... but he is only 1 of 2 to chose Tsonga to win it ! I watch with interest - if wolf finishes at no 1 then I propose that the he selects the next DC team.
Seem to have missed this post (must have skipped straight ahead to Steven's yesterday as I didn't know the standings at the time) but thank you for the vote of confidence. I am now 'only' in second but surely can't fail to lose if Tsonga does win it.
A day on which all of the top eight seeds reached the QFs except Simon, who lost to Tsonga who was the heavy favourite among us to win anyway, led to over 70 of us getting a perfect 8/8 for R4!
The only downside of this is that anyone in the top 100 or so who 'only' managed to score 7/8 (usually a score that would see a big rise up the table) will be a bit shocked to find that they may have fallen a few places because so many people got all 8 correct.
TAT, still in 1st, have moved out to a lead of more than one point for the first time, though this competition remains closer than most. As the only team to average 7/8, BT.net, up 2 to 2nd, won R4 (they also won R1) and now lead the chasing pack. MTF and Team CC both lost a place to 3rd and 4th respectively after an average R4. Big losers of the day were the Ducklings, down 5 to 11th, and the only team to move more than two places - their downfall stemmed from both Potty and Verdasco being picked by less than half of them.
INDIVIDUALS
nelslus (TA), up 3 to 1st, now leads the competition by a point from wolf (BT), up 3 to 2nd, Gaël (RG), up 3 to 3rd, top newbie djuky (VB), up 6 to 4th, and Lana105 (IN), up 8 to 5th, with The Hoose (BT), up 13 to 6th, a point further back. All of these players got 8/8 correct in R4, as did janeInScotland (JM), up 16 to 8th, and Ollie361 (IN), up 17 to 9th.
The only entrants to score 'just' 7/8 but still remain in the top 10 were the previous day's top two, P@t 0van (SK), down 6 to 7th, and TennisAnyone74 (TA), down 8 to 10th.
ON THE RISE
Of the 71 entrants who got a perfect score in R4, four managed to rise 60 places or more - Dusty Dick (BT), up 60 to 128, aedra1119 & Renan (IN), both up 61 to 132=, and jm-fan (JM), up 60 to 139th. Quite a few more of those with 8/8 who had started in mid-table rose by more than 50 places.
DODGY DROPPERS
Unfortunately for those who scored 6/8, on a day as predictable as this that tended to mean they got hammered and five entrants dropped over 100 places. Cloudy (AM) got 4/8 and plummeted 122 from 8th to 130th, the biggest drop of the day. Oscar (RF) got 5/8 and fell 103 to 157th, as did zephblabs (TA), down 102 to 159th, while Gazzpash (BT)'s 4/8 saw him dive 113 to 216th and nicky (AR) fell 107 to 229th after getting just 3/8.
The lowest scorer of the day was a player who was already outside the top 200, Lugburz (TY), who got all his 'live' matches correct, but only had two of them and dropped 24 to 256th. SallyDaisy (JM)'s mercy mission down from the top 10 to save the starving gorillas is even closer to success after she got 3/8 correct and dropped another 12 places to 252nd.
OUTLOOK
A very exciting last few days is in prospect since nearly 3/4 of us have all four semi-finalists still standing going into the QFs, including all of the top 18. Everyone else has at least 2 survivors except Arab (RF), down 17 to 251st after R4, who only has Fed.
It is noticeable that the current top 20 is dominated by those who picked Rafa to win, with a large concentration of Muzza to win pickers in the 25-60 range and the Fed (or anyone else) to win pickers generally lower down the table. I'm not sure why that is, but it will be interesting to see how that develops.
QF MATCHES / WEDNESDAY PREVIEW
Wed n/b 20.00 GMT: Tsonga 52% v Nole 32% (already out: Simple 21%, Flake 13%, five more with 1-2%) Wed n/b 02.00 GMT: Fed 82% v Duckboy 16% (already out: Monfils 2%) Thursday time TBA: Rafa 95% v Potty 2% (already out: Cilic 2%, Pics 1%) Thursday time TBA: Muzza 74% v Verdasco 13% (already out: Numpty 9%, Gonzo 2%, Phau/Dammit 1%)
Nole v Tsonga: This is the QF match where we are most split, with just over half of us being swayed towards the Frenchman by the fact that he has won four in a row against the world no. 3, all on hard courts, and about 1/3 either only remembering their AO Final, thinking the end of that streak is overdue or focussing on Tsonga's relatively poor record in North America.
Fed v Duckboy: It was at exactly the same stage of exactly the same tournament a year ago that Duckboy broke Fed's 11-match winning streak against him in ATP events with a stunning 3-set win. Fed reasserted his authority over the American with a straight sets win at the AO, but if history repeats itself, those who took the risk of predicting that it would will rocket up the table ... though they'll drop like a stone if the world no. 2 sets the record straight.
QUOTES OF THE DAY
On a day when all the most heavily backed players win, the quotes never seem to be quite as funny as usual (except on Match Point, but some of the sites this report goes to are family sites, so I'll skate over those LOL), so I'll leave the floor to relatively new BOTB convert sirfredperry (CC) (currently in 14th place, so likely to rise a lot after Miami in the overall rankings, where he is currently 755th) who, before moaning about the final result being added a bit late this morning (unfortunately I need to sleep once in a while ...), admitted: "I shall feel quite bereft when this is all over!" Awww ...
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
Nole v Tsonga: This is the QF match where we are most split, with just over half of us being swayed towards the Frenchman by the fact that he has won four in a row against the world no. 3, all on hard courts, and about 1/3 either only remembering their AO Final, thinking the end of that streak is overdue or focussing on Tsonga's relatively poor record in North America.
don't forget about the people who just guess
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Count Zero - Creator of the Statistical Tennis Extrapolation & Verification ENtity or, as we like to call him, that steven.
Looks like it was a bit of a stroll for Djokovic unfortunately. My luck had to end sometime I suppose, and it serves me right for picking a GEM to win it.
No BOTB report today - to avoid overkill, for QFs and SFs that are played over two days, the "up X" "dn Y" changes on the results tables are cumulative over the two days and there will be one big report at the end of the round.
However, the end of day 8 results are now available at http://www.britishtennis.net/Competitions.html and while nelslus (TA) still leads the individual competition, MTF, with 75% in the QFs so far, have taken the lead in the teams league.
Also, apologies for the mistakes in the match list yesterday (times shown as GMT when they were actually BST times and "already out" %s for the first match being for the previous round) - here is the corrected version with the times of the last two QFs added as well:
By the way, I get the impression that most people who play pick 'em think that the scoring system we now use is fairer than the ATP BC's "if you don't get the finalists and winner right, you're done for" system that we ditched at the end of 2007, but I'm aware that some people think we may have gone too far to the other extreme and made R1 too important, such that if you do badly in R1 you have no chance. If so, you might like to consider this:
1) GiulioAxe (RG), who was 26th after R1 with 20/32, and SallyDaisy (JM), who was in the top 10 at one point during R2, are now 2 points adrift of the field in the last two places.
2) nelslus (TA), who was 241st (17th from last) after R1 with 13/32 is now a point clear in 1st place!
So if you do badly in R1 in future, don't despair - just about anything is possible in pick 'em!
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
By the way, I get the impression that most people who play pick 'em think that the scoring system we now use is fairer
I would certainly agree with that, however there is one point with some of the Masters series that might be worth looking at :
In tournaments like this one, where the seeds get rd1 byes, It really skews the rd2 scoring in favour of 'playing safe'. By simply slecting all the seeds to win rd2 you automatically have all your players still standing for rd2.
Currently the points system in the slams gives you 1pt for a players first win, 2pts for predicting a players 2nd win and so on. Maybe that should also apply to 'bye' stle ones - i.e rd1 qualifiers get an additional point per predicted win compared to seeds who got a 1st rd bye. For example, in this one, someone predicting troiki would have got an additional 2 points , 1 each for his rd2 and rd3 win.
Someone on AM.com made a very similar suggestion. My reply there was:
It would be fiddly to amend the spreadsheet to do this, but it would certainly be possible [at least for R2]. I'm not sure it's necessary or desirable though - I like the simplicity of the main scoring system and I don't find it a problem that people tend to go for the higher-ranked/safe picks a lot of the time. Anyone wanting to reach the top is going to have to take a few calculated risks and hope they come off, whereas those who make loads of risky picks tend to quickly end up near the bottom of the table with few survivors even if one or two of their 'out there' picks come off.
A disadvantage of doubling the reward for an unseeded R2 pick getting through could be that it encourages people to go for a lot more risky picks in R2 than they otherwise would have, and they're then likely to lose a lot more players in R2 which will make the later rounds less interesting for them too.
Another (minor) point is that in a big draw with a limited entry period, it helps to have some picks you don't have to think about too hard and doubling the reward for an unseeded R2 winner will lead to even more difficult picks to make in R2.
I'd be interested in what other people think about it too.
-- Edited by steven on Thursday 2nd of April 2009 12:07:55 PM
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
I just think that it de-skills the Rd2 picks ... This year an all seed rd2 pick would have scored 3= on round 2. Last year for Miami it would have won the round by 2pts ( according to my possibly flaky calculations). I just makes it a bit of a no brainer to pick all the seeds in rd2 if you want to score as many points as possible.
Or, how about ... you effectively pick the 'unamed winner' of the rd1 game if you choose him against the seed in a rd2 pick.
-- Edited by eblunt on Thursday 2nd of April 2009 03:41:51 PM
I quite like that idea - R1 would become like a bonus point round with the real battle starting in R2. It don't think it'll seem quite so logical in the 56-draw masters with only 8 R1 byes though - would you make all R2 matches work like that or only the ones with seeds? Eiter way would have its problems.
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
I'm sorry , but I declare the whole Pickem null and void. The one time I'm on a run with everything falling into place, I thought I can leave things unattended for a few hours whilst Rafa cleans up against Potty. Now everthing has turned pear shaped. I am not going to look at any further results in this farce of a competition. This is my last post of any description corncerning this disgusting , fetid competition. (apart from any further rants I might treat myself to). This is unacceptable, I come back fromt he pup to bask in a comfortable 3 QF winner out of for with just Muzza to complete the cleanup. This Masters should be deleted from the records.