Comments on: FlowingData NCAA Tournament Bracket – Try and Beat Me

By: martha

martha — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:48:51 +0000

Per Malcom Gladwell and Gerd Gigerenzer, I just went with who I recognized and had any feelings for. Seems to be working :)

Gerd Gigerenzer has done research that seems to indicate that knowing about half of your data set and guessing the rest is the best way to win this type of thing. I’m hoping he’s right :)

By: jwo

jwo — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:58:13 +0000

“Interestingly enough, apparently using statistical data to predict NCAA winners is useless”

When is statistical data useful predicting human behavior?

By: 20tauri

20tauri — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:32:56 +0000

Hmm, I tried this with two different browsers and it wasn’t working; I coudln’t add any picks. Oh, well. BTW, I tweeted yesterday about this article I saw in the Wall Street Journal about using statistics to pick games, though: http://bit.ly/N3r5

By: Bret

Bret — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:49:30 +0000

Ditto on stats — there’s too much variability is in the data to be able to model it…even at the pro level (although a former professor of mine has had better luck http://tinyurl.com/dgh354, http://tinyurl.com/d28mhs). The only time I’ve won a pool was when I flipped a coin to pick the winners. I took that as a sign that pools are something I should avoid. Best wishes to all who enter.

By: Nathan Yau

Nathan Yau — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:36:31 +0000

I’m so not surprised. Thanks for the pointer.

By: hegemonicon

hegemonicon — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:13:52 +0000

Interestingly enough, apparently using statistical data to predict NCAA winners is useless

By: Andrew Ross

Andrew Ross — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:09:26 +0000

Aw, I clicked through this post hoping you’d have a better design for the bracket sheet…