Thoughts on Point Progression

The point progression will determine how many upsets you should pick. If you're in an exponential pool, ie the points per round go 1-2-4-8-16-32, you pretty much have to hit your champ.

A 32 point miss is just too much to overcome. The champion in this method is worth the same as the entire first round. This is fundamentally wrong as picking the champ is much easier that hitting the entire first round which has never been done in the history of mankind as far as I know. The advantage here is to the lucky picker. Jan from accounting can pick Oklahoma State because her dog is from Oklahoma and win the whle thing cause she's the only one to get 32 points in round 6.

A linear progression, 1-2-3-4-5-6 or multiples thereof, you can miss your champ and make up for it with a couple round 3 hits. This method gives the advantage to the smarter picker and this is the correct way to run a pool.

So tell those exponential pool runners to cram it.