ODB wrote:Strangelove wrote:Farhan Lalji wrote:Here is my road:
...
Stanley Cup:
-Canucks def. Pens.
Wow Farhan, that is EXACTLY how I drew it up this morning for my playoff pool!
Seriously:
EXACTLY!!What are the odds of that??
Now I know what you're both going to think but...
Wow guys, that is EXACTLY how I drew it up this morning for my playoff pool!
Seriously:
EXACTLY!!What are the odds of that?
OK, that two guys pick the exact same winner in each of 15 games is two raised to the fifteenth power, or 32,768 to one.
That a third guy picks the same 15 winners is another likelyhood of 32,768 to one, so if you combine those odds you get a sweet two raised to the thirtieth power, or 1,073,741,824 to one. Roughly a billion* to one.
However, this is the chance that all three of you would end up with the same results
if you decided the winner in each game through a coin toss. Assuming that you actually take into consideration how likely a team is to beat another specific team, and assuming that you actually do have a clue (going out on a limb here), the chances that you end up with the same results is far greater than that.
I mean, just by assuming that you are all going to predict that Vancouver wins the SCF, there are 4 matchup outcomes that are given. That in itself reduces the first equation (two people making the exact same prediction for fifteen matchups) to a mere two raised to the eleventh power, or 2,048 to one, and adding ODB makes it raised to the 22nd power, or 4,194,304 to one (ie four million to one). Then add that no one thinks the panthers can beat the devils, etc, and the likelyhood that you'll all pick the same keeps increasing.
Then again, the odds that all three of you figured that the hawks would play
both the preds and the yotes
in the first round, given that the league has already postulated that the Preds will face the Red Wings - yeah, the odds for that must be
at least ten billion to one.

*
using American numbers; traditional British would be a milliard to one, but in the last thirty years or so most Britons have become so americanized that they have started using billion for milliard too, when in fact a billion traditionally used to be a million millions in Britain rather than the mere thousand millions that make up a billion in America.