Wimbledon 'Battle of the Boards' pick em - now back on - closing Monday 11.30 UK

Count Zero · Tennis legend

RE: Wimbledon - to BOTB or not to BOTB, that is the question ...

steven · Tennis legend

Count Zero wrote:
Unit shows signs of struggling with multi-tasking, hmm I wonder if a hardware upgrade maybe needed, possibly reached software's capacity.

It certainly feels like that today. cry My brain, oops I mean processor, could do with at least a 2 GB RAM upgrade and a few co-processors if the budget will rise to it! wink

Jan · Hall of fame

we'll all have a whip round!!!

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

Shame, but can't be helped, roll on next year.

Reeltime · Satellite level

RE: Wimbledon 'Battle of the Boards' pick em - now back on - closing Monday 11.30 UK

Scratchy · Club Coach

Rocking Good News! In that case, I'm gonna make my comeback....
Many thanks Steven and Bethan.

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

Done, mine, but as I don't really follow the men's game, I've had to make alot of guesses. I don't suppose there's one for the women?

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

imoen wrote:
That's me!
I don't post on here as much as I used to (don't have as much time as I'd like to do so) but I've always helped Steven with the pickems in the background.
Thanks to those who have already entered - keep the picks rolling in!!

Nice to meet you, this solves another mystery of the board!

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

the longer you stay on here the more mysteries will be revealed

we don't currently run one for the women but don't worry about making lots of guesses that's all we all do. You'll learn soon enough which players always let you down (commonly known as muppets)!

goldfish · Futures qualifying

Huge thanks to Steven and Bethan for runnning this competition again. I remember that I had the same problem on a previous occasion and wonder if anyone else has experienced the same thing - when I upload the entry form the automatic filling in of my picks does not happen. I tried filling in the form from rounds 2 onwards with all the slots as NOT YET PREDICTED (challenging to read across the lines and hope you've ticked the right box) but it didn't send. I've managed to complete my entry on another laptop with no problem. I realise that no solution is likely under the current pressure of work but just mention it to see if it's just my problem or if others experience the same thing. If I remember correctly, Steven couldn't suggest any reason for this.

Good luck, can't wait for tomorrow but just wondering how quickly my frustration at the muppets will begin. Taking part has already made this slam more interesting than RG.

The Knight · Challenger qualifying

Mahut-Isner in round 2? haha not again

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

The Knight wrote:
Mahut-Isner in round 2? haha not again

I know, I saw that and just laughed, what are the odds??

huntley93 · Strong Club Player

Helen40 wrote:
The Knight wrote:
Mahut-Isner in round 2? haha not again
I know, I saw that and just laughed, what are the odds??

they played each other in the 1st round last year did they not? isner won in straight sets i think.

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

Not sure which round, but certainly if they meet this year it's be three years on the trot.

steven · Tennis legend

eblunt wrote:
Well it's here again. Every bit as predictable as the "first cuckoo of spring" is the "first muppet of Wimby", who will it be. Surely no-one could be daft enough to expect Donkey to progess, so he's out of the frame. That evergreen muppet Gulbis has no takers whatsover it appears ... maybe people have finally learned. AlMUGro will do what he does does best ..... the exact opposite of what was expected. Flake will be flakey, that's for sure, but even the crumbliest flakiest player isn't picked by a majority. No it has to be a GEM, that's where my money is.

Good summary - having a quick skim down the %s, AlMUGro (94%) is a definite possiblity, or maybe GillEs siMon against PHM, though I'd prefer it to be a VDM, i.e. Andreev against Oli.

The other matches either don't seem to have much upset potential or it wouldn't be a huge shock if the less-picked player won.

Helen - a 'muppet' in BOTB terms is a player who delights in doing what the opposite of what you've picked him to do. The kind of player who goes very deep in a tournament once in a while, then messes up your BOTB entry by losing to lower-ranked players again and again, before going deep in a tournament once more the moment you finally give up on him and pick him to go out early ... which of course usually means the whole sorry cycle of pain starts again!

In the past, classic examples have been 'Dammit' Gasquet, 'Numpty' Nalby, Gonzo (who even shared his name with a real muppet), GEMremy Chardy, etc. Newer examples might include Ernests 'so bad they named him twice' Gulbis (possibly the most annoying player of all time, though everyone's given up picking him now) and Dimi, the 'baby Fed' guaranteed to leave you Fed up.

A GEM is a garlic-eating malingerer, with similar shorthand for other nationalities, e.g. VDMs (Russian), PEMs (Spanish), HEM (Muzz) - I'll leave you to guess those! wink However, the sheer number of French players and their utter unreliability (or 'gallic flair' as they like to call it) means 'we tend to use 'GEM' far more often than anything else. smile

There is also #GEMpower for those rare tournaments where all the GEMs decide to perform at once, though obviously it tends not to last much past the last 16 even in those cases.

-- Edited by steven on Monday 25th of June 2012 10:09:22 AM