent in the very event you want to happen with this bet is a bad idea, on the other hand.

Mike can't cash out

The bitcoin market is illiquid and leveraged when it comes to real money coming in and leaving the ecosystem. Buys in the $10M-$100M seemingly move the price of BTC by upwards of $1000 in the last weeks. This means hundreds of millions of real money means tens of billions in movement in BTC market capitalization.
Now imagine what cashing $1.1B of BTC into real money would mean for the price. And this is purely in market terms, before the PR damage from bitcoin's demigod abandoning ship would have second-order effects.
Saylor has painted himself into a corner. Even if he wanted to cash out, he can't.

MSTR fundamentals: Why it should be valued below $10

In early 2020, MSTR was a slowly dying business. The EBITDA has been rapidly evaporating in the last 5 years
At that point, MSTR a stock price of $115 meaning a market cap of $1.1B. This included some $560M of cash they were sitting on. I presume the remaining $550M was an implicit sales premium for the inevitable private equity firm investors expected was going to relieve them of this stock and make the business profitable again.
Of course, they didn't sell.
Instead, they took the $560m they were sitting on and bought $400m of BTC at prices $11k and $13k in late summer 2020. Then, in early December, they took on $600m of debt to buy BTC with at $23k. They also bought $10m more in January at a price of $30.5k.
At this point, we can mostly value MSTR like a trust.

• Price the underlying software business as being worth $600M, as the market did before the bitcoin nonsense. If BTC went to $0, this is what we'd value it at, and the MSTR stock should be around $65.
  
• But wait! MSTR took on $650M in debt in December. Their actual value with a BTC priced at $0 should be much, much lower than $65 depending on how you value the debt. You could make an argument it should be in the single digits.
  
• They hold 70,784 BTC. At current prices ($32,000) this is worth roughly $2.2B. With the current market cap of MSTR ($577 stock price), this means MSTR is currently priced at an eye watering $3B premium over fundamental value.
  

GBTC's 20% premium-to-NAV is a joke compared to the MSTR premium.

TENNIS IS GETTIN GOOOOOOOD, and that kinda means more hedging and squinting from me. These are some really high quality affairs with real tour implications for some of the underdogs if they're able to win. Hard to predict, and from a betting standpoint the tournament should probably be almost over for you. Once players have won a couple rounds, oddsmakers are pricing things very well, and since everyone is playing near their peak margins are very thing. Ladies first today.
Barty Rogers : Well, I owe Ash Barty an apology of sorts. The lack of aggression that I thought would be her poison against Alexandrova was adjusted well, and while she didn’t go for winners she did keep the ball extremely low over the net for the entire match in a much contrasting style to the loopy forehands that she’d employed against some of her previous opponents. She went almost exclusively crosscourt with her forehand and used the backhand slice to draw Alexandrova into the court and challenge the big hitters footwork. It worked, as Alexandrova got locked into long rallies and, despite bright points, found herself making a ton of simple errors. Her backhand left her, she was unable to convert her forehand down the line despite it being her best shot heading into this match, and her first serve all but disappeared. She was up a break and leading in both sets, but it never looked like she had a chance. When she did attempt to play a slice or an off-speed ball, Barty hit a winner every single time.
Rogers is lucky that she had the time to realize she was going to win her match. She struggled with comfort in the rallies early and when she had simple balls to end rallies she made some anxious errors, but there was plenty of time in this. Kontaveit was not sharp in this event and Rogers is playing her best. On the tour, form is most of who wins and Rogers has had a great end to 2020 and a good start to 2021. Where Alexandrova made errors, I think since Rogers plays a more conservative approach she’ll be ok. Barty is still a ridiculously difficult defensive test though, and the same extra balls she made Alexandrova play to earn errors will give Shelby trouble since this is new territory for her as far as the round of play. It’s easy to just pick Barty, but that is what I think I have to do. It was evident early in the match that although Alexandrova had the bigger offense, the amount of work she’d have to do with it would require an amazing performance. I expect Rogers to hang more in rallies, but struggle to find her way out of them. Barty in 2 close sets.
Mertens Muchova : Mertens continues to roll, dispatching Bencic in two pretty comfortable sets. Muchova had a really close match with Pliskova despite winning in straights. She was up and down a break in the first set, finding a hold late to close out. In the second Pliskova found a better gear in the rallies and went up 5-0, and then, something happened. It’s hard to say what, but outwardly it was double faults. Muchova simply hits the ball too solid and to too many open spaces for Pliskova to deal with, and as a result Pliskova never felt safe hitting normal rally balls. She went bigger than she had to, and established no rhythm. Muchova then managed to save some break points at 4-5, and from there it just seemed like Pliskova was mentally defeated. Matches between compatriots can often have funky results, and this definitely was one.
In previous rounds Muchova’s ability in the rally made her a clear favorite. Ostapenko, Pliskova, Barthel are all offensive talents, and Muchova’s defense and power just made it simple for her to win points and difficult for them to manufacture them without errors. Against Mertens, the equation changes. Mertens is very good at redirecting the ball, and won’t make really any of the errors Muchova’s previous opponents did. Muchova made some errors on her backhand wing in the last round, and struggled to hold serve. I think that will continue here, and Mertens will get one step closer returning serves as the match goes on earning her some break point chances. Mertens in 2.
Vekic Brady : Sneaky sneaky. Down and out of this one, Vekic found her best game. Vekic and Kanepi played a really high level offensive contest, with a lot of rallies being played from deep behind the baseline and with both players on the run constantly. Kanepi’s serve was a big weapon for cheap points, but Vekic’s earned her more simple balls to hit. Her power has really dragged her through this draw, and for a former title winner who has struggled to find that form again she becomes a dangerous player at this point in the tournament. Brady had a pretty easy match, but handled it the way you need to when this is the case.
Vekic is going to be the sharper player coming in. Playing Pliskova, Kanepi, and Podoroska really involves a lot of big hitting and defending. As a result, there’s a good chance that she is a bit more resilient in rallies than Brady will expect. It’s easy to get frustrated and cough up errors when your opponent is returning the ball with depth when you expect them to float up an easy one. Beating Kanepi means Vekic can win this match as well, even though Brady’s offensive ability on the forehand side and defensive ability at the baseline mean it won’t be easy. Brady is a clear favorite here for the simple reason that Vekic is not “supposed” to be here, but deep in an event it is easy to forget the past and focus on the task on court. I’m really not sure who will be more able to earn errors here, but I suspect Brady will close it out where Kanepi faltered, as she’s been improving all of last year and seems very sharp here despite having not really played a tough test. What scares me, and I’m aware I’m going back and forth, is the simple way Li ended Brady’s run the previous week. I wouldn’t feel comfortable backing Brady, but I think she should win. Brady in 3.
Pegula Svitolina : There just are no easy matches at this point, and the way I felt trepidatious about picking a winner in the last match is similar here. Pegula beat Mladenovic from start to finish. She’s really consistent from the baseline right now and continues to serve great. Svitolina had a similarly dominant win against a tough defensive test in Putintseva. Putintseva started early with the moonballs and pushmode and never got out of it. Svitolina hit her backhand clean and in a very measured fashion in this one, working the points patiently. It was a testament to her quality, but more so to her dominance against Putintseva. When you know you’re going to outlast your opponent, playing long rallies almost becomes a joy. You’re thinking while the other person is working. Pegula almost has the offense to beat Svitolina. She almost has the defense too. I don’t see a lot to separate these two, and their recent match in Abu Dhabi was won by Svitolina but in two single break sets so it’s tough to say the upset isn’t possible. Pegula seems better this week than in Abu Dhabi, with many players just kinda getting matches in at that event and not really pressing yet. I think she reverses some portion of the result, and after playing Putintseva Svitolina will take some time to adjust to someone playing actual offense. If Pegula is able to serve well, she may cause an upset, but it would be a monumental win since Svitolina is so fast, so consistent, and just won the matchup. Svitolina in 3.
I’m aware even as I write these things that it seems unfair to play both sides. “SHE MIGHT WIN, BUT ALSO SHE MIGHT LOSE!” is not a hot take, but I generally think it’s better to be honest about uncertainty and at this stage in the tournament everyone is playing so well that the margins are extra thin unless you’re Ash Barty who is the golden potato of success and shall never be doubted again long may she reign also did she get taller somehow?
Hsieh Voundrousova : Finally, the Hsieh Errani match is over. These two traded 7 straight breaks to open the match, and did not stop there. Hsieh had little to no way to end rallies against Sara’s speed, and Errani’s serve completely left her. After being up 5-2 in the final set, Errani didn’t win another game. It was a bittersweet result after being on the court for so many grinding rallies, but the better player won as far as the tournament goes. Hsieh will be better recovered for this next round against Voundrousova, and will have a better chance ot not simply being run senseless by the talented lefty. Voundrousova placed Cirstea immediately into her own personal jail cell in their match. Cirstea was in control of every rally, but Voundrousova kept the ball within a foot of the baseline on so many offerings. It looked like Cirstea would find her resolve in the second set, but all she found were more forehand errors down the line and more backhands into the net. It is a real phenomenon in tennis that when one players establishes they’re intent on hanging in the rallies forever, the other starts making mistakes. With the edges being so small, it seems that often (sadly) the player trying to play offense ends up losing. Cirstea will be back, but for now, she simply was unwilling to believe that she could tolerate the long rallies and still win the match.
Voundrousova is a much better Errani. Hsieh has great defense, and her variety will certainly make her an equal proposition against Voudrousova’s dropshot heavy offense, but I think that Voundrousova’s defending is a cut above Errani and Hsieh’s serve really faltered last round. This could close as Hsieh just beat her in Abu Dhabi, but Voundrousova is playing significantly better here and Hsieh has already been through some emotional wars. Voundrousova in 2.
Muguruza Osaka : Yay! Muguruza has been at her best here. Consistent and ultra-focused on defensive play. Diyas had not much chance. Similarly, Jabeur didn’t really have enough offense to hit through Osaka. Plot twist: no one does. Osaka has been winning majors because her mobility and defending on the baseline are something that creates no easy way to win points. She cuts off angles and plays the ball heavy and flat down the middle of the court and honestly it takes multiple shots from there to even produce the opportunity to hit the shot that got you pinned by Osaka’s return in the first place. It’s a difficult cycle, and the best path to beating Osaka right now is something that Muguruza will do, which is slowing things down and making it a shot-for-shot affair, rather than a frenzied trade at the baseline. Muguruza will look to construct points intelligently and to take time between them. The only chance (barring a blowup) that players have to beat Osaka in a major seems to be building pressure. Naomi still is prone to strings of errors when she misses a shot. There’s a general “I’d better go safe I just missed” reflex in most athletes and going safe generally means unintended deceleration on your swing which creates the next error. This is storytime though, and I don’t expect random strings of errors to net Muguruza more than a set. She’s playing her best, but I don’t expect it to beat Osaka’s best. Osaka in 2.
Sabalenka Williams : Match of the day! Sabalenka beat Li in such an impressive fashion, and I’m starting to get my hopes up that this is the year she breaks through in a major. She hits the hardest of anyone on tour, and has one of the best serves seen in a long time. The backhand down the line is a beautiful controlled swing, and the best thing about Sabalenka is that her movement doesn’t at all match her height. She covers the court beautifully, and her belief in herself isn’t deluded at all, but rooted more in a desire to compete and win. That’ll get you real far on tour, as her opponent can attest to.
Serena is one of the first players on tour to wear a catsuit, and Feliciano Lopez has been spotted in the stands eyeing the attire and stroking his nonexistent beard. Things to come, Catsuit Feli? Possibly. Serena looked her best coming into this event, and then the Potapova match happened. The same defensive struggles that she’d exhibited post-pregnancy were back, and it made me think I may have put too much emphasis on her slight bit of extra weight being tied to her errors. She’s lost the weight, but that first set was rough. On the bright side, when she had to fight at the end of the first set, she really was amazing. When she competes she gets such a singular focus it really is great to watch. The second set was better quality, as it always is when she plays. The question is, how does she neutralize Sabalenka’s offense. Serena can serve aces. She can put balls away when she has control, and she can attack second serves and break. Can she defend though? Ann Li is quick. Ann Li redirects the ball well, and attacks second serves. Ann Li is not Serena, but she was soundly beaten for two sets.
In sport sometimes (all the time) I get fooled. Sometimes Nadal looks sloppy and then comes out and rolls Novak in the French. Sometimes Federer goes 5 in the first round with the world #140 and then doesn’t drop a set the rest of the way. It’s possible that Serena was not really concerned about Potapova winning the match, and had a gameplan, and also that she will play excellent today. This is necessary though as much as it is a possibility. She’s making great strides back to her best form, but the tour has been improving during this period as well. Having a full crowd would be a huge boost to Serena as well, and it may be hard to rattle Aryna without that noise. Sabalenka in 2.
Swiatek Halep : Swiatek is just great to watch, and this is a contest that makes me happy. The WTA really is in great shape right now because honestly most of the players left in the event could win the tournament. Halep struggled against Tomljanovic but the next round she cleaned up those errors. She was aggressive and played her usual overwhelming game against Kudermetova. Kudermetova struggled in this one, and was pretty awful in the first set. She found more range in the second, but it seemed like she really was in a nightmare of errors and Halep’s pressure never allowed her to really have a moment to put things back together. Iga and Halep is a close match, because while Iga is likely to be the future, her best results have been on clay. She had a great run on hardcourt in the AO a few years back, but that was prior to her injury and she has struggled since then. Halep is hard to predict. The bookmakers have lent a helping hand here by making this match a pickem. Normally I’d say that points towards Swiatek but she’s such a recent major winner that her name is a big market. I would say that in this case, the pickem line is a real indicator of the tightness of this contest. Swiatek should start winning this match at some point in the future, but is it now? Halep was sharp against Kudermetova but had trouble when Kudermetova started to keep the ball in the court. I think it’ll be tough for Iga to score, and her errors will keep this close. I stil like her upside, and think Halep will play her into form at some point even if she struggles early. Swiatek in 3.
Djokovic Raonic : What in the fudge was that Fritz Novak match. After acquitting himself nicely in the first two sets, Fritz seemed on his way to a respectable L. I began to think that maybe Novak bought some stock in the USTA as he’d spent two rounds playing friendly with Tiafoe and Fritz. The the weirdness happened. Novak suddenly couldn’t hit the court. Simple balls, he hit almost predictably into the net. He had slow volleys into the open court and hit the net. He began guessing on all of Fritz shots and chose wrong on all of them. He double faulted. Something was wrong after a fall in the third set, and he spent a lot of time twisting and flexing, which made me think it was some residual neck or back stiffness. He would later tell the media he tore a muscle on his right side, but he’s struggled with back and neck issues in the past.
Down 2 sets to 1 against Novak Djokovic, Taylor Fritz was listed as even odds to win the match. You will never see anyone down 2 sets to 1 and even to win the match against a market like Djokovic, except Nadal at the French possibly. For a random 250 level guy like Fritz to be so was a clear indication that Novak’s physical hinderance was a nail in the coffin. Then the magic happened. The match was suspended while they asked the crowd to leave the stadium. Sure they warned the players they’d be taking a pause to clear everyone out. Sure they kinda made sense by sending them off-court so the crowd would know they weren’t going to continue play until they left. But wow did Novak return to the court almost completely recovered as far as his play and movement. They said Novak was not allowed to receive any medical treatment during the break. So what happened? Did whatever painkillers he took kick in? It is unlikely that he’d be able to compete as well as he did with a serious back/muscle issue even with painkillers. The stiffness and sharpness of pain generally remains. Did the muscle relaxers kick in? That’s a possibility. Did he stretch and miraculously recover? Unlikely, as he wasn’t really working on any stretching or rehabilitation work during changeovers and breaks. I’m not complaining, but the break came as he was pretty much completely finished, and benefitted him greatly as he was able to physically compete when they came back. What was great to see actual as Novak went crippled godmode and roped the ball down both lines over and over on every shot was Fritz competing so hard and playing such good defense. He is a mush and it was great to see him finally fight his way to his best level. Both him and Tiafoe benefitted greatly from their time on the court with one of the best players of all time.
The question now, and there are nothing but questions, is how will he recover to play Raonic. The odds have opened at -190 +160 for Novak/Milos, and this is a pretty clear indication that they either don’t expect the match to happen, or expect it to happen with Novak in a pretty hampered form. Within the match, I can see how Novak might want to play through and see what treatment was available. If it’s the same story going in though, and with many rounds left to play, I don’t see his team allowing him to play and risking furthering the injury. This is likely going to be a Raonic win, and the only caveat is that Djokovic has been injured, completely finished, and obviously going to lose in many situations and tournaments already. He has found miraculous 3rd set comebacks and as many pointed out in the 4th set while he looked sunk “he’s always like this, haven’t you learned?” I’ve learned that I cannot learn. Raonic, who is currently dressed like a guy who stole an old lady’s clothes off her clothesline because he wound up trapped outside naked in a bad comedy movie, by forfeit.
Lajovic Zverev : Hmm. Lajovic was struggling to gain control of points against Martinez, and eventually decided on outlasting him as a strategy. It worked, as Martinez played a number of lovely points but couldn’t find his way out of rallies. A great result for him, and since clay is his best surface this is just a super bonus that allows him to stay on tour all year. Zverev never really struggled against Mannarino. Mannarino was laughing to his team about the height of Zverev’s serve, and he was wholly overwhelmed by the power. It’s hard to say it, but Zverev is starting to look dominant against a lot of the tour in these 3/5 situations. He also won back to back tournaments towards the end of last year, and made the finals of a major. He is a spindly dillhole, but he’s good at the tennis. Lajovic is a step up from Mannarino in terms of ballstriking, but is a similar level of ineffective at hitting outright winners. I’m underthinking this, but Lajovic doesn’t have a clear way to win other than “hang in rallies and hope for errors or fatigue.” Zverev in 3.
Thiem Dimitrov : Well shoot. Thiem and Kyrgios was a classic. The crowd was almost exhausted themselves by the 5th set, and the announcers were excited as well. Thiem looked rattled by the crowd for at least half of this match, and didn’t hit the ball well for those portions. The crowd was loud, and Kyrgios was solid. There is something aggravating about imploring the crowd to make noise and celebrate, and then employing the best friend tactics by saying “too good” to the guy you are actively trying to mess with. The fake underhand serve directly into the normal service motion is one of those things that, while not illegal, is a grimey move. Kyrgios is a classic attention-seeker though, so he can’t help trying to play both sides. “I need them to like me, but I also want you to like me” is the vibe regarding the crowd/box and his opponent.
That aside, and his usual immediate non-sequitur bitching to the umpire whenever the tennis doesn’t go his way, he played a good match. He lost because, well, he doesn’t often play good matches. The same way Kokkinakis lost because he couldn’t physically compete by the 5th set, Kyrgios lost because he hasn’t played enough serious tennis to believe that he could hang in rallies. Fatigue is obviously a factor as well, but for a guy who moves as well as he does, training can eclipse that kind of fatigue. He could have won majors if he took it seriously, but he’ll still be a great entertainer and I’ll admit he does cringey things but I do enjoy watching a bit of drama. As it stands these guys have passed him by, and Thiem’s silent comeback was well deserved as he dealt with nonstop cheering of his errors and faults and heckling and Kyrgios even did his own passive-aggressive brand of trash-talking. I would point to the same premature celebration that Tiafoe had as an issue here with Kyrgios as well. There were so many big points for him that it seemed at times he was emotionally drained and looking to drum up crowd support or things to take issue with so he could compete. You gotta manage your physical reserves as well as your emotional ones, and he was in it for a sprint not for a marathon.
Dimitrov was scary good for a set against PCB, who had to retire with an abdominal issue. I really have not seen anything from Dimitrov so far that says he can’t win this match. He’s serving incredibly well, smoking his backhand, and he seems focused. The problem is now that he’s playing a guy who’s very similar but with more experience winning at this stage, a better backhand, and more power in general. This is a shootout that Dimitrov will need Thiem to start slow in to have a chance. Thiem’s defending is just as good if not better than Dimitrov’s, and while people think both are cute, Thiem’s instagram comments include significantly more marriage proposals and demands to “treat me like a baby otter and hold me while i sleep” (I counted two of these it must be a thing). Dimitrov’s serving is a bit better than Thiem’s right now. Thiem’s 5 setter makes him significantly more fatigued than Dimitrov, but his training is such that he’ll likely be at his best for some large chunk of this. Thiem can often be a slow starter, which gives the Dimitrov we saw early against PCB a shot, but producing that sort of winning tennis across a match will be Dimitrov’s biggest challenge in quite some time. I’m not comfortable backing Thiem to achieve any specific result here, but it’s hard to say he shouldn’t win. Thiem in 4-5.
Auger-Aliassime Karatsev : Auger-Aliassime got a nice gift from Shapo, who found errors late in sets over and over. Shapovalov was feeling pressure, and the look on his face made it seem like he always was fighting the “WHAT IF YOU LOST” thoughts that had to have been flying through his spacious head at a rapid rate. That brings up a very interesting clash against a guy who played the best match of offensive tennis I have seen since watching the tour. If you can find a replay, watch the Karatsev Schwartzman match. Aslan Karatsev hit 50 winners in 3 sets, and there was not a single point when he did not simply outclass Diego. He faced break points and served ace after ace, and when he had a ball to hit or the open court, he smoked it right past Diego. It is extremely rare that Schwartzman doesn’t get his racquet on the ball, and the offense Karatsev produced was surprising even after watching him produce it. I can’t say enough about how well he’s playing, and Gerasimov’s relative surrender makes a lot more sense now.
FAA is a different test than Diego, but wow have the odds for this one plummeted. After opening at -274, FAA now sits at -180. This means huge amounts of money are pouring in on Karatsev. So can he win? Sure, and in a 2/3 structure I think he is a favorite, but the 3/5 and FAA’s current form and coming off an easy win against Shapo makes this interesting. Karatsev’s level against Diego can beat anyone. I really mean that. There is a level of offense where the opponent does not matter. The issue here is that FAA brings his own offense in, and since Diego was unable to really get deep into rallies with Karatsev, We haven’t really seen his stamina tested. If FAA is able to win a set, that’s an extra set of offense Karatsev needs. If FAA is able to return serve well, these are extra balls that Karatsev has to play. He is in no way suspect, and it isn’t likely after 3 rounds of immaculate play that his offense will just disappear, but we haven’t seen the errors that have populated his play in the past yet. FAA is fast and deals well with power. This is a completely even match in my head, which says a ton about Karatsev. FAA struggling with Gerasimov last week is a similar thing to what might happen here. For bettors though, after a line move like that, you’re kinda getting in late if you’re backing Karatsev to win outright, and major line movements don’t always mean you’re right. Often the public is quick to jump on a “LOCK!” and everyone floods their money in as if they know something the book doesn’t. I actually felt that FAA opening at the same price as Diego was somewhat interesting, and I don’t often see that with a surging underdog on tour. Generally you’ll see a -274 +224, -200 +170, -160 +140 gradual type regression. Still, interesting numbers aside, this is a close match because Karatsev is relatively fresh, and Schwartzman is the best outside the big 3 at deflating offensive talents. I think he gets the job done here unless we see a huge regression to the mean. The problem will really be breaking FAA’s serve, since lower ranked player tend not to be the most adept returners and FAA is a wayyyyyy better server and offensive player than Diego. Karatsev in 5 if his stamina holds up.
Rublev Ruud : Rublev just keeps rolling. Lopez’ serve was negated, and with a very winnable match here against Ruud, the Rublev Medvedev clash seems likely. Ruud struggled but found the win against Albot. It took a really long time and a ton of rallies. Rallies that Rublev will end. Rublev in 3.
McDonald Medvedev : Great run for McDonald. It’s gotta end sometime though, and this will be a fun contest since he’s so solid and aggressive from the baseline, but Medvedev is just a defender you can’t hit through. I thought Krajinovic had a chance after watching the early parts of the first set, because simply put, the guy trains with Djokovic and is one of the best counterpunchers on the baseline that the tour has. He’s perfect to play against Medvedev. Medvedev blinked too, but his serve is just too big a weapon for him to lose these difficult matches. As it gets late, he gets the easier holds. He will against Mackie also. Medvedev in 3.
Tsitsipas Berretini : Cover me I’m going in. Tsitsipas backed up his struggle against Kokkinakis with a sound dispatching of Ymer. It reminded me of the Mutombo “uh uh uh” finger wagging. Just because the guy struggles at times under pressure doesn’t mean he’s prone to upsets. A great win to get back on track, and he’ll need it as Berretini is playing great ball. There were two weapons in the Khachanov Berretini match. Berretini’s forehand, and Berretini’s dropshots. This combo makes it so incredibly difficult to defend once Berretini gets inside the baseline. He doesn’t hit the bailout “I want the rally to end” dropshots that others on tour do, they are really well done and generally go untouched. The forehand is crazy. He hits the ball so fast that Khachanov who is a great defender really looked in desperation mode. He spent a lot of time just redirecting the ball and it was a good strategy but he didn’t end up with clear ways to win points. When it came time for tiebreakers, Berretini just played better. Khachanov had netcords fly past him when he was in positon for a volley, and just really everything that could go bad did. Still, Berretini’s play was backed up even better by how well he served at times. When he had a set point, he served an ace. Simple, effective.
I liked what I saw from Berretini enough that I disagree with the -380 price tag of Tsitsipas. I’m not sure how Tsitsipas will fare against a significant offensive talent, and although Berretini’s backhand is a huge liability, his ability to get it low may give Tsitsipas ample opportunity to make backhand errors. What I think the trouble here for Tsitsipas may prove to be is the same as Khachanov faced. As the sets get deep, it starts to be clear that Berretini is going to play his offense on all the big points, and it can take the racquet out of your hands. It’s rare on tour for such a great server to also have a huge forehand, and Berretini is not really going to be uncomfortable with his opponent or with the situation. These two have played a number of times, with Tsitsipas dominating their past matches and Berretini winning the most recent one (although it was a UTR exhibition). Tsitsipas has had similar clashes against servers wind up deep, and although he has a bright future, and can play a perfect set of tennis, this is not a dominant matchup, but a shootout. Picture Berretini getting to the same 5th set against Tsitsipas. Do you see Tsitsipas pulling it off? Will Berretini be exhausted? Will he struggle to win rallies once he gets control? I’ve overestimated his chances before against guys like Federer and Nadal, but I don’t think Tsitsipas is there just yet. If, on the other hand, Tsitsipas is able to dispatch Berretini in a simple manner, then he has a real chance to defeat Fognini in the next round. I’m leaning into the upset. Berretini in 4.
Fognini Nadal : I wanna say it and so do you. This is not the guy who you want to see playing Nadal. De Minaur was in full “I wanna go fast!” mode against Fognini. He kept playing the ball back quickly and down the middle and he kept waiting to get rewarded by Fognini errors. They came, but not on the break points, and Fognini proved that his wins against Caruso and Herbert were not flukes and that when he’s focused he can win. Although bookmakers lines are prices for expected investment, not lines, De Minaur was sat at -500 against Fognini and Nadal is only -600. Nadal is the largest market in tennis year after year. People feel extremely comfortable in backing him at absurd prices because, simply put, he is a machine. He plays every single point well, and he gets better as a match goes on without starting it at a mediocre level. Fognini may not be a winner here, but he has earned some significant respect by only sitting at +450 (or whatever the devilish books have gouged +600 down to on your site). There is a good reason for the somewhat careful price. Fognini is rarely motivated, but has turned in some of his best performances against Nadal. Nadal is probably the greatest competitor we have seen (RIP my inbox), but these are very fast courts and he did have some woes against Norrie. If you’ve read my articles in the past, you know I very admittedly fall for Nadal’s slumps and Federer’s, and bet against them once per event. Is this that round?
Fognini hitting through De Minaur means, despite his early errors, that he is cranking the ball at a solid pace, and defending well. His backhand is solid, and his forehand is easy power. He is supremely skillful, and he can make a game of it with Nadal. Downsides are clear. Nadal happens to be Nadal. Fognini is a child inside a conceited man’s body, and gives up when things don’t go his way. He is inconsistent, and his carefree play means he will make errors in spots where he shouldn’t. I’d be wary of backing Nadal here, but he should still win. Nadal in 4-5 (RIP my second super secret inbox).