| 0 |
Subject: Football Pickoff
Posted by: The Dan's Your Daddy
- Donor [022792222] Mon, Jan 24, 2005, 15:17
Guru said:
". . . And in Football Pickoff, HooeyPooey took commanding leads in both the Overall and Midseason standings. Mathematically, it isn’t necessarily wrapped up yet – and that’s all I’m going to say, since I don’t want to influence strategy. I will note, however, that if the same person wins both the full season and midseason contests, the Midseason prize will go to the Midseason runner-up."
As the Midseason runner-up, I DO want to influence strategy. Does HooeyPooey read this forum?
The strategy depends on whether the Pats end up as better or worse than 73.5-26.5 favorites . . . but either way there is a foolproof strategy ripe for the picking. |
| 1 | The Dan's Your Daddy
Donor
ID: 022792222
Mon, Jan 24, 2005, 16:23
|
(Actually, there's plenty of overlap between the competing winning strategies . . . but you get the point.)
|
| 2 | HooeyPooey
Sustainer
ID: 41115208
Mon, Jan 24, 2005, 19:54
|
I have been known to pop on the forums occasionally. :)
You and the Guru are both right. It's not mathmatically wrapped up, but I do intend to make the correct decision to win the full season game, which I am assuming this is what you wish me to do also, correct? ;) Congrats on your midseason standing!
|
| 3 | HooeyPooey
Sustainer
ID: 41115208
Mon, Jan 24, 2005, 21:32
|
Yes it's a little early for a thank you speech, but I have nothing better to do, so I might as well deliver it now. :)
First, I'd like to thank Guru for hosting RotoGuru.com and creating fun and challenging games. While I don't have a lot of time to devote to fantasy sports anymore, I love playing Football Pickoff, Market Madness, and even found GuruGolf interesting, though I don't even follow the sport. I also really enjoy reading the blurbs!
Next I'd like to thank Sludge and Madman for providing wonderful insight on the 'optimal strategy' to Pickoff years ago. While I have never actually used the program they designed to determine my picks, my formula has been based on their discussions. This is my fifth season of Pickoff, and many long time players know that Sludge has won this game twice and is always a contender going in. My formula for picking is a simplified version of the 'optimal strategy' as I don't factor in bonus points. Getting a good metric on the probability of a team winning is a challenge, which I think I did a better job of this year. I'm also casual about when I make my picks, which I usually try to do early enough so I don't forget, but I don't bother to check to see if entries placed after mine would have changed the scoring enough to affect my picks. That's part of my luck factor. :) Also, I believe there were a few times where I broke my rules and it worked out towards my favor and there were a few games that I didn't pick in time, which I believe worked against me. :(
My placement in full seasons standings in past years have been 90, 19, 46, and 28. To quote Sludge, "even the "optimal" strategy can suck eggs some years". The strategy can make you a contender, but you need a fair amount of luck also. To prove this point, I found it interesting this year to track how close I was to Sludge's picks, which I used Sludge1 to track from. Off the top of my head, I don't know how to display a nice looking table here so I'll just show the week number, number of games we picked differently for the week, and whether we picked the same game to double. (SND=Sludge did not double).
1 1 Y
2 0 Y
3 3 Y
4 1 N
5 2 SND
6 2 Y
7 2 N
8 4 N
9 1 Y
10 3 SND
11 5 Y
12 4 Y
13 1 Y
14 7 SND
FYI, I have no idea how Sludge determines his probabilities and he and I have never discussed picks, but as you can see, we had fairly close entries many weeks, and even one identical slate early on. Our doubled game matched more often than not! It goes to show you that there can be a wide range in score between two close but different attempts at optimal strategy, and I just happened to be the luckier one this time around I guess. :) I hope Sludge takes no offense to my posting this data. Sludge has always been open in discussing his strategy and it's no secret I model my strategy off of his. This game is not easy to win and it is an honor to play with one of the best every year! Thanks!
HP
|
| 4 | Sludge
ID: 7826417
Tue, Jan 25, 2005, 00:28
|
FYI, I have no idea how Sludge determines his probabilities and he and I have never discussed picks, but as you can see, we had fairly close entries many weeks, and even one identical slate early on. Our doubled game matched more often than not!
I don't mind at all. I use the point spreads (although I will fudge them from time-to-time when I feel that it's completely off, but I rarely do this). In fact, I've posted a table once that showed the probabilities I use and the point spreads that they are associated with. If I had known you were tracking my picks, I would have continued picking for you.
This year, I got up there in the rankings, but a couple of bad weeks knocked me way down. Then Christmas came along and it just seemed easier to enjoy myself and sleep in Sunday mornings than to stress out and make picks.
By the way, I consider it a compliment that you took our discussions to heart and used the strategy. The bonus points didn't matter one whit this year as they were harder to attain. Every week, the optimal strategy was the "all-positive expectation" strategy (that is, pick the team that had a probability of winning higher than the pick percentage).
|
| 5 | Sludge
ID: 7826417
Tue, Jan 25, 2005, 00:48
|
By the way, congratulations.
|
| 6 | The Dan's Your Daddy
Donor
ID: 022792222
Tue, Jan 25, 2005, 00:57
|
Congratulations, HooeyPooey! And I'm glad to hear that you're on top of things! I'd like to thank Guru, too, for the time and energy he's put into this.
I can't say that I did much to deserve my 2nd half, 2nd place crown. Just a lucky streak picking the teams I thought would win, for the most part. Or those that I thought had a better chance of winning than the consensus. I haven't played this before, but it's definitely grown on me. I used to spend a lot of time on this site before there was Pickoff, and before I discovered head-to-head fantasy football. I remember spending lots of time hacking into other people's rosters on Smallworld to try to figure out how much salary cap figures would change. And sparring with some guy named Beta Alpha Sigma. But other than a couple of bragging-rights titles in Best Bets, this is the first time I've tasted any glory here.
|
| 7 | Motley Crue
Leader
ID: 439372011
Thu, Feb 10, 2005, 12:30
|
Hey, I finished 4th in the midseason game, with 30 wins. That's got to be close to a record.
Congrats to HooeyPooey and Dan's Your Daddy. You guys are bombs.
|
| 8 | The Dan's Your Daddy
Donor
ID: 022792222
Wed, Feb 16, 2005, 16:50
|
Thanks, MC. Congrats to you guys, too. I'm surprised this and the Best Bets games don't attract more people/discussion. That would make it more fun.
Guru, can you tell me how to claim my prizes? Do I need to send you my address or paypal address? I'd like to use half of my winnings to buy my wife something for putting up with another season my NFL fanaticism and the other half to pay my back dues to RotoGuru.
|
| 9 | WiddleAvi
ID: 88462216
Sun, Nov 19, 2006, 23:48
|
I am pretty sure that I will have a positive score for the first time in maybe 7-8 weeks !! I think I have been averaging about -200 or a week !!
|
| Rate this thread: | If you wish, you may rate this thread on scale of 1-5. Ratings should indicate how valuable or interesting you believe this thread would be to other users of this forum. A '5' means that this thread is a 'must read'. A '1' means that this is a complete waste of time. If you have previously rated this thread, rating it again will delete your previous rating. If you do not want to rate this thread, but want to see how others have rated it, then click the button without entering a rating, or else click here. |
|
|
|
Post a reply to this message: (But first, how about checking out this sponsor?)
|
|