Obviously I'm impatient today.

Here is a March Madness game that Gothmog began a few years ago, which Stan took over, and which I always enjoy. So, with or without their permission his permission (hopefully), I'm starting it again this year.

I've cut & pasted his instructions:
Here's a different kind of NCAA pool. It seems fairly simple, yet I've never managed to finish higher than 5th, and I usually lose to 8 yr olds picking at random, or people picking by cities they've visited, favorite colors, or teams with "Wildcat" mascots, or some such or to Jbug, who, well works her own kind of magic if you will.

Here are the rules:
1. Each team in the tournament is assigned a point value, based on their seed. (See below).
2. Before the first game on Thursday (the play-in game doesn't count), you must pick 8 teams. You may pick any 8 that you like, regardless of where they appear in the bracket (although it's wisest to pick teams that won't meet each other right away).
3. For every team that you pick, they get their pre-assigned point value each time they win. Once the team loses, they can no longer get any points.
4. You cannot change teams or edit your picks after the start of the first game on Thursday
5. The winner is the person with the most total points. If there is a tie, then the tiebreaker is total number of points that will be scored by both teams in the CHAMPIONSHIP game (closest wins).

Strategy hints:
Like I said, I can't seem to figure this game out, but here's what I've observed: The winner of this usually has around 40-50 points, so you want teams that will get you about 6-8 points each. If you can pick a lower seed to win a couple of games, that's worth more points than a #1 seed that will win it all. I usually try to pick teams that are spread out among the brackets, but there have been occasions where the top 3 point-getters are all from the same region. The winners of this pool seem to be the ones who pick the mid-range seeds that go far, but I've tried that strategy and ended up with only 2 live teams by the end of the first weekend. So if you have a better idea, by all means go for it.

Here are how the points are assigned:
Seed....Point value per win
1............1
2-3.........2
4-5.........3
6-8.........4
9-11.......5
12-13......6
14-15......7
16..........8

If you'd like to play, then sometime before Thursday, post your 8 teams and the total number of points you think will be scored by both teams in the championship game (to be used as a tie-breaker).

Hopefully Stan will see his name in the subject line and take over. Otherwise, you're stuck with me, and I'm already running Nutzy's pool and am smack dab in the middle of the start of little league.

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