The A2k NFL "Pick-Um" Game Is Back!

Oh dear!! I'll have to revise my books.

What I will end up doing is spending an hour on the picks that were not changed and then another hour on the 3 or 4 which had been changed.

Duly noted, Osso.

What's your procedure John? I would like to streamline mine if you have any tips.

Good luck, Osso.

The return of Cutler from his concussion 2 weeks ago should be interesting and very auspicious.

The flippant answer, Spendius, is (a) pencil and paper, (b) high-lighters, and (c) lots of correction fluid (white-out). Very low tech.
(As an aside, do any of you know who is credited with inventing white-out?)
I have 25 columns across the paper in plan format. Each of the 20 players, from Mysteryman and Osso on the far left to Rhys and George on the right, gets precisely 3/16ths of an inch. I use the remaining 5 columns for ESPN, CoinToss, and how we split on individual games (projected and actual results).
I list the games for each week in as many as 16 rows, along with a couple others for predictions of the final score and room for me to make note of how we are doing ahead of the Sunday and Monday night games.
I have to make a couple of copies of my form each week.
Despite the rules regarding allowing players to make changes, they rarely happen. Changes are not at all inconvenient.
What would be inconvenient is players not making selections. Of the 20 players, 17 have chosen in every game. It is a lot easier to calculate the standings if I can use a uniform divisor.

i can verify that 3/16" spacing is the way to go when it comes to schedules...

I thought it was someone who worked for 3M.

EDIT: Looked it up. Mike Nesmith's mom invented it.

Not sure about White-Out but Liquid Paper correction fluid was invented Mike Nesmith's (former Monkee) mother, Bette Nesmith Graham, a secretary at the time. She made some improvements and then around 1956 renamed it to Liquid Paper. A year before she died, around 1979, she sold it to Gillette Corp for a cool $47.5 M, half of which went to Mike. He's a believer!

shouldn't it always be a uniform divisor?

if there have been 68 games in total, I think everyone should be rated against 68, not the 63 they picked.

same as 200 games. if there have been 200 games, everyone gets assessed against 200, not the 180 they picked

I wouldn't expect to get any benefit in the rankings for not picking for the first week or two (when things seem to be most unpredictable). I'd expect to get whacked for not picking for the entire season.



I guess I didn't realize anything else was happening. I could pay more attention.



but hey, it's your scorecard and if you're willing to do the extra work ...

Thank John.

What I do is this--

I copy and paste your programme. Then I find the average spreads from the bookies websites. Any half points I round up to the nearest even number. 2.5 become 2 and 3.5 becomes 4. Any zeroes I give --1 to the home team. I post my spreads for the panel's consideration.

After the results are known I record the win and loss $$$s for each team. Then I go back to the first entry, often Tico, and work through the picks recording the win or loss for each game. And so on through each entry. Then I add up the +s and the --s separately and deduct the smaller figure from the larger.

Then I arrange them in order of their success and post the week's table.

After that I take the previous week's running balances and adjust the list accordingly. Then I rearrange the running balances.

It takes me about 2 hours.

My wife says 36-12 for Monday night score. I asked "What's a good score for Monday Night?" That was her reply.

In favor of which team?

Does it really matter?

If you end up in a six-way tie to win the week it might make the difference between being the winner or an also-ran.

Nope. Especially due to the fact your wife isn't a participant. I was curious and thought I was just making friendly conversation. No prob.

Poor thing!

Thanks osso. I appreciate your compassionate concern. My love of sport does get the better of me at times.

People who use sport in order to have something to say without having to think or make any effort have annoyed me for as long as I can remember.

And identifying them is as easy as falling off a well greased peeled log going through the rapids.

Gah! There really needs to be a humor font. That was funnier in my head. Her followup was "who's playing." I do not remember who I picked and it's too hard to go back to find my picks. If that came out rude, I am sorry.

People who want to change the rules of a sport often bother me, though not always; I get progress happens.
People wanting to advise a long time game thread with a lot of diddling (albeit enjoyed by some) and have other participants not affect the diddling stats with an allowed change of pick in the game are Poor Things.
I'm fine with your spread postings, though I scroll by, but stop whining.
People who repeatedly maneuver to change rules of a long time thread and refuse to start their own are just pests.

One should never apologise for being rude Mac. It's the asshole who inspires rudeness who should apologise.