Why Are All Three “Win The Season” Pick Sets The Same?

You may notice that our "win the season" pick sets are mostly the same, so we explain when you should expect some differences.

If you’re in a pick’em pool that features end-of-season prizes, you may have noticed something that looks a bit odd at first glance.

Although we show you three different goal-based pick sets designed for end-of-season prize pools (Maximize Profit, Win Something, and Avoid Bad Finish), all three of those pick sets might feature exactly the same recommended picks.

Why is that?

First, we should explain that our three goal-driven pick sets for season prize pools aren’t always the same. There are two scenarios in which their picks may differ:

  1. Later in the season, when your pool is in its final weeks
  2. All season long, for point spread-based pools that don’t use confidence points

In the case of #2 above, our research has shown that for that specific pool type (spread based, non-confidence), it is almost always advantageous from a profit-maximization perspective to factor your current position in the standings, as well as other data like pick popularity, into your pick strategy. In those pools, from the very beginning of the season, the “Maximize Profit” pick set may take on additional risks to pick highly unpopular teams, for example, while the “Avoid Bad Finish” picks won’t.

However, the ideal strategy is different for the other three popular formats of pools:

  • Game winner picks with confidence points
  • Game winner picks without confidence points
  • Point spread picks with confidence points

In these types of pools, our research and pool simulations have shown that taking on extra risk to aggressively “fade the public” or attempt to differentiate your picks from the current leaders of your pool isn’t the best strategy until later in the season. For more explanation, please read the article about Endgame Strategy.

So for most of the season, in most types of pools with season prizes, our three goal-based pick sets will show identical picks. But for most users, that will start to change toward the end of the season, in the following ways:

  • Our “Maximize Profit” might suggest very different picks for a person in 1st place compared to a person significantly behind winning one of the pool’s big prizes.
  • Our “Win Any Prize” strategy is designed to be a bit more conservative, but will still suggest very different picks to a person “in the money” compared to a person who is “out of the money.”
  • The “Avoid Bad Finish” strategy is the exception. That pick set ignores strategic concerns, and simply picks the teams we project as most likely to win or cover the spread.

We could have hidden pick sets that are exactly the same, but we thought it would be less confusing to show all three pick sets for the whole season, rather than to suddenly start showing multiple different options during the final weeks.