No, we aren’t going anywhere, but we do have a new email newsletter policy which will result in fewer emails sent from MyOfficePool.ca (MOP). Let me explain…

The MOP mailing list was built from people who at some time in the past six years registered a free member account at either www.myofficepool.ca or www.draftbuddy.com. I created a website feature at MOP which allowed all members to specify what topics they were interested in, whether it be our football pools, March Madness Survivor pool, fantasy baseball or what have you.

Working together, the feature allowed me to segment the mailing list and send newsletters to users about topics they wanted to read or be reminded about.

This worked pretty well, but with the great turnout in the recent World Cup Pool, I jumped into a new higher cost service bracket for the mailing list program. Kind of like jumping into a new tax bracket, which everyone tries to avoid like the plague.

While it is a cost of doing business, just looking around most people can sort of tell I’m not making much money on this website/hobby (click an ad people, click an ad please). As a result of this unexpected extra cost, plus the new pool features to allow people to create their own pool groups, which should result in more communications between the group admin and their friends in the group, I got to thinking, “why not just can the email newsletters?” Who likes email anyway?

So, I’ve decided to do away with the large mailing list and in the future will only email the following people:

1. Pool group admins, otherwise known as members who create their own groups to invite their friends to play in their own private pools
2. Members who join the official MOP $20 Poolies group, otherwise known as our low stakes degenerate gamblers like myself

Of course, exisiting and new members still need a valid email address to receive pick confirmations from the pools, but most of you can expect fewer emails from MOP in the future as a result of this change. Less writing for me; less clutter in your inbox. Sounds like a win-win idea… just don’t go forgetting us now, ya hear?

My grand plan for our annual March Madness Survivor Pool is almost completely out the window as of the Sweet 16 round. Not only does my “saved for the final” pick Syracuse lose on Thursday, but much more significantly, my Ohio State pick blew it against Tennessee.

I can adjust the plan with the Syracuse loss pretty easily, slotting new West region favourites Kansas State in their place. The Ohio State loss is a lot tougher. I felt like I had an immunity idol slung around my neck being the only person still standing with two entries. As with the idol though, I wish I could have held onto it and not played it so soon.

The ripple effect of course is now there is no ability to play both sides in the Championship game. Also, the entry that got dumped was the better of the two. It was the one that used Washington and Cornell to get to the Sweet 16. The entry I’m still alive on already used Duke.

Oh well, no sense crying over spilt milk. One and done is the way it has to be.

If I stick to my original plan for this entry, it is Michigan State this round. Ohio State didn’t look bad last night, but Tennessee looked quite good and a little better than OSU to face Michigan State. Tennessee is in fact favoured over Michigan State, and I could pick Tennessee, but this game looks like a toss-up.

My other options are not overly appealing either though. I could try to pick the winner of the Kentucky-West Virginia game. No thanks. I could pick Kansas State to win.

With 17 still alive, unless we have a whole lot of groupthink and get dumped on the same pick, I think someone is going to have to pick the winner of the Championship game to win this pool.

I think I have to take a chance and stick to the plan, picking the winner of the Michigan State-Tennessee game. That team bows out to Kansas State in the Final Four. Winner of Kentucky-West Virginia defeats, presumably, Duke in the Final Four. I pick the winner of Kentucky-West Virigina for the Championship game.

If this helps you at all… I thought it would help me, but it didn’t really… here are all the remaining alive entries and what teams they’ve picked, marked with an “x”, and teams they have available. The Elite 8 favourites are highlighted.

Good luck! I know I’ll need it!

If you can make sense of the image below, well… maybe you can let me know what you think it means.

Okay, seriously though, having made it through the first three days of our March Madness Survivor Pool with both of my entries, I’m feeling pretty good and figured maybe, just maybe, I should sketch out a plan to the end of the tournament.

I was feeling a little smug about using #11 seed Washington yesterday to topple #3 New Mexico. That is until I realized that if Washington keeps winning, then I’m the only entry that has already used them. Hmm…

As we all know, the best laid plans can come toppling down in a hurry. Right Kansas? As of Sunday morning though, this is how I’m leaning. The black is one entry, and red is the other entry.

Didn’t make sense? I’ll try to explain.

All this time, in my head and based on limited research of a quote here or there from sports talk radio, I’ve been putting West Virginia and Syracuse in the Championship game. Then this morning, I realized, hey, I’ve completely forgotten about Kentucky (sorry Ashley).

Anyway, if I can somehow save Syracuse and the winner of West Virginia/Kentucky (sorry Washington) for the final in both entries, then I’ll be golden.

Rolling it back from there, with Entry #1 I’ll take West Virginia/Kentucky to win it all, Syracuse as my Final Four pick, Duke as my Elite 8 pick, Ohio State as my Sweet 16 pick and that leaves me some pretty limited choices for today. Wisconsin vs. Cornell, Michigan State (already used Maryland), Purdue vs. Texas A&M, Pittsburgh vs. Xavier.

I had Wisconsin slotted in, and they are favoured by 4.5 points, but I remember they just squeaked by Wofford. I’m sure it is hype, but I’m reading a lot of positive hype on Cornell. Hype is exactly what I’m getting caught up in with this tourney, so I may just roll the dice with another longshot, this time bigger than the Washington longshot (who were in fact favoured in their game by 1.5, even though they were the lower seed).

Make room on the bandwagon Ivy crowd, I’m backing Cornell. There is no prize for second place in this pool, so lets roll those dice.

With that, gulp, decision in the books, maybe I don’t have to go quite as risky with Entry #2. Problem—already used Duke with this entry. There is no sense following the exact same plan with multiple entries anyway, so lets switch things up, a bit.

Still, I’d like the Syracuse vs. West Virginia/Kentucky in the final, if possible. This time Syracuse is my winner, assuming both entries make it that far, West Virginia/Kentucky my Final Four pick, Maryland my Elite 8—and when I say Maryland, I really mean winner of Maryland/Michigan State, which I have no idea about, but I’ll pick that team over Ohio State—Baylor as my Sweet 16 pick, and that lets me use #2 ranked Ohio State today.

Got to love this reverse rationalization to justify the supposedly less risky play today.

Well, there you have it. The best laid plans. Hopefully I’m still alive after today to take this plan into the Sweet 16 round. Good luck everyone!

Okay, maybe I shouldn’t be giving strategy tips for our annual March Madness Survivor Pool. Looking back at my past results, I got knocked out on the first Friday last year, the first Friday the year before, and I got knocked out of the Elite 8 back in 2007.

This should not be surprising of course since I don’t really follow college basketball during the season until the big tournament. Perhaps some knowledge of the teams, and who is hot and who is not, and how they match up is a good idea plunging head first into a pool like this.

Or… this pool is a lot like a lottery. It is going to take some luck, some planning, and some more luck to hit on the right combination of picks to stay alive to the end and outlast the competition. Yes, yes! That is it! At least, that is the angle I’ve taken before and I’m going to continue to take.

What can I say? Admittedly, I’m not a big basketball fan, even though I have acceptable height to play, but I really get juiced up about this tourney every year. I find myself watching as much as I can—usually while working away at my computer—right through to the end of the last of the late games.

My first over-exposure to the Madness was in 2007, and it was crazy intense how many late game heroics there were. The heart, the passion from these kids leaving it all out on the floor—that is the epitome of sport. That is why we watch.

Of course, it never hurts to have a little money on the line too to add to the intensity. That is where the pool comes in, and while I’ve chalked up luck as a big factor in my (future) success, lets touch on that planning aspect. If you’re not sure of the rules, here is a quick overview:

• Pick a team, any team on the schedule, to win on the first day—today!
• If that team wins, then pick another team to win on the second day, Friday.
• If that team loses, then you are out of the pool.
• Repeat picking teams to win through every round as long as they keep winning.
• You cannot, and this is key, pick the same team more than once.
• The last person (or persons) to survive to the end, wins the pool.

There are some detailed rules about tie-breakers which could come into play, because with a pool like this following a knockout tournament and you can’t pick the same team again, it is possible to run out of teams to choose from.

The pool rounds are broken down as Round 1 Thursday, Round 1 Friday, Round 2 Saturday, Round 2 Sunday, Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final 4 and Championship. This first weekend is tough, because you’ve got to hit a winner on four straight days. And clearly the idea here is, pick a team that you expect to win early, but not go any further or much further in the tourney. You need to save your best teams for later.

So, opening round I’m looking for a good middle seed while saving the top seeds to when after the smoke clears through the weekend. Here is a list of the top favourites according to my online sportsbook Intertops.com, as of this morning:

So who sticks out for Thursday? BYU over Florida and Texas over Wake Forest perhaps, using a #7 or #8 seed early. For the more risk-averse, there is a trio of #3 seeds in Georgetown, Baylor and New Mexico. Georgetown has the name recognition, so one would be inclined to save them for a later round.

I had BYU in as my early pick, but that had more to do with testing the pool than putting much thought to it. A lucky coincidence perhaps? Hmm… I may have to just buy two entries, putting one on BYU and the second on New Mexico or Baylor.

Time to go do some quick tourney preview reading and research. There isn’t much time though. Tipoff is just over a couple hours away. Enjoy the games!

Round 4, a.k.a. The Elite 8, was a messy round for us in the March Madness Pool. We lost 8 total due to 4 picks on North Carolina, 2 on Kansas and 2 on Memphis. That leaves 9 heading into the final 2 rounds, so just when you thought we were going to have everyone coming down to the wire here, we can see it is tough sledding when the choices are limited.

And with the Final Four on tap, a quick glance shows 8 of the 9 alive entries can only have 2 teams to pick from, as they’ve already used 2 of Georgetown, Ohio State, UCLA and Florida. Mike’s entry has 3 choices, having only used Florida so far. Tough to say if that is a blessing or a curse. Florida looks strong, and haysie #1 and Mean Machine are the only ones not to use Florida, so these look to me like the odds on favourites to take the pool. We’ll see.

The next round games are on Saturday March 31 starting at 6:07 Eastern, Georgetown vs. Ohio State. The UCLA vs. Florida game tips off at 8:47. The Final is April 2. We will definitely be doing this pool again next year!

Okay, I’m first to admit that I’ve never been much of a basketball fan. I’ve gone to the occassional Toronto Raptors game. I’ve watched a little bit on TV. It just never did much for me. This might go back to being a below average basketball player myself, which was only exasperated by a poor excuse for a high school coach who never taught me a thing.

That all changed with this year’s March Madness tournament. Now, I likely wouldn’t even be paying attention to the biggest U.S. college basketball event of the year if not for creating the March Madness Survivor Pool, but I have been paying attention and I’ve got to say – I’m impressed with this sport. There have been so many down to the wire finishes, clutch plays and eye popping athletic moves, its hard to take it all in.

I still don’t understand the fouls in basketball. The reach in. A slap here, a slap there. The “loose ball foul”. I don’t understand which team that gets called on. Certainly, I’m still a basketball noob, but a little more watching and I’m sure I’ll start to pick up on these nuances.

As for the Survivor Pool, we started with 25 and lost 1 in Round 1, and 5 in Round 2. Now with the number of games reduced dramatically, and the teams seeded a lot closer together, the choices are getting tough! Not to mention at this point its hard to not think about saving a team for later, the sure death sentence of all survivor pools. I like Georgetown and North Carolina to both win in Round 3 setting up a #1 vs. #2 Regional Final. Which one I like better in that game though, I haven’t got a clue. Flip a coin time…