March Madness Gematria

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 Alright, let’s go over again how sports gematria decoders operate.  Not the followers and joiners of the group discussions, but the leaders of the discussions.  You know, the ones with the Patreons and other fundraisers who could, if their system really worked, simply just place the bets themselves instead of relying on Patreon subscribers to have a steady supply of money flowing in.

Those screenshots are from my personal brackets that I made.  And yes, that’s right.  I’m on freaking fire.  That’s 15 out of 16 right.  The correct picks include getting a fair amount of upsets correct.  The one wrong pick in the entire set of games is #3 seed Kentucky losing to Oakland which lots of people are gonna have wrong.

Never in my life have I started off so well.  I have a working knowledge of basketball, mostly from watching a lot of pro games on TV in the 80’s and early 90’s.  I have watched college basketball on TV, too.  The working knowledge allows me to understand what is happening, the rules, coaching decisions, bad calls, etc….  What that doesn’t include the s anything even close to proficiency in predicting to make a career out of betting on games and expecting to make a lot of money.

For the record, this is on the ESPN Fantasy app.  And you can tell from the screenshots that it’s their format.  Like a lot of people I filled out multiple brackets, settling on four total.  The other brackets are just bland results.

None of my four brackets is truly busted yet.  (Certainly not the best performer).  The maximum final score still has heavy weighting on subsequent games deeper in the tournament.

Now let’s stay focused on the best bracket, beginning with my expectations.

Back to earth real soon, maybe even with the remaining games from the first round.

Weirdly, the lower rated brackets used ESPN’s auto fill features to complete it.  Instead of complete random I chose for it to weigh random picks by seeding.  The top performer used the same method, but with my brain inserting the occasional upset to not be so bland as picking favorites almost every game, at least until close to the finals like a lot of people do.

I’ve already done some things different here sports gematria decoders don’t and won’t do.  I’ve shared the full set of picks for today’s games.  That’s a big no-no for grifters.  The proper format for gematria grifters is one of two ways:

1). Don’t announce your “pick” until after the game is over, and lie about it claiming you made predictions in advance.

2). Go through a process, announced in advance, where you for all practical purposes pick both teams.  You may favor one narrative over another, but that leaves you an excuse for every loss.  That’s the preferred math but takes a lot more effort.  It puts on a show for the new Patreon recruits, too gullible to realize that you haven’t even announced your pick for the ultimate tournament champion, yet.  That’s another difference, I’ve shared who I have as the tourney champ.  They’ll never do that until somewhere around the point that it’s the Elite Eight or Final Four.

In both those scenarios, since I’ve forgotten more about the gematria grift than even the long time promoters will ever learn I can very easily concoct a gematria narrative justifying the winning pick.  And I know all the excuses for justifying when I got wrong.

Another difference, more for time restraints than planned  when I made the four brackets.  This entire post is spur of the moment and unplanned until I woke up and glanced at the phone and saw I was 12 for 12 at one point.  By the time it gets announced as a gematria “community” effort there are lots and lots and lots of brackets involved with varying degrees of success.  All averaging out to mediocrity because that’s the way static’s work.  You’re going to get a lot of congratulations to the winners and ignoring the many people that are already screwed that they picked Kentucky to go deep in the tournament.  An going a step with the announcing no-no’s, if and when I report on the next round, I’ve already picked NC State, fresh of an upset win to advance past Kentucky in round 2.  I must admit it feels good to think that Oakland’s chances of escaping again against a higher seeded team seems low.  Regardless, I don’t have NC State advancing further than that.

See the way actual predictions work?  See how I’ve mentioned SPECIFICALLY certain future outcomes I’m looking at?  See how I don’t actual declare them as PREDICTIONS, but they’re just PICKS IN MY BRACKET?

And you see how I didn’t go on social media (other than this blog) and try to sell my expertise to make a buck?  That’s the humility missing from the hard core monster truck rally announcer voiced Gematria YouTube video makers.  My future expectations are low because there’s a lot of luck involved.  And I’m not about to throw money into an endeavor that I see as mostly just a fun distraction while there are millions and millions of other picks that can trounce my final product.  Just like a football season is a long season, it’s a long tournament with a lot of chances for things to go wrong.