Tourney Time

Its the most wonderful time of year. NCAA tourney time. As I've said before, I'm not much of a basketball fan. I really only follow the Illini, and maybe the Big 10 conference. I know next to nothing about college basketball. Never the less, I can't wait for the tourney to start. I will sit and watch as much basketball in the next four days as my wife will allow obsessively checking and rechecking my brackets to see if I have a chance of winning. Which I don't.

I'm not going to actually post my brackets. Not that I'm afraid of sharing my picks. I've had no problem doing that in the past. This year I filled out many different brackets at a number of different sites, and I don't really have one bracket that I consider "The" bracket.

For the most part I went with chalk this year. My typical final four consists of UNC, Louisville, Uconn and Pitt, with an occasional Memphis instead of Uconn. UNC beats Louisville in almost all my brackets.

My beloved Illini drew the dreaded 5-12 pairing, and are the perfect team to get upset given their injuries and tendency to go 5-10 minutes at a time without a scoring a single point, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt and picked Wisconsin as my 12 team moving on. And Arizona most of the time.

I have very few upsets this year compared to previous years. I thought about it from a "Wanting to win the pool" angle rather than a "Wanting to fill out a perfect bracket" angle this time.

There are two different strategies for filling out your bracket. If you are in a relatively small pool, as mine are, then chances are the people in the money are going to be the ones who pick the winner, and the final four correctly, especially if later rounds are weighted heavier. Picking that 3-14 upset in round one is great, but its a long shot, and not only do you probably get the round one pick wrong, you also probably eliminated a sweet sixteen team. The costs of missing an upset pick are much greater than just missing the round one matchup. Thus picking mostly chalk, is the safer path to victory. On the other hand, if you are in a huge pool, like one of the national online pools, to win you are going to have to get almost every game right. Unless another George Mason happens, there are going to be thousands of people picking perfect elite eight through championship brackets, so not only do you have to do that, but you have to get a number of early round upsets correct.

Only a few hour till game time. I really should have taken some vacation days this week. I think spending all day at a sports bar would have been a good plan.

Go Illini

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Tourney Time

Time for the NCAA tournament.

Meh

I think I've watched a total of three college basketball games this year. I have no idea who's good or not. All I know is my Illini suck.

So I filled out a few brackets for various pools, but nothing that I'm proud of. I normally post my picks so you can see who not to choose, but I basically took the favorite all the time so you can probably guess what I picked.


Just for fun here's one of my final four picks.

UNC, Georgetown, Memphis and Uconn. UNC over Memphis in the championship.

I hate UNC. How did they make it that far? I eliminated Kansas and Duke for no specific reason other than that I hate them. Lets see who else I picked.

I don't do that whole "sheet of integrity thing". For every pool I'm in I start from scratch and pick whoever I feel like at the time. There are often a lot of similarities but they aren't identical. And that's why I don't remember who I picked. I made my choices based on instinct at the time, weighted for how much I hate certain teams, and I moved on.

Another bracket's final four: UNC, Wisconsin, Texas, Duke. UNC over Duke in the final. Son of a bitch. I picked UNC again? I suck. Now I have to go find what I picked in my third bracket. If I picked UNC in that one I'm starting from scratch.

Crap. I must have really liked UNC for some reason. Maybe because the last thing I remember about them was them spanking the Illini in the championship game a few years ago. UNC, Wisconsin, Texas, Uconn. UNC over Texas in the final.

So I guess I'm rooting for UNC this year. Unless I manage to go back and change everything before the games start tomorrow.

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Oh I'm also in a blind pool where I may very well end up with UNC too. In the blind pool you are randomly assigned a team for every entry you buy. If that team is the favorite and it covers you move on. If it is the dog and comes within the spread you take over favorite and move on. If you are the dog and your team wins you move on.


I have the Play in Winner, Clemson, St. Joes, and Gonzaga. So if UNC wins but doesn't cover in round one I'll be rooting for them in that pool too. I hate basketball

Is it baseball season yet?

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com