Gridiron tipping contest 2009 as at 090203
Last year the New York Times got a mob called Predictify to run an NFL finals series tipping contest. Despite my last foray into such things (the 1991 StatCan March Madness Pool) being a disaster - I didn't get one of the 1st round games right - I decided to have a go. To my surprise I came 22nd out of 'several thousand' entrants (Predictify wouldn't say how many punters went for this)
So in 2009 the Times ran its own comp and I had to go for it. The next bit was written when the first set of 4 games had just been completed and I got one right (and exactly the margin). Despite this miserable performance they had me rated as coming 701st out of 10,976! This seemed a little surprising and my guess is that the result doesn't acknowledge the outcomes of the 2 later games. By the next day my ranking had slipped a tad, to 8,088, which is more reasonable.
The maximum points available were 82 and the leaders (2 of them) had 68 [83% of the possible], so had obviously got all four winners but been a tad conservative on their margins. A further interesting change is that the 2nd round games appear to have changed teams around which will make life difficult: how can one pick the Giants when they aren't playing in that match?!
After another weekend of carnage in the top seeds, including the Giants proving that it doesn't matter how you tip them you lose, I have added to my score! I now have 39 points and have soared to 6525th place. So it seems that one's score is determined by who gets into the next round, rather than actually picking the results of specific games. Only 2 people have got all the winners right and the better of them has 155 points out of a possible 208 [75% of the possible]. I am in front of one of the NYT reporters !!
The next round featured the Steelers against some mob of no-hopers from Baltimore (OK they were doing better than either team from NYC) and duly kicked their butt. The other Conference Championship resulted in a team from Arizona getting to the Super Bowl. As a result of the Steelers good work I had got 3 games right and was thus approximately 2,612nd. This was good enough to put me in front of 2 of the 3 NY Times reporters. The winner got 10 of the11 games correct and appeared to be rather conservative in his score picks as he ended with 370 out of a possible 488 points.
Enough already.
So in 2009 the Times ran its own comp and I had to go for it. The next bit was written when the first set of 4 games had just been completed and I got one right (and exactly the margin). Despite this miserable performance they had me rated as coming 701st out of 10,976! This seemed a little surprising and my guess is that the result doesn't acknowledge the outcomes of the 2 later games. By the next day my ranking had slipped a tad, to 8,088, which is more reasonable.
The maximum points available were 82 and the leaders (2 of them) had 68 [83% of the possible], so had obviously got all four winners but been a tad conservative on their margins. A further interesting change is that the 2nd round games appear to have changed teams around which will make life difficult: how can one pick the Giants when they aren't playing in that match?!
After another weekend of carnage in the top seeds, including the Giants proving that it doesn't matter how you tip them you lose, I have added to my score! I now have 39 points and have soared to 6525th place. So it seems that one's score is determined by who gets into the next round, rather than actually picking the results of specific games. Only 2 people have got all the winners right and the better of them has 155 points out of a possible 208 [75% of the possible]. I am in front of one of the NYT reporters !!
The next round featured the Steelers against some mob of no-hopers from Baltimore (OK they were doing better than either team from NYC) and duly kicked their butt. The other Conference Championship resulted in a team from Arizona getting to the Super Bowl. As a result of the Steelers good work I had got 3 games right and was thus approximately 2,612nd. This was good enough to put me in front of 2 of the 3 NY Times reporters. The winner got 10 of the11 games correct and appeared to be rather conservative in his score picks as he ended with 370 out of a possible 488 points.
Enough already.
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