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

LadyTigress · County player

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

indiana · Tennis legend

Yep

But also some of us like to put our anoraks on smile

eblunt · Club Coach

LadyTigress wrote:

Do people not understand the whole "dour humour" concept of participating in Pick'em? :p

-- Edited by LadyTigress on Monday 6th of September 2010 11:25:47 AM

Anyone who spends two weeks analysing how two blokes batting a ball over a net affects their postition in some pointless league table has got to have some severe psychological problems. I know - I have, caused by this stupid competition in the first place.

steven · Tennis legend

Well this thread brought a smile to my face

I still haven't quite fathomed "pre-damage-limited" but even as a southerner I would say a HEM (as in ahem) rather than an HEM. LOL

I think this game's only fun if you don't take it seriously at all or if you take it very seriously but recognise that doing that is very funny in itself.

Those who picked Andy to win can survive without too much damage if neither Rafa nor Fed get to the Final. Seems highly unlikely, but then who'd have thought there'd be one quarter with just 4 Spaniards left in it (this is the USO, not RG after all!), 6 Spaniards overall and 3 Francophone players (I'm including Stani the honorary GEM here) in the last 16.

Come on the GEMs! (the real ones, I mean)

eblunt · Club Coach

I wonder if they should be called GEOs - Outperformers !!

Typical that they should chose this moment to do it when I very carefully selected all of them to go out relatively early - 2 of them to round 3, and none any further. But that's GEMs for you , their sheer unpredictability is their trademark.

eblunt · Club Coach

steven wrote:

Well this thread brought a smile to my face I still haven't quite fathomed "pre-damage-limited" but even as a southerner I would say a HEM (as in ahem) rather than an HEM. LOL

I think this game's only fun if you don't take it seriously at all or if you take it very seriously but recognise that doing that is very funny in itself.

Those who picked Andy to win can survive without too much damage if neither Rafa nor Fed get to the Final. Seems highly unlikely, but then who'd have thought there'd be one quarter with just 4 Spaniards left in it (this is the USO, not RG after all!), 6 Spaniards overall and 3 Francophone players (I'm including Stani the honorary GEM here) in the last 16.

Come on the GEMs! (the real ones, I mean)

Pre-damage-limited is an upcoming match which normally should have a been a big swing match such as Rafa v Andy semi, however the opponent to your selection has unexpectedly gone out, so if your pick diesn't win , no-one else is picking up points.

indiana · Tennis legend

In the wake of the disaster of Andy's exit, more in actuality of course but also in pick'em terms, I had been thinking that a spiral downhill was inevitable here.

But I may have found my new bestest friend in Djokovic. Don't though count on this being that longlasting, Novak

.

He's won today for me as a 71% pick. Now if he could reach the semis as a a 37% pick that would be rather splendid.

If he could then go on and win the whole blooming thing, beating Fed and Nadal ( and he is only 7% to reach the final and 2% to win the title ) then that would be tremendously helpful first pre-damage limitation* and then actual damage limitation.

* this is a variant on the above definition of pre-damage limitation ( a clearly understandable concept

) in this case being where you have two future competitors, both of whom winning would cause reasonable damage, the player taking out the potentially bigger damage performs pre-damage limitation.

NB : advanced students will understand that where you yourself have the bigger possible damage inflictor ( here Fed ) to reach the final, then someone beating him only really causes pre-damage limitation when the extra damage that his winning the final rather than his potential opponent ( Nadal ) is more than the gain you make first by him reaching the final. I will leave students to clarify that in this case it would be pre-damage limitation. Glad we've clear about that smile

-- Edited by indiana on Tuesday 7th of September 2010 01:17:36 AM

steven · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
* this is a variant on the above definition of pre-damage limitation ( a clearly understandable concept ) in this case being where you have two future competitors, both of whom winning would cause reasonable damage, the player taking out the potentially bigger damage performs pre-damage limitation.

NB : advanced students will understand that where you yourself have the bigger possible damage inflictor ( here Fed ) to reach the final, then someone beating him only really causes pre-damage limitation when the extra damage that his winning the final rather than his potential opponent ( Nadal ) is more than the gain you make first by him reaching the final. I will leave students to clarify that in this case it would be pre-damage limitation. Glad we've clear about that

All perfectly clear this time

(maybe because I'm awake today!)

2010 US OPEN BOTB - DAY 8 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

Monday was a high-scoring day because three of the favourites won - 98% pick Fed, 90% pick Söd (the only winner on day 8 who dropped a set) & 71% pick Nole - so it was left to the battle of the GEMs to determine the big risers of the day, with 4% pick le Monf playing an inspired match to see off Dammit Gasquet and reach the USO QFs for the first time.

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

As had happened on Sunday, it was a team whose hero had gone out that day that ended the day on top. The difference was that this time it was because of the match their hero went out in, simply because 5 of the Dammitaires, up 1 to 1st, picked a GEM to reach the QFs (splitting Monfils 2 Gasquet 3), whereas 94% of us didn't pick a French player to reach the QFs at all.

AM.com fell 1 to 2nd and are just over 1/2 a point behind, but the top two have opened up a gap of more than a point on Team CC, up 1 to 3rd, BT.net, down 1 to 4th, and GBTG in 5th.

All but four teams changed their positions but only the Ducklings, down 2 to 16th, moved more than one place, dropping back after getting the lowest average of the day with just over 2/4 correct per player. They are now just 0.11 clear of BBC 606 in last place.

INDIVIDUALS

10 entrants managed perfect 4/4s on Monday and one of them, Jojo56 (RG) moved up 2 places to regain the lead by a single point. Two more of them moved up within the top 10, anne (IN), up 4 to 4th, and jmc116 (IN), up 5 to 5th, and a fourth perfect scorer moved into the top 10, airsmashers (BT), up 11 to 7th.

The rest of the new top 10 all got 3/4 on day 8 - they are GoGo (AM), down 1 to 2nd, cazza99 (AM), down 1 to 3rd, Puschkin (RG), down 1 to 6th, oohsalmon (DF), down 1 to 8th, Smidster (BT), steady in 9th, and British_is_Best (BT), up 1 to 10th.

freerider (BT), down 10 to 14th, and t_torres (VB), down 10 to 16th, both dropped out of the top 10 after getting just 2/4 Monday winners correct.

ON THE RISE

The remaining entrants who got 4/4 correct ended up as the six biggest risers of the day - Oscar (RF), up 52 to 26th, kayce (JM), up 90 to 82nd, vivahate (CC), up 97 to 112th, riser of the day Jan (NB), up 119 to 167th, Jack2010 (TN), up 99 to 207th, and Mac (IN), up 92 to 231st.

DODGY DROPPERS

Jstar69 (IN), down 45 to 371st, and SUZE CLARK (AR), down 42 to 372nd, are now just 3 points off the bottom after drawing a complete blank on day 8.

However, the biggest fallers came from among the 11 entrants who got 1/4 correct, with faller of the day waylandboy-tw (TA), down 137 to 217th, The Hoose (BT), down 136 to 247th, ballyfan (GB), down 129 to 250th, mikeindo (TN), down 131 to 263rd, Ryzim (DF), down 129 to 265th, and amazonaria (BB), down 101 to 322nd, all falling more than 100 places.

OUTLOOK

For so late in the game, there is still an unusually diverse range of overall winner picks within the top 10 - the top two have picked Rafa to win and those in 3rd, 5th and 9th have all picked Fed to win but the other five have all lost their winner pick - Muzza in three cases, Dammit & Duckboy in one case each.

TEAM KO

The scores in the team KO SFs are:

(12) RogerFederer.com 11.05 lead (1) AndyMurray.com 10.57 by 0.48
(7) RichardGasquet.net 11.69 lead (14) TalkAboutTennis 10.22 by 1.47

For updates plus details of the 5th-16th place playoff SFs, please follow the Team KO link on http://www.freewebs.com/britishtennis/Competitions.html or on the team league results page.

TUESDAY OoP & pick %s

LA-1: (12) Youzhny 1% v Robredo 0% (1) - other picks: Berdbrain 89%, Isner 9%, Radek 1%, Malisse 1%, 1 pick for Benneteau
AA-2: (20) Querrey 1% v (25) Stani 0% (1) - other picks: Muzza 98%, 1 pick each for Chela & Almagro
LA-4: (8) Verdasco 19% v (10) Ferrer 10% - other picks: Numpty 64%, Gulbis 6%, 1 pick each for Dolgo & Becker
AA-5: (1) Rafa 99% v (23) F-Loppy 0% (0) - other picks: 1 pick each for Istomin, Kohli, Stako & Ljubo

An upset win for F-Loppy would kill the top half virtually stone dead for the QFs and SFs, but Verdasco v Pics is the swing match of the day, something of a pity for the 71% of us (a number which seems to be coming up remarkably often in this BOTB!) who don't have either of them. There are big gains to be made by those who have the 0-1% picks though, if they come through. They are:

Youzhny: sallydaisy (JM) in 24th, Lex (ML) in 88th, srberg (DF) in 182=
Robredo: sid (AM) in 209=
Querrey: Scotty (TA) in 264th, IntnstyAngle (TA) in 297th, Black Bart (TN) in 318th, english-boy (AM) in 329th
Stani: Rads (IN) in 362nd

It's not hard to tell that a lot of these entrants overdid their upset picks, but the serial gorilla botherer who usually overdoes her upset picks the most has done remarkably well this time and is the entrant best placed to benefit from a 1% winner today.

eblunt · Club Coach

Hoping to get a long overdue night off from this evil competition, with 3 dead games for me and hopefully Rafa to ease in I'm going to risk an early (pre 2am) night tonight.

steven · Tennis legend

2010 US OPEN BOTB - DAY 9 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

Tuesday was a very low-scoring day, with only 4 entrants managing to pick up a single win in the first two matches (3 picked Youzhny and 1 picked Stani), 19% scoring for Verdasco in the swing match of the day (which 10% pick Ferrer managed to lose from 2 sets up, from a break up in the 5th and from *4-1 up with a double mini-break in the final tiebreak after which he lost the last 6 points in a row, the final one a quite stunning match point winner from out of court near the net post by Verdasco) and all but 4 of us scoring for Rafa.

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 top three teams remained the same, but the Dammitaires now lead AM.com by just 0.009 points (a small fraction of any one correct R1 pick from any one entrant), with Team CC just over a point behind in 3rd. MTL, up 2, pipped BT.net, down 1, for 4th place at the very end of the day because one of the latter team picked Ljubo to reach the QFs instead of Rafa.

The only other upward moves came from Tennis-Warehouse, up 2 to 8th, Tennisopolis, up 2 to 11th, and the Ducklings, up 3 to 13th, while the only team to drop more than one place was Rusedski.co.uk, down 2 to 14th.

INDIVIDUALS

With 2/4 correct (i.e. Rafa and Verdy), Jojo56 (RG) remained on top all day and now leads by 3 points from anne (IN), up 2 to 2nd. Others in the new top 10 who got 2/4 were SteveWalker (BT), up 6 to 6th, freerider (BT), up 7 to 7th, and --cj-- (TA), up 6 to 9th,

The rest of the new top 10 all got 1/4 on Tuesday - GoGo (AM), down 1 to 3rd, cazza99 (AM), down 1 to 4th, jmc116 (IN), steady in 5th but would have been the new leader had Ferrer won, Puschkin (RG), down 2 to 8th, and airsmashers (BT), down 3 to 10th.

sallydaisy (JM), up 10 to 14th by the end of the day, edged back into the top 10 at one point, having been the highest-placed of the 3 entrants who picked Youzhny - if Ferrer had managed to win too, she'd have ended the day in 4th.

ON THE RISE

Incredibly, one entrant managed to get 3/4 correct (Rafa, Verdy & Youzhny), so congratulations to srberg (DF), who jumped up 119 places to 63rd as a result.

The same entrant equal top-scored for R4 with 6/8 correct, together with the new top two and Jack2010 (TN), who rose another 55 places to 152nd on Tuesday to complete a 2-day rise of 154 from way down in 306th place.

DODGY DROPPERS

Only four entrants took the risk of not picking Rafa to reach the QFs - naughtyT (NB), down 59 to 327th, was the biggest faller of the day, while GrantTennis (MT), down 7 to 370th, bagou (RG), down 6 to 372nd, and djlovesyou (BT), down 6 to 373rd, were the others who failed to score.

OUTLOOK

Nobody has more than three semi-finalist picks still standing, but over 100 (including the top two and, oddly enough, last-placed Sadey (GR)) have exactly three left, most of the other entrants have two and nobody has less than one.

TEAM KO

The final scores in the team KO SFs were:

(12) RogerFederer.com 15.81 beat (1) AndyMurray.com 15.43 by 0.38
(7) RichardGasquet.net 16.00 beat (14) TalkAboutTennis 14.84 by 1.16

For the results of the 5th-16th place playoff SFs, please follow the Team KO link on http://www.freewebs.com/britishtennis/Competitions.html or on the team league results page.

The full list of team KO Finals (which will be decided by the results of the USO QFs, SFs and Final) is as follows:

FINAL: (12) RogerFederer.com are tied with (7) RichardGasquet.net 0-0
3-4: (1) AndyMurray.com are tied with (14) TalkAboutTennis 0-0
5-6: (4) MyTennisLounge.com are tied with (6) Tennis-Warehouse 0-0
7-8: (9) MensTennisForums are tied with (2) GBTennisGirls.com 0-0
9-10: (5) Tennis4you.com are tied with (15) Tennisopolis.com 0-0
11-12: (8) JamieMurray.org are tied with (3) BritishTennis.net 0-0
13-14: (13) Rusedski.co.uk are tied with (10) Centre Court Forum 0-0
15-16: (16) NewBallsPlease are tied with (11) BBC 606 boards 0-0

QFs OoP & pick %s

AA3: (3) Nole 37% v (17) Monfils 0% * - other picks: Duckboy 45%, Fish 9%, Kolya 5%, Baggy 3% & Dammit 1%
AA5: (2) Fed 92% v (5) Söd 6% - other picks: Cilic 1%, Hewitt 1% & de Bakker
Thu: (1) Rafa 84% v (8) Verdy 1% - other picks: Numpty 13%, Gulbis 1%, Stako & Pics
Thu: (12) Youzhny 0% v (25) Stani 0% - completely dead match, entrants went for Muzza 87%, Berdbrain 12%, Chela, Querrey & Isner

* bagou (RG) in 372nd place

NO REPORT ON WEDNESDAY

As in other recent tournaments with QFs spread over two days, what is usually the "Today" column will track the change over the whole of the QFs and the next report will appear when they have all been completed instead of there being one report per day.

eblunt · Club Coach

Steven, just noticed the top positions - is it already a 2 horse race between jojo56 ans cazza99 for the title ? It doesn't look like anyone else could overtake both of them.

steven · Tennis legend

eblunt wrote:

Steven, just noticed the top positions - is it already a 2 horse race between jojo56 ans cazza99 for the title ? It doesn't look like anyone else could overtake both of them.

I hadn't bothered to check (I usually wait until the semi-finalists are decided, which cuts down the number of remaining possibilities to 8) but I'd say you're probably right - indeed, that the leading GEM has got it sewn up unless Fed wins the title and Rafa fails to reach the Final, i.e. it looks to me like she'll even win if Fed beats Rafa in the Final.

indiana · Tennis legend

One person that is just a bit too far back is the single Sod winner pick, Roseville Rief ( TN ) who I think maybe could overtake all but the current leader.

They are currently in 123 = place, on 126 points, 21 points back. The maximum gain they can make on jojo56 is 5, 6 and 7 points for the quarters, semis and final respectively, leaving them still 3 short.

-- Edited by indiana on Wednesday 8th of September 2010 05:57:31 PM

steven · Tennis legend

I haven't checked, but I think it's highly unusual for someone in the top third to be 24 points behind the leader at this stage. Even more remarkable given how bunched the scores were (compared to normal) over the first few days.

eblunt · Club Coach

If Rafa wins the title, Jojo will win by about 10 clear points, presumably with a monster score