2008 Woodie Awards
Stats student takes on bracket study
By: Hon Lung Chu
Issue date: 4/1/08 Section: News
Last update: 4/1/08 at 6:17 AM EST
Last update: 4/1/08 at 6:17 AM EST
Cameron Crazies like to paint themselves uniformly in blue, but a similar herd mentality could ruin your chances of winning a March Madness bracket, according to a paper by a Duke graduate student.
The best strategy to win a pool is to create a bracket as different from other people's as possible, said Jarad Niemi, a Ph.D. student in statistical science. He explored the topic in the paper he co-authored, called "Contrarian strategies for NCAA tournament pools: a cure for March Madness?" published in the January edition of Chance magazine.
"You want to be as dissimilar as everybody else," Niemi said.
But he added that people following this strategy should still pick teams with a high probability of winning.
For instance, in a pool in which he is participating at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, many people have put down UNC as winning it all, he said.
"So I actually chose UNC as the champion and my goal is to beat them on the rest of the games," Niemi said. "So I chose a bunch of the 12-[seeds] and 13-[seeds], and I chose Davidson [College] to beat Georgetown [University]."
Even if UNC wins the national championship, his score will still be higher than other players because of the points he got from the opening rounds of the tournament, Niemi said.
And if UNC loses, he will still have a relatively high score because his opponents would lose the same amount of points.
Freshman Colin Hwang, who created his own NCAA pool, said he believes the strategy is too simple.
"It's more complex than that, maybe it does apply for the ones in the middle," Hwang said. "But for the ones you have a good hunch, I think you should pick your hunch."
Freshman Mark Strom, a member of Hwang's pool, said he also follows his gut when he fills out brackets.
"I don't believe in the strategy when you have to pick a 12-seed beating a 5-seed," he said, referring to the perception that one 12-5 upset occurs every year. "I just go with my instincts."
The best strategy to win a pool is to create a bracket as different from other people's as possible, said Jarad Niemi, a Ph.D. student in statistical science. He explored the topic in the paper he co-authored, called "Contrarian strategies for NCAA tournament pools: a cure for March Madness?" published in the January edition of Chance magazine.
"You want to be as dissimilar as everybody else," Niemi said.
But he added that people following this strategy should still pick teams with a high probability of winning.
For instance, in a pool in which he is participating at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, many people have put down UNC as winning it all, he said.
"So I actually chose UNC as the champion and my goal is to beat them on the rest of the games," Niemi said. "So I chose a bunch of the 12-[seeds] and 13-[seeds], and I chose Davidson [College] to beat Georgetown [University]."
Even if UNC wins the national championship, his score will still be higher than other players because of the points he got from the opening rounds of the tournament, Niemi said.
And if UNC loses, he will still have a relatively high score because his opponents would lose the same amount of points.
Freshman Colin Hwang, who created his own NCAA pool, said he believes the strategy is too simple.
"It's more complex than that, maybe it does apply for the ones in the middle," Hwang said. "But for the ones you have a good hunch, I think you should pick your hunch."
Freshman Mark Strom, a member of Hwang's pool, said he also follows his gut when he fills out brackets.
"I don't believe in the strategy when you have to pick a 12-seed beating a 5-seed," he said, referring to the perception that one 12-5 upset occurs every year. "I just go with my instincts."
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