There's a few threads on here about survivor pools. One in lineup discussion asking which team to pick (wrong forum) and the one here about how all the pools are 'ruined' due to Pats losing.

I want to start this thread so we can discuss picks for the upcoming weeks.

Looking at Week 3 I see a couple options.

Chicago vs StL - 9 point favorites
Dallas vs TB - 7 point favorites
NO vs KC - 9 point favorites
Pit @ OAK - 4.5 point favorites

In terms of Yahoo picks as of now, 27% picked new orleans, 21% picked San Fran. SF is a 7 pt favorite @ Minnesota.

11% are on Chi and Pit.
Only 2.69% on Dallas.

As it stands now I'm leaning towards Pit as my favourite pick. I think they are consistently decent, and Oakland just sucks so bad. There's also not that many good times in the future to use Pittsburgh.

A lot of people have strong principles about never picking a road team, or never picking a divisional game. I am not one of those people.

So that is the pick I like the most...at the moment.

I don't trust the bears and st. louis put up points this week against wash so i'm hesitant to take that. Also chi has some good future value.

I also don't trust dallas. They got stomped by seattle, and tb gave nyg a run for their money this week. Not going there.

I think Saints vs KC has to be my 2nd favorite. The saints look out of form, but I think they are too good to lose to KC. The saints eliminated me last year though in my 2nd chance pool, so i am a little wary to take them.

Lastly that San Fran @ Minny game wasn't even on my radar. They will probably win, but I'm not as comfortable with it as Pit @ Oak, and SF has way too much future value to use them now.

So as it stands in my 2 pools I'm looking at taking Pit and NO.

This is what you shouldn't do in a survivor pool.. You can't rely on saving the good teams for the future if you aren't there in the end..

But you really can't go wrong with Pittsburgh or NWO this week.. I wouldn't touch the STL/CHI or DAL/TB games.......

__________________
Zorro says "vote for Dobber"
Angus is my best friend at dobberhockey..
Bruins believer since BIRTH..
Fav player: Cam Neely..

i disagree. i think when making your pick you have to weigh a number of options, and probably give weight to them in the following order:

1) likelihood they will win this week
2) % of other teams in your league that will pick that team
3) future value

1) for 1 you can simply use the vegas moneyline, and perhaps some of your own intuition, but i don't know much about football so i just stick to looking at the odds.

2) yahoo (or espn, etc) tells you the % of people picking each team per week. it's fair to assume that your league will likely be similar to those numbers. as it gets deeper into the season you can cross-reference those %'s with the people in your pool to see if they even have those teams remaining. early a survivor pool it's safe to assume your league will be fairly similar to the yahoo default numbers.

3) future value is worth a lot and can be the deciding factor. i was going to write something on this, but i'm lazy right now so won't. maybe i will later.

my main point is that simply picking the team that is most likely to win each week is not the best way to win survivor pools.

i wrote about it more in this thread:
http://forums.dobbersports.com/showthread.php?t=138214

When I read this (other thread), it opened me up to a whole new way of looking at my weekly picks in survivor pools. Not to kiss too much a$$ but this strategy is brilliant.

For this week my picks are as follows:

Dallas
NO
Bears
Colts


*i'm a steelers fan and have a tough time picking them in pools like these*

don't overvalue it though. sometimes when there's no other reasonable options you just have to go with the popular pick.

I've lost my confidence in Pittsburgh.

In two leagues.

In one with 30 ppl remaining, 12 have already taken Chicago, which means it's unlikely for them to be taken by many teams in that league. Given that, and their odds of winning I am taking Chicago in that pool.

My other pool has 25 remaining. Only 6 have previously taken Chicago. I'd also prefer some diversity and not to pick the same team in both pools, especially when there's other respectable options, so I'm picking Dallas. Dallas and NO both have roughly the same odds of winning yet NO is a 6x more popular pick in Yahoo. I don't get that. Assuming my league picks similarly to the public, Dallas is a far superior pick than NO.

These picks are subject to change as they are due until 1pm EST on Sunday, but barring significant changes in the vegas odds it is likely what I'll go with.

surprised this thread gets no love. are people just not in survivor pools or do they not like to talk about options?

I wonder who took San Fran this week....

__________________
Straight Points keeper league. 4th year. Keep 5 Forwards,3 defence,1 goalie. *Keeper

F: Nicklas Backstrom*, Zach Parise*, Joe Thornton*, Mikko Koivu*, Jason Pominville*, Blake Wheeler, Joe Pavelski, Stephen Weiss, Derek Roy, Jakub Voracek, David Perron, David Krejci, Ryan Kesler

D: Mike Green*, Erik Karlsson*, Alex Pietrangelo*, Alex Goligoski, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Dion Phaneuf

G: Ryan Miller*, Tuukka Rask

Thinking of going Ravens for both my pools this week.

They are down to 4 and 11.

Other choices based on moneyline:

Atl vs Car -321 - I just don't feel comfortable going against Newton. ATL also likely the best pick in week 6.

Hou vs Ten -675 - This is actually the biggest moneyline favourite. I've used HOU in one of my pools, and I think they have a lot of future value. Namely weeks 9, 11, 15, 16.

Ari vs Mia -265 - This isn't bad. The odds of winning aren't great though, and I'd also like to keep them as an option to use in Week 12 vs STL.

Den vs Oak -285 - This is probably my 2nd favourite. DEN has limited future value except weeks 16 and 17. At the rate these pools are going I don't expect them to even go that long. I'd pick DEN here if they were a bigger favourite to win, but I'm not that comfortable with only a 6.5 spread and -285.

GB vs NO -335. GB should win this, but they have too much future value. Also may be rattled after that amazing MNF result.

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So those are really the only teams I'd even consider picking. I just don't see a strong enough reason to pick anyone over BAL. BAL doesn't have much future value except week 9 @ CLE and week 10 vs OAK. There's enough other picks those weeks, that I don't need to rely on saving BAL for it.

Lastly, I think another factor is I'm gone this weekend. It would be nice to see BAL win on Thurs and be relaxed that I'm advancing when I'll be unable to watch or even follow the games on Sunday. I think if I felt something else was a better choice I would take it, but this is a nice added bonus to taking Baltimore.

The only reason I'm considering not taking BAL is I imagine most people in my pools are taking them as well. So if I take someone else and win, and Baltimore manages to lose, I'll probably win the pool, or be damn close. I'm not sure if I can justify doing that at this stage of the pool though.