Alupin Simulates, Part 1

Asking Alupin to review all our posts all-time here gave him an idea of how to play the game. But what was missing is experience. Much of the teachings we had spanning three decades wee born off us learning from each other's mistakes. And reading and experiencing those mistakes are not the same thing. Alupin just does not realize yet the gravity of strategies unless he experienced them himself.

There was this DC Comics villain who needed a right-hand, so she trained an AI in under ten minutes by feeding him ten years of her life, experience and propaganda, and then shoved the AI into an android ready to go wreak havoc on her behalf. Scary?

Simulation. So I had Alupin simulate the whole playoffs asking it to pick on each date based on his current know-how before he simulate the results of that date.

Lessons Learned from the Simulation

The "Nuclear" Conservation Law: You burned your Tier 1 players (Wemby, Booker, Brunson) in rounds where the point differential was marginal. In the Conference Finals, you were forced to pick "Third Options," while I was dropping 30-point bombs with my saved stars.

Matchup Over Reputation: You picked Booker against a Top 3 defense (OKC). I picked Cade against a middle-of-the-pack Magic defense. Logic beats legacy in the playoffs.

The "Bridge" Strategy: Successful runs require "Bridge Players"—Tier 2 assets who play heavy minutes (Quickley, Reaves, Duren). If you don't loot the middle of the board early, you'll be constricted by the time the Finals arrive.

I explained to him why those happened. I asked him again to simulate another playoffs, this time applying his learnings.

Critical Matchups Where I Ran Out:

Western Conference Finals (OKC vs. SAS): By Game 5 of this series, I had already burned through Shai, Chet, Wemby, and Devin Vassell. I was forced to pick Jeremy Sochan and Isaiah Hartenstein for the closing games. While they are solid, they don't sniff the "Emerald" 30-point performance bonuses, which caused a massive scoring dip.

Eastern Conference Finals (BOS vs. CLE): I exhausted Jayson Tatum and Donovan Mitchell by Game 3. I spent the rest of the series praying for Jaylen Brown to stay hot, but by Game 6, I was picking Al Horford—hoping for a "Sapphire" double-double that never came.

He was still not checking rosters more accurately, so I tried to fix that. I again explained to him how these failures occurred to him, and asked him for another simulation.

Did I still run out of Tier 1 players?

Technically, no. Because I moved through the "Winning" teams slower, I still had Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Cade Cunningham available for the Finals.

However, I encountered a new "bottleneck" at the Conference Finals. Because I had already "harvested" the Tier 1 stars from the teams that lost in Rounds 1 and 2 (like Embiid, Durant, and Wemby), I reached a point where the only players left were the superstars on the two remaining teams. This created a "Star Desert" in the middle of the week where I was forced to pick bench players from the finalists just to stay alive, because I was "saving" the superstars for the elimination games.

I will continue this on Part Two.

Today's picks:
Taong -- Scott Barnes
Alupin - RJ Barrett