PICK 'EM at Roland Garros

steven · Tennis legend

RE: PICK 'EM at Roland Garros

steven · Tennis legend

Tomorrow, we return to the bottom half of the draw, which has been very fruitful for AM.com so far. Actually, it's not so much the whole of the bottom half as the bottom quarter. Tomorrow, BT.com can't get a positive swing from any of the four matches in the bottom quarter, and two of those matches will give a swing to AM whichever way they turn out! (it's just a case of whether it's a big swing or a small swing)

R3 bottom half picks analysis in the same format as yesterday's analysis:

(6) Novak Djokovic : 0.33 swing to BT
(WC) Olivier Patience : no swing

Everyone went for Nole except Xenon & Daisy (AM), who went for Calleri.

Fernando Verdasco : 0.21 swing to BT
(12) David Ferrer : 0.21 swing to AM

Imoen (BT) (that's baiaine to you lot) was the only entrant to pick Verdasco to win this one. It will either be a very very good match for her or a very very bad one, because everyone else went for Ferrer!

(16) Marcos Baghdatis : 1.07 swing to AM
Jan Hajek : 0.04 swing to BT

6 BTs and 14 AMs went for Baggy, while only 5th placed Johnnylad (BT) and recently-shot-up-off-the-bottom Daisy (AM) went for Hajek, so they have a lot riding on this one. There was a lot of variation here - 6 BTs and 4 Ams went for well-known French rock group 'Seba and the fat jeans' (think about it ... and THEN cringe), while 6 BTs and 4 AMs went for the tea-boy - "Hrbaty" means 'of tea' in Polish, so probably in Slovakian too. Speedy (AM) went for ToJo.

Paul-Henri Mathieu : 0.14 swing to BT
Igor Andreev : 0.51 swing to BT

The only match tomorrow that has to swing (medium or small) to BT, and the match with the most variation among the picks.

7 BTs and 8 AMs went for PHM, but there are less BT entrants, so 7 BTs are a bigger proportion of their total than 8 AMs, hence the small swing to BT if PHM wins. 4 BTs and 2 AMs went for Andreev.

Amazingly, 6 BTs and 9 AMs thought Duckboy would reach the last 16 (did they remember it's clay?), 3 AMs went for Massu, 2 BTs for Horna, Wendy (AM) for Mayer and Shaun (AM) for Spadea - see Duckboy comment and multiply by 10 - sorry Shaun! " title="" /> Simon was the only player in this group of 8 in the draw not to get a single pick for this match.

Jonas Bjorkman : no swing
Oscar Hernandez : 0.91 swing to AM

2 BTs and 8 AMs went for Hernandez but nobody went for Bjorkman, who has come through the 'clay-court hater's convention' part of the draw.

11 BTs and 5 Ams went for Kohlschreiber, who was the most popular pick for this match. 5 BTs and 9 AMs went for Blake, 2 AMs for Karlovic. Imoen (BT) went for Dlouhy, her second 'unique pick' of the day after 'dasco, but one she can't possibly benefit from, unfortunately.

(23) Carlos Moya : 1.06 swing to AM
(Q) Juan Pablo Brzezicki : no swing

10 BTs and 19 AMs went for Moya here, nobody for Brzezicki. The other poor saps (9 BTs and 5 AMs) went for Berdych - they'll never learn, will they! " title="" />

(14) Lleyton Hewitt : 0.18 swing to AM
(20) Jarkko Nieminen : 0.50 swing to AM

15 BTs and 20 AMs went for "Come awwwwwn", making him the third most popular pick of the day after Rafa and Nole, while 3 Ams (all currently in the bottom half of the table) went for Nieminen. 3 BTs and 1 AM went for Lopez, while Drew (BT) went for Becker.

Albert Montanes : 0.17 swing to AM
(2) Rafael Nadal : 0.04 swing to AM

Brave Daisy (AM) picked Montanes for this one. Everyone else picked Rafa except John, of course, who had Tigger beating JMDP. Seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess! " title="" />

If all the matches go BT's way (including the lesser of two evils in the ones that must swing to AM), they will increase their lead by 0.88 points per entrant to 4.20.

If all the matches go AM's way, they will make up 3.33 points per entrant, exactly enough to overtake BT - AM.com would lead by 0.01.

steven · Tennis legend

RobC wrote:
Steven,

Here's an idea for anotehr robot: although might be too much effort......

"Billie The Bookie": always goes with the player with the shortest odds for any particular match.

- it'd be interesting to see how good the bookmakers would be at this game.

It's not too much effort for me if you do Billy's entry! biggrin

However, even the robots have to finalise their entries before the deadline (there are practical as well as fairness reasons for this), so if you mean only predict each match when you know the odds for it, that won't work. Of course, you're free to do it manually as an experiment or you can submit a whole entry at the end based on that so that we can score it just for curiosity's sake.

If, on the other hand, you want to compare the pre-tournament odds to win Wimby of both players in a match and use that to make Billy's picks, then that'll be fine, please go ahead. smile

By the way, for Wimby, Roberta's going to pick based on the previous Monday's rankings, not seedings (since at Wimby, they can differ), but I'm going to add in (yet) another Bot (name, please?), who will base her picks on the seedings (otherwise picking as Roberta would) and will thus represent the nobs responsible for the Wimby seeding formula. wink

-- Edited by steven at 21:25, 2007-06-01

Sheddie · administrator

aaarghhhh, my team and I's loyalties will be desperately divided tomorrow....most of the matches which I need to be won to maintain my chances of taking the individual slam title result in big swings to am.com

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

then you must sacrifice your individual score. That's what I did today in the Ljubicic and Nalbandian matches.

(ok i admit it was more than difficult to support either player once I found out my loyalties were split, particularly in teh Volandri/Ljubicic match)

RobC · All-time great

steven wrote:
It's not too much effort for me if you do Billy's entry!

However, even the robots have to finalise their entries before the deadline (there are practical as well as fairness reasons for this), so if you mean only predict each match when you know the odds for it, that won't work. Of course, you're free to do it manually as an experiment or you can submit a whole entry at the end based on that so that we can score it just for curiosity's sake.

Hmm - well I'm not a big one for betting (mainly because I reckon Billie tends to do a lot better than I ever would) so not sure where to get the odds from. Also that tends to be the time I'm desperately trying to get rankings threads together

so we'd need another volunteer.....

steven · Tennis legend

Baggy beats Hajek 6-2 6-2 ret. (sorry, Johnnylad!) and AM.com close the gap a bit:

BritishTennis.net lead AndyMurray.com by an average of 99.63-97.38 points per team member after 105 matches.

There are also lots of changes at the top of the individual table, with mkkreuk and Johnnylad dropping off the pace a little and the leader from two days ago dropping out of the top 10. Amazingly, three of the top 10 still can't be separated by tiebreak - Johnny, Rob & cazza have all scored 46 in R1, 40 in R2 and 20 in R3, though not with exactly the same picks I hasten to add!

-- Edited by steven at 14:57, 2007-06-02

steven · Tennis legend

POS.	PLAYER	TEAM	TODAY	TOTAL	%

1	David Cox	BT	4	112	68.3%
2	RoastLamb	AM	4	112	68.3%
3	kayce	AM	4	111	67.7%
4	steven	BT	4	110	67.1%
5	AllyB	AM	4	108	65.9%
6	Mkkreuk	BT	0	108	65.9%
7	Fitz	AM	4	108	65.9%
8	Drew	BT	4	108	65.9%
9	Johnnylad	BT	0	106	64.6%
9	Rob C	BT	4	106	64.6%
9	cazza99	AM	4	106	64.6%
12	Ewan Mansley	AM	0	105	64.0%
13	Josh	BT	0	103	62.8%
13	goldfish	BT	4	103	62.8%
13	Richard Morris (ASE)	AM	4	103	62.8%
16	David Carter	BT	0	102	62.2%
16	Claire Bear	AM	4	102	62.2%
18	Guy	BT	0	100	61.0%
18	Cdagger	AM	4	100	61.0%
20	ForeverDelayed	BT	0	99	60.4%

WallaceEMann · Lower Club Player

RobC wrote:
steven wrote: It's not too much effort for me if you do Billy's entry!

However, even the robots have to finalise their entries before the deadline (there are practical as well as fairness reasons for this), so if you mean only predict each match when you know the odds for it, that won't work. Of course, you're free to do it manually as an experiment or you can submit a whole entry at the end based on that so that we can score it just for curiosity's sake.

Hmm - well I'm not a big one for betting (mainly because I reckon Billie tends to do a lot better than I ever would) so not sure where to get the odds from. Also that tends to be the time I'm desperately trying to get rankings threads together

so we'd need another volunteer.....

I'm sure the odds would be on websites such as bet365, Betfair, William Hills etc

Then what could be done is for each match, the person with the shorter odds for the tournament progesses through to the next round, so would have Federer (4/11) beating Nafal (7/1) in the final. (Odds taken from bet365.com - and has Murray at 10/1, Henman ay 66/1 and Rusedski as a 150/1 shot!)

-- Edited by WallaceEMann at 16:45, 2007-06-02

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

Moya winning was bad news for BT, not only did AM close the gap:

BritishTennis.net lead AndyMurray.com by an average of 102.58-100.88 points per team member after 108 matches.

But Sheddie lost the individual lead as well

POS.	PLAYER	TEAM	TODAY	TOTAL	%

1	kayce	AM	12	119	67.6%
2	David Cox	BT	8	116	65.9%
3	RoastLamb	AM	8	116	65.9%
4	steven	BT	8	114	64.8%
5	Mkkreuk	BT	4	112	63.6%
6	Josh	BT	8	111	63.1%
7	Rob C	BT	8	110	62.5%
7	cazza99	AM	8	110	62.5%
9	Ewan Mansley	AM	4	109	61.9%
10	AllyB	AM	4	108	61.4%

steven · Tennis legend

Am.com cut the gap today, but BT still won R3 convincingly and retain a lead of just over 2 points per entrant:

BritishTennis.net lead AndyMurray.com by an average of 113.74-111.71 points per team member after 112 matches.

The detailed results, with everyone's scores in each round, can be found at http://www.britishtennis.net/07pickem/2007rg.htm - amazingly, everyone is now back on 50% or more!

Remember that if you divide the R3 figure by 4, it will show you how many players each person has left, though of course they might have predicted some of them not to score any more points after today.

The R3 winners and how they affected the team scores

no swing - (1) Roger Federer
0.16 to AM - (13) Mikhail Youzhny
0.33 to BT - (9) Tommy Robredo
1.36 to BT - (29) Filippo Volandri

1.12 to BT - (4) Nikolay Davydenko
0.55 to BT - (15) David Nalbandian
0.82 to BT - (19) Guillermo Canas
0.46 to BT - Juan Monaco

0.33 to BT - (6) Novak Djokovic
0.21 to BT - Fernando Verdasco
1.07 to AM - (16) Marcos Baghdatis
0.51 to BT - Igor Andreev

no swing - Jonas Bjorkman
1.06 to AM - (23) Carlos Moya
0.18 to AM - (14) Lleyton Hewitt
0.04 to AM - (2) Rafael Nadal

steven · Tennis legend

I'll post the whole summary table in text form today instead of just the top 10-20 nicely tabulated:

POS. PLAYER TEAM TODAY TOTAL %

1 kayce AM 24 131 68.2%
2 David Cox BT 20 128 66.7%
3 RoastLamb AM 20 128 66.7%
4 steven BT 20 126 65.6%
5 Mkkreuk BT 16 124 64.6%
6 Josh BT 20 123 64.1%
7 Rob C BT 20 122 63.5%
7 cazza99 AM 20 122 63.5%
9 Ewan Mansley AM 16 121 63.0%
10 AllyB AM 16 120 62.5%
11 Fitz AM 16 120 62.5%
12 goldfish BT 20 119 62.0%
12 Richard Morris (ASE) AM 20 119 62.0%
14 Johnnylad BT 12 118 61.5%
15 Claire Bear AM 20 118 61.5%
16 Guy BT 16 116 60.4%
16 Cdagger AM 20 116 60.4%
18 Drew BT 12 116 60.4%
19 ForeverDelayed BT 16 115 59.9%
20 nicki AM 20 115 59.9%
21 David Carter BT 12 114 59.4%
22 Bruce BT 16 113 58.9%
23 Blodwyn AM 20 112 58.3%
- Roberta (*) - 16 111 57.8%
24 Imoen BT 16 110 57.3%
25 Allan AM 16 109 56.8%
25 Wendy AM 20 109 56.8%
27 Xenon21 AM 16 109 56.8%
28 Speedy Hawk AM 16 108 56.3%
29 Claire Morris AM 16 108 56.3%
30 rochelle BT 16 108 56.3%
31 Carrie AM 16 107 55.7%
32 Grundon BT 12 105 54.7%
32 Vamos08 AM 20 105 54.7%
34 Kels AM 8 104 54.2%
35 John BT 8 103 53.6%
36 WallaceEMann BT 12 103 53.6%
37 Spraggz AM 16 102 53.1%
38 Jambondusoleil AM 16 102 53.1%
39 Granny AM 8 101 52.6%
40 Dusty Dick BT 16 100 52.1%
41 daisy AM 8 99 51.6%
42 Count Zero BT 12 98 51.0%
43 Shaun7879 AM 12 96 50.0%
- King Kong (#) - 4 56 29.2%

steven · Tennis legend

Top half R4 picks analysis

It's looking like another good day for BT tomorrow - we really 'own' the top half of the draw at the moment:

(1) Roger Federer : no swing
(13) Mikhail Youzhny : no swing

Everyone went for Fed, so he could be in danger here! wink

(9) Tommy Robredo : 3.00 swing to BT
(29) Filippo Volandri : 1.00 swing to AM

All of the BTs but just 15 of the AMs went for Robredo, making this probably the biggest match for the pick 'em so far. 3 AMs (RoastLamb, for whom a Volandri win would be one of two great chances to retake the lead, Ewan & Allan) went for Volandri. 1 nutter went for mad Saffy to have managed not to self-destruct for a whole week and the other 5 AMs (cazza, ASE, blodwyn, Xenon, carrie) went for Ljubo.

(4) Nikolay Davydenko : 2.23 swing to BT
(15) David Nalbandian : 0.51 swing to BT

14 BTs and 11 AMs picked the Undertaker. Kayce's lead will increase by 8 if Numpty Nalby wins and this will also hand rises of 10 or more places to BT's FD & John. 2 more BTs (steven & mkkreuk) will also need a Numpty win to stop them falling out of the top 5, because they and most (9) of the other AMs went for Chela. 1 BT (Dusty) and 2 AMs (Ewan & Speedy) went for Almagro. Finally, AM's Jambon went for Monfils.

(19) Guillermo Canas : 0.68 swing to BT
Juan Monaco : 0.09 swing to BT

4 BTs (David Cox - i.e. sheddie - mkkreuk, David Carter & Count Zero) and 3 AMs (cazza, Claire Bear & Daisy) went for Canas - sheddie and mkk could be 1st & 2nd if he wins. RoastLamb (AM) could go top with a Monaco win, while Imoen (BT) went for Monaco too. 12 fans of the Muppet Show (in more ways than one!) from BT and 10 from AM went for Gonzo, while 2 gluttons for punishment from BT and no less than 10 from AM thought Dammit Gasquet would hold it all together until the QFs! I guess they will all want Monaco to win to limit the damage!

So, if all the matches work out best for BT, they will increase their lead by another 5.91 points per entrant (ppe) to a massive 7.94 ppe.

If all the matches work out best (or least bad) for AM, they will close the gap by 0.41 ppe to 1.62 ppe.

Beware, however - even if the worst happens for AM.com tomorrow, it is worth bearing in mind that if the only match left now was a Fed-Rafa Final, then AM.com would get a 14.32 ppe swing from that match alone if Rafa won it, so even a lead of nearly 8 would not be enough to save us if that's what ends up happening. We'd better continue piling up the points then, just in case it turns out to be another title for the Freak from the Balear-eeks!

-- Edited by steven at 21:47, 2007-06-02

steven · Tennis legend

Robredo's win against Volandri gets BT the biggest swing of the tournament so far - a full 3.00 points per entrant biggrin

BritishTennis.net lead AndyMurray.com by an average of 121.74-116.71 points per team member after 113 matches.

-- Edited by steven at 12:31, 2007-06-03

steven · Tennis legend

POS.	PLAYER	TEAM	TODAY	TOTAL	%

1	kayce	AM	8	139	69.5%
2	David Cox	BT	8	136	68.0%
3	steven	BT	8	134	67.0%
4	Mkkreuk	BT	8	132	66.0%
5	Josh	BT	8	131	65.5%
6	Rob C	BT	8	130	65.0%
7	AllyB	AM	8	128	64.0%
8	RoastLamb	AM	0	128	64.0%
9	Fitz	AM	8	128	64.0%
10	goldfish	BT	8	127	63.5%
11	Johnnylad	BT	8	126	63.0%
12	Claire Bear	AM	8	126	63.0%
13	Guy	BT	8	124	62.0%
13	Cdagger	AM	8	124	62.0%
15	Drew	BT	8	124	62.0%
16	ForeverDelayed	BT	8	123	61.5%
17	nicki	AM	8	123	61.5%
18	cazza99	AM	0	122	61.0%
19	David Carter	BT	8	122	61.0%
20	Ewan Mansley	AM	0	121	60.5%