My MO...which has worked exactly ZERO times in this...is to pick a team that has a very good chance of winning but isnt the most popular pick...so that I am competing against a more reasonable number if I get it right. I have Baylor so far so good.
NCAA 2021 Pool
- Thread starter Dan Murfman
- Start date
That's a variation on my typical strategy: pick a quasi-plausible 3, 4 or 5 seed in hopes that I'll be the only one picking them. It almost worked in 2010 when I would have won the whole thing if Butler had beaten Duke.
This year, my daughter beat me to Purdue (and it looks like she's the only one picking them), but someone else has FSU along with me.
What a weird first round. I only have 11 of 16 of my sweet 16 remaining which is awful, but all 8 of my elite 8 which seems rare. Still breathing barely i guess
So, people who picked Oregon are currently getting 14 points. The game was a no contest, of course; sportsbook bets on the game were cancelled as no action, and I believe all the major bracket contest sites likewise are giving no points for the Oregon/VCU game.
I’m guessing your program awarded the points automatically, @Dan Murfman, but they should probably be adjusted.
I’m guessing your program awarded the points automatically, @Dan Murfman, but they should probably be adjusted.
I am going with no game in the VCU/Oregon game and anyone who picked Oregon I have taken away those points.
I think that's totally fine. I'm sure you're fine with the precedent that is now set no matter what round this occurs in as it may be a hell of a lot more points than 14 in the final round or two of the tourney.
Sorry. I started running it right after the USC game. Woke up this morning and it wasn't even halfway done. So I had to cancel and rerun without it . So I'm updated through last night. Started running it again so hopefully it will be done this afternoon when my wife gets home.
Yeah yippee the scenario report is up. No truth to the less watching the better you do in the pool.
it seems like a lot less entries have a shot at 1st. Am I being paranoid because of the new format?
Possible. My best possible is 21st. Most years I still have a shot or at least have a shot at top 5 or 10.
My bracket is gnarly tho...
It has to be related to the new format. But that's cool, this style of play puts way less of an emphasis on the final rounds. I kind of like that. I do not like the fact that picking the champion is worth 32 more points than a first round game in normal scoring.
And I say this as someone who has a best finish chance below a number of people in the pool's worst possible finishes. When you fail, it's best to fail big!
For example, Oregon State has scored 60 points for the people who picked them to win those games. Villanova 25 for two wins. North Texas scored 26 points for 1 win. Obviously the Oral has scored 75 points.(I do not know if anyone picked them)
Gonzaga has scored 5 so far for two wins. If you picked Oklahoma in the first round, it was worth 16 points.
So if you nail a couple of upsets, you are going to be so much further ahead than anyone else and it's impossible to catch up.
edit - if a #1 seed wins the tourney, it's worth 52 points. Picking Ore St into the 16 was worth more than picking a 1 seed to win. I dig it. Chaos!
Gonzaga has scored 5 so far for two wins. If you picked Oklahoma in the first round, it was worth 16 points.
So if you nail a couple of upsets, you are going to be so much further ahead than anyone else and it's impossible to catch up.
edit - if a #1 seed wins the tourney, it's worth 52 points. Picking Ore St into the 16 was worth more than picking a 1 seed to win. I dig it. Chaos!
I think this is correct. I like the new scoring, but where it really inhibits is just picking a 1 seed as an overall winner, which I think is great. No one should be well rewarded for a 1 seed knocking off a 16 or 8/9. It really does add a lot more to going out on a slight (not even extended) limb to pick a 2 seed worth 104 points (or 3 seed and 156 points) as the overall winner.
Also in the previous scoring the bonus for underdog winner was really only maximized for the first round or two and after that people should pick more conservatively since the seed range narrows and round points are worth more. This encourages picking more low seeds going even deeper into the tournament.
Of course, I'm saying this with a bias as my brackets have done pretty well so far.
I only have 5 of the sweet sixteen and 1 final four team left, but I still have 470 scenarios where I win the whole thing. I guess my strategy of trying to be the only one to pick a quasi-plausible winner works under the new scoring system.
If I'm reading this correctly the USC Oregon game right now will decide the pool winner. If USC wins then John Murray gets 1st and 2nd and if Oregon Wins then Stacey Balter wins the whole thing.
USC and Oregon worth 30 and 35 points respectively.
USC and Oregon worth 30 and 35 points respectively.
The scoring is weird this year. Seemed cool, but obviously it doesn’t work well enough.
The kind of pool where I put a bunch of work into so people can have a good time.
The kind of pool where I tried something different after I felt was getting a little stale.
The kind of pool that will reevaluate for next .
I know you were just trying to make a wry, witty observation, but, as someone who used to run a lot of pools (back in the pre-Internet dark ages) it's a ton of work and nothing was more aggravating than the potshots tossed over the transom by people mocking the effort.
Might want to think about that a bit.
i love this pool and look forward to it every year. it was worth shaking up the scoring system. this adjustment didnt quite get it, but i look forward to the correction Dan. Thanks again for doing this, Dan
Seems like the problem (assuming it’s a problem that the winner [and second place] of the pool has been decided when there are still three of the six rounds left in the tourney) is using BOTH the seed multiplier AND the Fibonacci scoring system. Obviously if point values still doubled each round, the leader would still be ahead and have a good chance o win, but it wouldn’t be over.
Again, thanks for the work in putting this together. And I appreciate you tweaking the scoring system. But I would definitely send that blogger guy a note about this real-world result of his system.
Again, thanks for the work in putting this together. And I appreciate you tweaking the scoring system. But I would definitely send that blogger guy a note about this real-world result of his system.
Shoulda gone to UCLA. (I hope there’s a huge UCLA alum group out there using this system. Probably still anybody’s ballgame.)
I love this pool as well and apologize if it came off that I was upset at Dan. It's a ton of work for sure and I look forward to whatever adjustments are made going forward. Like I said, it didn't work this year, but that doesn't mean it wasn't worth trying because I think the old way had gotten a bit stale.
No offense intended. Ran some free and $1 pools myself pre-internet in HS, hand-graded all the entries, had a bonus for upsets pre-FF, so I appreciate the effort. Just a lighthearted comment that missed the mark. Apologies. Carry on.
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I have no experience running a pool so this might be chaos - but what would happen if you scored it both ways and combined those scores to find the winner?
Full Disclosure: I'm the pool winner and obviously biased. I found this to be the most fun pool system I had prepared for because of the scoring system and I think there's a couple of factors that resulted in this years outcome:
This is actually my first year in the money. Though a few years ago, I would have won the whole thing if Kansas had won the final over Kentucky. I have fun with it every year primarily because it's not the same old 1, 2, 4, 8.... scoring system, though I do agree that the previous upset scoring had become a bit formulaic for the early rounds. Totally open to assisting in tweaking the scoring system for whatever we want to target for gameplay.
- People have not adjusted to the new scoring system. With the previous scoring system super early upsets were most important because of the largest difference between seeds, but later in the tourney you were talking a bonus of 4-6 points vs a 16 or 32 point round. In the current system, picking a 1 seed to win it all just doesn't generate a lot of points, yet Gonzaga, Illinois, Baylor and Michigan were still picked 77% of the time. There were a ton of points out there for the Elite 8, 30 for USC, 55 for UCLA, and 60 for Oregon St, but very few people had seeds below 8 making it this far despite the fact that the reward would have justified the risk.
- The first round in the new system is weighted too heavily, thus the 2nd round is worth only 1.5x the first round and the Champion is 10.5x. I think you can fix this with a minor adjustments of starting at 1 for the first round and going 2, 3, 5, 8, 13. The 2nd round is now worth 2x and each round is more than it was with the current system finishing with 13x for picking the Champion vs the first round pick. Elite 8 went from 2.5x to 3x and Sweet 16 went from 4x to 5x. (Note: I also did a quick analysis of scoring 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and this actually tilted the weighting further to first round upsets rather than away from it, which we want to avoid).
- Three 1 seeds and a 2 seed are in the elite 8. Those picks just don't generate a ton of points to catch up with even if you have high accuracy late in the tournament. If we end up with a final 4 of Gonzaga, Michigan, Baylor and Houston, that'll be a total of 40 points to come out of the elite 8 round. Oregon State's win was worth 60 points alone.
- In the previous system, there was also a (bad) unpredictability with the upset bonus beyond the first round. Thought you were scoring big points for a 10 over a 2 to reach the sweet 16, sorry but your 10 actually beat a 15: 2 points. This became exacerbated as the rounds went later there was less advantage for actually getting right an upset like a 4 or 5 seed reaching the final 4, which would normally be an excellent pick. (This is where the current system shines a 4 reaching the final 4 is worth 72 points vs 18 for a 1).
This is actually my first year in the money. Though a few years ago, I would have won the whole thing if Kansas had won the final over Kentucky. I have fun with it every year primarily because it's not the same old 1, 2, 4, 8.... scoring system, though I do agree that the previous upset scoring had become a bit formulaic for the early rounds. Totally open to assisting in tweaking the scoring system for whatever we want to target for gameplay.
I would lean toward 1,2,4,8,16,32. I think the scoring should still be slightly weighted toward picking the Final Four through champ over upsets. Especially since this pool is big enough, and will always have a good number of people picking chalk, that will never be enough on its own. You’ll still need to find the upsets.
I’ve run a league for a while with this setup
1,2,3,6,9,15
upset points capped at
+1 for any matchup that had a seeding differential of 2-5, +2 for any higher differential (upset points double in rounds 4-6)
1,2,3,6,9,15
upset points capped at
+1 for any matchup that had a seeding differential of 2-5, +2 for any higher differential (upset points double in rounds 4-6)
Plugged in both of your suggestions. With Needler's scenario there were actually 2 other entries with a chance to win. Of course one of them was Mo's other entry. And Mo's would not have made a difference for 1st place.
Such a sad response rather than analyzing the flaws and trying to tweak the format.
All told, I;m pretty happy with my year. I'm in 2 pools with the same bracket. In one, a Baylor wins and I come in 1st of 19...in another I will come in 3rd of 129. In this one...I think I will top out at 33rd. But...don't take this as a criticism. This is a great pool. I'll adjust my bracket next year for this one 
Go Baylor!!!
Go Baylor!!!
How I it a sad response? @The Needler made suggestions up thread and the blog post that @Dan Murfman was following has been deleted.