How a Mere Humanist Won the World Series Pool

Last year I, a mere humanist, won the World Series pool at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford. Since the World Series once again approaches, I thought I would share the reflections behind my stunning accuracy in picking the Dodgers to win the series, and then predicting within three the total number of runs scored. (I said 35. The actual total was 32.)

My reasoning went something like this. It was obvious that Oakland should win last year--so obvious, in fact, that everyone was likely to pick Oakland. Given this, the winner of the pool would be the person who came closest to predicting the total number of runs scored.

Since I had no better idea how many runs would be scored than anyone else, the chances of my winning with such a strategy seemed slim. So even if I had little chance of winning by picking the Dodgers, I decided that I had a better chance of winning by picking them instead of the almost-certain winner, the Athletics.

This was the first stage of my reflections. I then realized that I was surrounded by very intelligent colleagues, many of whom knew neat things about probability theory, statistical analysis, meta-theoretic strategies for decision under uncertainty and heaven knows what else.

These very intelligent colleagues would obviously reason just as I did, with the result that everyone would pick the Dodgers.

I decided to fool them by picking Oakland after all.

Then I realized that my very intelligent colleagues would see this, too, reverse their positions, and everyone would go back to betting on Oakland. Could I fool them by reversing my position one further time and betting on the Dodgers? Not a chance.

I came to the conclusion that there was no rational way to pick which team to bet on. The deciding factor was that I grew up near New York City and was a Brooklyn Dodger fan as a kid.

Now, about the aggregate number of runs: Having chosen the Dodgers, it seemed to me that they could win onlyin a low-scoring series. So I staked out the bottom end of the scale with a ridiculously low number. As it turned out, it was not as ridiculous as the actual number.

After making my bet, I saw that my reasoning was deeply dumb. Even if the Dodgers won four low-scoring games, there was a good chance the Athletics could win up to three high-scoring games.

What I should have done was look up the total runs scored in the Dodgers/Mets playoffs and then tack on a few extra runs because the Athletics are a somewhat better-scoring team than the Mets. Those few at the center who picked the Dodgers in the pool seemed to have adopted this plausible strategy--with the result that they lost and I won.

I won the World Series pool the way the Dodgers won the World Series: for no apparent reason.

For those who are about to place a wager in a Giants-Athletics World Series pool, I suggest that you follow your instincts and put your faith in Pascal’s thought: “The heart has its reasons, which reason knows not of.”