Multiple contest scoring with flexible prediction

a multi-contest, flexible technology, applied in the field of computer-implemented competitions, can solve the problems of little or no chance of winning the office competition

Inactive Publication Date: 2012-09-27
BETTEROFFICEPOOL CORP
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0029]Accordingly, a user may provide a first round of predictions that provide a higher score, but a subsequent round of predictions that provide at least some score if one or more first predictions are not met.
[0030]Accordingly, a primary outcome of teams and or matches will be awarded a higher number of points, but if one or more teams are not present for certain matches, predictions will be used to generate lower points for alternative winning teams if they were predicted to win based on the participant's team selection rules. The accompanying drawings are not intended to be drawn to scale. In the drawings, each identical or nearly identical component that is illustrated in various figures is represented by a like numeral. For purposes of clarity, not every component may be labeled in every drawing. In the drawings:

Problems solved by technology

For example, in a “March Madness” (NCAA Men's Basketball National Championship tournament) competition, if the team that a player predicts to be the tournament champion is eliminated in an early round then that player likely has at that early time little or no chance to win the office competition because many of his or her future predictions are already proven to be false.

Method used

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  • Multiple contest scoring with flexible prediction
  • Multiple contest scoring with flexible prediction
  • Multiple contest scoring with flexible prediction

Examples

Experimental program
Comparison scheme
Effect test

example 1

An Employee of a Company Wishes to Run a March Madness Office Competition

[0090]The March Madness tournament starts with 65 participants (teams), a pair of teams playing for the right to continue in the tournament a couple of days before the rest of the games begin; for this example that pair of teams is considered to be a single team in a 64 team tournament.

[0091]The employee downloads a software application that implements an embodiment of a competition program. When run, the software application sets up an internal company web page that other employees of the company can access, the web page optionally implementing password protection giving access only to players who have been invited to join the competition.

[0092]Players use a graphical user interface (GUI) to prepare their entries in the competition (commonly referred to as a “bracket”). The top half of the computer screen presented by the GUI shows the bracket, which represents the single elimination format of March Madness. T...

example 2

An Employee of a Company Wishes to Run a World Cup Soccer Office Competition

[0097]The format of the World Cup Soccer championship is as follows: 32 teams are arranged into eight groups of four teams per group. In the first round of competition each team plays three games, one game against each of the other three teams in their group. Two teams from each group advance to the second round (referred to as “The Round of Sixteen”).

[0098]Starting with the round of sixteen the rest of the competition is a single elimination tournament which can be represented with a bracket similar to the one used for March Madness. The initial positions in this bracket are determined by the results of the first round games. The team in a group with the best first round record is placed at some predetermined position in the bracket and the team with the second-best first round record is placed at some other predetermined position in the bracket. Before the tournament begins, without knowledge of the result...

example 3

A Participant Wishes to Enter a Web-Based Competition Relating to the Outcomes of a Tournament

[0102]The participant receives an email from the person in his office who has volunteered to run the company March Madness pool this year (the “administrator”). The participant clicks on a link in the email which brings up a browser prompting him to enter the group password contained in the email from the administrator. After entering the password, the browser prompts him to create a password protected private account for himself. The participant then proceeds to specify an ordering of the 65 tournament teams by dragging teams up or down in a list displayed by his browser, thus specifying rankings of the teams in the March Madness tournament. When finished, the participant clicks on “Submit” to enter the competition. The user can return to his private account at any time before the start of the tournament and make changes to his rankings. Once the tournament has started the participant can ...

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PUM

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Abstract

Embodiments of the invention relate to hosting a competition on a computing device, wherein the competition allows participants to select a first set of predicted winners for a predetermined series of matches in a tournament and a second set of predictions for winners if one or more of the first set of predicted winners are eliminated earlier than predicted. The competition may be implemented in any suitable computing system environment, including, but not limited to, a web-based competition hosted on a remote server, a private or company-based competition hosted on a private or company computer.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) of U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 61 / 216,449, entitled MULTIPLE CONTEST SCORING WITH FLEXIBLE PREDICTION, filed on May 18, 2009, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.FIELD OF INVENTION[0002]Embodiments of the invention relate to computer-implemented competitions.BACKGROUND OF INVENTION[0003]Workplace competitions where employees try to predict the outcome of multi-contest sporting events (sports tournaments) are a common form of entertainment and contribute to camaraderie and an enjoyable workplace environment. In order to minimize the loss of productivity suffered by the company due to employee time spent participating in such competitions it is common practice to run the competition in such a way that employees can submit an entry (list of predictions) before the start of the tournament and then either spend time monitoring the outcome or not spend time mo...

Claims

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Application Information

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Patent Type & Authority Applications(United States)
IPC IPC(8): A63F9/24
CPCG06Q50/34G06Q10/04
Inventor EHRLICH, MICHAEL S.
Owner BETTEROFFICEPOOL CORP
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