Everywhere – Wow, that was bad, really bad. Like how did “how did I waste any brainpower on this” bad. Of course, we are talking about the time-honored tradition of filling out NCAA March Madness brackets – whether with the fanatical devotion of a sports fan, or because it's the only way to get your friends and coworkers to stop trying to force your participation at gunpoint. Earlier this month, tens of millions of diehard and casual college basketball fans did just that when they meticulously — or randomly — filled out NCAA March Madness brackets convinced this was their year of bracket domination. And now after an exhaustive report, weeks in the making, knocking on doors of millions of bracket filler-outers, BonusCodePoker can exclusively report that every single damn one of them was shocked to witness just how bad it all turned out.

Bracket pickers speak out

We spoke to thousands of basketball fans across the land and the stories are frankly, heartbreaking and in many ways, tragic. BCPoker can not begin to convey the toll we saw from these disastrous brackets and how the impact is likely to reverberate for minutes, even hours. Here are three all-too-familiar stories told through the eyes of typical bracket-pickers. Identities have been protected and we warn you, some of these accounts may be sensitive to some readers.

“I'm telling you guys, I did all the math. There are 9.2 quintillion possible bracket combinations, you know? And I estimate that each of my own brackets – done with tons of preparation and looking at all the players and everything – is about 1 quintillion times more likely to be right than the average Joe. Ya know, give or take. So anyway if my brackets were 1 quintillion times better than average, all I needed to do was fill out 10 of them to know pretty well that one of mine would hit. I didn't JUST do that – I went to the trouble of filling out 11, just to be safe. And SOMEHOW, through my own insanely bad luck, all 11 were dead in the first round. Like, what are the odds!?!?!?!”

Anonymous – Reno, NV

“My buddy had been bugging me for days to fill out my bracket. I told him that work has really been busy and that I didn't really care about basketball. He repeatedly kept bugging me to do it “it only takes like 2 seconds,” so I just clicked a bunch of buttons real quick. After I correctly picked Texas Southern the first game, I was hooked. Then one by one, all my picks started losing. My life changed. I was inconsolable for a good 10, 15 minutes.”

Anonymous – Salt Lake City, UT

“I picked a winner for every single game! There were like, hundreds of games to pick, and it took forever, and it was boring, but I stuck it out anyway. I went to Norfolk State and REALLY thought they'd do better than losing in the first round… how could a school called Gonzaga be good at sports?!”

Anonymous – Norfork, VA Bad brackets affect us all. If the bracket of you or somebody you know imploded almost immediately, know that there is help. We don't know where to find it, but there is probably help somewhere.

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