I've decided that, what the hell, we should have our NCAA basketball brackets right here on DK4. I'm posting three different competitions, A, B, and C; we'll see whether any or all are fun enough to do in the future.
Game A is the traditional "pick each game" competition, using a 1, 2, 4, 8, 18, 36 payoff scheme for the games in each successive round (total of 200 possible points.)
Game B is an "allocate your chips" tournament. You have 100 points to allocate across teams and you try to get the highest total score. (See a more detailed description there.)
This diary is for Game C, which will be especially interesting (if it works.) It will involve bidding to "own" the team that will win the tournament, with those who lose committed to donating the amount that they bet on their teams -- money to be paid to a candidate, cause or charity of your choosing. You're on your honor here, but we expect you to deliver. If you bid $10,000 to own the "rights" to Ohio State, you should be prepared to pay up if you lose or to face the ignominious consequences.
I've seen versions of Game A and Game B before, but I don't think I've ever seen Game C, and I've been wanting to try this for years. Here's how it works:
We will have bidding in comments, just like eBay, for the rights to capture the entire pot if the team you end up "owning" wins. Bidding starts at 10 cents for each team, and as the originator here, I'll bet on each team, across the board, to win it all. That means that, if no one else bids for any team at all, I'll owe $6.30 to a political candidate, cause or charity of my choosing -- 10 cents for each team I "own" that doesn't win. (This would make this event much less exciting, though.)
This is a real bet, although not an enforceable one. I will pay mine off (assuming that no one outbids me for the likes of Boston U and Long Island.) I will post the ActBlue receipt (or whatever) showing that I've done so. For anyone else not to do likewise would be to endure shame. (Otherwise, we'll have people bidding a trillion dollars for Ohio State or something. That's no fun. We'll keep it real.)
This will be more of a spectators' game than most of them: no more than 64 people will end up "owning" the teams; it will probably be far fewer. The fun, as those who have participated in tournaments know, comes at the end, when -- for example -- we might end up rooting for either cskendrick's Tar Heels to win the final game and save him $120 or for Adam B, having won the bid for Pittsburgh, to be saved from having to pay $355 if they lose.
If this were being played for real money, we'd have a complicated payoff system for runners-up and such, but since we're essentially playing for quatloos let's not bother with it for now. If this works well, next year we can try something more elaborate.
Your choices, if you need reminding are:
Ohio State, Alabama St/UT San-Antonio, North Carolina, Long Island, Syracuse, Indiana State, Kentucky, Princeton, West Virginia, Clemson, Xavier, Marquette, Washington, Georgia, George Mason, Villanova ...
Duke, Hampton, San Diego St., No. Colorado, Connecticut, Bucknell, Texas, Oakland, Arizona, Memphis, Cincinnati, Missouri, Temple, Penn State, Michigan, Tennessee ...
Pitt, UNC-Ashevlle, Florida, UC-Santa Barbara, BYU, Wofford, Wisconsin, Belmont, Kansas State, Utah State, St. Johns, Gonzaga, UCLA, Michigan State, Butler, Old Dominion ...
Kansas, Boston U, Notre Dame, Akron, Purdue, St. Peter’s, Louisville, Morehead State, Vanderbilt, Richmond, Georgetown, USC/VCU, Texas A&M, Florida State, UNLV, Illinois
Only bids made in a comment posted here before 11:55:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Thurs., March 17 will be eligible. Sniping (waiting until the last moment to bid up the price) is welcome, but only because it's inevitable.
Keep track of your own score. Play fair. Good luck!