Prager's Brackets 2017!

It's that time again! Last year, with not Canadian teams, the interest (mine) was too low to bother. What a difference a year makes! The format will be the same as last time:

1. Every round, for each series, you pick a winner and the number of games. You don't have to pick all the rounds at once.
2. You start off with 4 points just because. You then get 2 points for each correct outcome (winner) you picked in round one, plus a bonus point if you not only picked the winner, but also the correct number of games.
3. Each round the points double, so in round 2 you get 4 points for predicting the winner and 2 bonus points if you also picked the number of games.
4. Picks are due by puck-drop of the earliest game in each round. If you do not get your picks in on time I will pick the home team in 7 on your behalf.

So each round carries a possible 24 points, and the four rounds plus the gimme points (I used to call them "ante up" when I ran it as a money pool -- you got 4 points when you paid in) add up to a possible 100 points.

The beauty of this set us is that nobody gets eliminated early on (like I did that one and only time I played a March Madness pool and my two picks for the Finals were done in the first two rounds). It also makes for some interesting "Hail Mary" picks in the later rounds.

PM me your picks. Feel free to change your picks until the last second. I promise I will not peek until after I have my picks done.

Here's a link to the last pool thread -- anyone remember who finished first?
http://www.gmhockey.com/t4349-prager-s-brackets-2010-edition

Here are the match-ups:

EAST

Atlantic
NYR (wc1) @ MTL (1)
BOS (3) @ OTT (2)

Metropolitan
TOR (wc2) @ WAS (1)
CBJ (3) @ PIT (2)

WEST

Central

NSH (wc2) @ CHI (1)
STL (3) @ MIN (2)

Pacific

CGY (wc1) @ ANA (1)
SJS (3) @ EDM (2)

When sending me your picks, please try to follow some kind of order (I suggest Atlantic-Metropolitan-Central-Pacific) and give the three-letter short version of the city/team (see post above) and the number of games in the series. For example: "TOR 4" or "TOR in 4" or even "TOR4".

P.S. I don't have my laptop anymore and no Excel, so I'll be using the pen-and-paper method (unless Google Docs version of a spreadsheet is better).

Just so everyone is clear, I am not reading any of my PMs until puck-drop Wednesday, most likely. So if you have a question, ask it here, instead, or clearly identify your PM as *not* being your picks.

Atlantic
NYR6
OTT7

Metropolitan
WAS6
CBJ6

Central
CHI6
MIN6

Pacific
ANA5
EDM7

I find it incredible cute that you think Toronto will win 2 games against, Hoff.  

You don't have to show your picks here. You certainly don't want to do this in later rounds when strategic picking comes into play.

Interesting picks. You think Columbus will just turn it on? Malkin is expected to be back. Also Fowler is gone 3-4 weeks, isn't he? Not saying Calgary will win easy but they've been hot and are probably not going to roll over in 5.

I already PM'd my picks prags. Hope it's okay as is. Haven't done the bracket thing in a while.

tim1_2 wrote:I find it incredible cute that you think Toronto will win 2 games against, Hoff.  

I think the refs will help and caps seem to lengthen playoff series based on past history.....also I am co-champion from last year and you will respect my authoritah

wprager wrote:You don't have to show your picks here.  You certainly don't want to do this in later rounds when strategic picking  comes into play.  

Interesting picks.  You think Columbus will just turn it on?  Malkin is expected to be back.  Also Fowler is gone 3-4 weeks, isn't he?  Not saying Calgary will win easy but they've been hot and are probably not  going to roll over in 5.

I thought I was PMing them but evidently not....I'll send the PM again. I think CBJ has a lot to prove this season, Torts will kick in a new gear and eventually think the penguins will just tire themselves out.

Hoff-Machine wrote:

tim1_2 wrote:I find it incredible cute that you think Toronto will win 2 games against, Hoff.  

I think the refs will help and caps seem to lengthen playoff series based on past history.....also I am co-champion from last year and you will respect my authoritah

Fair enough!

I too am an alumnus of the champions of the Pragers Brackets class of 2009 and I too find it cute Hoff

I sent you my picks

Have four picks in so far (including mine). Surprisingly, Google docs spreadsheet app was able to read in my Excel spreadsheet with all the formulas and conditional formatting, and almost everything worked right away. Just a bit of a quirk that when both the picks cells and the results column are empty the formula assigns the max points; that's not how it worked in Excel. Easy fix was to put bogus data in the picks cells (HOM7). Of course that will be over-written with the actual picks once available and, of course, the results column is filled in once the series is over. The "fix" is just so that we have actual totals before all series picks are in.

wprager wrote:Have four picks in so far (including mine).  Surprisingly, Google docs spreadsheet app was able to read in my Excel spreadsheet with all the formulas and conditional formatting, and almost everything worked right away.  Just a bit of a quirk that when both the picks cells and the results column are empty the formula assigns the max points; that's not how it worked in Excel.  Easy fix was to put bogus data in the picks cells (HOM7).  Of course that will be over-written with the actual picks once available and, of course, the results column is filled in once the series is over.  The "fix" is just so that we have actual totals before all series picks are in.

There's no "if" fonction?

Flo The Action wrote:

wprager wrote:Have four picks in so far (including mine).  Surprisingly, Google docs spreadsheet app was able to read in my Excel spreadsheet with all the formulas and conditional formatting, and almost everything worked right away.  Just a bit of a quirk that when both the picks cells and the results column are empty the formula assigns the max points; that's not how it worked in Excel.  Easy fix was to put bogus data in the picks cells (HOM7).  Of course that will be over-written with the actual picks once available and, of course, the results column is filled in once the series is over.  The "fix" is just so that we have actual totals before all series picks are in.

There's no "if" fonction?

There are *MANY* IF functions:

Code:

=+IF(LEFT($AE$12,3)=LEFT(B12,3),2+IF(RIGHT($AE12,1)=RIGHT(B12,1),1,0),0)+IF(LEFT($AE$13,3)=LEFT(B13,3),2+IF(RIGHT($AE13,1)=RIGHT(B13,1),1,0),0)+IF(LEFT($AE$14,3)=LEFT(B14,3),2+IF(RIGHT($AE14,1)=RIGHT(B14,1),1,0),0)+IF(LEFT($AE$15,3)=LEFT(B15,3),2+IF(RIGHT($AE15,1)=RIGHT(B15,1),1,0),0)+IF(LEFT($AE$16,3)=LEFT(B16,3),2+IF(RIGHT($AE16,1)=RIGHT(B16,1),1,0),0)+IF(LEFT($AE$17,3)=LEFT(B17,3),2+IF(RIGHT($AE17,1)=RIGHT(B17,1),1,0),0)+IF(LEFT($AE$18,3)=LEFT(B18,3),2+IF(RIGHT($AE18,1)=RIGHT(B18,1),1,0),0)+IF(LEFT($AE$19,3)=LEFT(B19,3),2+IF(RIGHT($AE19,1)=RIGHT(B19,1),1,0),0)

That's the function for one of the elimination round subtotal cells. That's the worst case because it has to add up the numbers for all 8 series. In Excel if the two cells were empty the if comparing left(3) returned false, but in google it returned true. Minor quirk that would only have affected intermediate results. No biggie. And, yes, I could have added one more IF to check for an empty results and/or picks cell but that would have made the above formula even more difficult to follow.