Roland Garros Inter Board Pick-em Competition

Salmon · Tennis legend

RE: Roland Garros Inter Board Pick-em Competition

john · Top national player

This is a brutalisation from Nadal here. I actually think he's playing his best clay court tennis ever!

Will beat Djoko 3-0 imo

Salmon · Tennis legend

Yes, that looks likely. He was looking terrible against Bellucci, though - any top 20 player would have had a good chance against him there. But he has stepped it up since then.

Salmon · Tennis legend

I finish the day at 86, which is just 4 ahead of where I was yesterday, even though I got both my picks correct.

I need a Ferrer win tomorrow if I am to make a decent jump up the table. And after that... well, we'll see.

steven · Tennis legend

Greenleaf wrote:
This entrant called 'hebegeebee' is doing well so far. Any chance we can sign her/him? We should have a transfer season!

Word to the wise - on AM.com, it says:

"Welcome to our newest member, hebegeebee"

I dare you to go and pm him from there to try and nab him for BT next time before they get him. biggrin

He might take a bit of persuading, since he says he's from Arkansas!

Of course, if he's 'mad' enough to pick a GEM to reach the semis of RG, he's probably going to do rubbish for the rest of the year. wink

-- Edited by steven at 20:47, 2008-06-03

Salmon · Tennis legend

Don't count out the fact that it could be someone's idea of a joke, though! Anyway... it probabaly isn't a joke and we have lost the case to get him.

steven · Tennis legend

What, you're not going to fight for him? Shame ... wink

An even later report today, and a relatively short one, apart from the POTDs!

Given that nobody picked Gulbis or Almagro to reach the semis, 90% picked Nole and 95% picked Rafa, it is no surprise that there was little movement in the tables after Tuesday's results. The QF that does not involve any of the top three, Ferrer v Monfils, is the only one that can cause a lot of movement in this round.

TEAMS

TAT retained their lead but Centre Court closed the gap at the top marginally and pulled a bit further away from the Dammitaires in 3rd place.

Among the top 10 in the teams league, only the Ducklings had an average score of less than 9/10 today and they drop 2 places to 8th as a result, with AM.com and BT.net moving up 1 each to fill the gaps.

Rusedski.co.uk was the only league team that scored 100% on Tuesday, but all of the small teams making up the Other Boards KO team managed this too, so they have a small lead in the Team KO Final over Centre Court. The latter have already secured the maximum 500 team ranking points from the KO competition for being the last surviving of the proper teams, but there is plenty of pride still at stake in whether they win the Final or not!

INDIVIDUALS

There was no movement in the top 40 at all on Tuesday, since all of them got both results correct, and nobody rose more than 10 places. There were of course some big moves down for those whose decision not to play safe backfired this time, with the biggest fallers being angelaney (AR), down 69 to 191st, and Randy O (TN), down 69 to 196th.

Just four entrants failed to get either result right, but they were all well outside the top 250 in the first place - the biggest faller among them was Arab (RF), something of a hero in pick 'em terms for being the first person to get away with setting up a BOTB thread on RF.com without it getting zapped by the mods, who unfortunately fell 38 to 327th.

POSTS OF THE DAY

On hyper-competitive TAT, the witch-hunt is starting LOL (I hope for certain entrants' sake that Tennisopolis aren't quite as harsh on their stragglers!)

MysterX (TA): (above a picture of a smiling PHM, whom he picked to make the semis!)

"Mon ami,

Do not fret. Some eediot actually picked moi to beat le jockovich last dimanche. Sacre bleu, what was he zinking. Ohhh, ze pressure. I cannot stand it. And then I am supposed to win ze next round as well. No no no. I hate you, monsieur X.

Paulo"

It's a MysterX to me why he picked PHM too, but then some would have said that about hebegeebee's Monfils pick and look what that's done for him! As in tennis (in fact, perhaps even more so), the line between hero-worship and ridicule is an incredibly fine one.

Meanwhile, Centre Court were getting deeply philosophical with this slightly worrying exchange between two of its members:

----

SaraLess: I've dropped a few places - hopefully will recover a little form. I'm just blaming the unpredictability of clay. A good picker always blames the surface

Lex: I blamed my mouse!

SaraLess: that's another one for my ever-growing list, which now looks something like this...

The surface you can never really tell with clay
The choking, half-wit bottlers I had previously called good players
The weather
Witchcraft
The fact that everyone else is secretly working for the ATP, and has some underhand involvement in the results
Mr L for not being able to see into the future
Anyone in the top 10 actually being Federer/Nadal/Djokovic
Judy Murray (if in doubt, blame Judy Murray)
Etienne de Villiers (as above)

NONE of it, at ALL is anything to do with me having just got it a bit wrong!!!

Let me just say, Ill be taking this even more seriously for Wimbledon with phone calls to trainers, emails to pundits, detailed analytical work on formno stone shall be left unturned, and glory will be minemuahahhahaha

Lex: don't forget heavy duty gloves for when you've got to get your hands dirty and go and slap a few players for screwing up your predictions

----

Also on Centre Court, one entrant summed it up a lot more succinctly:

----

timvvo2max: I've decided that the players just don't realise how important this is

Lex: I swear they think it's all to do with hitting a ball over a net! They don't realise the skill and kudos involved in predicting in whose favour the final ball of the match will land!! That's rocket science that is ...

-----

And the final word ...

SaraLess: This game is far too addictive - and I am getting more competitive about it than playing tennis!

-- Edited by steven at 01:53, 2008-06-04

steven · Tennis legend

Later on CC ...

petalp: I'd blame it on the boogie too..

SaraLess: excellent point - I've blamed it on the sunshine, I've (almost due to scheduling) blamed it on the moonlight ... certainly in the case of Fat Dave blamed it on the good times - so it would be churlish to leave boogie out! biggrin

eblunt · Club Coach

After the carnage for me of rounds 3 and 4 , I've now decided to tentatively peep out from under the bedclothes to see whats going on. Hmmmm I rather need Pics to go out, but unfortunately I'm depending on a GEM to do that for me, so that's not going to happen. Even though I've got Fed through to the Final, I wouldn't mind seeing him go out - means all the Fed to win out right lot would be shafted, not such a bad thing.

I wonder if some of these players look at the Pickem results and feel that extra pressure of all those predictions weighing down on them; maybe that's what made Flake and Stan choke.

Salmon · Tennis legend

steven wrote:

What, you're not going to fight for him? Shame ...

Nope, the manager isn't ready to Shed any money. cry

Fed won. smile Ferrer is a set down, but a break up.

steven · Tennis legend

eblunt wrote:

After the carnage for me of rounds 3 and 4 , I've now decided to tentatively peep out from under the bedclothes to see whats going on. Hmmmm I rather need Pics to go out, but unfortunately I'm depending on a GEM to do that for me, so that's not going to happen. Even though I've got Fed through to the Final, I wouldn't mind seeing him go out - means all the Fed to win out right lot would be shafted, not such a bad thing.

I wonder if some of these players look at the Pickem results and feel that extra pressure of all those predictions weighing down on them; maybe that's what made Flake and Stan choke.

I think you've solved the mystery!

Sheddie - please ban Stani, Flake, all French players and Gonzo during the first two rounds of a tournament from the site immediately! biggrin

Thank you too for saving me from the only candidate for post of the day being someone on TAT claiming that their team was only top of the table because she'd slept with me. ashamed bleh (she can't have been that hot, I'm afraid, because I didn't even notice cry ) biggrin

Salmon · Tennis legend

Gael is 5-1 up in the fourth and is about to win.

I saw the third and fourth sets and the way Ferrer was playing is possibly the worst I've seen a top 100 player play for a while.

Monfils was barely able to move but Pics sent almost everything out of the court for around forty minutes.

steven · Tennis legend

Strange, Pics is normally so reliable. Still, if he loses it'll keep me in the top 100, so I'm very happy

steven · Tennis legend

I swear I'm going to get someone else to round up the POTDs for Wimby ... wink

2ND WEDNESDAY REPORT

Not much movement today, with one winner expected by virtually everyone and the other by only one entrant, and with the semis involving two hot favourites (87% went for Fed to reach the Final, 83% for Rafa), the pick 'em titles will be decided by who wins the Coupe des Mousquetaires on Sunday.

TEAMS

Debutants TAT retained the lead today and will win the teams league unless Fed completes the career slam on Sunday, in which case Centre Court, who ended up winning the QFs, will take the title. Plenty of movement is possible among the other teams, with lots of team ranking points at stake.

The only movement in the table today was MTF, up 1 to 4, and T4Y, down 1 to 5, swapping places, and there is little change in the KO Finals with three matches left to go.

INDIVIDUAL

Congratulations to hebegeebee (IN), who has managed to wrap up the title with days to spare, winning the QFs by getting ALL FOUR semi-finalists correct and moving out to an

oint lead.

Although in some ways it is a bit sad (for the rest of us!) that the individual winner is decided before the semis, I think it can be argued that the winner's most important correct prediction (Monfils to reach the semis) was so unique compared to any potentially still correct predictions for finalists and winners that the scoring system has definitely produced the right winner.

Congratulations also to Linda (AM), who is now sure to finish in the top three. Everything else is still up for grabs, with the table likely to shuffle itself a lot if one of the top two seeds fails to reach the Final and, most of all, depending on the eventual champion.

MOVERS

Apart from the leader with 2/2, all of the top 61 got 1/2 correct today, meaning that none of the top 40 have changed positions for 2 days now!

Nobody else moved up more than half a dozen places, but those who didn't pick Fed to reach the semis suffered big falls unless they were near the bottom already, with puredrive001 (AR), down 71 to 190th, losing the most ground.

Only French bot Amélie got no semi-finalists correct. Not even she matched hebegeebee by getting Monfils - she went for Simon instead.

OUTLOOK

Most entrants have two finalists left, i.e. the top two seeds - the highest placed entrant missing a finalist is WimbledonAce (CC), who is currently 5th and will be desperate for Monfils to reach the Final in order to stop the massed Fed-pickers from scoring, while the 13% who picked Nole to reach the Final will be hoping for an upset in the 2nd semi!

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POSTS OF THE DAY

Eblunt works out why it's all been going wrong ...

Eblunt (BT): I wonder if some of these players look at the Pickem results and feel that extra pressure of all those predictions weighing down on them; maybe that's what made Flake and Stan choke.

CC provide rich pickings as usual ... or is it just that if I don't post at least half a dozen CC comments per day, Pebs will get her whip out again ...

Dark Necrofear (CC): I have just realised the seriousness of this BOTB...Im at a point where if scores dont go my way Im inclined to hire hitmen. I wonder if Davydenko knows about BOTB . Given his result and betting scandals I think he actively went out to sabotage us. Having said that and after having a good chuckle at Sara's post. I have decided to join forces with Sara for Wimbledon.In conjunction with her calling trainers etc,I will personally avail myself to the players as coach,personal trainer and physician. Im also quite the pro in the Heimlich Manouvre so chokers never fear

SaraLess (CC): Some valid points raised on the Ljubicic vs D (still can't bring myself to say his name after he lost me so many points) match...perhaps there needs to be some strong interrogation before Wimbledon? If he loses to, say, Boggo - there needs to be swift action

Dark Necrofear (CC): After hearing about that Elena match I have to say thank the GODs or more likely thank Steven that the women arent in BOTB. There might have been a cyberspace riot

Lord Tau (CC): I know it's a bit late but, what is this game exactly? Sorry for my noobness. - keep up, Lord T!

Dinky Jo (CC): this is a game which is run (brilliantly I might add!!!) <ed: ooh! blush!> by people from another board. We predict, before a tournament starts, the whole of the men's draw. We then get points awarded depending on which matches we get right. We compete individually and as a team against players from a number of other tennis boards (think there's 16 at the moment!). it has a habit of turning us all in to slightly demented, prediction-crazed, nutters, and you'll find us roaming the live scoring threads demanding to know how it is humanely possible that some random qualifier we've never heard of didn't beat another random qualifier we've never heard of!!! but i love it

mightyjeditribble (CC) finally runs out of patience ... "Bl**dy Ferrer - you useless little t*rd! There go my last slim chances at making any move away from the bottom part of the table! It seems BotB rage has caught me at long last.

Finally, the TATs prove that CC don't have a monopoly on being naughty ...

--cj-- (TA): Just think of all the great exposure the board has gotten! You have to believe at some point, those Andy Murray posters are going to want a happier place to hang out. Come to think of it, we should really reach out to those Rusedski folks. - dream on! LOL

... nor are they averse to spreading scurrilous rumours ...

Nelslus (TA): "Funny......Well, frankly, I just assumed that we were all doing so well because we've been sleeping with Steven. The rest of you have ALSO been sleeping with Steven, too.....right?!?!?"

Well, that might explain why I'm feeling a bit tired! Unfortunately though, I have to report that I didn't feel a thing! Have you been getting stalked by any strange men wearing TATty T-shirts, Bethan?

steven · Tennis legend

N.B. the Roland Garros Champion has now joined this forum too - welcome hebegeebee!