Cold Comfort -- Early NCAA Action and Further Thoughts on Poologic.com
The bad news: I already lost two of four first-round games finished to date, and in Alabama lost a Sweet 16 team as well.
The good news: per my recent discussions of the investment maximization technique explained over at poologic, I went back with full information of how many entries are in my pool and who picked which team to go to win it all.
Poologic calculates its returns on investment by four different models. Due to the dearth of people betting OSU, on one model ("Futures") OSU was by far the best bet; on another ("Original") it was basically tied with Kentucky (who nobody in my pool picked)and Wake (3 people) for best ROI; on a third ("Sagarin") it was second to Kentucky with Wake trailing in third best ROI; and only on the final variation ("Vegas") did OSU slip waaaaaay down the scale. Assuming that the base probabilities in these equations are the straight-up odds of any given team winning it all, the Vegas method at least suggests greatest legitimacy, and it's interesting that on the Vegas variation Illinois and North Carolina, which each were bet by 12 people (comprising nearly half of my pool of 50 entries), register in fourth and fifth place, with Washington the runaway first-place choice, inasmuch as, bafflingly, only two people bet them to win the whole thing. No respect for the one-seed -- four people bet four-seed Louisville.
Anyway, it would seem that at least I anticipated other people's selections pretty well. Now we'll see if all that statistical hocus-pocus pays off.
Meanwhile, I'll just pray the first round starts improving for me very fast.
UPDATE: It turns out that, according to this, the most reliable projection is "Future," the one that had me decisively in the catbird seat. Of course, none of this accounts for the fact that Cincinnati (7) has jumped out to a huge early lead against (10) Iowa, who I picked to win this game. Offsetting the bad news is the fact that only 2 of 51 other entrants got all four of the games decided to date. Unfortunately, quite a few got 3.
The good news: per my recent discussions of the investment maximization technique explained over at poologic, I went back with full information of how many entries are in my pool and who picked which team to go to win it all.
Poologic calculates its returns on investment by four different models. Due to the dearth of people betting OSU, on one model ("Futures") OSU was by far the best bet; on another ("Original") it was basically tied with Kentucky (who nobody in my pool picked)and Wake (3 people) for best ROI; on a third ("Sagarin") it was second to Kentucky with Wake trailing in third best ROI; and only on the final variation ("Vegas") did OSU slip waaaaaay down the scale. Assuming that the base probabilities in these equations are the straight-up odds of any given team winning it all, the Vegas method at least suggests greatest legitimacy, and it's interesting that on the Vegas variation Illinois and North Carolina, which each were bet by 12 people (comprising nearly half of my pool of 50 entries), register in fourth and fifth place, with Washington the runaway first-place choice, inasmuch as, bafflingly, only two people bet them to win the whole thing. No respect for the one-seed -- four people bet four-seed Louisville.
Anyway, it would seem that at least I anticipated other people's selections pretty well. Now we'll see if all that statistical hocus-pocus pays off.
Meanwhile, I'll just pray the first round starts improving for me very fast.
UPDATE: It turns out that, according to this, the most reliable projection is "Future," the one that had me decisively in the catbird seat. Of course, none of this accounts for the fact that Cincinnati (7) has jumped out to a huge early lead against (10) Iowa, who I picked to win this game. Offsetting the bad news is the fact that only 2 of 51 other entrants got all four of the games decided to date. Unfortunately, quite a few got 3.
posted by Moon | 3/17/2005 03:14:00 PM
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