espn-survivor

This is a strategy solver for a fantasy-like NFL game I play with my friends and friends-of-friends. The game is also known as Last Man Standing, Knockout, Eliminator, Suicide, or King of the Hill.

The rules of the game

• The game starts at the beginning of the season
• Each week the players will choose one of the teams in the league. Different players can choose the same team if they wish.
• If a given player’s team wins, they go through to the next week; lose or draw, they’re out.
• The remaining players choose another team that they think will win the following week. Importantly, no player can choose a team they have chosen before.
• This continues until there is one player left. They win!

Installation

1. Clone locally
2. yarn install

Usage

1. Edit lmsConfig.js to define the scenario.
2. Edit espnSurvivor.js to load your scenario, by the key.
3. node espnGetStats.js to refresh stats from ESPN.
4. node espnSurvivor.js to generate the top scenario solutions.

Discussion and strategy

There are 32 teams in the NFL and 18 weeks in the regular season for 2021. The number of possible permutations is quite large. P(32, 18) = 32!/14!.

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Other interesting sources

https://www.espn.com/nfl/picks https://www.nfeloapp.com/games/nfl-ev-bets