Results 1 to 18 of 18
  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles

    DBR Election Pick 'Em Contest -- with Jason's Blessing!

    Jason's poll on this Board as to the outcome of the Presidential contest is great, and I don't mean in any way to disparage that or crowd it out. That's why I got Jason's pre-approval for this thread and for this contest I've put together for anyone interested. I thought it would be fun to pick not just the winner of the election as is done in Jason's poll, but to have contestants pick the outcome of each swing state (and a few others suggested by Jason) and see who can do the best job prognosticating with a little more precision. Winner gets ultimate respect from his/her friends on this board and a pat on the head.

    So here's what I did. I set up an online spreadsheet that each contestant can go to and enter your own picks for each of the 13 states that I have included. We're sharing the spreadsheet online. For instance, just making it up, a contestant may pick Romney to win Florida, Obama to win Pennsylvania, Obama to win Colorado, and Romney to win Virginia, just to shorten the example and use those 4 states. If Romney wins Florida, that entrant gets 29 points, as Florida is worth 29 electoral votes; if not, he gets zero for that state. If Obama wins Pennsylvania, that entrant gets 20 points, if not, he gets zero. Etc., etc. Once it's over, I will tabulate (or the spreadsheet will) who has scored the highest. Obviously, correctly picking states like Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania is more important in winning this contest than is correctly forecasting New Hampshire, which is worth only 4 points.

    I'll also tabulate who has picked the most winners without regard to electoral votes. For instance, so-and-so picked 11 of the 13 swing states included in this game correctly and missed two, so his 'record' would be 11-2. That kind of thing.

    I've been thinking about this for a little while and apologize for getting it up and running so late, as the election is only a few days away. But hopefully there will be some interest. I also am not great in the tech department. I think this site that I found and this spreadsheet are pretty simple and navigable. I probably am not even aware of some of the features available, so if you find something interesting on there, please share.

    OK, want to play? Easy. Here's how:

    1. Go to zoho.com.
    2. Sign in with the username of dbr.election2012 and the password of duke91920110 (those are our 4 championship years; easy to remember)
    3. on the lower right of the screen, under "Productivity Applications" click on "Sheet"
    4. A blank spreadsheet should appear. On the extreme left of the screen, hit the File dropdown menu, and on that drop down, click on 'open.'
    5. Click on DBR Election 2012 Pick 'Em. That should open our shared spreadsheet.
    6. Put your name on the spreadsheet in Column A under Entrant, at the bottom, as you're adding your name to the list of previous entrants. My name will be the first one, and those who follow me will put their names below mine. Obvious.
    7. Then for each of the 13 states going across the sheet in columns C through O which list the states and their electoral votes, simply enter "Obama" or "Romney" depending on which candidate you think will win that state.
    8. When you're done, hit the Save button which is just to the right of the File button you used in step 4 above, just above the scissors icon. That's it. You're done.

    You can go in and change your picks anytime you like. We are on the honors system here though -- please don't change anyone else's picks! One caveat: it appears that only one person can be working on this spreadsheet at a time. So if you get a message saying it is unavailable or something to that effect because it's already open or someone else is working on it, just exit out and try again shortly. But that points up how important it is for all users to save their selections and exit out when they're done, so as to allow others to get onto the site and play. Make sense?

    All selections should be made by midnight EST on Monday night, which is 9 PM out here on the west coast, the night before Election Day. I don't know if there's a way for me to lock the spreadsheet at that time; if there is, that would be the best.

    OK I think that's it. If there is interest and action on this, I'll post some updates in this thread as to how things are looking, how they're trending, etc. just for general interest and fun. Enjoy!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Location
    Roxboro, NC
    I tried but it didn't give me the option to save it. It only allows me to 'save as' which I assume would just create a new document.

    It might be easier for people to just send you there picks or just post them here, and then you can can add them to the spreadsheet?

    *update; I went back into it and my picks were still there so maybe it saves automatically? Let me know if you can see my picks as well.
    Also, there are currently 5 files when I went to the 'open' tab. The first had your picks and the next 4 just said 'test'.
    Last edited by nocilla; 11-02-2012 at 08:51 AM.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles
    Quote Originally Posted by nocilla View Post
    I tried but it didn't give me the option to save it. It only allows me to 'save as' which I assume would just create a new document.

    It might be easier for people to just send you there picks or just post them here, and then you can can add them to the spreadsheet?

    *update; I went back into it and my picks were still there so maybe it saves automatically? Let me know if you can see my picks as well.
    Also, there are currently 5 files when I went to the 'open' tab. The first had your picks and the next 4 just said 'test'.
    Yes, I just went in and checked and your picks are there. Maybe they do save automatically, but I don't think so. Could be wrong. I tried to test for that yesterday and thought you had to actually save them, but again, maybe I'm wrong. Still best to try to save them of course. But bottom line is, you're in!

    As for the 'open': yes, I notice that the last 4 or 5 times the sheet has been saved are listed (some of them were my quick and hurried tests yesterday), so any new users should just click on the most recent version of the sheet (they're listed in reverse chronological order so it's easy to select the correct one) and input your picks on the most recent version, then re-save, so THAT now becomes the most recent version for new users to access.

    Despite it actually being pretty easy, if anyone really can't navigate this thing and wants to just put their picks here in either a post or a PM to me, I'll put them on the sheet for you though. No biggie.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!
    I did it but I think you picked a method that is sorta cumbersome. I may be wrong, but I think you could have created a Google spreadsheet and simply provided a link to it that would have done the exact same thing without all the logging in and complicated passwords. I could be wrong.

    -Jason "3 people entered and my picks are identical to one of them... I may need to revise... if only for the sake of variety" Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Lompoc, West Carolina
    How about allowing thoughtful, non-sniping opinion pieces, on why we endorse a candidate?

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!
    Quote Originally Posted by captmojo View Post
    How about allowing thoughtful, non-sniping opinion pieces, on why we endorse a candidate?
    I think that could be really difficult to pull off, but if you want to try it, PM it to me.

    -Jason
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles
    Hey guys we're up to 6 entrants in this thing! I know there are a lot of you out there who have been all over the Election thread for months, so come on, put in your picks and make this thing fun. 6 is better than the 2 we had after two days of the thread existing, so we're trending positively, but come on you guys. 6 is nothing. Get your picks in!

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Huntington Beach, CA
    Entered. It's a fun exercise. Thank you!

    I was curious to see AZ on the list of 13 states. I didn't realize it was competitive!
    No soup for you!

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!
    I may be wrong, but I think there is a really easy way to do this. Merely follow this link and then sign in with our username and password:

    Username: dbr.election2012
    Password: duke91920110

    --Jason "we need more voters... and Jumbo's votes do not count! Ha!" Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  10. #10
    I put a second set of votes on line 10 of the sheet. I hope that's OK.

    But that may not even be more ridiculous than Jim Cramer's picks. Mock at will:

    http://www.theatlanticwire.com/polit...-insane/58673/

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles
    Quote Originally Posted by JasonEvans View Post
    I may be wrong, but I think there is a really easy way to do this. Merely follow this link and then sign in with our username and password:

    Username: dbr.election2012
    Password: duke91920110

    --Jason "we need more voters... and Jumbo's votes do not count! Ha!" Evans
    Beautiful. Thanks Jason. I never claimed to be very good with figuring out even easy stuff like that.

    Big picture: we're up to 9 contestants, not including Scheyer, who is a shoo-in to win Illinois. But come on people -- get your picks in!

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles
    OK so we ended up with 14 contestants. A few folks have the exact same picks, but not many. Not surprisingly, everyone has Romney to win Arizona, which is not even a swing state. Everybody has Obama to win Michigan and Nevada, but other than those, there are disagreements on every other state. The biggest splits are in Virginia (8 have Obama, 6 Romney) and Colorado (9 pick Obama, 5 take Romney). OK, let's see what happens!

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Walnut Creek, California
    Was I too late? It was 11:50 PST.

    I thought I was in line when the polls closed.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles
    Quote Originally Posted by Jim3k View Post
    Was I too late? It was 11:50 PST.

    I thought I was in line when the polls closed.
    I'm not turning Jim3k away. You're in, of course!

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Location
    Roxboro, NC
    So, if Obama holds on to Florida then our winner will be Wander who will have correctly picked all the swing states. If Florida goes to Romney then we will have several people with just one incorrect pick.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles
    Quote Originally Posted by nocilla View Post
    So, if Obama holds on to Florida then our winner will be Wander who will have correctly picked all the swing states. If Florida goes to Romney then we will have several people with just one incorrect pick.

    Right. Pending the final results in Florida, our contest shakes out like this:

    Wander 138
    JasonE 138
    Kevin 138
    A-Tex 138
    Jim3K 138
    Me 138
    Bluedog 129
    DougIAm 129
    Dukeface 125
    Rasputin 125
    Nocilla 123
    SageGrouse 123
    El Diablo 116
    mph 116
    BD Browns 72
    mojo 64

    In terms of correct to incorrect picks, it looked like this, again pending Florida:

    The 6 who are at 138 were all 12-0
    Nocilla 11-1
    dukeface 11-1
    Rasputin 11-1
    Bluedog 11-1
    Sage 11-1
    DougIAm 11-1
    el Diablo 10-2
    mph 10-2
    mojo 6-6
    BDBrowns 6-6


    All together, the 16 players picked 170 correctly and only missed 22, or 88%. Not bad!

  17. #17
    Bam! Florida called, game, set, match.

    On a serious note, I didn't really do anything except pick Florida correctly. It was a 50/50 shot, and although I had reasons in my head that made sense for picking it for Obama, it was essentially just a guess, and I could have just as easily lost to tommy, Jason Evans, and the rest of you who had the same picks as me minus Florida.

    The lesson here is this: polling these days is really accurate, and good math, good statistics, and good science don't have political bias to them. Nate Silver may work for the New York Times and have personal liberal views, but that doesn't mean when he says 1 + 1 = 2, it's a biased or politically charged statement. Remember that for your 2016 predictions, and more importantly for those scientific issues that make their way into the political realm.

  18. #18

    Silver Robert Parker

    Quote Originally Posted by Wander View Post
    Bam! Florida called, game, set, match.

    On a serious note, I didn't really do anything except pick Florida correctly. It was a 50/50 shot, and although I had reasons in my head that made sense for picking it for Obama, it was essentially just a guess, and I could have just as easily lost to tommy, Jason Evans, and the rest of you who had the same picks as me minus Florida.

    The lesson here is this: polling these days is really accurate, and good math, good statistics, and good science don't have political bias to them. Nate Silver may work for the New York Times and have personal liberal views, but that doesn't mean when he says 1 + 1 = 2, it's a biased or politically charged statement. Remember that for your 2016 predictions, and more importantly for those scientific issues that make their way into the political realm.
    I think Nate Silver said he is more libertarian than liberal. I think the whole Nate Silver thing is kind of interesting. I heard much complaining about him and as I noted previously much of it showed a large degree of math ignorance in the pundit class. I honestly don't think it was all spinning with their criticisms. What Silver does is he is able to explain statistics in a manner that makes it clear to many people and I think some of this has to to do with his sports background.

    My only concern is that Silver could almost be too powerful especially if he would pull off another great year. In other words his predictions in a sense could become self fulfilling. Like how Robert Parker in the wine world wields power far beyond what an observer is supposed to do.

Similar Threads

  1. ACC Basketball Pick Em Contest With Duke Gear Prizes
    By airowe in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 7
    Last Post: 02-23-2012, 11:02 AM
  2. ACC College Football Pick 'Em Contest With Duck Shop Prizes!
    By airowe in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 08-31-2011, 08:42 PM
  3. This has been a blessing-in-disguise season, potentially
    By Troublemaker in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 21
    Last Post: 03-01-2007, 10:25 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •