This Week in MegaBracket

Due to an abbreviated work week (today is my Friday) filled with busy work and nonsense, I have but this one post to offer for most and perhaps all of this week. MegaBracket 2013 is taking a bit of a nap as well, taking Monday – Wednesday off. However, we have our first PGA tour event of the year, using the User vs. User format that the original MegaBracketeers enjoy so much. Let’s get to the info…

This Week’s Deadlines

• John Deere Classic – Thursday. July 12 @ time TBA (likely around 7:00 am CDT)
• Lone Star Football League – Saturday, July 14 @ 7:05 pm CDT

User Vs User Format

For the John Deere Classic each user selects a team of five golfers and two alternates. The alternates are only used if any of your first five picks drop out of the tournament before completing the first round. The alternates are especially handy if one of your golfers is a late scratch from the event as often happens on the PGA tour. Your team score will be a sum of the scores of all five golfers. Two facets of the golf tournaments make for exciting events; first, the multi-day format allows you to track your team over four days, rooting for their success (and other players’ failure); second, with much of the field being cut after the second day, you watch your golfers navigate the cut line, hoping for a full team for the weekend. The penalty for any players that miss the cut is that you receive the worst score in the field for each round your players do not play. If you have 3 players miss the cut, your team will count the worst score of the round 3 times. Thus, the number of players making the cut typically makes a huge difference in the final standings. Ideally, you want your full complement of golfers playing on the weekend.

For user vs. user events, points are awarded based on your finish among all users. For MB 2013, the points are awarded as follows:

• 1st place – 80 points
• 2nd place – 72 points
• 3rd place – 64 points
• 4th place – 56 points
• 5th place – 48 points
• 6th place – 40 points
• 7th place – 32 points
• 8th place – 24 points
• 9th place – 16 points
• 10th place – 8 points
• 11th place or worse – 0 points

In addition, if you correctly pick the player who wins the tournament, you earn 32 bonus points. As you can see, the difference between placing high in the user standings and placing low is a large difference in points. The User vs User events allow for some volatility in the standings as many points will be gained and lost at one time.

An additional note for these events: the event field is monitored daily and changes are made to the website. For the John Deere Classic this week, the final sweep of the field will be done tomorrow evening.

Other MB Events This Week

• IFL Championship – Saturday
• IWFL Tier I and Tier II Semifinals – Saturday
• APFL Championship – Saturday
• LSFL Semifinals – Saturday
• Foxtel Cup Second Semifinal – Saturday

The busiest day of the young MB 2013 season occurs Saturday with 9 games worth a possible 160 points taking place, in addition to the John Deere Classic.

Event Winners

The IBL completed on Sunday, marking the first finished event in MB 2013. Greg, Jimmy, JP, and Ryan all finished atop the IBL Standings with 72 points, earned their first event win and collecting a 5-point event win bonus.

New Website Pages

Users now have the ability to view everyone else’s picks once the pick deadline has passed. There is an “All Users Picks” tab when you view an event after the deadline. You can view all the submitted picks in matchup form and if you are a member of any leagues, you can view your league member’s picks via the link in the right panel.