Do pro players switch (classes/races/picks) often, like Zerg/Terran/Protoss?

At the pro level no, most of the elite players specialise in a race. Balloon plays random but he's barely top 200 and Scarlett chose protoss once as a Zerg player for a single game (which she won with a planned build) but no one else in the top 100 does really - Classic switched from Terran to Protoss too but that was a permanent switch around a year ago

Basically what I mean by this is, is it a good idea to know who would be favored in the match up based on which (class/race/pick) they play?

Yes, wiki.teamliquid.net has a list of who's playing what race/map in each game, you can get the map statistics (eg Terran win 53% on x map vs zerg) on the same site. Aligulac.com has a list of stats for each player; you can decide what you find most relevant, personally I think it's each player's recent form in the relevant matchup and the level of competition that player has played recently

Also, I've heard coaches play a HUGE role in SC2, so does that mean players from the same organizations all play at similar skill levels?

Yes and no; some coaches are better than others (Choya used to overperform for his roster at FXO but doesn't anymore at his new team; Coach Park who gets lots of credit for being an elite coach is an absolute idiot who is incapable of making correct decisions imo although CJ have had a good start this season I doubt it's because of him; Jinair and KT coaches make fairly good player selection decisions, SKTT1 have a good coaching roster, Prime coach is beyond clueless, it varies this one is mostly a matter of opinion)

I've been trying to do some research on my own because I'm interested in betting on SC2, but there aren't many resources available. Thanks in advance for any help.

wiki.teamliquid.net
aligulac.com

Should be all you need to become profitable if you watch the games regularly and have sound analysis

Ya I will; can't guarantee i'll hit my target of +50u per 1000 bets but I think i'm 50%ish to hit the target. Can say with 80%+ certainty that unless esports becomes tougher to beat I should be up over each thousand bets and i'm 100% sure i'll beat novig lines.

iG vs MVP.P (Dota 2)

MVP.P haven't been doing well lately, they lost 0-2 against Newbee, and 2-3 against Rave. They did however win 2-1 against VG, which is very impressive for them. They seem capable of beating higher tier teams if they get a good draft, but better teams should be able to beat them because they make a lot of exploitable mistakes. I definitely expect them to be able to take at least 1 game off iG.

iG recently beat LGD 2-0 and 1-0, HyperGloryTeam 1-0, and Speed Gaming 1-0. But they have also lost against CDEC with a better draft after having a poor laning phase. They have been performing very well lately, and they have a larger hero pool than MVP.P. I believe they are good enough to beat MVP.P in a best of 3, but will probably lose a game if they draft poorly.

I'm going to bet on MVP.P +1.5 at -193. I'm only going to be betting 1 unit because there is a decent chance of upset. I probably wouldn't follow my bet as I'm still fairly new to analysis, but thought I'd post my reasoning.

Cool, post your record as you go see how it goes - if you're doing well i'll start tailing, gl

If I want to track my bets, do you know any sites like sharpbettracker.com that include esports? Or should I just be keeping track of wins/losses on my own?

Vici Gaming vs HyperGloryTeam
VG -1.5 -113 1 unit

A best of 3, VG is currently rank 3, HGT is rank 25. Odds are just too good to pass on atm.

HGT is a weaker Chinese team with an overall record of 52/11/85. They recently won 2:0 against DK, and tied 1-1 against Newbee. However, they lost 0-2 against iG (slightly weaker team than VG), and 0-2 against Speed Gaming (rank 40, but they show potential). In their past 4 series against VG, they are 0-5. Against Newbee they have a 2-5 record recently. I wouldn't consider HGT to be in the same tier as VG, and if VG plays well they shouldn't drop a game against them.

Vici Gaming is easily the 2nd best team in China. They're currently 10/7 this December, with some upsetting losses against weaker teams like CDEC, MVP.P and iG. However, these are still top tier teams. VG hasn't lost a series against any lower tier teams since their BO1 against Speed Gaming.

Basically all you have to know is that VG are the rank 3 team, and should be able to easily go 2-0 against a team like HGT. Money line is currently -361 for VG, and -1.5 is only -113. I personally think these are amazing odds atm.

Sure, why not, put a small partial on both of your picks to tail and for a sweat. gl!

May as well all track in this thread so newcomers to the thread can see who's doing well/badly in the various esports if they want to tail picks. It's what I do when I want to bet NBA, I find someone with a good record in that thread and tail

Well I went 0-2 -2u. I'm pretty impressed VG managed to lose to HGT, didn't get to see the games but I'm guessing it wasn't pretty. MVP.P also lost both their games against iG in the first 5 minutes. I guess I'm just going to watch games and learn more about all the teams before continuing betting.

Enjoy your lock and ban, ******

If you want to put your money where your mouth is, 10 esports vs tennis bets, major tournaments only, in the next month.

Obviously that last post is referencing a post that no longer exists from some idiot tout spamming for tennis picks

Proleague teams announced for next week, lines aren't out yet but i'm spotting a couple likely value spots depending where lines open.

Did some capping before lines dropped. Lines just dropped. Havent got to the last game yet

Here's my analysis

CJ Entus vs Prime

SKyhigh vs Myungsik - 52% P map. Both guys worst MU.Sky has slightly better form in MU.
Sky -120

herO vs Yoda - 52% T map. Yoda's worst, hero's 2nd MU. hero has better form.
herO -180

Byul vs Terror - Byul's worst mu, Terror's 2nd. Byul still w much better winrate. Byul better form. Terror has zero series wins vs players of byuls caliber or higher. 20-40 vs all SK zerg players, most wins vs weaker players than byul
Byul -225

Bbyong vs Creator - 53% T map - Creator's worst, BByong's 2nd mu. Recent form is Bbyong although further back it's close.
Bbyong -160

Ace: herO vs Yoda probably, her0 -180 again

3x lean CJ, 1x heavy fav CJ

Bet CJ to -350
CJ -1.5 at -120

KT vs SKTT1

Stats vs soO 52% Z map. Soo's worst. Stats best. Stats in better form. soO w good history vs stats though.
Stats -110. Would be more if not for history + map.
Zest vs Billowy. Both players best. Form Zest. Zest also much better player
Zest -200 - bo1, and PvP plus Billowy has beaten Zest before
Flash vs Dark 55% T map. Both 2nd best MU. Form Dark, flash in awful tvz form.
Dark -105 - flash is a better player and T favoured map but Dark crushing recently and Flash out of form
TY vs Innovation - TY's best MU Inno's 2nd best. Both in good form. Inno's slightly better. Inno has better history vs TY
Innovation -130
Ace match: Likely Innovation vs Stats if KT plan the snipe. Stats beat him 3-2 in close series last week. Flip if it's stats, lean inno if not.

Seems close. I think Zest is a bigger fav than Innovation and lean Stats and Dark so it goes to ace a lot but if it doesn't I think it's KT that gets the 3-1 more often. That said, KT is in worse form recently but they usually bring it vs SKT regardless.
Overall: Both teams +100 (would be KT -105 to -110 if not for poor form last 2 wks. I think KT open as dogs though)

Bet underdog team (likely KT).

Samsung vs Startale-Yoe

Emotion vs San - Both players second best MU. Neither guys in good PvP form vs Koreans. Think San is overall more skilled and emotion looked bad vs hush last time out and has slightly worse form.
San -135
Solar vs Curious - Solar 2nd, Curious worst. Solar has better form and wins but in a minor slump. Curious out of action a long time.
Solar -165
Dear vs Life - 52% Z map. Life's 2nd MU, Dear's best. Both guys in great form.
Life -125, slightly better overall player.
Hurricane vs Leenock - Battle of the former core of FXOpen. Leenock in better form, and 4-0 vs Hurricane recently. Leenock returning to elite status maybe? We'll find out.
Leenock -160
Ace match: Likely to be Dear vs Life again. 53% Zerg map.
Life -125 again.

Looks like we have 3 lean Startale and 1 lean Samsung here although the Samsung fav is probably the biggest fav of the MU. Lean Startale in Ace as well though. Samsung have overperformed their roster so far this season.

Bet: Startale-Yoe to -150

Don't bet on the sos/cj hero game in mvp/jinair itll be a nobet as its not a game thats happening

Jinair opener was huge value so was cure, innovation was small value, startale was huge value and life was medium value. I smashed a few huge value bets in will post soon

I moved Jinair line out to -193 singlehandedly from open, theres still value. They're prob -225 or something. Cure is value too. Rest of lines seem sharp on Jinair/MVP. I also moved the STartale line out to -131 by myself and still value. Value on all of my bets actually.

Reason Jinair is so valuable is because sos is playing liquid hero who hes a big fav over not cj hero who hes a flip with

Surprised KT opened as favs. SKT is tempting at +116 but meh

I also bet Innovation to arb later, TY WILL be available at +115 or better at some stage

Hoping some money comes on Prime or Prime +1.5 so I can get CJ or CJ -1.5 as well. Seems likely. People love to bet Prime as a huge dog.

Bets i'm locking in now

Innovation -115 (I may arb this later)
Jin Air -185
Cure -130
Life -101
Startale-Yoe -125

Honestly I think all 5 of them are potentially 10%+ ROi spots. I'd take all of them 10 points worse than what I got (in innovations case to arb, in the remainders case to let them ride)

Piled in multiple units on Startale and Jin Air lines fwiw

The more I think about it the more I like CJ -1.5 line at -139 but I think it'll get better more often than worse so i'll wait. There's clear value at -115 but not so much at -139 and good chance i'll get that by game time.

Weird, I thought CJ were overrated preseason and still do but their matchups are lining up so well for them each week.

For what it's worth I think Jinair, Startale, Cure are a clear 1, 2, 3 in that order of my bets this wk

aaaand Jinair is -255 now. So yeah. I did well to catch that opener for 3.6u.

Is your unit $7?

100.

Hey swoop. I like your writeups. Im a noob though. Could you walk me through the above line? What does the percentage and P or T stand for in 52% P map (or 53% T map for another match)? What do you mean when you say that something (the map or the other player?) is a players worst or 2nd matchup (thats what mu stands for right?)?

As you probably realize I have never played a single game of StarCraft in my life

I've never played SC but can answer a bit of this. In SC2 there are plenty of different maps to play on. Based on layouts they can slightly favor different races, as they have different units. So when he says 52% P map, he means that the Protoss race is a slight favorite to win on this map. Other maps are favored for the different races (Protoss/Zerg/Terran), so pay attention to which map they'll be playing on, and which race the player is known to play.
The worst matchup comes from both map and race picks. Say for example your team plays Zerg on a 53% Protoss map, and their team is playing Protoss for that specific matchup. Some races will be favored on a complete 50/50 map, I'm just not sure which beats which.
Again, I've never played SC before but that's the basics of what he meant. I'm also not sure which site he found out this information, but if you're interested in making picks too, he's mentioned http://aligulac.com/ and http://wiki.teamliquid.net/

The maps and matchups are on wiki.teamliquid.net under the relevant tournament you're betting on

The player's form/history is available on aligulac just enter both players in 'inference' and then for additional info check out each players profile

SKyhigh vs Myungsik - 52% P map. Both guys worst MU.Sky has slightly better form in MU.

Info above is as follows

Player 1 vs Player 2. Winrate for race that is favoured if the players do not play the same race. Whether it is each player's best, second best or worst matchup historically (some players are good at PvZ but bad at PvT for example). Relevant info on players form in the relevant matchup.

Closer to value on Skyhigh and Terror now, I went small for a sweat but will wait and go big if odds continue to improve as they constantly have been on both players. CJ is close to value but wait til closer to game time as people love to bet on Prime as a big underdog.

I'm more excited for tomorrow's games than today's but today's should be awesome too especially KT vs SKT as that's the big rivalry in SC2 and last season's final.

Adding CJ Entus -257 (excellent price imo fading steam) Byul -234 and Skyhigh -103 to todays bets. CJ price is the best of the three it's excellent now. I cap them at more like -350. I will be adding multiple extra units if the price gets any better.

I have no idea why Prime getting steamed late is a thing when the steam is so consistently wrong on them.

Firing another couple units on CJ at -228. Price is crazy, -400 opener was closer to accurate. Average price -242 now. If it gets down to -200 i'll add even more.

I feel like if all players on both teams play their best, CJ is -500 or more, if everyone plays okay they're -350ish and if CJ play really badly and Prime play really well CJ are STILL a -150 fav. Everything's going to have to line up perfectly for Prime to win this one. They'll win a few games this season but beating SKT, KT, CJ or JinAir is going to be a tough ask; they overperformed against the arguably fifth ranked Startale and still lost 3-2.

If they keep dropping i'm gonna keep adding. Steam is wrong all the time on prime. This is the sort of spot that if esports was rigged and steam was an indication Prime would win since they opened -400 but i've faded Prime steam to make $$$ for two seasons. It's not a lock or anything but it's -350 to -400 for CJ here objectively on the info I have.

Absurdly enough there's steam on 2 of the CJ Entus players now yet the money is coming on Prime. Esports line movement is baffling.