23 January 2014

Buffett Billions [update]

For some reason, unknown to me, Corey Chivers' (Buffett Billions) finds the following comment objectionable (as I type, at least). Check out his post, anyway, flawed though it is.

Reviewing reporting doesn't answer the important question: is the $1 billion per perfect bracket, or shared among all perfect brackets? There appear to be none reported in history, which folklore likely led to the idea. History shows that no 16 seed has won in the first round. 15/14/13 seeds not much better. Few Black Swans in the early rounds. And so on. Later rounds yield more "upsets" (lower seed winning), since the remaining teams are more evenly matched (assuming the seeding committee is smart). So that really big number doesn't really apply. Those who are college basketball junkies have a reasonable shot at getting it right.

IOW, this really isn't a prob/stat problem, but more OR based.

[update]
Some numbers that add perspective.
Some more numbers that add more perspective.

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