# SDMB NFL Pick 'em and Survival Leagues **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [August 13, 2008, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838 "2008-08-13T13:17:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2008, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/61 "2008-11-25T15:40:37Z")
> [@borschevsky](#): > > You _should_ talk about it for years to come. I have it as 176 games so far, right? So you’re 102-69-5 against the spread? Wow. If my math is correct (and it’s bound to be a bit skewed by rounding), **Varlos** would be up $543.04 had he put 10 bucks on every game in Week 1, and then split the pot between each game the subsequent week: Start: $160 Week 1 bets: $10 9 wins = $180 after Week 1 Week 2 bets: $11.25 11 wins = $247.50 after Week 2 Week 3 bets: $15.47 9 wins = $278.44 after Week 3 Week 4 bets: $21.42 8 wins = $342.69 after Week 4 Week 5 bets: $24.48 5 wins = $244.78 after Week 5 Week 6 bets: $17.48 7 wins = $244.78 after Week 6 Week 7 bets: $17.48 10 wins = $349.69 after Week 7 Week 8 bets: $24.89 7 wins = $349.69 after Week 8 Week 9 bets: $24.89 9 wins = $449.95 after Week 9 Week 10 bets: $32.14 7 wins = $449.95 after Week 10 Week 11 bets: $28.12 10 wins = $562.44 after Week 11 Week 12 bets: $35.15 10 wins = $703.04 after Week 12 None too shabby…a couple of draw weeks, but Week 5 was the only losing performance. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2008, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/62 "2008-11-27T00:50:10Z")
Crap, I forgot to actually reset the survival league. I just did now. You’ve only got until tomorrow’s games to get your pick in. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2008, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/63 "2008-11-27T14:38:58Z")
If it ends up that only a very few people do their survival pick because I was so late to reset it, I’d be willing to reset it again, although we don’t have much season remaining. I wish there was an option to continue the survival league into the playoffs (with all used teams being reset) - that’d be cool I think. ---
**Author:** ![CatInASuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3be4f8/32.png) [@CatInASuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CatInASuit)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2008, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/64 "2008-11-27T14:57:18Z")
Don’t worry, this will be the week that Detroit beat Tennessee leaving my wanting a reset. ---
**Author:** ![borschevsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/97f17d/32.png) [@borschevsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/borschevsky)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/65 "2008-12-02T22:57:24Z")
… and so it was written that Week 13 be forever known as “borschevsky week” throughout the land … 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/66 "2008-12-02T23:29:32Z")
Just to keep track of **Varlos** ’ winnings: Week 13 bets: $43.94 9 wins = $790.92 after Week 13 ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/67 "2008-12-12T01:25:04Z")
Damn it. I spent so much time thinking about my fantasy football stuff tonight that I totally forgot to do pick 'em and survivor. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/68 "2008-12-12T03:12:39Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Damn it. I spent so much time thinking about my fantasy football stuff tonight that I totally forgot to do pick 'em and survivor. Yeah, I ended up taking my daughter to soccer practice, which I hadn’t planned on doing, and sort of forgot to do my Thursday picks. So I’m out of Survival this time around and hosed on Confidence. Pick’em and Spread aren’t too bad, just start a point behind anyone who got their Thursday picks in. Worst part was I remembered when I got home, which was just a tad too late. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/69 "2008-12-12T03:13:50Z")
Confidence is the least damaging, sort of. You only lose your 1 point game. It hurts you more if it was a game you were very confident in, but you don’t automatically lose as much as you would in the spread and pick 'em leagues. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/70 "2008-12-12T05:49:19Z")
It depends entirely on how confident you would be about the game. If it was your 1-point game, then it costs you slightly more than half a point. If it was your 16-point game, then missing it only costs you 1 point if you happen to get every other game right, but that’s hardly every going to be the case. How much does it actually cost you in expected value if you forget to pick your 16-point game on Thursday? It can’t be the full 16: first because there’s some small chance you’d have gotten it wrong anyway, and second because missing that pick increases the expected value of all the other games . . . or is that second effect canceled out by the fact that the expected value of every other **slot** goes **down**? (See what I’m saying? If your 15-point game would have been Team X @ Team Y, then forgetting to pick your 16-point game increases your expected value from X @ Y because now your potential reward from it is higher, but the expected value from your 15-point game is **lower** because now that’s taken by A @ B, which has a less certain outcome.) I’m confused. Can anyone figure out the answer? I’m going to guess that it’s 16 \* (the probability of your pick being correct). But I could be way off. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/71 "2008-12-12T06:39:30Z")
I’m not going to attempt to quantify that now, but to elaborate on the point - you missed the game, it’s out of the running, you can’t get score for it, regardless of whether or not it was your most or least confident game. In a pick 'em league, then you’ve lost 1/16th of your potential points. Whereas in confidence, you can essentially waste your 1 point game on that game, and because you have 136 assignable points, you lose 1/136 rather than 1/16th. And by lose, in this case, I mean never have the chance to pick - it’s out of the game. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/72 "2008-12-12T07:57:13Z")
In a spread pick’em league, you’ve lost half a point of equity, or 3.1% of your potential total for the week. However, in a confidence league, it seems to me that you’ve lost anywhere from half a point to almost 16 (say 15, for the sake of argument), or anywhere from 0.37% to 11%. So I’m pretty sure that missing the Thursday game is either much more important, much less important, or somewhere in between in a confidence league, depending on which game you’ve missed. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/73 "2008-12-12T13:41:47Z")
True dat. A few weeks ago I forgot the Thursday night game and it was Cincinnati at Pittsburgh. Although I try to stay a bit sane about division rivalry games, Pittsburgh pretty much owns the Bengals and in a year where the Bengals REALLY suck I’d probably go as much as 16 points on that game, depending on what else is going on that week. Plus it was in Pittsburgh, and I give weight to home field advantage for better teams. So in that case I really hosed myself. For this weeks game I might have picked either team, but probably would have gone with Chicago at home. What was the spread, anyway? (Did this game push? – that would be the best outcome for spread league) So depending on other games I might have put up to about 6-7 confidence points on this, but would prefer to put it in the 1-3 range. ---
**Author:** ![borschevsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/97f17d/32.png) [@borschevsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/borschevsky)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/74 "2008-12-12T14:49:03Z")
Yeah, it pushed, so there’s no effect on the spread league. For the confidence league, you’re taking the points you would have placed on the Thursday game and distributing them among your lower-confidence games, and losing one point. So if you would have put 5 on CHI-NO, then you set your 1-4 games to 2-5 instead, and waste the 1 on Chicago. I guess the worst case is where you were 100% sure on the missed game, and 50% on the other 15. That would drop your total expected points for the week by 8.5. ---
**Author:** ![CatInASuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3be4f8/32.png) [@CatInASuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CatInASuit)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2008, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/75 "2008-12-23T10:54:55Z")
Well, only one week left in the Pick’em and Survival leagues. It’s been fun. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2008, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/76 "2008-12-23T23:16:00Z")
Just because I’m a completionist, here’s **Varlos** ’ winnings to date: Week 14 bets: $49.43 8 wins = $790.92 after Week 14 Week 15 bets: $49.43 5 wins = $494.32 after Week 15 (ouch) Week 16 bets: $30.90 8 wins = $494.32 after Week 16 ---
**Author:** ![CatInASuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3be4f8/32.png) [@CatInASuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CatInASuit)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/77 "2008-12-29T15:09:00Z")
Well, the Pick’Em is over and done, so congratulations to **meek**. In other news, **Boozahol Squid, P.I.** - gloat, gloat, gloat. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838/78 "2008-12-29T19:17:56Z")
Nicely done, **meek**. And what the hell…I can deal with a 3rd-place finish. And to wrap up your winnings tally, here ya go **Varlos** – Week 17 bets: $30.90 5 wins = $309.00 total profit at the end of the season. Not too shabby – shoulda quit after Week 13 or 14, though. Those two 5-win weeks were killers. Still, profit is profit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues/459838.md?page=3)