In Reply to: By way of explanation posted by TheHappyBurgermeister on March 19, 2026 at 15:27:06
I do two brackets. One, that I've only done maybe 3 or 4 times ever (all in very recent years), is a complete bracket all the way out to the championship.
The other, which I find much more fun and interesting, (and which I've done for decades), is round-by-round. I put a dot next to the team I predict will win a round's games. As the games conclude, I write in the winning team and final score. AFTER tomorrow (Friday) night's games, for example, I'll go through and put dots next to the teams I predict will win Saturday's and Sunday's games.
As for scoring, at the end of each round, I'll "score" my sheet by counting up how many games I got right. So my score on Friday night will be xx/36 (including the 4 play-in games). On Sunday night I'll see how I did and note that I got xx right out of 16 games over the weekend.
That system is easy and fun for me, without needing to use calculus. ;-)
(I only got 2 of the 4 play-in games right, so not such a good start.)