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Odds | History | Rules
Go Flank Yourself - Longshots Take It All!
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Justin Rice 9
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Rob Doane 8
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Dave Cross 2
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Brad Merrill 0
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Go Flank Yourself, ranked 50th in the 84-team field, edged perennial favorite Nest of Spies by a single point to take the 20th Run for the Slivers in the 2011 WBC Team Tournament. The 150-1 longshot scored three bonus points in the WBC handicapping system for scoring in events which they had not won previously as Justin Rice and Rob Doane were rewarded for their first titles in Here I Stand and Battles of the American Revolution respectively while Dave Cross also picked up a bonus point for his third place finish in Conquest of Paradise. The Nest, in contrast was ineligible for bonus points from its three scorers who had combined for 17 titles in their respective team events as the prohibitive favorite settled for also-ran status for the fourth year in a row.
The colorfully named Amish Chicks Dig Wood overcame 83-1 odds to take third a mere point behind the Nest—and 31 places above its 34th ranking—fueled by the CCA and WOG titles of Bill O'Neal and Rob Winslow respectively. That put them one point ahead of the MIT Strategic Gaming Society whose lock on the two Titan events remained firmly controlled by Dave Finberg and Aaron Fuegi. The 5th place Shockers and 8th place Band of Fools were the only teams able to score points with all four members.
The year's biggest over-achievers were the 62nd-ranked Team Looking Glass who eschewed recruiting ringers and fielded a strictly famiiy squad to overcome 264-1 odds to finish in the Top Ten. Also thumbing their noses at the Happy Handicapper were the ladies of the aptly named Lady Luck whose estrogen ignored 340-1 odds to finish 19th.
With a substantially smaller field, shutouts decreased to 28, but remained steady at approximately a third of all entries. The highest ranked squad to post nothing but goose eggs and thereby earn the 2011 title for Most Overrated was the 21st ranked Gang Green. However, the second-ranked Win or You're Grounded squad was the highest ranked team to fall out of the Top 25—and it did so while scoring one measly point. So much for "manly men".
The Werewolf Bait team retained the Misery Loves Company title with 506 entrants for an average of 126.5 entrants per event while scoring 5 points. On the opposite end of the scale, claiming the Big Fish in the Small Pond title with but 3 points were the Gaming Speed Bumps whose 97 total entrants averaged just 24.25 players per event. In all, 22 Team participants (6.5%) won their selected events—down from 38 (9%) in 2009 and 33 (8%) in 2010.
Predicting all of this doesn't appear to be so easy after all. Overall, the Happy Handicapper held steady with 14 of his top 25 picks making the Top 25 cut—the same as last year—and keeping his five-year average at 56% which is apparently more than any of the rest of us can say. On average, contestants in our Team Tournament prediction contest correctly picked only 2.44 teams in ten guesses as making the Top Ten—down from 2.66 last year. Mark Love's 2009 winning score of six correct guesses in our initial contest remains the high water mark as this year's high score was just five teams—selected by Bruno Wolff who was the only entrant to manage 50% accuracy in 2011. Bruno correctly selected #2 Nest of Spies (as did every other entrant), #4 MIT SGS, #8 Band of Fools, #6 Central Florida Gamers and #9 Tell Me the Odds in that order. Bruno wins a free 2012 membership for winning our annual Bracket Busting Contest.
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