Surviving Week 1

I got back into the Circa Survivor Contest this year at great cost (my flight out of Palm Springs on July 5 was cancelled due to heat, so I had to rent a car and drive through the Mojave Desert, and the road to Vegas was closed, so I had to double back another 100 miles, which in total took six hours), so this is Team Of Destiny 2.0. Or at least it had better be.

I’m not going to stick to any one method or philosophy. Put differently, I realize that in order to win, I need to go into the future, find out what has already happened and pick on that basis. Pot odds is great, but even if you do that properly every week, your edge over the field isn’t that huge. Instead of a 1 in 10,000 chance to win, maybe you have 1 in 6,500. Sure, if you had 100 entries in every high stakes contest, it might be enough to eke out a reliable profit, but I’m not here for that. I’m here to navigate one boat through the icebergs and take down the $10M. And for that, you can’t hope to get lucky. You have to know in advance.

What method do I propose to see into the future? Only my imagination. I’m going to spend a lot of time imagining what might happen, turn my brain into a quantum device, break space-time and come to the right answers. Easier said than done, but I’m committed.

. . .

In any event, let’s take a look at the slate: Here are the ownership numbers per Officefootballpools.com.

The pot-odds play is the Bills if you buy into the Vegas numbers — Bengals roughly 78.5 and the Bills at 72.6%. That means the Bengals have a 21.5% chance to lose, the Bills 27.4%. That’s a 27.4 percent increase in risk (coincidentally.)

But if the Bengals lose they take out 39 people, and if the Bills lose they take out only 15. Let’s assume another 20-odd people lose with other teams (in a hypothetical 100-person pool) and you’re down to 41 if the Bengals lose/Bills win, 65 if the Bills lose/Bengals win.

If we say each person put in $10, the former scenario is $1000 (total pot)/41 = $24.39, and the latter $1000/65 = $15.38. The ratio of 24.39/15.38 = 1.59. In other words, you have 59 percent percent more equity in Week 2 on the Bills if the Bengals lose than you would on the Bengals if the Bills lose.

You’re talking a 27.4 percent greater risk for a 59 percent greater reward. So normally I’d snap call the Bills.

But I’m probably going Bengals because I think the Cardinals are dangerous this year, and the Pats are arguably the worst team in the league and in surrender mode after they dealt Matthew Judon to the Falcons. (All this is supposed to be priced in, of course, but I don’t care.)

I’ll finalize my pick before Saturday’s deadline, but that’s how I see it for now.