What You Should Know About Fatigue

Whether you are buying points for a wager or simply trying to decide what side to wager on sports, one concept you should be familiar with as a punter is fatigue.  Fatigue refers to the energy drain on a particular team, player, or horse.  This tends to be more and more of a factor as the season unfolds.  All players are only human, and fatigue can make or break any of them.  And fatigue itself has many factors going into it.

What are some common causes of fatigue?

• Changes in team structure or management.  While a new coach or a lot of trades can result in improvements for a team and sometimes a burst of new energy and resolve, it sometimes can result in the opposite as well, especially if it has been a particularly turbulent transition.

• Suspensions, arguments, and controversy.  Any of these can lead to a general loss of morale.  When teams do not play well together or with other teams, they can start to experience fatigue.

• Back-to-back games.  This is one of the biggest fatigue factors out there; be particularly alert to this factor in NBA and NHL games.  Sometimes players have less than a day of rest between games, even without travel, and this can really take a toll. Even when games are not back-to-back, but there are a lot of games within a relatively short time span, players may not be getting adequate rest.  When travel is involved, particularly from west to east, the fatigue can be even worse.  When players travel from west to east, they are losing hours of sleep.  Sometimes the only rest is on an airplane.  That is not a recipe for strong performance.  Playing away from home is also a general fatigue factor, for the simple reason that a team is always going to be most comfortable on their own home turf.

• Injuries and illnesses.  When players are injured or get sick, even if they can still play, they will never be at their finest. 

• Losses.  Losing games may not result in any physical fatigue, but it does create psychological fatigue.  If a team has had a really bad losing streak, you should be aware that they may struggle to perform in upcoming games.  Their confidence will not be what it was at the start of the season.  Then again, their determination may be greater, so it can be hard to predict the effect that the losses will have on the score.

When you are shopping the lines, fatigue may already be one of the factors which has gone into the lines, so this is something to be aware of.  If you are getting a fair price with fatigue taken into account, you can enter into the wager.  Otherwise, you may want to keep shopping the lines for a better price, or you may want to consider buying points as necessary for a fairer wager that is more likely to go in your favour.