March 24, 2009

Randomized Madness

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A roll of the dice.

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A cut of the cards.

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A toss of the coin.


Ever watch your bracket crash irredeemably after the first weekend, and think to yourself "I could have done better flipping a coin"? Well, here you go. The first bracket was done rolling a pair of dice: odd numbers win for the top team, evens for the bottom. The second bracket was decided cutting cards: black for top, red for bottom, and the deck was shuffled after every round. The third was done flipping a coin: heads for the top, tails for the bottom.

As you can see, the top bracket is plausible, with the overall number one seed (Louisville) actually winning it all. The other two are just goofy.

2 comments:

Matt said...

pretty damn cool. MB has Louisville vs. UNC for the final, with UNC taking it all. She was pretty conservative, but she is doing fairly well in her bracket.

For the "Randomized Madness" entry, here is a "Randomized Complaint": Every year, for some reason it galls me anew that the term "March Madness" is copyrighted.

Bill Zink said...

I wanted to do one more experiment, this time actually penciling in the "lead pipe cinches" (i.e., Louisville over Moorehead State) and then doing chance operations on any game that was remotely competitive. Of course, I think it's clear I've already wasted way too much time on this idea. Glad you like it, though.