I could see playing a -3 with a huge # of players and a few 10+ favs (that will never be -10 remainder of season) and the rest <= -4. You might be the only survivor after week 1.

If that's weird wtv

Save the FPS, for week 15 or 16 when you have a bunch of entries left and no good options, so you take both sides of a pick game.

Also, never take the Lions.

My pool has double picks week 4, 12-17. So it's not easy getting to the end playing the -5 to -14 favorites each week. And over touchdown favorites may be at a minimum this year. There may be some but it's likely Chiefs and Ravens games. You may have already used the Ravens week 1 or have them Week 5.

That's why I try to get a little fancy early. It really cost me this weekend. I only have 5 entries left in the pool so I am all but out if it being under double digit entries going into week 2. You need to have a boatload of entries before week 4 since that week is so challenging picking 2 teams (if you only have like 2/3 entries going into week 4 good luck running hot hitting both that week).

So I try to gamble a little with a team like the Lions to get through a bunch of entries and save the good teams.

I did end up slapping together an auto-scraper for the Nitrogen pools. Looks great so far but I’ll just need to double-check it after the week 2 picks lock to make sure I have the scraping all set.

It’s loading everything to a MySQL database. I can post some data periodically here, but if anybody wants to try building out some web/dataviz stuff on top of it, I can give you a read-only MySQL connection, just let me know.

You only had to look 1 week ahead to get to a week with 12 teams favored by 5.5 or more. 6 are favored by 7 or more.

This is a much better week to dip lower to be on a less populated pick. I like Arizona, Chicago and Cleveland this week. Chicago is -5.5. They're only of the smallest favored teams this week, but they have a much higher chance of winning than Detroit did in Week 1. They'll also have a similar pick %. 2% or less.

There's a lot of reasons to look ahead. This is one. Don't take an unnecessary chance on a Pick'emish type game in 1 for a 1% team when you can wait 1 week and get one at -5.5

Lions were -2.5 to 3. Bears are -5.5. Not that much different including their moneylines.

And if you think you can rely on the Browns or Bears to win games you are nuts. At least the Lions have Matthew Stafford at QB.

I get the overall point but you shouldn't be that much more confident with a 5/6 point favorite versus a 3 point favorite.

One has like a 59% win probability versus 68% probability. Sure 9% means something but it's 9%.

Nobody cares but I've been knocked out of Survivor pools more with these 7 to 9 point favorites everyone hops on where every public bettor is doing a 2 teamer teasing them down to -1 or -3 versus 3 to 4 point favorites that the public is opposite to (like the Lions last week).

Also the teams that also knocked me out last week were the 49ers (7 point favorite) and Colts (8 point favorite).

Again I'm not arguing but any favorite is susceptible. You should be attempting to handicap these games at this point and if you are not you are being lazy. you should be tracking line movement (+ the ML) and trying to read the line to see if you pick up on anything.

Blindly looking for 5 to 9 point favorites and also playing them stronger if they aren't the top Survivor play of the week is hoping and praying.

I'm going to pretend I never read the 2 posts above this.

Slammed Cleveland last night. They were picked between 3 & 4% in 4 of the pools. 6% in another.

Taking Arizona, Buffalo & Chicago in the rest.

Not to pile on, TheWhoWhat has gotten adequately rekt, but holy cow this is a disaster.

Then to follow up immediately by saying you should be handicapping in a survivor contest. How can you be drawing so dead while actively participating in a thread where some of the people just tell you the answers?

I was asleep at the wheel this year jammed with other things, and didn't buy nearly as many entires as I wanted to. Thankful for the dealine being Monday for Week 1 at Nitrogen as I didn't enter any picks and had to take Steelers accross the board.

I have spent less than an hour thinking about NFL since last season ended. So pretty much just winging it for right now. This week I am diverse on Chicago, Buffalo, Tennessee and Tampa Bay plus a little on Arizona and a single pick on Seattle.

Decided to pass on Buffalo. Going more aggressive since I got through with Cleveland. Arizona and Chicago tomorrow.

Chaaaaalk

Days like yesterday, the people who had high iev due to low popularity plays sort of won sklansky bucks, and people who had low fv plays picked up equity but its just kind of hard to see right now, like the savings in the A's derived from charging players for soda in moneyball. Its hard to see, but it's there.

This was basically me yesterday. Didn't overly love any picks so went pretty wide. Lost a bit of ev on the higher fv teams, but overall I'm content to generally have a wide range of options available going forward across pools.

Week 3 looks like it will have some better teams to take stabs on.

I made a shitty PHP site to display data on the Nitro pools: https://survivor.trythis.dev/

Right now it has summary data listed by pool. I'm gonna add a few more things over the next week or two (per-entry pages, per-user pages so you can see all your live entries in one place, etc.).

awesome thanks!

Amazing. DM me your btc or eth address and I'll ship you some coin

This is cool and helpful, thanks.

It seems like you have a floating point/rounding issue that you could improve on if you want to. E.g. I'm looking at a pick that was 6/296 in a contest and it's calling that 3% when its much closer to 2%. Also many that are much closer to 0% than 1% are shown as 1%.

Thanks, good catch, I’ve got a ceiling() call somewhere that’s inappropriate. I’ll get it fixed up.

My pool has double picks this week. Tough week for double picks. Trying to decide if I want to risk it and not pick indi but I may just take them and hope to survive. Don’t feel great about getting through without them.

What are your other 2x weeks?

Either way, I wouldn't take Indianapolis.


Everyone has Indianapolis left (since they lost in 1). Most will take them this week.

Look at 6. The best picks are Baltimore, Indianapolis & LAC. LAC will likely be the highest picked team in 6. Therefore, you don't want to take them there. Baltimore has much better spots and won't want to take them. Indianapolis will be the best selection in 6. SAVE them for 6.

If Indianapolis loses in 3, you'll be in a great situation (as long as your 2 teams win).

With 2x in 3, Cleveland is a no-brainer. It's best week to use them and they're the 2nd highest favorite. Pairing them with LAC makes a lot of sense since you won't pick them in 6 anyway (I'd prefer to save them for 8 though)

I'd take Cleveland AND Arizona, New England or Philadelphia

Weeks 3 and 7 are the 2x weeks.

I have Cleveland and New England in one entry. Currently have Cleveland and chargers in the other entry but still undecided on that one. My is picking indi and cardinals for her entry. So I guess I’ll try to get through without using indi.

For the most part... I'm taking New England in every entry that I didn't use them in. Taking Cleveland in every entry that I didn't use them in 2. Filled in the holes with LAC & Philadelphia (1 entry)

Had a very hard time deciding between Arizona & LAC. Saving Arizona for 9 was the deciding factor. However, having LAC for 6 & 8 is just as good or may have been better. Had to feel play that one

I'm a sucker for win percentage so I ended up with 10 of my 27 entries on IND

Ride or die on Browns this week