2010 Miami Masters 'Battle of the Boards' pick 'em

LadyTigress · County player

RE: 2010 Miami Masters 'Battle of the Boards' pick 'em

indiana · Tennis legend

OK, 21 matches gone, and I'm currently behind King Kong !

I refuse to be embarassed, it's certain players who should be embarassed. What are they doing ?

indiana · Tennis legend

Wey, that's 7 out of the last 8, they've learnt to conform smile

Certainly put that gorilla in its place, it only ever seems to get half of them right

Josh · Challenger level

Don't know what I was thinking putting Roddick down to win. I must have done it too early in the morning doh

steven · Tennis legend

MIAMI MASTERS BOTB - DAY 2 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

Day 2 featured a lot of tough to call matches, with only Seppi and Hanescu picked to win by more than 90% ... and they both lost!

Other minority picks who won were (LL) Lapentti 36%, Sela 35%, Robert 37% (who honed his skills by being a serial Brit-basher in GB Challengers and Futures), (Q) Anderson 48% and (Q) Ilhan 42%.

Having said that, none of them seemed like big shocks to me (not least because I picked all of them except Sela, and had that one down as a 50:50 match), and once the Seppi and Hanescu losses were out of the way, the lack of cursing on the forums compared to day 1 (at least ) suggested that people didn't see day 2 as quite such a muppet show as Wednesday had been.

Detailed results can be found at http://www.freewebs....mpetitions.html, with 'headlines' and *NEW* 'quotes of the day' appearing on http://twitter.com/botb1 as well.

TEAMS

BT.net put in a surge early in the day and ended it up 3 in 1st place, just ahead of MTF, up 1 to 2nd, who got the highest score before allowing for the statistical adjustment that takes into account the tendency of smaller teams to end up with more extreme scores.

World no. 3 team Rusedski.co.uk dropped a place but are still in the top three, just ahead of world no. 2 team TAT, who rose 7 places to 4th, making them the biggest risers of the day. The Dammitaires recovered 4 places to 8th too, probably benefitting from Robert's win and there being less other GEMs around to muppet matches away.

The biggest fallers were AM.com, down 6 to 12th, and day 1 leaders BBC 606, down 5 t0 6th, while the Ducklings, down 3 to 13th, have taken over last position.

INDIVIDUALS

With 13/16 on day 2 and 25/32 for R1 as a whole, Scratchy (BT), up 9 to 1st, is the outright winner of R1. mattk77 (SG), up 24 to 2=, was the second of just three entrants who got 13/16 correct on Thursday, and he is joined by Yorkie (AM), up 1 to 2=, who got 13/16 on day 1 and 11/16 on day 2.

Another point behind are the first of no less than four 2007 pick 'em winners in the top 10 - Rome 2007 winner and current world no. 5 Steven (GR), up 22 to 4=, and US Open 2007 winner amalyn (MT), down 3 to 4=, along with Deathless Mortal (MT), up 22 to 4=.

The top 10 (or indeed, 13) are completed by AO 2007 winner Akhenaten (BT), up 61 to 7=, Grundon (BT), up 3 to 7=, match22 (RF), down 4 to 7=, Miami 2007 winner cazza99 (AM), up 19 to 7=, RedCabbage (BT), up 19 to 7=, Boarder35m (MT), down 4 to 7= and Scotty (TA), up 101 to 7=, who is the last of the three entrants who scored 13/16 on day 2. They are level with Billy the Bookie bot, who had a much better day relative to Average Joe and Roberta the ATP rankings bot on Thursday.

ON THE RISE

A dozen entrants moved up more than 100 places on day 2, but the biggest riser by some distance was Big Al (CC), up 125 to 31= after getting 12/16 correct. The three entrants who got 13/16 have already been mentioned in the top 10 section above.

DODGY DROPPERS

jaydu (AM), down 36 to 228= and tlimvvo2max (CC), jemma (GB) & dot (IN), all down 8 to 228=, share last place on just 11/32 after getting 4 or 5/16 on day 2, but the only entrant to get less than a quarter of the winners correct on Thursday was ml7000 (IN), down 115 to 223=.

These five entrants are among 40 entrants who are still inside the gorillas' cage - they think Christmas has come very early this year, and are already preparing the stuffing for their 40 turkeys, who need to escape pretty quick!

The quintet of Claire Bear (AM), Vixs (AM), BenP (AM) & genbrit (AM), all down 135 to 161=, and Pabbers (AM), down 141 to 209=, led the 'Team Murray' walk of shame down the team rankings on Thursday but they were all outdone by the faller of the day, 4/16 points scorer James Comerford (BB), down 151 to 161=.

OUTLOOK

Nearly 100 entrants still have all 32 of their R2 winner picks intact at the end of R1, aided by the fact that the 32 seeds all had R1 byes, and everyone has at least 27 R2 matches they can potentially score for.

FRIDAY PREVIEW

Only two unseeded players are the majority picks in their R2 matches and they are both due to play on Friday. One is Numpty Nalby, a 53-44 pick against Tricky Vicky (the remaining 3% went for Kubot) and the other is James Flake, an 80-20 pick against Bellucci.

Most of the seeds have been so heavily backed that if there are any shocks in R2 (and no doubt there will be!), how much effect losing a seed might have later in the tournament could well be more significant than any short-term movements in the table.

Scratchy · Club Coach

Mmmmm don't think I'll be top dog for long.......unless of course Schwank beats Almagro! One of my 'Random' picks.

LadyTigress · County player

I did notice that the only good outcome of Day 1 was that I didn't lose any of my winners from Round 2, so I could be in for a damage limitation exercise today and Saturday. Seeing as I made a storm on Madrid 2008 that very same way (appalling round 1, wonderful damage limitation in round 2), I'm still hopeful about my chances.

indiana · Tennis legend

Having just looked at the latest update, I feel that an injustice is being made to one of the players, who has entrusted me with making legal representations.

I speak for King Kong, who I definitely feel is being underscored.

After 7 matches in Round 2, he has been given just 3.5 points, i.e. 1/4 of the 14 available.

This is all very well, if it had been a 128 man draw, where he would have had a one in four chance of getting any of the Round 2 winners.

However, in this case we have a 96 man draw with the seeds having automatic entry into round 2, so King Hong should definitely have more than 1/4 of the available points for this round.

Our mathematical department has looked into this and feel the appropriate factor is 3/8 i.e. ( 1/2 x 1/2 ) + ( 1/2 x 1/4 ) and assuming this is the case, after 7 matches he would have 5.25 points rather than 3.5.

Please look into this as it is has possible real implications on how many folk, indeed whether anyone, will fall into my client's cage and he's feeling hungry these days.

Yours Sincerely, King Kong's Legal Representative.

-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 27th of March 2010 12:50:40 AM

steven · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:

Having just looked at the latest update, I feel that an injustice is being made to one of the players, who has entrusted me with making legal representations.

I speak for King Kong, who I definitely feel is being underscored.

After 7 matches in Round 2, he has been given just 3.5 points, i.e. 1/4 of the 14 available.

This is all very well, if it had been a 128 man draw, where he would have had a one in four chance of getting any of the Round 2 winners.

However, in this case we have a 96 man draw with the seeds having automatic entry into round 2, so King Hong should definitely have more than 1/4 of the available points for this round.

Our mathematical department has looked into this and feel the appropriate factor is 3/8 i.e. ( 1/2 x 1/2 ) + ( 1/2 x 1/4 ) and assuming this is the case, after 7 matches he would have 5.25 points rather than 3.5.

Please look into this as it is has possible real implications on how many folk, indeed whether anyone, will fall into my client's cage and he's feeling hungry these days.

Yours Sincerely, King Kong's Legal Representative.

-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 27th of March 2010 12:50:40 AM

Oops, good point - I forgot that adjustment needs to be done manually for Miami. For the othe Masters we do pick 'ems for, which use an up to 64 draw spreadsheet instead of the slam one which has to be used for Miami, the adjustment gets done automatically. Now sorted.

indiana · Tennis legend

Dear Mr pick'em,

Thank you most kindly for your quick resolution of this issue.

My client now notes that one person has now fallen into his cage who would have otherwise escaped. It appears to be of the tasty English variety. He is most pleased.

Your Sincerely, King Kong's Legal Representative

steven · Tennis legend

MIAMI MASTERS BOTB - DAY 3 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

There were no upsets in the 3rd quarter of the draw on Friday (Numpty beat no. 30 seed Troicki, but 53% of us expected him to) but what carnage there was in the bottom quarter!

First (and worst), 95% pick Nole's game of 'chicken' finally caught him out as he lost to little Ollie Rochus, something not a single entrant had predicted, and then 80% pick James Flaked against 20% pick Bellucci, creating a R3 match that is dead to every single one of us!

79% pick Querrey's loss to 2% pick Chardy saved the bacon of the 19% who picked Ancic to win that match and it is now looking very good for the 29% who picked Almagro to reach R4 and the 4% who picked him to reach the QFs, many of whom were probably lucky people who picked Monfils and didn't notice that he had withdrawn in time to change their picks!

Last week's winner showed his age when he had to retire against 3% pick Becker despite being a set up and that sets things up nicely for the 28% who picked Robredo to reach R4. 80% pick Benneteau took the GEM of the day prize for losing to 18% pick Stakh, who will have to make Duckboy quack in the next round if he wants to inflict any further damage.

Detailed results can be found at http://www.freewebs.com/britishtennis/competitions.html, with 'headlines' and 'quotes of the day' appearing on http://twitter.com/botb1 as well.

TEAMS

MTF, up 1 to 1st, and BT.net, down 1 to 2nd, swapped places at the top, but the day belonged to BBC 606, up 3 to 3rd with the best average score for R2 so far.

None of the other teams moved more than 2 places, but the bottom half of the draw continued to cause Team CC problems and they have dropped back into last place.

INDIVIDUALS

Getting 11/16 on day 3 was enough to lift 2007 USO BOTB winner amalyn (MT) and 2007 Rome BOTB winner Steven (GR) 3 places into joint 1st place, despite (in my case anyway) the day's results having negative implications for R3, i.e. I didn't pick either of the Spaniards whose draws opened up today to reach R4. However, somewhat embarrassingly, Billy the Bookie bot is ahead of all of us!

The two leaders lead only on tiebreak from wolf (BT) & francky (RG), both up 11 to 3= after getting 12/16 correct on day 3, and Cain Bradley (BB) & Jett (AR) - both up 49 to 5=, they are two of the three entrants who equal top scored with 13/16. One point back, Yorkie (AM) & mattk77 (SG), both down 5 to 7=, are just ahead (also on tiebreak) of cazza99 (AM) & Scotty (TA) (TA), both down 2 to 9=. The top 10 thus includes entrants from 9 different teams, which I believe is unprecedented!

R1 winner Scratchy (BT) dropped to 12th place after getting just 9/16 correct, but if he had resisted the temptation to pick Schwank to beat Almagro, he would still be on top.

ON THE RISE

Just five entrants rose more than 50 places - riser of the day CFN33 (BT), up 91 to 127th, was the third of the equal top scorers on day 3 with 13/16 correct, and a quartet from 'Team Murray' rose in unison - andys_ipod (AM), drewziph (AM), Keith Nunn (AM) & Matts the best! (AM), all rose 56 to 69= after getting 12/16.

DODGY DROPPERS

By far the biggest faller was Dafs (DF), down 144 to 198th after getting the equal lowest score on day 3 (8/16 correct) together with baguet (RG), down 94 to 219th, and Pabbers (AM), down 22 to last place.

The latter was nearly left behind when the 40 entrants who were in the cage at the end of R1 staged a mass escape, but she eventually shook herself free of the big hairy ones with moments to spare before she turned into dinner.

A special mention must go to jaydu (AM), who was the equal top scorer of the day with a few matches to go, but somehow (picking GGL to beat JWT might have had something to do with it) contrived to end the day back in 228=, though at least this is now 2nd last rather than last!

SATURDAY PREVIEW

All of the seeds in the top half of the draw have been picked to win their first match by over 80% of us except Montanes 74% v Serra 17% and Simon 75% v de Bakker 2% (24% went for Seppi), so it could be another day when the long-term implications of any shock results are far more serious than an immediate effect they have on the table.

Scratchy · Club Coach

steven wrote:

'R1 winner Scratchy (BT) dropped to 12th place after getting just 9/16 correct, but if he had resisted the temptation to pick Schwank to beat Almagro, he would still be on top'

Doh!
Cant believe I picked Eduardo, what a load of Schwank!

Silver · County player

I thought I'd be lower. 95th will do me for now. I don't expect to be much higher cos most of my picks for the later rounds have BEEN NUMPTIES (or retired...)

LadyTigress · County player

Well, that's my Pick'em effectively over. Bye bye, Andy as Champion pick.

-- Edited by LadyTigress on Saturday 27th of March 2010 08:23:10 PM

Silver · County player

Same.

I might as well chuck in the towel now... *sadface*