ChalkBeer – A Bracket Celebrating Mediocrity

In honor of March Madness starting today I thought I would share a tradition of mine.

Every year my friends and I do a bracket pool—nothing big, just five dollar entries—and in addition to my normal bracket, I put in a special bracket that I’ve fondly come to call ChalkBeer. The idea behind ChalkBeer is simple, every pick goes to the higher seeded team, and from the final four onwards, where they are all 1 seeds, the picks just follow Vegas odds. Thus the chalk.

( for those unfamiliar with sports betting terminology, here’s a brief overview of why it’s called the chalk)

In theory, this bracket should be easy to beat since there are always a few upsets that can be sniffed out and a Cinderella team will often knock out a front-runner. So if this bracket wins, the money is used to buy a keg and celebrate the fact that all of our terrible picks can’t even beat the baseline. Thus the beer.

It’s a fun idea if you’re friends with everyone in the pool, because even if their brackets get busted, it gives them something else to cheer for. And if you don't know everyone in the pool, you can offer them some beer and make new friends.

Last year ChalkBeer won my pool for the first time (and was actually locked into first place whether UNC had won the championship or not), and we all wallowed in our loss with a nice pony keg of lager from a local brewery. It was excellent.