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Subject: Pickoff - Final Posted by: JeffG - [40451227] Mon, Jan 29, 10:42 Great job Sludge! Repeating was an accomplishment, will do everything in my power to make sure you do not 3-peat next season! Congrats (and curses!) to 2 thru 5 in the final overall standings: 2 Barefooters, 3 MAZMATAZZ5, 4 Corstyles, and 5 jungleman025. I am especially p-o'd at jungleman025 for not doubling the Super Bowl selection and keeping me 30 points out of the money and in 6th place. ;) Thanks to Guru for a great game. | ||||||
| 1 | JeffG ID: 40451227 Mon, Jan 29, 10:51 |
Wait... If Jungleman025 won the mid season overall prize, he's ineligible for 5th prize overall. WOO HOO! | |||||
| 2 | Sludge ID: 1440310 Mon, Jan 29, 14:48 |
Thanks, JeffG. I'm anxious to see what changes Guru will implement for next year. If I had to offer up some ideas, I guess the first that comes to mind is making picks for early games immediately viewable after the games have started. This would be, I'm sure, a chore for Guru to reprogram, so I doubt it would even be worth the few games a year it would apply to. Introduction of a booby prize for last place. Those that find themselves in a huge hole quickly could shoot for that, and keep their interest in the game alive. Similar to the doubling option, how about a "Cover the Spread" option available for one game? If the team you select covers the spread, you get some bonus points, if they don't, then you lose some points. These points are in addition to whatever you win/lose for the pick. Sure would make it feel a whole lot better when that dog you picked loses by one steenkin' point, and you actually come out with positive points for the pick. Could do something similar with the over/under. Just a thought. | |||||
| 3 | Guru ID: 330592710 Mon, Jan 29, 15:54 |
This is a good a time as any to request suggested ideas for next year. I had thought about a booby prize this year, but I think that undermines the game's theoretical underpinnings. The payoff percentages should reflect the consensus "probabilities" that a team will win. This makes intuitive sense if everyone is trying to pick the winner. But if some people have an incentive to pick the loser, then the percentages start to lose meaning - particularly if a material number of entrants start to vie for last, rather than first. (This is different that in the Market Madness game - where I have offered a booby prize. In that game, the team selections do not have a bearing on the ultimate scoring formula.) The issue that I would most like to address is the "mulligan" issue. On any week, the median score is usually in the vicinity of zero, and roughly half of the scores are negative. In the early weeks, the optimum strategy is to abandon a team with a negative cumulative score and start a new team. Admittedly, the limitation of 3 entries per person should dampen the viability of this approach. But, it still seems unfair that someone who skips the first week should immediately be ranked higher than half of the original field. What about it? Is this something worth fixing? If so, what's the best solution? Rather than biasing the feedback with some of my thoughts, let me just open it up first. | |||||
| 4 | StLCards ID: 2504849 Mon, Jan 29, 16:15 |
The "mulligan" issue doesn't bother me since there is a limit of 3 teams. It would be different if you started with 3 teams dropped 2 and added 2 new ones. Since you can't do that I just see it as a strategy. If you choose to take a "mulligan" and not have a third team week 1 then you may be ahead of half the teams, but you are also behind half as well, or thereabouts. The positive thing about the game was that every time I logged off, I got a nice little reminder, "have you clicked an Ad for the Guru today?" I clicked that sponsor every single time. Without something to keep the importance of "clicking" fresh in my mind these banners start to blend in. Of course the recent events have me clicking multiple times a day, but friendly reminders is really what is needed for the long term, IMHO. Thanks for the game. Had a chance at midseason until I hit 4 out of 5 negative point weeks at the end. Doh! | |||||
| 5 | Sludge ID: 1440310 Mon, Jan 29, 16:18 |
Good point about the booby prize. Hmm... how to reward people who stick it out through the tough times without punishing those who choose not to make picks for strategical reasons? In particular, how to punish someone who creates new entries to start over after starting out in the red? That's a tough one. Awarding an automatic number of points for even making a selection? Isn't this what you did last year, Guru? It'll move the average score upward, so someone joining in late will be behind. But this serves to punish those who don't make picks for strategic reasons. (Again, is this necessarily a bad thing?) You could stop awarding the extra points after a certain number of games have been selected... a low number so you can still leave lots of blanks and avoid being punished. Unfortunately, this punishes the poor fools who completely miss a week for whatever reason. (Despite the ability to make selections in advance.) | |||||
| 6 | JeffG ID: 40451227 Mon, Jan 29, 16:41 |
Some quick thoughts, perhaps I'll have some more thought out ones later: I agree that a booby prize would lead people to pick losers and skew percentages, so I'd say forget that. How about as an incentive to keep those out of the running for the big prizes to continue to participate, you give some sort of prize for the 17 weekly winners, and the person with the best post season numbers. Certainly I do not want to break the prize bank, but perhaps those rotoguru.com hats as a weekly prize. (You should have a hat we can buy and a special hat that we can only get by winning something) Or these 18 weekly "winners" are entered into a random drawing for something. Now those out of the running for the season long prizes have encouragement to post their picks late in the season when dropoff was evident. Other random thoughts to kick around: - I am not a fan of the blind week. - I love the doubling option. - The 10 or more correct bonus was a good idea in that it kept some of the pickers honest by having incentive to go for big favorites. - Thanks so much for including prizes. Hope it continues. - Every entry with no picks for a week (or those who pick less than 5 games regular season, less than 1 game post season) gets a negative 250 for that week. If entries enter late, they start off with -250 for the weeks they missed before joining. This does two things: One, reduces the mulligan teams; Two, makes it a little tougher for those getting out to a big lead to coast in the late season. If you keep the second half season prize, it still encourages late starters. - Maybe as a trade off, you also limit entries per person from 3 to 2. - I'd like to see the percentages updated at a consistent time each week. They are updated regularly, but it would be nice to know when it is time to revisit the picks. - After making the weekly selections or changes, to commit the picks, the user has to click on an ad. - The lock at first kickoff Sunday is fine, with the earlier games having separate lock times. If you do continue blind weeks, you can publish the percentages of the early lock games in the news area. | |||||
| 7 | MikeMaz ID: 120591614 Tue, Jan 30, 06:40 | Nice job Sludge, and a great game once again Guru. I'd like to take credit for my 3rd place finish after finishing 2nd to Sludge last year but I can't. The MAZMATAZZ5 entry was actually my 5 year old son. He developed a system of going with the team that had more wins about midway through the season. I hope he doesn't think every contest he enters will be this easy. I'll check in later with some suggestions for the game. Thanks again guys for a fun game. | |||||
| 8 | Raz ID: 30513111 Wed, Jan 31, 11:51 |
I'll have to echo the point brought up by Sludge. Last year, I seem to remember that there was some sort of 500 point bonus attached to making your picks for the week. Any person who joined late or did not make picks for a week would miss out on the bonus. Granted, I haven't given it a lot of thought, but it's hard to think of disadvantages for this method... And secondly, what about some kind of pickoff-type contest for the college bowl games? | |||||
| 9 | Sludge ID: 20421222 Thu, Feb 01, 08:03 |
For those interested, I've made the program I wrote and used all year (with Madman's immense help - it was his speedy algorithm after all) available online: Program | |||||
| 10 | JeffG ID: 40451227 Fri, Feb 02, 10:18 |
How about making a version of this for baseball. Present us with 15 propositions every week and two choices. The props could take place on the weekend (Fri-Sun) games, with the lock being Friday at first game/first pitch. New props come out on Monday for the following week. They do not even have to be 50/50 props this way it generates some gamble on the underdog options. For example: Combined weekend strikeouts for Randro: - 20 and Over - Under 20 Who will win this weekends Yankee/Red Sox series - Yankees - Red Sox More runs will be scored this weekend in - Coors - Enron More SWP this weekend - Griffey - Arod What will there be more of this Friday: - Dodger hits vs Mets - Shaq free throws made vs Knicks Game with lowest run total: - Friday Marlins/Padres - Sunday Tigers/Royals More home runs Saturday: - AL - NL You can even open a forum thread for us to propose props for the next week. | |||||
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