Week 10 Update

Lost a couple more that fell into that New Orleans at home honeypot.  Only six remain!

Leaderboard
Week 10 Pick

Week 9 - I'm taking the Bengals!

Since I run this thing, probably best to inform you all publicly that I'll be taking the Bengals.  Good luck chumps.

Week 9 Update

Now we're drumming up a little business!  When will you people learn that picking against Tampa Bay against an NFC South opponent on the road is inadvisable?  Anyway, here are your links...

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Week 9 Pick

Week 8 Update

Seriously, another perfect week?!  I am getting wildly annoyed tracking a contest I lost in the first week...

Leaderboard
Week 8 Pick

Week 7 Update

Everyone survived last week.  Give yourself a pat on the back!

Here's all the links you need...

Leaderboard
Week 7 Pick

Round 1 Over and Week 6 Updates

First off, round 1 is complete.  Congrats to our top 3!

1st: CSH3
2nd: Who Dey2
3rd: BroncosGirl

Here are the final results there - Round 1 Leaderboard

Next, Round 2 still has quite a few people left...

Round 2 Leaderboard

And, here's your Week 6 pick form.  Good luck!

Week 6 Pick

Suicide Pool Week 5 Form and Leaderboard!

Ok, lot of links to give out here.  First, the one most of you care about...

Round 2 Leaderboard

Enjoy!  As you can see, not a ton of interest, so it's WINNER TAKE ALL!

Next, here's your week 5 pick form.  For those still alive in the original pool, just use this form as well, and on your entry name put "ROUND 1" on the end.

Week 5 Pick Form

Round 2 Deadline Extended!

Feel free to enter up until the Monday night game.

Suicide Pool Round 2 Entry Form

NFL Suicide Pool Payouts and Round 2

So when I started this pool, I figured it'd amuse me until Thanksgiving.  We didn't even make it to the first day of Fall without losing 59 of the 63 entries.  Which, when you think about, is a low number.  Week 2 was an unmitigated disaster - teams that were favored by 6 or more went an astounding 0-4.  I'm guessing that win parlay paid around 125/1 or something stupid.

First, for the people still in - my favorite UK fan, my dad, my uncle, and...

Here are the payouts for Round 1...

1st - $750

2nd - $400

3rd - $110.12 (someone couldn't trick PayPal out of the 4.4% commission)

Also, here's the week 3 pick form for you four jerks...

Week 3 Pick Form

Now, for everyone else, uh, let's try this again.  I think it's a little late to jump in for week 3, so we're gonna start with a new pool starting Week 4.  New pool starts Week 4!  Got that?  Week Four.  Which week?  That's right, four.  Entry form is below, all the rules & entry fee from last time apply.  Good luck chumps...

Suicide Pool Round 2 Entry Form

Week 2 Pick Form

Here's the Week 2 Pick Form if you need it!

NFL Suicide Pool Leaderboard is Live!

Have at it!

Leaderboard

NFL Suicide Pool Entry EXTENDED

Hey everyone,

We're gonna give everyone some extra time to re-enter when you screw up your first pick allow for more participation.  The new deadline is Monday at 10:15, which is kickoff of the 2nd Monday night game.  I'll still post picks at 1 today.  Here are the original rules (includes pick form) if you need them...

http://tourneypools.blogspot.com/2015/09/2015-nfl-suicide-pool.html

NFL Suicide Pool Update

First off, we're sitting around 35 entries; solid for a first year like this.  Keep on sharing with friends to get that pot up!

Second, here's every link you'll need all season.  I know some people like to prepack the whole season or stuff like that, so here's your shot.

2015 NFL Suicide Pool Leaderboard

Week 1 Pick
Week 2 Pick
Week 3 Pick
Week 4 Pick
Week 5 Pick
Week 6 Pick
Week 7 Pick
Week 8 Pick
Week 9 Pick
Week 10 Pick
Week 11 Pick
Week 12 Pick
Week 13 Pick
Week 14 Pick
Week 15 Pick
Week 16 Pick
Week 17 Pick

Week 1 Selection Form

The Week 1 selection form is below.  Please put all picks in this form.

Week 1 Selections

2015 NFL Suicide Pool

Summer is winding down.  That sucks b/c it’s going to get cold soon.  However, it’s great because we can all stop pretending we care about baseball and focus on entertaining sports, like football.  Last year, we did an NFL wins pool.  That did ok, but it just wasn’t exciting enough.  So let’s head back to ol’ reliable, the Suicide Pool (or Survivor Pool if you prefer).  Yep, no terribly fancy bells or whistles here… Except the tiebreaker of course.

Rules

• Pick one team a week to win their game outright.  If you choose correctly, congrats!  You live to fight another week.  Choose wrong, and it’s GAME OVER MAN. 
• You may only choose a team ONCE throughout the season.  Look, any idiot could pick against the Browns every week (except their bye) and laugh all the way to the bank.  Sorry, you can’t use the other AFC North teams twice each.
• Picks will be submitted via a Google Form I post to our world famous blog (tourneypools.blogspot.com) as well as emailed out once I have wrangled up all the email addresses for participants.  The first week form will have a lot of questions (name, email, blood type, the usual stuff) so I know who to pay and how to contact you.  Subsequent weeks will just ask for your Entry Name and your pick.  Here is the Week 1 entry form.
• Entries will be $20 each & multiple entries are allowed.  As usual, the easiest way to pay me is PayPal to tourneypools@gmail.com.  If that is a bridge too far, find me and give me money/a check.
• Entry deadline each week will be prior to the kickoff of the Sunday 1 PM ET games.  Picking any Thursday/Saturday games is fine, but those picks must be in prior to their actual kickoff for them to count.
• It is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to know which entries have which teams still alive & to submit entries on time.  I will not babysit you.  If you submit an entry using a team that you have previously used, or you fail to submit an entry prior the 1 PM ET kickoff of Sunday games, you’ll get the biggest favorite for the Sunday/Monday games based on the lines at http://www.bovada.lv, which is the website I use to check lines.
• I will be maintaining a leaderboard with all selections that you will be able to find a link to on our world famous blog (tourneypools.blogspot.com) once I have put it up.

Payouts

• 100% of the pool will be paid out & we will pay out the number of entries based on the number of participants.
• Payout structure will be announced sometime between week 1 and week 2 & will be posted on our world famous blog (tourneypools.blogspot.com).
• There are no ties at TourneyPools, if we can help it.  Here’s the tiebreaking procedure in the event that we have multiple people go out the same week and have finished high enough to get paid…

1. Margin of victory for your picks.
2. Margin of yards from scrimmage for your picks.  (Offense only, no special teams or turnover returns or whatever else you can think of.)  If this is somehow negative for a week, it will be rounded up to 0.

• If the tiebreaker rules are confusing, no worries, I’ll be tracking them on the leaderboard.

Questions/Comments

Email: tourneypools@gmail.com

PayPal ID: tourneypools@gmail.com

Our World Famous Blog: tourneypools.blogspot.com

The Sport of Pharoahs

Since I entered an age of conscience thought, there have only been three things I hoped occur in my lifetime: a Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowl win, a Louisville Cardinal National Championship in basketball, and a Triple Crown winner.  The one that took the longest probably shouldn’t have taken that long at all.

The coverage after American Pharoah crossed the line to immortality was incredible to say the least.  A horse owned Sportscenter for the remainder of the day.  My twitter feed was full of racing fans talking as if they had just undergone a religious experience.  The connections of American Pharoah were on the verge of tears.  And just about everyone in the place was on their feet cheering.  None of this reaction shocked me in the least either.

Believe me when I say that it’s nearly impossible to put into words what this is for horse racing.  It isn’t quite this extreme, but imagine if you followed a sport and they just didn’t crown a champion.  Imagine if the last Super Bowl winner was the 1972 Dolphins b/c no one had run the table since then.  Years upon years of will it ever happen swirled around a sport that lived and died in the public eye on three Saturdays each year.

And then, it actually happened.  I’ll admit, I was grinning as I watched my hundreds of dollars in bets go down the drain.  I’ve made plenty of money betting against Triple Crowns; I didn’t mind giving one back.

There have been a lot of things out there about American Pharoah and his place in history.  Read those articles if you want, but they’re wildly disingenuous.  American Pharoah is officially bigger than horse racing, and the masses will quickly squash any opinion that conflicts with thinking he’s one of the greatest horses to ever live.  Here’s what we certainly know at this point about American Pharoah:

• He’s going to win the 2015 Horse of the Year.  He could run three more times and run last in all those races; he’s already locked up the award.  And he’s earned it too, as he has dominated a very talented crop that looked too deep to produce a Triple Crown winner.

• Everywhere he runs from here on out is going to be an event.  The connections have said they want to run 3-4 more times, with the Breeder’s Cup Classic being the ultimate goal.  Beyond the three Triple Crown races, horse racing has been regulated to deep cable, but now, expect to see his return race on a national stage with bigger ratings than any Triple Crown race this year.  It’s going to be a spectacle, and it’s going to be fun to watch.

And now, a couple assertions…

If American Pharoah stays sound and runs 3-4 more times, he probably gets beat at least once… and that’s a good thing

For years, the only way a horse was ever going to enter the public conscience for more than a fleeting moment was to win the Triple Crown.  Now, there’s a new way: beating a Triple Crown winner.  It’s more likely he loses at least one race before he goes undefeated.  Any horse that knocks him off all the sudden becomes more famous than any Derby winner in recent memory.

Pharoah is good, but he’s not unstoppable.  The Derby has been the only race of his career where he’s really had to work for a win.  His Preakness and Belmont runs, while flashy, were served up on a silver platter by others who, wisely or not, thought they had a better chance seeing if Pharoah tired after being allowed to canter for the first 75% of the race rather than go nuts from the word go and probably beat both Pharoah and themselves.  In those races under optimal conditions, Pharoah did not run particularly fast on the Beyer Speed Figure scale.  In fact, he still hasn’t run as fast as Materiality’s Florida Derby.  (And yes, he’s beaten Materiality twice, so who cares, but I’d love to see them clash at a more normal distance like 1 1/8 miles… maybe we’ll get that battle in the Haskell in August.)  A lot of talk has focused on how his Belmont was the 2nd fastest running of the race for a Triple Crown winner.  That's nice and all, but the track was playing remarkably fast, and that's why when he was assigned a speed figure that normalized the track conditions, he was given a 105 Beyer.  Good, but nowhere close to world beater.  Part of me hopes he keeps running and turns into the monster everyone thinks he is.  Right now, he’s not there yet.

It’ll be less than 37 years before we get another Triple Crown.  In fact, it’ll probably be less than a third that time.

The Triple Crown drought that occurred was a statistical anomaly.  I know I didn’t tell you math would be involved, but sorry, here it is.  Between Affirmed and American Pharoah, 12 other horses entered the gate with a chance to join the most exclusive club in horse racing.  (I’ll Have Another in 2012 is being excluded, since he scratched from the Belmont the day before.)  Now, let’s assume that all those horses had a roughly 25% chance of winning the Belmont.  Some were certainly higher (Spectacular Bid, Real Quiet, and Smarty Jones come to mind) and some were certainly lower (sorry War Emblem & Funny Cide, but the truth hurts), but 25% seems like a fair enough reasonable estimate.  Assuming those are the true chances, then horses losing in the Belmont 12 straight times would only happen about once in every 32 times.  We should have gotten two or three Triple Crowns, which would have occurred 49% of the time.  In fact, we had a better shot of getting SIX Triple Crown winners than zero (table below).  Horse racing: where luck reigns supreme.

So in the 36 editions of the Triple Crown, 12 got a crack at it.  If that clip continues, and my modest 25% chance of one of those horses winning the Belmont is in fact correct, then we can say that we should be getting a Triple Crown once every 12 years (33% * 25% = 8.3...3%, or exactly 1/12^th of the time).  Or, we could have just as easily noticed that all three races have been run for 136 years together, and there have been 12 Triple Crown winners, so 136/12 = 11.3, meaning we’re getting a Triple Crown winner every 11.3 years.  (If I did this calc last year, 135/11 = 12.3 years, so close enough.)  And hey, we’ve now had four Triple Crown winners in the last 42 years, or one every 9.5 years.  You people are SPOILED!

In addition, a number of horses probably should have broken the streak already.  Just in the last few years, Afleet Alex was a questionable Derby ride away from taking it in 2005, Smarty Jones lost by a length in 2004, Real Quiet lost by a nose in 1998, I’ll Have Another probably beats the weak 2012 group if he shows up, and the two best TC Trail three year olds of my lifetime, Empire Maker in 2003 and Eskenderaya in 2010, won exactly 1 and 0 Triple Crown races respectively.  (Eskenderaya was injured before the Derby in 2010, but I will swear up and down he’s the best three old I’ve ever seen through the prep season in my lifetime.)  Those are the six that stand out to me in the last 20 years or so, and my table above only includes two of them.

So in the end, I’m glad Pharoah won the Triple Crown.  Not only b/c I can scratch it off my sports bucket list, but because now we can stop talking about the drought.  See you on or before June 5^th, 2027 when we’re talking about the next Triple Crown winner.

Derby Betting Pool Bets

$1 superfecta 3,8,18 / 3,8,18,19 / 3,8,15,18,19 / ALL
$0.50 trifecta: 3,8,18 / 2,3,4,6,8,9,10,15,18,19 / ALL
$0.50 trifecta: 3,8,18 / 3,8,18 / 2,3,4,6,8,9,10,15,18,19
$0.50 trifecta: 3,8,18 / 3,8,18 / 3,8,15,18,19
$0.50 trifecta: 2,4,6,9,10,15,19 / 3,8,18 / 2,4,6,10,15,19
$0.50 trifecta: 2,4,6,9,10,15,19 / 2,4,6,9,10,15,19 / 3,8,18
$0.50 trifecta: 2,15,19 / 3,8,18 / 2,15,19
$0.50 trifecta: 2,15,19 / 2,15,19 / 3,8,13
$1 Super High Five: 3 / 8,15,18,19 / 8,15,18,19 / 8,10,15,18,19 / 8,10,15,18,19
$1 Super High Five: 3 / 10 / 8,18 / 8,18 / 15,19        

Derby Betting Pool Pick 4

Well good news, we started a Pick 4 in the 8th where we singled Private Zone, so with two races to go, we have 9-12 in the next and 3,8,18,19 in the Derby

Derby Betting Pool - Pick 5

One pick 5 ticket alive currently starting in race 7....

1,3,6 - 1,3,4,5,8 - 2,5 - 9,10,11,12 - 3,8,18,19

The Derby Discussion

Hi Friends,

As some of you may know, every year Dave and I spend a few days and have a back-and-forth email exchange for the Derby.  It's always absurdly long and only semi-informative... I'm not sure how well anyone who doesn't follow horse racing can even understand what language we are speaking by the middle of the week.  We used to publish the entire email chain only on Facebook.  Then we migrated over to gradedstakes.com for a year (now Unbridled Stride - check it out, there's good stuff over there).  Then we remembered we had a blog we had control of.  So our discussion will be here.  We'll each just post whenever we see fit, so only God knows how long it will be.  If you don't want to read the whole thing, that's fine - there will be a summary around 48 hours before the Derby.

We'll be updating this post with each entry in chronological order semi-regularly.  Feel free to bookmark this specific post and you'll be able to find everything else in one quick spot so you don't have to hunt through the blog.  Also, we're starting really early this year.  It'll make sense why when you read my initial post.  Happy Derby 2015 to all!

Phil Part 1 (Posted 4/23 2:45 PM) - The Overview

David Part 1 (Posted 4/23 3:45 PM) - Rambling About Materiality

Phil Part 2 (Posted 4/23 8:45 PM) - Materiality, Carpe Diem, and The Chasm

David Part 2 (Posted 4/24 10:00 PM) - Best of the Worst

David Part 3 (Posted 4/25 2:30 PM)  - Game of Run for the Roses

Phil Part 3 (Posted 4/25 3:30 PM)  - Taking Back the Iron Throne

Phil Part 4 (Posted 4/27 10:30 AM) - GoT Fallout and Betting Strategies

David Pt. 4 (Posted 4/27 4:00 PM) - The Tiers Begin

Phil Part 5 (Posted 4/28 8:00 AM) - Frosted, Mubtaahij, and Other Quick Hits

David Part 5 (Posted 4/28 9:30 PM) - Let's Talk About Chicks Man

Phil Part 6 (Posted 4/29 8:00 PM)  - Oaks Reactions and Early Post Draw Thoughts

David Part 6 (Posted 4/29 11:30 PM) - Derby's Absurdities

Phil Part 7 (Posted 4/30 2:00 AM)  - The Value Line

David Part 7 (Posted 5/1 1:00 AM)  - Final Oaks Thoughts and some Derby Stuff I think maybe?

Phil Part 8 (Posted 5/1 4:45 PM)  - Another One Bites the Dust and My Final Thoughts

David Part 8 (Posted 5/1 7:27 PM) - This is the End

Derby Preview Conclusion

The good news is, tomorrow can't be worse than today.

The bad part about it is today there were some chances to really make some scores, and I feel like we missed a few of those opportunities. But, we live to fight another day.

Mubtaahij will be used. I'm not worried about continuing the argument on him because we're using him in the second tier, I'm making an executive decision on that one.

Upstart is definitely a ridiculous price right now, but there's so little money in that I think we should wait a bit longer before thinking these are super accurate, we should have a clear idea early tomorrow. Still, hard to envision Upstart being much below 20/1, which still seems way too high. Mubtaahij has taken less early money than I expected as he seemed to be on a lot of radars. As usual, we were right in spotting Frosted as the horse people would jump on.

Yeah, we can definitely provide Twitter updates throughout the day, we have like 178 minutes between races to think of witty comments.

I just hope we hit something early in the card so we aren't desperately trying to hit something in the Derby...that never ends well.

Dammit, this is all so long, I feel like I need some brilliant closing to tie this baby up. But you know what, that's not how life works. Life doesn't just give you perfect cues and impeccably timed endings. Leave that crap for Hollywood. I'm just a regular American, rock, flag, and eagle.

Derby Discussion - Phil Part 8 "Another One Bites the Dust and Final Thoughts"

Add El Kabeir to the scratch list.  Bye bye Calvin Borel too....

Anyway....

I grow weary of this debate, so let's end this.  First off, your additions to my value line fall on deaf ears.  Everything you mentioned would lower the odds, so I'd have to make concessions somewhere that you didn't offer.

Second, early Derby betting is going almost exactly how I figured.  Frosted currently way too low at 9/1, Materiality way too high at 17/1, and we'll have to keep an eye on Upstart at 33/1 currently.  That's just absurd.

I think we agree for the most part on the major points of the Derby, but we never really came to a conclusion on Mubtaahij or some other middling horses.  I guess you'll just have to follow us on twitter @TourneyPools where we'll be posting our bets for everyone who decided to bought into our Derby betting.

As is tradition, David, put a bow on this sucker.

Kentucky Derby Betting Pool: Oaks Pick 4

ticket 1: 2,3,4,6,7,9 - 2,3,8,9,10,11,12 - 8 - 8
ticket 2: 2,7 - 2,3,8,9,10,11,12 - 1,2,3,7,8,11,12 - 8
ticket 3: 3,4,6,9 - 8 - 1,2,3,7,11,12 - 8
ticket 4: 2,3,4,6,7,9 - 8 - 8 - 1,2,4,5,7,12,13,14
ticket 5: 2,7 - 2,3,9,10,11,12 - 8 - 1,2,4,5,7,12,13,14
ticket 6: 2,7 - 8 - 1,2,3,7,11,12 - 1,2,4,5,7,12,13,14

Follow @tourneypools on twitter for more updates     

Derby weekend betting pool: races 4-7 pick 4 friday

ticket 7: 1,2,3,4,5,7,9,10,11,13 - 3,4,5,7,10,12 - 5 - 7,9
ticket 8: 9 - 3,4,5,7,10,12 - 1,4,6 - 7,9
ticket 9: 1,2,3,4,5,7,10,11,13 - 5 - 1,4,6 - 7,9
ticket 10: 1,2,3,4,5,7,9,10,11,13 - 5 - 5 - 2,5
ticket 11: 9 - 3,4,7,10,12 - 5 - 2,5
ticket 12: 9 - 5 - 1,4,6 - 2,5

Twitter @tourneypools for more updates     

Derby Weekend Betting Pool: Pick 4 for races 2-5 on Friday

ticket 1: 1,2,3,4,5,6,9,11,12 - 4,5,6,7,8,9 - 9 - 5
ticket 2: 3 - 4,5,6,7,8,9 - 1,2,3,4,5,7,11,13 - 5
ticket 3: 1,2,4,5,6,9,11,12 - 6,8 - 1,2,3,4,5,7,11,13 - 5
ticket 4: 1,2,3,4,5,6,9,11,12 - 6,8 - 9 - 3,4,7,10,12
ticket 5: 3 - 4,5,7,9 - 9 - 3,4,7,10,12
ticket 6: 3 - 6,8 - 1,2,3,4,5,7,11,13 - 3,4,7,10,12

Follow along on twitter @Tourneypools for updates on how this is going b/c I can't read it either.