2010 US Open 'Battle of the Boards' pick 'em contest

LadyTigress · County player

RE: 2010 US Open 'Battle of the Boards' pick 'em contest

LadyTigress · County player

Wait... how comes "sengale" is near the top of the leaderboard but underneath the champion list they're listed as "No pick"?! I thought entries couldn't be submitted/weren't accepted unless every match had been predicted.

indiana · Tennis legend

airsmashers wrote:

ooops I spoke too soon, taken a bit of a drop.

Yes, but you're not far away and that Monfils QF pick could be highly profitable.

He's a 6% pick to reach round 4 and a 4% pick to reach the QF with a round 3 match against Tipsy and a potential round 4 match against Dammit or Anderson.

steven · Tennis legend

LadyTigress wrote:

Wait... how comes "sengale" is near the top of the leaderboard but underneath the champion list they're listed as "No pick"?! I thought entries couldn't be submitted/weren't accepted unless every match had been predicted.

If any matches haven't been picked, there is a prominent warning just above the Submit button, but the software can't actually stop the entry from being submitted, it can only warn.

If entries come in with missing picks, then if there are loads of missing picks (e.g. no matches picked at all or only the first round picked), then we reject them (though if there's time and they're a newbie, we might write and explain so that they can try again) but if only a couple of picks are missing (in this case, the Final was the only match sengale didn't pick) then we accept them. I think there's also one entry with two R1 picks missing and one entry with a R4 pick missing this time.

LadyTigress · County player

Huh. Is this some kind of tactical move then? What value does it gain you? If you pick the wrong player you also get zero points, as you would having picked no champion at all, but at least if you pick someone then you have a chance of picking up those points - if you pick no one you have no chance of getting those points.

LadyTigress · County player

Okay, who picked Stakhovsky to win?! Stakh is now through to the third round... Hmmm, an inspired pick? For the sake of my pick'em, he needs to lose soon.

indiana · Tennis legend

Yes, me, well done Stak smile

But I had him losing in R3 to Lopez who is currently numptying against Paire cry

( tho has broken back to 5 - 5 in the 4th set to avoid losing the match hmm for now )

Oh, did you mean someone had Stak to win whole thing ?? As far as I can see someone got him to final, but not to win.

-- Edited by indiana on Friday 3rd of September 2010 08:41:46 PM

LadyTigress · County player

Lol, no, I meant that one person who picked Stakh as the champion?

EDIT: Dang editing. Yes, yes, that's what I meant.

-- Edited by LadyTigress on Friday 3rd of September 2010 08:41:23 PM

steven · Tennis legend

LadyTigress wrote:

Huh. Is this some kind of tactical move then? What value does it gain you? If you pick the wrong player you also get zero points, as you would having picked no champion at all, but at least if you pick someone then you have a chance of picking up those points - if you pick no one you have no chance of getting those points.

Not a tactical move by sengale, just a silly mistake!

NaughtyT of the NewBallsPlease team was the entrant who picked Stakh to reach the Final - their 'captain' Gauloises was the only entrant to pick Llodra to reach R3 and the only entrant to pick DGT to reach R3, but as usual with those who pick so many upsets that they have to get lucky once or twice, both of those entrants are near the bottom of the table.

LadyTigress · County player

That's somewhat comforting, I suppose. Occasionally it can be tempting to try and outwit the muppets by picking outrageously.

eblunt · Club Coach

Simon confounds the GEM rule by coming through for me - things are looking up again suddenly

steven · Tennis legend

Grrr. I needed Kohli and Almagro (plus Rafa, obviously) to win to have a perfect day (i.e. to win all my live matches and have damage limitation in the rest) - when I saw they were both a set up, I knew at least one of them would muppet it away.

As the German Eurosport (*) commentator put it "Das ist ein Kohlschreiber match gewesen, und jeder weiß, was das heißt." That properly translates as "That was a Kohlschreiber match, and everyone knows what that means" ... or colloquially as "You wouldn't think he was German cos he can be a right muppet sometimes" DOH!!

Meanwhile, Al-mug-ro is doing his best to lose from 2 sets up ...

steven · Tennis legend

2010 US OPEN BOTB - DAY 5 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

The remaining 16 R2 matches were played on Thursday and cracks finally began to appear in the French assault on the draw, though Simon managed to reassert some GEM power with a 5 set win over Kohli in one of the last matches of the day.

11 matches were won by players picked by at least 3/4 of us, while in the match with the most obvious 3-way split, Robredo 27% beat Benneteau 30% - 43% had gone for Radek. Other matches that shook up the table a fair bit were 24% pick Simon beating Kohli 76% and Stako 38% beating Harrison 2% in the match that 60% had picked Ljubo to win.

DGT (picked by just one entrant) did some damage limitation for the 90% of us who had picked Gulbis or Nieminen rather than Chardy and Llodra beat Hanescu in a match where only one entrant had picked each player and everyone else had gone for Berdbrain.

Detailed results, lists of everyone's picks and so on can be found at http://www.freewebs.com/britishtennis/Competitions.html and these are now being updated regularly each day.

TEAMS

The lead went back and forth between WTA specialists GBTG and the Dammitaires all day, with the former coming out on top, up 1 to 1st and (based on unadjusted averages) winning their second round in a row! The French team were 2nd with one match to go but ended up dropping one more place to 3rd because bagou (RG) was the only entrant who picked Istomin to beat Rafa, allowing AM.com, up 2, to slot into 2nd spot. BT.net, up 2 to 4th, and MTL, down 2 to 5th, complete the new top 5.

World no. 1 team TAT, up 3 to 8th, and the Feddies, up 3 to 11th, were the fastest risers, while T4Y, down 3 to 12th, were the biggest fallers. The Ducklings moved off the bottom during the day, but were left holding the lanterne rouge again as play came to an end.

INDIVIDUALS

Nevets (CC) has now been in the outright lead for more than 48 hours, currently just on tiebreak from oohsalmon (DF), who has moved from 2= to 2nd outright, though has already lost his winner. Both got 13/16 matches correct on Friday, just one win below the best of the day. The latter has won R2 jointly with --cj-- (TA), up 1 to 7th - they both got 25/32 correct for R2 as a whole.

With 12/16 correct, freerider (BT) fell 1 place to 3rd and is 2 points behind the top pair, with cazza99 (AM), up 1, and t_torres (VB) & Sandman (BT), both up 8, all in 4= one more point back. Completing the new top 10 are Babfive (GB), up 1 to 8th, Jojo56 (RG), down 7 to 9=, and two of the five top scorers of the day with 14/16, Richard Morris (ASE) (AM) & GoGo (AM), both up 44 to 9=.

The biggest casualty from the overnight top 5 was world no. 1 Scotsguy (ML), down 20 to 25= after getting 10/16 on day 5.

ON THE RISE

The remaining three equal top scorers of the day with 14/16 correct were andrewjshields (RF), up 98 to 23rd, Alli (CC), up 113 to 35=, and Ifaslin (NB), up 84 to 287=.

In addition, Super8 (CC), up 101 to 68=, Swissgirl (IN), up 101 to 77=, Snoo Foo (MT), up 108 to 91=, Robmeister33 (AM), up 120 to 96th, breezybee (MT), up 114 to 109=, Orn (AM), up 130 to 117=, Jeff Tagen (IN), up 52 to 117, riser of the day ArtV (IN), up 140 to 119th, Zebra Melanija (IN) & Osmeone (IN), both up 126 to 176=, jmc116 (IN), up 133 to 182nd, and Bismarck (NB), up 125 to 199=, all moved up more than 100 places after getting 13/16 correct.

Gauloises (NB), up 62 to 287=, deserves a special mention for being the only entrant who got both Llodra and Gimeno correct, not least because nobody else picked either of them to reach R3! However, she seems to have taken a few too many other gambles like that, because even after those two impressive coups, she is still in the bottom quartile.

DODGY DROPPERS

The lowest scorer of the day (with just 6/16 correct) and the biggest faller was greatunclebulgaria (JM), down 233 to 354=. While the vast majority of entrants got more wins in the top half of R2 than in the bottom half, she got 10 wins in the bottom half to just those 6 in the top half.

Two of the entrants who got 7/16 on Friday, Cain Bradley (BB) & Rads (IN), both plunged 227 to 332=, while the other two Mom of Twins (IN), down 15 to 372nd, and bagou (RG), down 6 to 373rd, fell to 3rd and 2nd last. However, Dusty Dick (BT) is still 4 points adrift, though 16 points ahead of the starving gorillas.

OUTLOOK

Everyone has at least half of their R3 winner picks still standing and everyone has lost at least two. Ace! (AM) in 25=, ptmcmahon (TA) in 91= and jmc116 (IN), way down in 182=, are the only entrants with 14 potential scorers left.

TEAM KO

The L16 matches are now complete - in the pairings implied by the order in which these results are listed, the winners play each other in the QFs, the losers play each other for 9th-16th.

(1) AndyMurray.com 39.57 beat (16) NewBallsPlease 39.33 by 0.24
(9) MensTennisForums 39.67 beat (8) JamieMurray.org 39.14 by 0.53
(12) RogerFederer.com 39.24 beat (5) Tennis4you.com 36.80 by 2.44
(4) MyTennisLounge.com 39.64 beat (13) Rusedski.co.uk 38.59 by 1.05
(14) TalkAboutTennis 40.18 beat (3) BritishTennis.net 39.88 by 0.30
(6) Tennis-Warehouse 38.40 beat (11) BBC 606 boards 37.80 by 0.60
(7) RichardGasquet.net 40.62 beat (10) Centre Court Forum 39.84 by 0.78
(2) GBTennisGirls.com 40.86 beat (15) Tennisopolis.com 38.53 by 2.33

SATURDAY OoP & pick %s

LA-1: (5) Söd 95% v de Bakker 2%
GR-1: (17) le Monf 6% v Tipsy 0% (1- Rads (IN) in 332=)
C11-1: (21) Montañés 6% v Nishikori 3%
C11-2: Dammit 12% v Anderson 2%
AA-3: (2) Fed 98% v PHM 0% (nobody)
LA-3: (19) Fish 71% v Clément 0% (1 - Zebra Melanija (IN) in 176=)
GR-3: (13) Melzer 71% v (22) JCF 25% - swing match of the day
AA-4: (3) Nole 99% v (WC) Flake 0% (1 - PopLoser (IN) in 183=)

Silver · County player

Someone is going to have to convince me to keep playing this game when for some reason my picks DON'T LISTEN TO ME AND THEN LOSE. STOP LOSING YOU LOSERS.

I hate this game. I love but I hate it. There's a vital difference there. I don't even know who I've got left!

SMC1809 · All-time great

Fish seems to gone off the boil! He's just lost the 4th set 6-1.