"Chris" in LetsRun.com pool is currently 14 for 14. Make that 16 for 16 on day 1. We still have a shot at the billion!

James Hogue wrote:

With the amount of bonus points you get for picking an upset, why the heck would you not pick Dayton and Harvard? You get 1 point if Cincinnati wins and 8 if Harvard wins. If you're not going to pick Cinci to advance past that then of course you should pick Harvard!

Not always that simple. For example:

Pick Harvard (or any 12 seed) to beat Cinci (or any 5 seed) and you get 8 points in round 1 (1 for correct pick, 7 for the upset 12 - 5 = 7).

However, how realistic is it for the low seed to keep winning? In round 3 you get 4 points for a winning favorite. In round 4, you get 8. So late in the tournament you are making up those losses when your favorite teams win more important games.

Picking underdogs is probably best for your overall score in the early rounds, but you can lose big points in later rounds when they don't repeat the magic.

I guess putting it in math terms, picking dogs early is +expected value (EV, but comes with opportunity costs later. Is the +EV in early rounds more value than the opportunity cost of later rounds when the most likely result happens and your dog loses and now you can't win more when the stakes go up?

rojo wrote:

LOLer wrote:

Excitement about the billion for 1 person predicting 14 games? This is the equivalent of someone running 1:41 for 800m and assuming he can maintain that pace for 2 full miles.

I like the analogy.

Aren't you going to admit, it's pretty freaking amazing he did the 1:41 to begin with even if he can't keep it going.

It's really more like doing a 1:50 for 800 meters and assuming that he can maintain the pace for 2 full miles. Not a lot can do it but you do have a very small percentage of the population who can and have done it.

Can only use 1:41 flat if Chris was the only one perfect ever through the first day (or a 2nd person if you want to assume Chris is not Rudisha)

Rojo, do you really think that if someone wins a billion, he/she will share it with the whole group? Also, I see that you've only spoken about sharing the billion. Well it looks like there might be a bit of a technicality that might screw you over then, because Buffet said he'll buy out a person who makes the final 4 still perfect.

According to CBSSports, 0.2% of people had perfect brackets

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/eye-on-college-basketball/24493110/infographic-many-brackets-take-a-hit-with-dayton-upset-of-osu

Hard to believe it's that high.

That said, 1:41 800 runners are a lot rarer than 0.2%

Keith Stone wrote:

xenonscreams wrote:

I'm surprised anyone called both Dayton and Harvard.

At least three of us did. I only missed Syracuse yesterday, and I haven't checked to see what the other 2nd place guy missed.

I had some misplaced faith in Ohio State and had them going on for a few rounds. So that screwed me over pretty badly. I have it resolving later but I feel stupid for letting emotions get in the way.

rojo wrote:Update> Chris has finished day 1 a perfect 16 for 16. Chris please email us at

robertjohnson@letsrun.com

as we want to interview you and give you your 15 minutes of fame.

Good news! Chris' chance of winning has rocketed up to about zero!

That's why I mentioned it matters if you would have had Cinci advance past the second round. There's really no point in picking a 4/5/6 seed then pick them to lose in the second round. There's no one in that range that is 8 times more likely to win than they are to lose.

But yeah in the later rounds you pick the better team. A couple bonus points isn't worth it in the Elite Eight, Final Four, etc.

rojo wrote:

not in quicken pool wrote:

Now I could be wrong but it looks like "Chris"'s bracket is not entered into the 'Quicken Loans Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge Pool' Pool just the 'Letsrun.com' pool and 'overall' pool so even if he goes perfect no one wins.

still cool he went 16 for 16 (provided SDst wins)

If true, that's why lawyers exist. We'll get them involved when this thing keeps going.

Yahoo/Quicken should be ashamed. They made it impossible to sign up for the billion thing. I literally tried to enter my wife 3 times and coudln't figure it out. They kept saying our phone number was already entered.

Clearly if he entered, he meant to play in the billion.

Chris, please email us at

robertjohnson@letsrun.com

. We'd like to interview you on your picking strategy.

Yeah it was nonsense... they took forever to send me the confirmation email, but it eventually came. However, my dreams were over b4 the second round. I was talking to some friends with better mathematics background than myself, and we agreed, Yahoo! and Quicken have got their butts covered for this, and it's a good publicity stunt. From the Official Rules:

"Odds of Winning. The odds of winning the Grand Prize depend on the outcome of each of the Tournament games and the skill of each Entrant. Mathematical odds of winning the Grand Prize are 1:9,223,372,036,854,775,808, which may vary depending upon the knowledge and skill of the Entrant, and the odds of winning a First Prize depend upon the outcome of each of the Tournament games, number of eligible Entries received during the Entry Window and the skill of each Entrant."

LOLer wrote:

Excitement about the billion for 1 person predicting 14 games? This is the equivalent of someone running 1:41 for 800m and assuming he can maintain that pace for 2 full miles.

Except in this case it gets easier and easier to sustain as you get further in. If you go that hard in the 800 and still have 1.5 miles to go, you obviously can't do it. Here, however, the first round is the hardest. After that it gets easier each round (16 picks, 8 picks, etc.) and in some cases picking the winners gets easier as well. It is a lot easier to get the result of Dayton/Ohio or the NDSU wrong (while also making 30 other difficult picks) than (hopefully) a Florida / Pittsburgh matchup and 15 other games.

It was a complete marketing move and that is fine because nobody is paying a dime to enter this challenge.

Quicken paid Berkshire $X in premiums for the insurance just in case and Quicken has to pay out an additional $2 million for the 20 First Place prizes.

I doubt anyone has ever won this so Berkshire likely gets whatever insurance premium they were paid. If someone gets them all right, Berkshire loses but chances are so low it's a risk worth taking for them.

Quicken Loans and Berskshire have gotten their names out there so much over the past few weeks and will in the next few weeks (as well as Buffett and Gilbert) that this has paid out great marketingwise for them and people have fun in the brackets so chances are, nobody really loses

The two mile course in question starts to slope downhill after the first 800 meters. Duh.

Crazedseepies wrote:

Except in this case it gets easier and easier to sustain as you get further in. If you go that hard in the 800 and still have 1.5 miles to go, you obviously can't do it. Here, however, the first round is the hardest. After that it gets easier each round (16 picks, 8 picks, etc.) and in some cases picking the winners gets easier as well. It is a lot easier to get the result of Dayton/Ohio or the NDSU wrong (while also making 30 other difficult picks) than (hopefully) a Florida / Pittsburgh matchup and 15 other games.

Presumably, each individual game should get harder to pick as you go, if the seeding is correct. The average difference in team quality should decline with each round, e.g. the worst seed a #1 seed can play in the second round is #9. I would speculate that this is not as large as the decline in number of games, but your chance of picking all the correct winners each round doesn't double.

Cheers to Chris!

"Chris" has always been perfect. That's why we created the "Chris" Fan Club. The guy is a Newcomb's paradox genius.

I spoken to "Chris". He's definitely entered in the $1 billion and says he'll share.

He's a dii coach with a sub 30 pb.

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2014/03/meet-letsrun-com-genius-visitor-chris-reed-dii-coach-went-16-16-ncaa-bball-picks-yesterday/

Uh oh, Chris is sweating with Mercer leading Duke by 5 with 1:03 left.

wtf is the matter with chris - Duke over Mercer? What was he thinking?

Can NCAA athletes and coaches legally do the bracket stuff? Our AD says that it's against the NCAA rules. I'm just curious.

Nice job Chris BTW.

Chris is done!