Is it possible that this guy didn't cheat?

Question

In an NCAA bracket pool, the guy running the pool got 30 out of 32 in the 1st round, 16 out of 16 in the 2nd round, 7 of 8 in the 3rd and 3 of 4 in the final.

I am no rookie, and this is clearly suspect. He claims that w/ the favorittes doing so well, he simply got lucky. Also claims that he copied a bracket from ESPN almost exactly.

If anyone is in a pool where someone was even close to this lucky, please let me know so I can back off this guy...

This was not done on Yahoo - it was an office pool where he (and his girlfriend) had the copies of the brackets that people printed out and handed to him. He didn't post a copy of his bracket and didn't show it until today...

Answer 1

haha, i only got 4 wrong the whole thing and 2 came from wisconsin, 1 from duke, and 1 from louisville in the 2nd round

have 15 out of 16 in 2nd, 7 out of 8 in 3rd and all 4 teams in the final

espn gave out alot of upsets though so idk about your friends bracket if he copied directly he wouldnt have that good of record

idk about the website but on tv they were talking alot about old dominion winning, illinois winning, albany, and creighton winning

it sounds pretty cheap to me that the guy running the thing is killing everybody and hasnt made a copy of his own thing for anybody else to see before the tourney started

Answer 2

the guy running the pool shouldn't be involved IN the pool, unless he is willing to hand his bracket over AT THE BEGINNING to someone else to hold.

otherwise, it looks like exactly what you are calling it: he's changing his brackets after the games, and "losing" 1 or 2, b/c 100% would be impossible,

So it's not the percentage, but the fact that he is running the pool AND holding his own bracket.

But then again - you guys let that happen!
Ha ha ha!

Answer 3

i think he is saying his office pool that is done by hand, correct? not everybody does them online you know.

i would say anyone who runs a respectable pool gives a copy of his/her picks to someone else to ensure there is no such suspicions. i ran them for years at my old job and before we started doing them on yahoo, i made copies of everybody's picks and gave everybody copies of them, so they could keep up with it themselves. this is a little much, but the person running it should always give a copy of their picks to somebody else.

however, i would say that this was possible this year. with so little upsets, the people who always go with the favorites finally have a good year with their bracket. the first and second rounds sound a little suspect, but i had 28 out of 32 in first, 14 out of 16 in the 2nd, 7 out of 8 in the 3rd, and i have 3 out of 4. if i hadnt picked any major upsets i would have only lost about 3 games so far. so it is possible. but if the brackets in your pool were done by hand, i would definitely ask him why he didnt give somebody a copy of his picks to ensure fairness.

before i started doing the brackets i had a guy tell me i had the thing wrapped up before the national championship was even played, but he said he would double check it that night. he conveniently found a mistake and said that i was down by 1 point, so i needed duke to win that night to seal the victory. if they lost, a guy who left the company was gonna win. duke ended up losing and everybody in the store wanted to strangle this guy because he couldnt find the winner and instead of giving the prize to the 2nd place guy (me...who was actually the winner, he just cheated), or give everybody's money back, he kept it. i saw a good quote the other day, it said, "remember, some people are only alive, simply because it is illegal to shoot them"....haha i like that

good luck though!

Answer 4

And how do you cheat on a bracket when they are locked?

Answer 5

he just got lucky