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.

Thanks Steven and Beth for all you efforts getting this running.

steven wrote:

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Thanks for the offers of help. Unfortunately, that's not really the issue though, since Bethan (who usually shares the BOTB work with me) is going to be around and is able (and willing) to do all the bits that I can leave to someone else, including the more complicated bits that have already been documented, i.e. processing the entries as they come in and updating the results after each match once the initial results are up.

The problem is the middle stage. The main set of spreadsheets that I use to produce all the results tables takes a few concentrated hours of sort out once all the entries are in. It has evolved over the years and while it works very well (and once the initial results are up, it takes hardly any time to update after each match), it's quite ad hoc and I've never had a chance to document all the steps necessary to set it all up. I've done all the steps so often now that I can do it virtually on auto-pilot, but it's not at all intuitive and it is easy to inadvertently mess it up without even knowing it, such that you only find out things have gone wrong much later.

At some (as yet, hypothetical) point, when I have a lot of free time all at once (assuming I can bring myself to spend it all on BOTB!), I will get the process documented and/or programmed so that it becomes more automated and easier for someone else to do. Until then, the stage in between entries closing and the initial results going up is the sticking point and short- term, there's not much I can do about it.

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 Hi Steven, i was a BI Analyst until recently and have had to do a lot of data-database-excel-dashboard refreshes in the past. When i had to document the E2E processes (and in a similar vein it was a process that had evolved in complexity over time) i realised that written documentation would take so long to write and to be understood that another way should be considered. I don't know if you have anything like WebEx technology available but it's great for these things i find as you can preent the process visually instead - set up a meeting with yourself, record the meeting, share your screen and just run the process then send the meeting recording to whoever needs to learn the process. It was a godsend for me (and my poor work colleagues he weren't looking forward to understanding the backend).

Obviously doesn't help for this BOTB but maybe for the next one where you get time-challenged, and you want to document the processes anyway.

Thanks, it does. All help gratefully recieved, I'll have a dig for the 'guide' too.

Can't believe Foggy won. This is going to be a bad year...

steven wrote:

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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!

...

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) ...

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 ... and Gulbis seems to be determined to illustrate the winning 'the moment you finally give up on him' part of that description by taking a 2 sets to love lead against Berdbrain!

johnnylad wrote:

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I have Berdy and Isner going deeeeeeeeeeep.

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Depends what you mean by deep - 89% have Berdy thru to the 1/4 finals, so no damage done there really, unless you've got him getting to Semis (in which case - ouch) . Isner hurts a bit more - 44% QF pick - better hope Tipsy goes out before then to limit the damage.

Got both to QF, so that's made a big hole in my pickem :(

 

Decided Berd Brain was the man to knock out Djoko didn't I?!?!?!?!

Not too worried about Isner as he goes sooner rather than later in my picks.

Can Darcis count as an honorary GEM? Or a cigarette smoking malingerer?