So - a bunch of fairly average 30-something guys with nothing better to do have a football pool each year. The pool has grown from 10 to 20. We are generally Southern, major college (ACC/SEC) graduates with wives, kids, boring middle management jobs (lawyers, accountants, bankers and such), and we were big into football when younger and now watch in between kids' soccer and ballet.
I imagine this is a story repeated thousands of times across the country. We have gradually dispersed ourselves from Atlanta throughout the US (and internationally).
My thought this year, is to track the "crowd" wisdom without regard to handicapping skill or game particulars. Each week we get 12 games to pick, with early lines - the games are those of some relevance, or on national TV. I am going to take the top 2 overall selections based simply on number of times picked and bet 1 unit each. The pool requires a "lock" selection which is worth double - I will take the top lock selection and bet 1.5 units. I plan to track how we do in this thread and in my betting spreadsheet.
In case of tie, I will use the "other" indicator as the tiebreaker - so if there are 3 "top picks", whichever has the lowest locks would be eliminated. If a lock selection and a top selection are the same, I will go to the next top selection so that I always have 3 games in play.
We are average, drunk, poor betting idiots. Let's see if we are collectively better. If I were to offer unsolicited advice, based on a historical win rate hovering at 50%, fade us. Or laugh at us. But maybe it will be interesting to follow.
Texas A&M -15 1 unit (15 picks out of 20)
TCU -3.5 1 unit (15 picks out of 20)
Ole Miss +3 1.5 units (4 locks out of 20)
I imagine this is a story repeated thousands of times across the country. We have gradually dispersed ourselves from Atlanta throughout the US (and internationally).
My thought this year, is to track the "crowd" wisdom without regard to handicapping skill or game particulars. Each week we get 12 games to pick, with early lines - the games are those of some relevance, or on national TV. I am going to take the top 2 overall selections based simply on number of times picked and bet 1 unit each. The pool requires a "lock" selection which is worth double - I will take the top lock selection and bet 1.5 units. I plan to track how we do in this thread and in my betting spreadsheet.
In case of tie, I will use the "other" indicator as the tiebreaker - so if there are 3 "top picks", whichever has the lowest locks would be eliminated. If a lock selection and a top selection are the same, I will go to the next top selection so that I always have 3 games in play.
We are average, drunk, poor betting idiots. Let's see if we are collectively better. If I were to offer unsolicited advice, based on a historical win rate hovering at 50%, fade us. Or laugh at us. But maybe it will be interesting to follow.
Texas A&M -15 1 unit (15 picks out of 20)
TCU -3.5 1 unit (15 picks out of 20)
Ole Miss +3 1.5 units (4 locks out of 20)
