Now that we have our list of confirmed teams, I would like to make the annual IRI prediction and speculation a bit more interesting with a competition, featuring fabulous prizes.

OBJECTIVE:

Players compete to construct a bracket that matches the results of the 2017 Indiana Robotics Invitational as closely as possible with respect to alliance selection, playoff results, and teamups.

PRIZES:

The winner will receive a $25 Amazon gift card and second place will receive a $10 Amazon gift card, courtesy of yours truly.

SUBMISSION:

[LIST="1’]

[li]To submit, post a bracket on this thread with the following format:[/li]

1) 2056 118 33 4587 W 2) 1114 195 225 1405 F 3) 3620 67 3683 5254 SF 4) 1619 1241 133 868 SF 5) 217 2451 494 3641 QF 6) 2481 330 3824 1640 QF 7) 45 179 1806 233 QF 8) 2771 16 1024 1023 QF

Note: I will be using automated scoring and will only accept brackets with EXACTLY this format.

[li]Only one submission will be considered per player. If a player makes multiple submissions, only the most recent will be considered. [/li]

[li]Submissions must be posted by 11:59 pm Eastern time (not CD time) on July 7th to be considered and may not be edited after the deadline.[/li][/LIST]

SCORING:

All players will be ranked by their submissions. The first sort is total score, from greatest to fewest. Ties will be broken in favor of the player who submitted their bracket first. The player ranked #1 is the Winner. This scoring system is designed to reward correct predictions by penalizing both underestimation and overestimation of a team’s performance.

Scores for each player are calculated as the sum of three components, representing the quality of their submitted bracket’s predictions for playoff performance, alliance selection, and teamups:

[ul]

[li]Playoff performance: The sum, for each team in the submitted bracket, of min{ predicted_playoff_points, actual playoff performance district points }, where: [/li] predicted_playoff_points = predicted district points as if that team played in all playoff matches = 10 * (number of playoff rounds predicted to be won by the alliance)

[li]Alliance selection: The sum, for each team in the submitted bracket, of min{ predicted alliance selection district points, actual alliance selection points}. Note: third round picks receive no alliance selection points, and the second round points are awarded in the reverse order that they are given at district events, to account for the reversed second round.[/li]

[li]Teamups: The sum, for each teamup (i.e. pair of teams playing on the same playoff alliance) predicted in the submitted bracket:[/li]+0 if the teamup does not occur in an actual playoff alliance

+5 if the teamup does occur in an actual playoff alliance but the round (captain/first/second/third pick) in which one or both teams are selected is not correctly predicted

+10 if the teamup does occur in an actual playoff alliance and the round in which both teams are selected is correctly predicted

[/ul]

Where min{ a, b } denotes the minimum of a and b.

Disclaimer: my decision regarding the interpretation of any of these rules is final. I reserve the right to modify the rules and scoring criteria to provide clarification.