A friend and I have started a side-bet for ESPN’s Streak for the Cash. Realistically, we know that neither of us will ever put together a long enough streak to actually win, so we figured why not make things a little more interesting.
Our bet: take a couple of stats about our contest entries each month, run them through a calculation to convert them into points, then highest points at the end of the month wins.
We tested our calculation in June; it went down to the wire, but I squeaked out a victory in the last few hours. (I believe it was a WNBA pick, my bread-and-butter apparently — who knew!)
The Formula
points = current streak (winning or losing) + longest streak (winning or losing) + (total wins / 4) + (5+ winning streaks * 1) + (10+ winning streaks * 2) + (15+ winning streaks * 3) + (20+ winning streaks * 4) - (5+ losing streaks * 1) - (10+ losing streaks * 2) - (15+ losing streaks * 3) - (20+ losing streaks * 4)
Our formula is interesting because it rewards consistency with an added bonus if you do it by winning. Also, if you really wanted to, you could brute force it with the (total wins / 4) part and try to pick every time you could, winning as much as you could and not caring about streaks. That hasn’t happened yet, but it’s certainly possible mathematically (although about as tough as putting together one great streak).
The Mobile Scoreboard
Steve had been keeping all of this in an Excel spreadsheet and sending me updates every couple of days, but I figured I’d take things one step further. Spending a couple of minutes here and there, I put together a real-time scoreboard for us. It’s mobile-targeted because it’s best for checking on-the-go and using with the official Streak for the Cash app.
We even picked up a couple more to turn our side-game into a mini-league. Nick and Patrick aren’t officially in the running this month (we just added Patrick today), but they’re practicing to hit the ground running in August. That month should be even better since we’ll be able to follow our “pennant race chart” all the way from the beginning of the month.
Also, next month will be the first month of our Ryder cup rule: whoever wins the month before automatically wins all ties the following month. That way you stay the champion until fully beaten.
