FINAL SCORING for the Human and Machine Divisions of the Contest And the top human bracketmeister for 2017 is.... WENDY'S! Yes indeed, the new champ reigns with a top score of 142. The right balance of picking a few long shots in the first round (then bombing in the second), and then a solid third round before three perfect rounds to finish did the job. Wendy's rankings after each round were: #1, #17, #11, #5, #4, #1. So Wendy's.. feel free take a bow, claim the bragging rights for 2017, and weigh in with any (plausible or not) explanation of your brilliant 2017 picks. (The come back next year to be the very first repeat champion in the history of this contest...) For 2017 we had the very first tie for second place. Olelaliga, McSkills, and Crane65 all came in with 136 scores. Well done. And thanks to everyone for participating. It wouldn't be as much fun without a significant number of participants. Human Division Final 2017 Scores 142 WENDY’S 136 CRANE65 136 McSKILLS 136 OLELALIGA 135 NORFOLK 134 KURT KLINE 133 JUSTDOIT 131 HEADSPUN 131 PLAYSIMPLE 125 DMTHOMAS49 121 INGOLDSBY 117 CASTATE 115 EUROPE FB FAN 113 RTD! 111 KICKITHARD 111 TIME&SPACE 108 WALSCD 105 GOT JUKES? 100 MPR2477 98 GLOVE STINKS 85 BIGWEST 84 SOCCERHUNTER 74 MERLIN13 59 ZIGGY1010 Machine Division Final 2017 Scores The Machine division ended in a typical way. While the Adjusted Non Conference RPI took the top spot, the nature of this division is that the scores were more tightly bunched and were higher on average than the human scores even though the top humans outpaced the machines. (Top human scores were 142, 136, 136, 136... while the top machine winning score was 135. Humans averaged 114.2 while the machine/poll division averaged 121.3.) The factor of the machine entries marching more or less in lockstep let to the fall of the Iteration 5 Adjusted RPI entry (which had comfortably held second place for the first five rounds) to 6th place after being the only entry not to pick Stanford as the winner. (In contrast the Humans picked 8 different possible winners with only 1/3 of the 24 humans picking Stanford.) All of these phenomena can be explained by the propensity of humans (who presumably are capable of choosing dispassionately) to lead with their hearts and bias their picks toward a few of their favorite teams. This strategy is required for beating the odds and ending up a champion, but it is a losing strategy for most humans as the "house" will win on the average. Cheers! Machine and Poll Division 2017 Scores 135 ADJ NON-CONF RPI 123 MASSEY 123 UNTD SOC COACH 122 BENNETT RANK 121 ADJUSTED RPI 115 ITRATN 5 ADJ RPI 110 TOP DRAWER RANK
It's perhaps worth noting that the Machine Division, by itself, averaged 123.2 (RPI versions, Massey, and Bennett). The Poll Division, by itself, averaged 116.5, only slightly better than the humans at 114.2. Top Drawer dragged the Poll Division down. On the other hand, even Top Drawer at 110 surpassed about 1/3 of the field. KUDOS TO SOCCERHUNTER FOR DOING THIS!
Thanks for running the contest. Secret to success - know very little about the majority of the teams and get lucky!