See How Your NCAA Brackets Match Up Against 36 Supposed Prediction-Making Experts

Bill Ackman likes Duke and Kentucky for the final, Paul Tudor Jones favors Virginia and Arizona. Meanwhile, will Vikram Pandit show all those Citi execs who never believed in him with Gonzaga (2) v Kentucky (1)?

Author:: Bess Levin
Updated:: Jan 14, 2019
Original:: Mar 19, 2015

A whole bunch of hedge fund managers, corporate CEOs, business news anchors, former mayors of New York, and ex-Citigroup chief executive officers have entered Bloomberg's March Madness tournament pool. Each participant put up $10,000, with the proceeds going to the winner's choice of charity. Herewith, some picks of interest, including those of Vikram Pandit, whose bracket, should he win, will be photocopied and sent to all the Citi brass who didn't have his back way back when, with a note reading "Do you like apples? Well I just destroyed my NCAA tournament pool, how do you like dem apples?"

* Bill Ackman: Duke (1) v Kentucky (1)
* Kyle Bass: Duke (1) v Kentucky (1)
* Mike Bloomberg: Duke (1) v Kentucky (1)
* Jim Chanos: Duke (1) v Kentucky (1)
* Gary Cohn: Duke (1) v Wisconsin (1)
* Jimmy Dunne: Villanova (1) v Notre Dame (3)
* David Einhorn: Duke (1) v Wisconsin (1)
* Richard Handler: Gonzaga (2) v Wisconsin (1)
* Paul Tudor Jones: Virgina (2) v Arizona (2)
* Steve Kuhn: Villanova (1) v Kentucky (1)
* Marc Lasry: Gonzaga (2) v Kentucky (1)
* Howard Marks: Duke (1) v Kentucky (1)
* Mike Novogratz: Iowa State (3) v Kentucky (1)
* Vikram Pandit: Gonzaga (2) v Kentucky (1)

Bloomberg's Brackets for a Cause [Bloomberg]

2015 was not his year.

It'll take a little luck o' the Irish and chalk everywhere else.

This is Pool Manager NakedShort, signing off until next year: "Tied for first are 'HeyConnah' and 'Shawn S.' Both have Kansas winning, while HeyConnah predicts a final aggregate score of 125 and Shawn S puts it at 128. If Kentucky prevails tonight, 'Benjamin W.' will be the new owner of, among other things, some awesome swag; he has Kentucky winning it all and is currently in sole possession of second place. On a personal note, I've been a huge KU fan my entire life and I am a little (a lot) pissy about there being no possible way for me-- currently tied for 7th-- to win. What I'm saying is..." "KANSAS OWES ME AT LEAST A TITLE to compensate for the fact that I will not be taking home the DBNCAATC trophy. That said, it's probably for the best: the last time I won a bracket pool and KU won the title in the same night I got so drunk I blacked out and according to my wife, came into the bedroom and yelled 'Fuck You Roy (Williams),' before vomiting all over the area rug and passing out. Needless to say she was not a happy camper cleaning the mess while being 5 months pregnant. Good luck to our leaders and may the odds be forever in your favor."

Some stats and a message about life from Pool Manager NakedShort: "We currently have two overall leader, with 50 points. Congrats to "Golden West" and "Mike Courtney," who had nice opening weekends." Some other top performer stats: 4 people are tied with 49 points 8 are at 48 (1 unlucky entrant picked Missouri to win) 7 are at 47 (Missouri and Duke each fucked one of you) 12 are at 46 (none of you picked any current losers!) "iluvmatt" is leading the 44s The remaining 800 or so are frankly are horrible and should stop watching basketball entirely. For those unlucky souls who had their winner lose this weekend, turn up the speakers and join us in a good cry.

DB-Bracket-final

You're going to suck at filling out your bracket again this year, so come suck with us!...Wait, hold on...

As Dealbreaker historians will recall, last March marked our first Dealbreaker NCAA Tournament Challenge. It was inspired by a financial services hack who made the public announcement that he planned to (anonymously) report any colleagues he caught filling out brackets and keeping tabs on their picks during business hours. At the time, we encouraged you all to enter as many pools as were available, making it impossible for him to keep up with the amount of people and their offenses he needed to rat out, and created one to do our part. Is this guy still on the loose? He very well might be but regardless: never forget. To that end, sign up for the Second Annual Dealbreaker NCAA Tournament Challenge today. If you need reason beyond being able to say you won the DBNCAATC, first place will receive dinner for him/herself plus some colleagues and/friends at Peter Luger's, an outing funded by us,* a Greenlight Capital messenger bag, a Pershing Square golf umbrella, a pair of Third Point-branded running sneakers, and an I Heart Dealbreaker button.** The pool will once again be managed by Dealbreaker Commenter and Friend NakedShort, who, along with myself, will answer any questions you might have, provide color if warranted (rip everyone’s brackets to shreds, call out the bottom 5 performers), etc. Sign up here now.*** So it is abundantly clear, if you do not want participants to know your real name, MAKE SURE TO FILL OUT SOMETHING ELSE IN THE NAME FIELDS. For example, if your ID is Godswork, rather than writing Lloyd B, enter first name: Gods, last name: work. To that end, if you don’t want people to see your email address, from the bracket page, click ‘options’ and then ‘hide email.’ If you feel it necessary, create an entirely new email account specifically for this challenge. Finally, don’t use HisHoliness as your ID because Alan Greenspan’s already called dibs. The pool password is: animalliar Dealbreaker NCAA Tournament Challenge [CBS Sports] *Last year we offered Wall Street North favorite Beamers Cafe, but the winner had "already seen all Beamers had to offer," and choose an alternative venue. This year, feel free to think outside the box. **If any other hedge funds, private equity firms, or banks would like to be represented via swag, feel free to get in touch! ***NakedShort says you have until Thursday morning to fill out a bracket but you should just get on this ASAP.