going Oak 4/4 I think - don't love the rest of their schedule. Carolina would be my 2nd choice if I decide to diversify but don't feel great about them

Anyone else in Nitrogen pools?

Oakland just doesn't have a softer game on the rest of their schedule.

Baltimore still plays @Browns and vs. Colts in December.

Seattle still gets another crack against San Francisco as well as home vs. Colts.

Ended up switching to 2x Oak and 1x Balt before locking them in after looking at the Oakland schedule in more depth they're a better team but no better weeks to take them than now

The only reason not to take Oak is ~50% of entries are on them. If they somehow lose, your pool equity will increase substantially.

That being said, they are a 14 point favorite, and if they win, everyone who took them this week should be in a better spot going forward than those who don't.

This is very well put

If Oakland were a 7-point favorite and had a 50% pick projection, I'd likely take none of them. Since they're a 14-point favorite, I'm going allin on them in little more than half the pools I've entered with multiple entries

I won't take them in a pool with over 1,000 entrants to start that runs into the playoffs which you can use each team 2x in the playoffs if you didn't take them during the regular season and only 1x if you did

my pool has 75 of 100 left.

i picked rams last week

oak this week still?

I will add the following semi-contrary insight to what has been said above.


The immed Ev piece is, as always, pretty straight forward, but as usual, the FV piece is what is subject to the most variance this early in the season.

I would not rate the Raiders the clearest option, as I am not as sold on their lack of FV as some are. There is so much variance in the FV assumptions this early in the season, that I feel that it should be weighted a little less than some sharp players do. I see variations where they could be -11 vs NYG later in the season where I might need double picks, just as an example.

Likewise, I think it is a little harsh to say "if you take Seattle you don't know what you are doing". Granted, they do have what appears to be several good spots later, but as I said, this early in the season there just exists alot of implied variance regarding anything that happens or could happen that far out.

Seattle's immed ev is clearly the best, and is a very reliable number, where their FV is simply less reliable. Do I think Seattle is the best play? NO, I still think that their FV , even with the variance, is too much to overcome to warrant top selection, but I honestly would not overweight the FV component of the analysis as much as some very sharp players might.

As for my selections, as BJ said, there are some good options, depending on your particular pool and which direction you want to take.

Ariz/Cincy/Balt/Raiders/Bucs/Car and yes even damn Seattle with all its FV are viable, imo---

Watch out for division rivals tho (bwahaha)

Apt post sheetsworld, I came here specifically to ask about Seattle.

I was originally planning to go Oakland, but with the current figures Seattle is way ahead on immediate EV. There definitely look to be other spots to use them, but as you say that's a higher variance figure, and none of the other spots as of now look like huge slam dunks or anything.

This is my first year playing so my sense of how much to weight saving teams isn't calibrated at all.

The more players in your pool the more likely the pool will go the distance. I told a friend today that was in a pool with 9 to start and has 4 remaining that he should take Seattle. His pool will be over before Week 10.

If you have over 1,000 people and/or need to take double picks later in the season, it's better to take Oakland over Seattle even though a lot of people will be on them

I'm right around 1,000 people and no double picks (pool is split after Week 17). By my math it's almost guaranteed to go the distance.

I just don't know if there will be another spot where Seattle is 12% better on immediate EV than my alternative. I would tend to think no, but like I said this is my first time.

It also seems to me like Oakland isn't clearly ahead of Baltimore and Carolina which have similar EV and are similarly limited on FV. I'd put TB in that group too, but hosting the Jets in Week 10 looks really juicy at the moment.

Very happy I didn't make any splashes on Cincy. Thought about it but refrained.

I went back and forth between having 0 cincy, to 12% on Cincy, to 0 on Cincy, and couldn't help myself and went 8% Cincy. If Big Brother had aired at 8pm instead of 9 I probably would have forgotten, and stuck to zero.

Crap.

I understand Houston didn't look much better, but I can't see any justification for having Survivor Pool exposure to a team that is going against a competent defense and scored 0 points in week 1.

Whoa, you actually think about football?

I only look at lines, pick %, and fv.

Also Bengals and the Houston Oilers have been division rivals before----I really should have known better.

#doublecrap

Anyone do their own EV calcs? Before I discovered SurvivorGrid I wrote a Python sim that does literally the exact same thing (uses Pinnacle lines and pick percentages to calculate EV).

Either SurvivorGrid has a bug or I do, and I'm pretty much positive it's them because I triple checked my code and sanity checked the math.

Sanity check: By foregoing Oakland you're getting *roughly* an 7% smaller pool if you win (14.6% chance of loss which eliminates 48% of pool = 7% fewer pool entries). As it turns out this is exactly what my monte carlo sim returns.

So Oakland = 85.4% to win times 1/(baseline pool size)
Carolina = 74.9% to win times 1/(baseline pool size * .93)

The napkin math shows Oakland as about 6% better (my sim says 8.5%). SurvivorGrid has Carolina as the higher EV play though.

And just writing that out I now realize I spent 2 hours writing a monte carlo sim for a math calculation I just wrote in 5 minutes in Excel. I mostly did it for coding practice (I'm a noob) so it wasn't a total waste.

I can confirm there are definitely bugs in the SurvivorGrid calc. I reached out to the owner earlier and am now regretting it. Hopefully he just blows me off.

Okay, as I should have expected my math was wrong, his wasn't.

went heavy on Oak.

6 Oak
1 on Sea, Bal, TB

I do a Survivor pool with an old boss and he was just screaming at me about how we have to put all 4 picks on Oakland.

Another friend of mine who is a terrible bettor told me he's taking Oakland for all of his entries because he wants to make it further this year since he's always out by week 3-5.

Just passing this along.

I fully agree Oakland is not the most ev pick this week

Lost a little already on Cincinnati.

Loading up on Oakland this week.

Taking a little Arizona, Carolina & Tampa Bay as well. Saving Baltimore for 6 and the end of the season.

Think Oakland is the best overall pick this week. Tampa Bay is the next best. They have 1 other clear play all year. Week 10 vs Jets. They'll likely be the highest picked team that week. Will end up taking them for some in that week too, but that'll be a great week to hope for that big upset to clear out 35%+ of the field

*** Green Bay a very important team to have this year. Try to save them for 10 @ Bears at the earliest use. You'll create separation between yourself and the field and have 2 great spots to have them for. 10 & 14

Agree with pretty much everything you post in these survivor threads Jayhawk but Balt for 6? They have three very winnable games the last three weeks and Washington is home to SF in week 6 which is the best (and really only) chance to use them.

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