Tournament of Books discussion

Bracket is ready to go for your predictions HERE! You have until Mar 7th 10pm PST to finalize your selections before I freeze the sheet.

Fill out the yellow column with your picks and the subsequent rounds will auto-populate as you go down the list (so make sure you run top-to-bottom or you'll make predictions that don't make sense e.g. picking a winner you previously bumped out of the running.) Then copy>>paste-special >>Values (if you just copy-paste, I can fix it later) into a column on the right & remember to add your name to the top of that column so you get credit for your predictions!

We'll use this thread for complaining about our picks going out early, debating the likelihood of zombies and generally kvetching about our poor prognostications. (And eventually congratulating the winner)

Thank you Amy! What a guessing game!

Thanks for your spreadsheet skills as always, Amy!

It looks like the 25 guesses so far only have 4 books represented in the predictions for the champion (although a few are blank that far down). Very interesting that there are a few "likely winners" and no guesses for the other 14 books so far.

I'm thinking the biggest potential "upset" is with round one - if Tender is the Flesh wins that round (and others), we could have another Normal People situation on our hands, which we really don't need this year...

Is anyone familiar with Tobias Carroll? I did a quick scan of his website and don't see anything that would make me think he'd like to throw a wrench in the ToB (for most of us, anyway). ;)

Lauren wrote: "Is anyone familiar with Tobias Carroll? I did a quick scan of his website and don't see anything that would make me think he'd like to throw a wrench in the ToB (for most of us, anyway). ;)"

From my initial research, it looks like he likes fiction in translation (writes Words Without Borders’ Watchlist column) and horror. Which, obviously, makes me nervous in this situation!

Heidi wrote: "Lauren wrote: "Is anyone familiar with Tobias Carroll? I did a quick scan of his website and don't see anything that would make me think he'd like to throw a wrench in the ToB (for most of us, anyw..."

Uh oh... thanks for the warning! (Although to be fair, I love books in translation and am not necessarily opposed to horror - just not a fan of this book).

If that were to happen, I think Deacon has a shot at getting back in through zombie votes. So all hope might not be lost on that one still winning in the end.

Lauren wrote: "...getting back in through zombie votes...."

I think that depends on people's strategies in casting their zombie votes, and I'm really curious about that.

Do people zombie vote for the book they really truly want to win? (But isn't that book likely to remain in anyway, without the zombie vote.)

Do people zombie vote for the book they love most that they think is likely to be eliminated along the way because it is somewhere in the middle for most folks?

Do people zombie vote for the book they love most that they think other people dislike?

What's your zombie vote strategy?

Phyllis wrote: "Lauren wrote: "...getting back in through zombie votes...."

I think that depends on people's strategies in casting their zombie votes, and I'm really curious about that.

Do people zombie vote for..."

I've done all of the above, in the past. This year I had such a hard time choosing, but in the end I voted for Red Pill. Not because it was my favorite, but because I worried about it not even making it through the Play in, and really think it deserves some good discussion. And it's so 2020, I could imagine it winning the year...I also thought my other favorites were more likely to make it to further rounds.

I’ve tried to game my zombie vote in the past, but that always seems to backfire. Now, I give my zombie vote to the book that (at the time I vote at least) I’d be most upset at not having remain in there, even if I think it’s got the legs to go all the way without me. Because anything can happen and usually does in the TOB. I think that’s why I voted for Leave the World Behind this year (though Telephone would probably get my vote now that I’ve read it).

Adam wrote: "I’ve tried to game my zombie vote in the past, but that always seems to backfire. Now, I give my zombie vote to the book that (at the time I vote at least) I’d be most upset at not having remain in..."

Me too, with Deacon King Kong.

In the years when I vote, I always pick the book I love most at the time of the voting.

This year, I'd only read one, but I wasn't a huge fan of that one, so I abstained.

My Zombie vote is usually for the one book on the short-list that I've already read by December. I usually regret it because there's often a book I love better that I read in January or February.

Natalie wrote: "In the years when I vote, I always pick the book I love most at the time of the voting.

This year, I'd only read one, but I wasn't a huge fan of that one, so I abstained."

me too. I'm trusting in the process this time!

Phyllis wrote: "Lauren wrote: "...getting back in through zombie votes...."

I think that depends on people's strategies in casting their zombie votes, and I'm really curious about that.

Do people zombie vote for..."

Good question. Last year I voted for Girl, Woman, Other because I adored it but wasn't sure it would do too well in the tournament. Same for My Sister, the Serial Killer the year before. This year I have multiple books I'd like to see win, but while Sharks is probably my favorite of the bunch, I hadn't seen any mention of zombie votes for it in this group before the deadline. I went with a pick that I saw a few others vote for, that I also thought doesn't have the greatest chance of doing well on its own in the tournament - Luster.

Based on the 2020 zombie vote results, I think there are a ton of folks who vote who don't show up in this group (or even in the Commentariat), and it looks like most of those votes go to the most popular books (ones that an average reader most likely heard about by December). With that I'm guessing Deacon and Vanishing Half will end up with the most zombie votes this year, although with the award wins, Shuggie and Chinatown could be in the running as well. But, each year comes with surprises (some better than others), so who knows?

Lauren wrote: "Based on the 2020 zombie vote results, I think there are a ton of folks who vote who don't show up in this group (or even in the Commentariat), and it looks like most of those votes go to the most popular books (ones that an average reader most likely heard about by December)....."

So that brings up a whole new level of intrigue. I don't know how the Tournament organizers handle the zombie votes, but I'm guessing they take the next two books (not still in the bracket) that have the highest number of votes. That would militate toward not worrying about whichever books you think are a clear landslide for the 1st and 2nd slots, and voting for your favorites after those.

Does anyone have intel on the actual mechanics of the ToB zombie process (I'm pointing at you Amy, among others)?

Finally had a chance to look at the brackets. Interior Chinatown vs Luster is a first-round bummer. Tough road for We Ride Upon Sticks which I'm rooting for. Didn't consider Deacon King Kong would be a #1. I think Interior Chinatown would have been a better choice.

Overall it looks great. I don't think I'm going to be reading any of the ones I haven't before the tourney. If something is making a run, I may try to read it during the tourney.

Phyllis wrote: " That would militate toward not worrying about whichever books you think are a clear landslide for the 1st and 2nd slots,..."

Aye, and there's the rub.

I think we've all tried that at one time or another and watched our favorites, clear shoe-in's for the finals, get booted by a judge in early round voting.

I've been burned that way, so I no longer pretend to be able to predict a "clear landslide" for 1st and 2nd slots. Remember, it only takes one vote to bounce a book from the bracket, but it takes a bunch to bring back a zombie.

Game the system at your favorite book's own risk....

Tim wrote: "I think we've all tried that at one time or another and watched our favorites, clear shoe-in's for the finals, get booted by a judge in early round voting...."

I feel like we learn this all over again every single year.

Alison wrote: "I feel like we learn this all over again every single year."

100%!

And every year I lament the fact that I read my favorite book after the voting closed.

Bretnie wrote: "And every year I lament the fact that I read my favorite book after the voting closed."

Yes - this is the really frustrating part. The zombie vote comes so early following the shortlist.

But I imagine that's what the judges for the ToB zombie rounds feel like too.. How in the world do they manage to get those books read in time for the rounds (unless they've already read the whole shortlist)?

The zombie polls close so early precisely so that the zombie-round judges have enough time to read their two books and write their judgments. I'm pretty sure all the judges get the same amount of time to prepare their judgments, no matter which round they're judging.

Natalie wrote: "... I'm pretty sure all the judges get the same amount of time to prepare their judgments, no matter which round they're judging."

Hm. I'm probably not thinking of something correctly about how the process works. But I don't see how it would be possible, in reality, for all of the judges to have the same amount of time available. I'm using this year as an example. Warning: the next 6 paragraphs are me thinking out loud through my imagined process of organizing the ToB, which I've hidden behind a spoiler so that you can readily skip to my imagined conclusion in the final 2 paragraphs, or of course skip this all together because I am an overly nerdy systems geek and nobody else worries about these things.

(view spoiler)[I believe the ToB organizers and judges all know which books will be on the short-list and the brackets long before they announce them publicly. But it seems like there are two dates that are pretty much carved in stone. First, there is the cut-off date for a book being in the tournament at all, which seems to fall about mid-November, so this year no reading could begin until shortly before the longlist release date of 11-20-2020. Second, the one thing the organizers cannot control is the outcome of the zombie vote, which they can't know before it happens, this year midnight 12-30-2020. Do you guys think / know whether the organizers also use that zombie vote to seed the books for the brackets? If so, then they couldn’t even assign books to the play-in and first round judges until early January, right?

I presume the play-in and first round judges actually know which two books to read long before the tournament begins (starting to read probably in late-November/mid-December, but could be as late as early January), and they make their decisions and those decisions are passed on to the quarter round judges a little less long before the tournament begins. (The actual judgments for this year would have to be written and provided to the organizers not later than early March, so they can get them up on the website and do the booth talk, etc, for the play-in & first rounds that happen March 8 - 18).

Based on that, then the quarter round judges know which two books to read a little less long before the tournament begins, and they make their decisions and those decisions are passed on to the semi-round judges even less long before the tournament begins. (The actual judgments for this year would have to be written and provided to the organizers not later than mid-March, so they can get them up on the website and do the booth talk, etc, for the quarter rounds that happen March 19 - 24).

Based on that, then the semi round judges know which two books to read probably not long at all before the tournament begins, and they make their decisions and those decisions are passed on to the zombie round judges. (The actual judgments for this year would have to be written and provided to the organizers not later than mid-March, so they can get them up on the website and do the booth talk, etc, for the semi rounds that happen March 25 - 26).

Based on that, then the zombie round judges read the book chosen by the semi round judges getting really close in time to the tournament now and the 3rd/4th place book as decided by the zombie vote (that happened back at midnight 12-30-2020), and they make their decisions and those decisions are passed back to all of the 17 or so judges. (The actual judgments for this year would have to be written and provided to the organizers not later than mid-March, so they can get them up on the website and do the booth talk, etc, for the zombie rounds that happen March 29 - 30).

Based on that, then all of the judges know which two book(s) to read (unless they’ve luckily already read those books) to make their decision for the final round. Whatever judgments they write for this would have to be written and provided to the organizers at least before March 31. (hide spoiler)]

So based on all of that, this is a giant relay that could fall apart at any step. I don’t know what everyone else’s experience is, but my own professional life tells me that people blow up deadlines all the time right & left. It looks to me like the absolute most time for the entire relay is most likely December 1-ish through February 28-ish, and that’s only 3 months (or about 13 weeks), during which 5 separate relay stages of reading & decision-making have to occur on-time every time (basically 3-ish weeks at each stage of the first 4 stages to read 2 books and make a decision, leaving 1 week for the final). If any judge misses a deadline, then the judge in the following round has less time to read & decide.

After thinking through all of this, I am in awe of the ToB organizers and the huge amount of work they are doing (in not-their-day-job) to put this on for all of us. It also makes me want to be a lot kinder to the judges, because if they are meeting their deadlines (in not-their-day-job) then they are far more remarkable than the average bear and truly committed to the success of the ToB.

Phyllis - yeah, basically I just commend the ToB crew for all this WORK over the years. 17th year and still mostly the original crew! Even the judges when they actually commit to reading 2-4 books that are randomly placed in their hands.


As far as the zombie vote goes, I usually do not vote, as I look at the field of 18 and see a bunch of potential favorites that I haven't read yet. Unless there is a book that I truly love and it seems like the other books just aren't my thing. But when the heck has that ever happened?

Phyllis wrote: "It looks to me like the absolute most time for the entire relay is most likely December 1-ish through February 28-ish, and that’s only 3 months (or about 13 weeks), during which 5 separate relay stages of reading & decision-making have to occur on-time every time..."

We could always ask the organizers.

Here's my rough calculation - starting with the same end point - the tournament should be wrapped up by the middle of March - and assuming that they give the judges half a month to read and decide, and working backwards, we have the finals the first half of Mar, the zombies in the second half of Feb, the round of 4 in the first half of Feb, the round of 8 in the second half of Jan, the opening round at the beginning of Jan, and the play-in round in the second half of December - maybe a little earlier, since it is three books.

Tim wrote: "Here's my rough calculation - starting with the same end point..."

Thanks, Tim, for simplifying what took me so many words to say.

Lauren wrote: "Thanks for your spreadsheet skills as always, Amy!

It looks like the 25 guesses so far only have 4 books represented in the predictions for the champion (although a few are blank that far down). V..."
I thought the exact same thing and feared writing it and risking it actually happening. I'm still not over the NP Fiasco and this would be just as bad for me. DKK is my absolute favorite of the tournament thus far, though I still have three entrants to go. Please, God, let us not have the cannibals win out over the genuinely humane.

three comments...
1) Andrew has agreed that TheMorningNews will cover swag (from the TOB Store) for our bracket winner again this year (yay!)
2) Zombie Votes are simply totaled by votes with the final list hinted at but never fully revealed (either in count or actual order in the case where the semi-final winner may have received high # of votes as well). I feel like I can predict what the zombies will be with some certainty based their amount of buzz to the general public but what I can never predict is a judge dumping my favorite because the one I knew it would take out hits them just right. (ARGH!)
3) We had a great AMA thread where Nozlee answered all sorts of questions like those just listed about the process and timing, including about how they narrow that longlist down and whether any leaks ever occurred. Highly recommend!

Amy wrote: "three comments...
1) Andrew has agreed that TheMorningNews will cover swag (from the TOB Store) for our bracket winner again this year (yay!)
2) Zombie Votes are simply totaled by votes with the f..."

yeah, but then something like Stephen Florida manages to be a zombie! (Which I just ordered today...)
Amy, I'm a spreadsheet dunce and the window for seeing the actual bracket guesses is too small to see. It's telling me to make my screen bigger but that is the biggest my screen gets (laptop)? Any hints so I can see them?

C wrote: "how do I make the screen bigger...?"
there should be a sizing drop down on the left right below the Title (to the right of a printer and paint roll icon). If you click on that, you can up the size to 200%

Amy wrote: "C wrote: "how do I make the screen bigger...?"
there should be a sizing drop down on the left right below the Title (to the right of a printer and paint roll icon). If you click on that, you can up..."

Oh magic! I actually had to lower the size to see the bracket portion though but never would have found that. Thanks Amy!

When does the first match get posted? It's March already, let's get going!

Karen wrote: "When does the first match get posted? It's March already, let's get going!"

Karen, it is March 8 through 31. https://themorningnews.org/tob/

Thanks!! I had bookmarked the wrong place.

I thought I started one but never finished and now I see I'm not there. I'm gonna try to enter info at this later hour--sorry!

I'm thinking tomorrow is when people's brackets start getting seriously busted.

It looks like our predictions are pretty evenly split for tomorrow’s matchup, so about half of us will be happy at least. ;)

The column of my bracket and Bob's that he started and didn't finished were squeezed down to the minimum width, I am not sure why but I did fix that. Not sure if i updates you when others make edits but the only thing I changed was column width.

I think there are seven of us who are three for three so far? I'm expecting my "winning" streak to be disrupted very soon though...

Lauren wrote: "I think there are seven of us who are three for three so far? I'm expecting my "winning" streak to be disrupted very soon though..."

I count the same (although the google sheet's calculations are broken by people having inconsistent choices for what cell to put their play-in winner in)

Congrats to Jenny - I believe you're the only one who's four for four!

I believe I'm 1 for 4. This is my worst start in...1 year?

Simms wrote: "Lauren wrote: "I think there are seven of us who are three for three so far? I'm expecting my "winning" streak to be disrupted very soon though..."

oh! I'll see about fixing that!

Lauren wrote: "It looks like our predictions are pretty evenly split for tomorrow’s matchup, so about half of us will be happy at least. ;)"

this one was a serious upset (Seed-wise) so one half of the group is very happy!

Oof I am already stomach-clutchingly nervous about tomorrow.

How are the points calculated? I see some who are 3 for 4 at this point have 6 or 7 points, but some of us have 4 points for the same amount of correct guesses... Sorry if I'm missing something obvious!

Lauren wrote: "How are the points calculated? I see some who are 3 for 4 at this point have 6 or 7 points, but some of us have 4 points for the same amount of correct guesses... Sorry if I'm missing something obv..."

So glad you asked this, Lauren. I've been wondering too.

There's a problem with the google sheet equations - it only calculates the play-in round correctly if people merged the three play-in cells or put their winner in the top cell, as far as I can tell. I'm guessing that is part of the discrepancy in people's points.

Correct guesses in the opening round are worth 1 point PLUS any differential for an upset. So correctly guessing Deacon King Kong was worth 1 point + 0 upset but guessing We Ride Upon Sticks is worth 1 + 3 upset points (4th seed beating a 1st seed). Quarterfinals are worth 2pts + upsets, semi-finals worth 3pts + upsets. Final is worth 5 pts and no extra for seeding because
if they’re finalists they’ve earned their rank at that point.
If Tender is the Flesh ran through the tourney and won the final, the guesser of that outcome would be unbeatable!

Amy wrote: "Correct guesses in the opening round are worth 1 point PLUS any differential for an upset. So correctly guessing Deacon King Kong was worth 1 point + 0 upset but guessing We Ride Upon Sticks is wor..."

And Zombies are worth?

Brock wrote: "Amy wrote: "Correct guesses in the opening round are worth 1 point PLUS any differential for an upset. So correctly guessing Deacon King Kong was worth 1 point + 0 upset but guessing We Ride Upon S..."

:) ha! picking a correct zombie gets you 5 points per correct pick while the outcome of a zombie round gets you x4. Upset pts still apply at Zombie Round time.

Amy wrote: "Brock wrote: "Amy wrote: "Correct guesses in the opening round are worth 1 point PLUS any differential for an upset. So correctly guessing Deacon King Kong was worth 1 point + 0 upset but guessing ..."

Oh wow, that's a lot to keep track of - thanks for managing all that for us! :)