Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Coin Flip Challenge Week 8 Results

Week 8 of the Coin Flip Challenge was truly remarkable. Never in my wildest imaginations did I think that what occurred this week was possible. Out of fourteen picks, the Coin Flip managed to garner one correct selection. You read that right! The Coin Flip got 1 out of 14. I’m sure there are some math people out there that can give the actual odds of picking one out of fourteen correctly but I have to imagine that it’s at least 1,000 to 1. Since the Coin Flip doesn’t differentiate between the match-ups, the coin has a 50/50 chance of picking a game correctly. So, the Coin Flip’s feat is the same as flipping a coin fourteen times and getting heads 13 times and tails once. I don’t know exactly how to figure this out but I can give a ballpark figure. Since the Coin did get one pick correct, we’ll give him/her 1 out of 2 which is what the odds should be on any given flip. If we take 1 out of 2 picks away from 1 out of 14, that leaves us with 0 out of 12. So, I’m guessing that the Coin Flip’s fate is somewhere in the ballpark of the odds of flipping 12 straight heads which I think is 1 out of 4096. I’m confident that the actual odds are different (and probably a little less) than that but it has to be somewhat close. My math skills leave a lot to be desired so don’t trust anything I say. I do feel comfortable saying that the odds were astronomically low of picking 1 out of 14 games correctly.

Regardless, the Coin Flip truly defied the odds this week in achieving the worst pick selection I’ve ever seen in my life. In fact, I would doubt that there are too many people out there that have seen a group of picks that were this poor. If there’s someone out there that can pass along the odds of picking one correct game out of 14 selections, I’d appreciate it. To be fair, the coin did get a push in one of the games so it’s more like one out of 13.

Overshadowed by the Coin’s record setting week was my 8-5-1 week which I desperately needed. That was good enough to put me at .500 for the season which is an accomplishment in itself considering how terrible my first two weeks were. Over the last seven weeks, I am 45-36-3. Aside from my 10-19-1 debacle in the first two weeks, I’ve actually managed to put together a respectable season. In just three weeks, I went from a one game lead to a fourteen game lead thanks, in large part, to some very bad luck by my worthy opponent.

Here are the totals to date:


Jake--------55-55-4
Coin Flip---41-69-4

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