Interactive scenario exploration for tournament-style gaming

Abstract

A tournament-style gaming scenario exploration system and method for interactively exploring current and future scenarios of a tournament and associated pick'em pool. The system and method include a prediction module (including a game constraint sub-module), and a key event detection module. Embodiments of the prediction module include a binary integer that represents tournament outcomes. The prediction module generates predictions of tournament outcomes using an exhaustive or a sampling technique. The sampling technique includes random sampling, where the tournament bracket is randomly sampled, and a weighted sampling technique, which sample portions of the tournament bracket more densely than others areas. Embodiments of the game constraint sub-module allow real-world results constraints and user-supplied constraints to be imposed on the tournament outcomes. Embodiments of the key event detection module identify key games in the tournament that affect a user's placement in the pick'em pool, a competitor's placement in the tournament standings, or both.

1 . A method for projecting, predicting, and interactively exploring a user's expected performance in a pick'em pool based on a tournament having a plurality of games, comprising:
 inputting the plurality of tournament games, real-world results, and tournament odds for competitors in the tournament;   generating brackets of a plurality of outcomes of the tournament games to obtain a plurality of possible results;   scoring a user's picks based on the generated brackets; and   accumulating the scores in a manner that permits statistical inferences to be made about expected player and game outcomes.   
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising generating brackets by exhaustively generating and scoring each possible outcome of the plurality of tournament games. 
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising generating brackets by calculating and scoring a sample of possible outcomes of the plurality of tournament games. 
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 3 , further comprising selecting random samples of possible outcomes of the plurality of tournament games using a random number generator. 
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 3 , further comprising performing weighted sampling of possible outcomes of the plurality of tournament games by sampling some outcomes of the plurality of tournament games more densely and sampling other outcomes of the plurality of tournament games less densely. 
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 5 , further comprising:
 obtaining weighting information corresponding to the likelihood of a game outcome as provided by the plurality of tournament games, real-world results, and tournament odds for competitors in the tournament; and   performing the weighted sampling based on the weighting information.   
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 obtaining a scoring scheme for the tournament, the generated brackets, and the user's picks; and   scoring the user's picks according to the scoring scheme and prediction results of the generated brackets.   
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 7 , further comprising ranking the user relative to other users according to what the user's score would be if the generated bracket actually occurred. 
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 accumulating a running total of statistics from the plurality of possible outcomes of the generated brackets;   if the prediction technique is a weighted technique, then keeping an integer count of occurrences of each user in a certain ranking; and   otherwise, populating a table of users and user positions with a sum of normalized placements.   
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising applying constraints to the generated brackets to obtain constrained prediction results. 
   
   
       11 . The method of  claim 10 , further comprising:
 inputting real-world results of the tournament; and   applying a constraint mask to the prediction results based on the real-world results to obtain the constrained prediction results.   
   
   
       12 . The method of  claim 10 , further comprising:
 inputting a “desired game outcome” constraint supplied by the user; and   applying the “desired game outcome” constraint to the generated brackets to obtain the constrained prediction results.   
   
   
       13 . The method of  claim 10 , further comprising:
 inputting a “desired placement outcome” supplied by the user that specifies certain standings that are attained by certain users; and   applying the “desired placement outcome” constraint to the prediction results to obtain the constrained prediction results.   
   
   
       14 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 inputting tournament outcomes, counters, and a schedule of upcoming tournament games;   examining the counters to find correlation between tournament outcomes and user placements;   identifying key games affecting user placement using the correlation and the schedule of upcoming tournament games;   identifying key games that affect a user's placement in final tournament standing by examining the tournament outcomes and the counters; and   notifying user of the key games.   
   
   
       15 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising representing each tournament game by a N-bit bracket representation, where N is a number of games in the tournament and N-bit bracket representation is a Y-bit integer, where Y≧N and at least some bits of the Y-bit integer represent an outcome of a game in the tournament. 
   
   
       16 . A computer-implemented process for predicting outcomes of tournament-style gaming pool corresponding to a tournament, comprising:
 inputting a binary integer representing games and an outcome of the tournament;   predicting tournament outcomes using the binary integer to obtain prediction results; and   displaying the prediction results to a user.   
   
   
       17 . The computer-implemented process of  claim 16 , further comprising using an exhaustive prediction technique to obtain the prediction results by predicting all possible tournament outcomes. 
   
   
       18 . The computer-implemented process of  claim 16 , further comprising using a sampling prediction technique to obtain the prediction results by sampling a portion of all possible tournament outcomes. 
   
   
       19 . The computer-implemented process of  claim 16 , further comprising:
 applying constraints to the prediction results that modify the prediction results to obtain constrained prediction results; and   identifying as key games those games in the tournament that will impact a user's placement in a pick'em pool, a competitor's placement in a final tournament standings, or both.   
   
   
       20 . A tournament-style gaming scenario exploration system having computer-readable instructions encoded on computer-readable media for interactively exploring current and future scenarios of a tournament-style gaming pool corresponding to a tournament, comprising:
 a tournament set-up module that inputs core information about the tournament;   a prediction module that calculates predictions for different scenarios of the tournament, the prediction module further comprising:
 a bracket generation sub-module that computes the predictions using an exhaustive search technique, a random sampling technique, or a weighted sampling technique; 
 a game constraint sub-module that applies game constraints to the predictions; 
 a scoring sub-module that scores each user's picks according to a bracket outcome; 
 a player placement constraint sub-module that checks for and imposes user-specified constraints on the predictions generated by the bracket generation sub-module after scoring is performed; 
 an accumulator sub-module that keeps a running tally of statistics from different possible brackets generated by the bracket generation sub-module; and 
   a key event detection module that identifies events in the tournament that may be of interest to a user because the events have an impact on the user's final ranking in pick'em pool of the tournament.