This article is part of our Survivor series.
Last year, we detailed the optimal Survivor pool strategy, which gives those who grasp it a significant edge. We don't have room to rehash all of it here, but the key points were:
Rules
Pick one team to win outright each week. If you are correct, you move on to the next week. If you're wrong – and the team loses – you're out. The last man standing is the winner. But there's one catch: You can't use the same team twice.
Pool Equity
While the short-term goal in Survivor is to survive, the only way to actually win is to survive while everyone else perishes. It is not enough to make it through Week 12 if 80 percent of your pool is standing right there with you. Your $10 entry in a 100-person pool would have an "equity value" of only $12.50 ($1,000/80) if 79 others are still alive, too.
So, while the Vegas odds can tell you how likely it is the team you're considering will win, they cannot tell you how much that win is worth to you.
Wait, aren't all wins worth the same because they mean you survived to the subsequent week? No, they're not, because making it to Week 2 with 50 people left is worth a lot more ($1000/50 = $20) than making it to Week 2 with 80 people left ($12.50.)
In other words, you have to consider not merely whether the team you're picking is likely to win in a
Last year, we detailed the optimal Survivor pool strategy, which gives those who grasp it a significant edge. We don't have room to rehash all of it here, but the key points were:
Rules
Pick one team to win outright each week. If you are correct, you move on to the next week. If you're wrong – and the team loses – you're out. The last man standing is the winner. But there's one catch: You can't use the same team twice.
Pool Equity
While the short-term goal in Survivor is to survive, the only way to actually win is to survive while everyone else perishes. It is not enough to make it through Week 12 if 80 percent of your pool is standing right there with you. Your $10 entry in a 100-person pool would have an "equity value" of only $12.50 ($1,000/80) if 79 others are still alive, too.
So, while the Vegas odds can tell you how likely it is the team you're considering will win, they cannot tell you how much that win is worth to you.
Wait, aren't all wins worth the same because they mean you survived to the subsequent week? No, they're not, because making it to Week 2 with 50 people left is worth a lot more ($1000/50 = $20) than making it to Week 2 with 80 people left ($12.50.)
In other words, you have to consider not merely whether the team you're picking is likely to win in a given week, but also how many others in your pool are likely to be using it. The more people using a team, the more you stand to gain in "pool equity" should that team lose if you avoid it. The only way to win a survivor pool is to own 100 percent of the pool equity. Surviving along with others merely earns you a split.
In last year's piece I laid out the methodology of using Vegas money lines to calculate winning percentage and "polling data" (from sites like ESPN, Yahoo or especially Officefootballpools.com, which has a higher percentage of paying, i.e., serious, pools) to gauge likely ownership levels.
Let's examine some of the assumptions in that methodology of which you should be aware before you stake your entry fees on it.
1. The average of the Vegas money lines is the best
barometer of a team's win probability.
You certainly could do worse than averaging Team X at -400 and Team Y at +350 to come up with +375 (375/475 = 78.9%) for the "true" odds of Team X winning the game. But keep in mind the Vegas numbers move throughout the week based on public betting, even if there's no major injury or personnel news.
In other words, Team X, according to Vegas, might be 78.9 percent on Wednesday and 80.3 percent on Friday, even though nothing's different about them or their opponent. Vegas is in part simply balancing the action on both sides, and is often incorrect about the teams. Over time, the Vegas numbers are pretty good, but that's on average. Regarding any single event, Vegas – and the public, which helps Vegas calibrate its lines during the week – can be dead wrong. And that one event might be the game on which your Week 9 30-percent equity stake is riding.
As such, you should consult the money lines only as reference points, but do not substitute them for some kind of "reality" about the teams. There is no reality except the game itself, and often your own instincts and analysis regarding it are worth heeding.
2. Polling data is largely reflective of how the ownership in your pool will be distributed.
During the first month of the season, in large pools with entrants spread out nationally in rough proportion to overall survivor demographics, I would strongly agree with this. The issue, however, is many pools are largely local, with biases toward or against certain teams with which people are more familiar. Even national pools might be skewed toward the Northeast or West Coast, leading to selections that line up unevenly with the wider national polling data on the sites.
Even more significant as you get deeper into the season, the data gets noisier because late-start or second-chance pools are added to the overall data. Perhaps 70 percent of people used the Patriots in Week 2, and then in Week 7 40 percent use them again – something that should be unlikely but could be explained if half of the Pats backers are from newly started pools.
Finally, some pools have mostly experienced, conservative players who disproportionately take big favorites, while others have more novices who will gamble on mild favorites without even consulting the Vegas numbers.
As such, you should look at the polling data as a rough guide and build in some margin of error, especially as the year progresses. After Week 8, I note the polling numbers in my columns on RotoWire, but I won't be swayed by them unless they are overwhelming, e.g., 60-plus percent are on a team that's likely to be available to many in my pool.
As the season goes on and fewer people remain, you should also track which teams your opponents have used and which they have available each week. Between the Vegas numbers, polling data and a spreadsheet with their likely choices, you can make an educated estimate of who will be on which teams, and then pick your own team accordingly.
Doing so one year actually won me a nice-sized pool. I was one of three people left and saw that neither of my opponents had used the Broncos – who were big favorites over the Raiders – and while they also had not used the Cardinals (who were big, but slightly lesser favorites), Arizona was the only team with an easy matchup the following week. I figured they would both take the Broncos and save the Cardinals, which they did. I took the Cardinals, which meant I would win the pool then and there if the Broncos lost and the Cardinals won. And that's what happened. Had my opponents won, and I lost, they each would have had only 50 percent of the pool equity, so deciphering what they were likely to do – apart from the polling data gave me a significant edge.
In sum, there's no doubt that the factors outlined in this space last year – likelihood of winning and ownership percentage – must be used in combination to optimize your Survivor Pool chances. But it's important to understand the primary tools we use to assess them are far from perfect.
