Super 'dog? Not this year.
As happened last year, neither underdog prevailed in the pro football conference championships today, and so last week's standings become the final standings in our charity pool. Congratulations to our winners:
1. Gary - 78 - $500 to favorite charity
2. Biggest Cubs Loser - 62.5 - $165 to favorite charity
3. Andy - 62 - $100 to favorite charity
4. pdxmick - 61.5 - $75 to favorite charity
5. Gordon - 61 - $50 to favorite charity
If the winners will let me know who those charities are -- they must be section 501(c)(3) organizations -- we'll get the prize checks out this week.
Interesting that only a point and a half separated second and fifth places. Thanks to everybody who played:
Flowers by Dorcas 56.5
AKevin 56
Flowers by Dorcas Husband 56
Larry Legend 54.5
john dull 52
genop 51.5
Broadway Joe 48
Annie 47.5
Drewbob 47.5
Paul 46.5
Hank 40
Doug 38.5
Anthony 38
Jim 37.5
Ricardo 37.5
Sattelihu 37.5
Nick 35.5
PJB 34
Matt 30.5
genop's gal 27.5
Bad Brad 25.5
Michael K. 21.5
Mike G. 13
Eric 12.5
Conrad 12
Bob 8.5
Umpire 7.5
Comments (10)
Congrats to the winners
Posted by Nick | January 23, 2011 7:27 PM
Ditto. And thanks to Jack for organizing.
Posted by Drewbob | January 23, 2011 7:34 PM
Thanks, Jack. Lots of fun again this year.
Posted by AKevin | January 23, 2011 8:59 PM
Jack,
What a wonderful season. It was tons of fun. I was thinking of some other great charity pool ideas, but then I thought about all the work you do for them. We'll wait until next year's NFL season. Flowers by Dorcas almost made it! Had it not been for Seattle!!!
Well, regardless, the money is going to a charity, and that is wonderful.
Posted by Rudie | January 23, 2011 9:24 PM
Maybe by next season I can get the game automated.
Posted by Jack Bog | January 23, 2011 9:27 PM
Thanks for all the work Jack. One thought popped into my mind, based on an observation I believe you made earlier in the year of how simply picking the biggest dog every week would have put you amongst the point leaders. Perhaps a risk/reward system might encourage players to not just hit the big dog button. My suggestion-if your dog wins you get the points if your dog loses you get dinged the point spread. Sorry, as the accountant for the operation I'm sure the idea of more calculations is just what you don't want to hear.
Posted by Gannicott | January 23, 2011 9:39 PM
If you took the biggest dog every week this season, by my unofficial calculation you'd have wound up with 65.5 points -- good enough for second place. Five biggest dogs out of 20 came through, though, and I'm not sure that would happen again. Maybe somebody will have to invest a Jackson next year and try it.
Last year, the biggest dog won only three times all season, for 41 points -- not enough to be in the money.
Posted by Jack Bog | January 23, 2011 9:55 PM
3 out of all 17 weeks, Jack? Or just the portion of the season you ran your pool?
Posted by Paul Hamann | January 24, 2011 7:44 PM
Jack - Don't know about automation per se, but a bit of excel coding might make the lifting lighter if you haven't already employed Excel for your score keeping. If you have friends with pivot table skills that would be the dope. Otherwise there are some other Excel techniques that would work.
Posted by LucsAdvo | January 24, 2011 8:48 PM
Paul: Three out of 20. Two out of the weeks I ran the pool.
Lucs: Oh, I use Excel. But I want gaming software whereby the players' picks are automatically recorded, any time up to kickoff of the first game on Sunday, without my even seeing them. The software would also keep the standings. Kind of what Yahoo does with the various games it lets people set up.
Some day, the underdog pool will be so popular that many, many pools will be running all around the country. It's a great game, and our own Paul Hamann is the inventor. (Quick, get a patent!)
Posted by Jack Bog | January 24, 2011 10:25 PM