Want Advice On Winning A BILLION Dollars?!
 

This is one of those sports contests that you really need to know NOTHING about it to enter |thumb

Have you heard about Warren Buffet's Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge? If not, here's the gist of it:
College basketball has a 64 team tournament each year. They start by splitting them into 4 divisions of 16 & ranking them based on who they think is best. So, #1 plays #16, #2 plays #15...#8 plays #9. If a team wins, they move on, until there's only 1 team left in each division, then those 4 teams (The Final Four) play each other for the overall championship.

The contest asks you to pick the winner for each game thru 6 rounds. This is EXTREMELY difficult to get perfect. Statistically speaking, the odds of getting a perfect NCAA tournament bracket are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808. (that's That's 9.2 quintillion or 9.2 billion written 1 billion times) But, just like the slogan for the NYS Lottery: You Never Know!

I came up with a method using random numbers to make your picks, but it's not as simple as flipping a coin. For example: a #16 seed has never beat a #1. And I think last year was the 1st time a #15 beat a #2. So you have to figure in some sort of odds as well. This is what I came up with:

What you can do is combine the numbers (seeds) and then generate a random number with minimum of 1 & maximum of total. The lower seed gets 1 to & including number of higher seed. The higher seed gets their seed +1 to end (total) For example: Let's take an 8vs9 matchup. Their total is 17, so generate a random number from (and including) 1 to (and including) 17. The #8 seed gets the numbers 1-9 and the #9 seed gets the numbers 10-17. If the random number you generate is 5, the #8 seed moves on. If it's 13, the #9 seed moves on. Follow?

It's not nearly as hard as it looks. Here's the data from the 1st one I did, but just for the South Division, as it's a lot of info:

Round Of 64
SOUTH
1,16 - Random # (1-17) 5 Winner: 1
8,9 - Random # (1-17) 12 Winner: 9
5,12 - Random # (1-17) 10 Winner: 5
4,13 - Random # (1-17) 17 Winner: 13
6,11 - Random # (1-17) 13 Winner: 11
3,14 - Random # (1-17) 2 Winner: 3
7,10 - Random # (1-17) 6 Winner: 7
2,15 - Random # (1-17) 16 Winner: 15

Round of 32:
SOUTH
1,9 - Random # (1-10) 4 Winner: 1
5,13 - Random # (1-18) 15 Winner: 13
3,11 - Random # (1-14) 13 Winner: 11
7,15 - Random # (1-22) 11 Winner: 7

Round of 16:
SOUTH
1,13 - Random # (1-14) 10 Winner: 1
7,11 - Random # (1-18) 15 Winner: 11

Round of 8:
1,11 - Random # (1-12) 8 Winner: 1

Here's a template that you can copy/paste into a txt editor to start you off:
-----
SOUTH
1,16
8,9
5,12
4,13
6,11
3,14
7,10
2,15

EAST
1,16
8,9
5,12
4,13
6,11
3,14
7,10
2,15

WEST
1,16
8,9
5,12
4,13
6,11
3,14
7,10
2,15

MIDWEST
1,16
8,9
5,12
4,13
6,11
3,14
7,10
2,15
-----

So why not enter? It'll take you 20-30 minutes & you might win a FUCKING BILLION DOLLARS!!!!

Hell, the Top 20 entries each get $100k - and you gotta be in it to win it!

Hey! You NEVER Know |thumb

PS - If you win, I'd like a 7.5% cut :D

Why the hell not, I'm in. :)

Saw this a few days ago. Since I know absolutely nothing at all about NCAA or anything to do with spectator sports I figure I have zero chance of winning so not even trying.

I just KNEW you'd say that, which is why I started out with...
But, I think they closed the entries late last night :(

I wish watching sports was something that I enjoyed, but for me it's like listening to nails being dragged across a blackboard.

Well, that was quick! The Bitch & I both lost the Billion during one of the 1:00 games today |cry|

Same :(

I had the Dayton upset but missed the Harvard win. Worst thing on that is I had Cinci going to the final 8. Damn!

I wish we could see a tracking chart of how many people submitted and how many people get knocked out each game along the way. Will anyone get remotely close? How many got knocked out in the first go? Hehe!

The Bitch & I each got 10 of the 1st 16 games correct, so we're tied for 2,087,245th place :D Also, you could only enter the Billion Dollar thingy once, but you could enter again for shits & giggles. Our ranking in those standings? Tied for 4,088,963rd place |banana|

Right now, there's a lot of entries that are 16/16, but that'll drop after today's 16 games. The (un)official standings are here:
https://tournament.fantasysports.yah...bdbc/standings

I'm rooting for Jake from State Farm to win it all |lol|

For those that care, another 4 games are in the books & the number of entries with all 20 games picked correctly is down to 15! Our current rankings? I'm in 2,331,579th place & The Bitch is in 2,184,465th - she's beating me!! |cry|

I can't find how many officially entered, but "The maximum number of entrants was 15,000,000."

I'm with ya!

Correct Picks
15/24

Duke lost? A 3 seed to a 14th seed, wow you suck Duke!

Well, I have learned to never pick your alma mater ;-)

Incase you didn't hear about it over the weekend, not only will no one have a perfect bracket & win the $1,000,000,000.00, but there's 2 people tied for 1st right now with FOUR wrong!!

And I just KNOW that everyone wants an update on The Bitch's & my brackets :D
Me: 21/48 & 2,431,365th place, which is down from 2,331,579th place on Friday evening |cry|
The Bitch: 28/48 & 2,274,422nd place, which is down from 2,184,465th place on Friday evening, but she's 156,943 places ahead of me!! |banghead|