Rethinking - and Revising - the ALACS Scoring System

Let’s get to the point right away: the first draft of the year-round ALACS scoring system was flawed. Aside from being unnecessarily complex, the scoring system failed to differentiate between degrees of difficulty, effort, and time involved in different events. Put concisely: every event held identical significance. First place in the NBA Playoff Bracket Pool scored you just as many points as first place in a seven-month long fantasy basketball season. Clearly, this is both illogical and unreasonable.

The scoring system was initially designed with the six-event requirement in mind; we wanted to make sure that someone playing in all nine events had no advantage over someone playing in just six. However, our idea from the start of this project was also to encourage participation in as many events as possible – and the original scoring system did nothing to accomplish that goal. With every event weighted with equal importance, and an average of each participant’s ‘total’ score taken to determine a year-round champion, there was little incentive for someone to play in a game they didn’t consider themselves an expert in.

Now that I’ve had a little time to tinker with this, I think I’ve found a solution – a scoring system that both rewards people for playing in as many events as possible, but also doesn’t discriminate against those of you who choose not to play in every game. Here’s how it will work.

There will be three “levels” of ALACS events, each with a different set of point values that will be distributed to participants based on how they finish. In this link, you will find two tabs: the first tab shows the current ALACS Standings. The second tab shows the new scoring system.

ALACS Year 1 Standings and Point System

In the first level, we have the PGA Majors Competition and the NBA Playoffs Bracket Pool – two pure guessing games. In the second level, we have the two spread competitions – which take a moderate amount of effort, since participants are required to submit picks every week – as well as the NCAA March Madness Pool, which is given more importance than the Level I events because of its prestige and the certainty that it will be the ALACS Event that the most people participate in every year. Finally, we in the third level, we have the three fantasy games, which require a participant to actively manage a roster over an entire season, and the NFL Survivor Pool.

Some people might scoff at the Survivor Pool’s inclusion in the third level – after all, it’s just as much of a guessing game as the bracket pools and spread games – but keep in mind that the Survivor Pool requires a $55 buy-in. This might also be the most exciting game in the ALACS on a week-to-week basis. Not only will you be rooting for an NFL team every week with a life-or-death state of mind, but you’ll have plenty of other teams to root against – the most popular picks in the pool, the teams that, if they lose, would eliminate a bunch of people you’re competing against. It’s going to be fun, and the brainpower behind this ALACS project would like to see the NFL Survivor Pool blow up.

Now, there are a couple of other caveats to the scoring system that are extremely important. Let’s turn to another round of ALACS FAQ to answer some questions you may have.

Q: This is (expletive) ridiculous. I didn’t even get a chance to play in ALA Fantasy Baseball, and now all the (expletive)s that are playing fantasy baseball have a chance to earn way more ALACS points than I can in the events I’m playing in. How is this fair? (expletive) this, I quit!!

A: Alright, calm down. First of all, it’s important to remember that only 10% of each prize pool is going towards the ALACS Master Pool –playing in an event will always be profitable if you do well, regardless of the overall ALACS implications. Moving on, I’m well aware that not everyone had a chance to play fantasy baseball – which is why we’re including a special fantasy game rule for the first year of the ALACS (and the first year only). Participants in all three fantasy games will only get to use two of their ALACS fantasy scores to go towards their year-round total. Though you could still argue that tri-fantasy players have a small advantage since they have three games available to pick those two scores from, the bottom line is that if you were to play in two fantasy games and do well in both of them, you won’t be getting slighted. And if you don’t do well in the two games you play in (which would be basketball and football), you can’t expect us to jump through hoops for you. Besides, the two people currently leading ALA Fantasy Baseball are almost certainly not going to play in the six events necessary to qualify for the year-round title, so calm the (expletive) down.

Q: So…remind me again why I should be playing in all of these games, rather than just the events that I think I’m going to do really well at?

A: I’m glad you asked. Another new caveat with this scoring system is that participants will use their six highest-scoring events to go towards their year-round total score – so if you screw up really bad with your PGA Golfers, it doesn’t hurt you. We’re not averaging all your games anymore; we’re just picking your six best ones. Again: we’re trying to reward participation with this bad boy.

Q: While we’re here, how are fantasy basketball and football going to work? Aren’t there going to be way too many people trying to play to fit in one league?

A: Indeed there will be – which is why the ALACS will support multiple leagues. Go big or go home baby!

If any of you have comments or thoughts related to the new and improved scoring system – please post them in the comments of this entry. I’ll be happy to respond to them. Thanks for reading and, as always, enjoy the games.