Wimbledon 'Battle of the Boards' replacement competition

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

Wimbledon 'Battle of the Boards' replacement competition

steven · Tennis legend

RE: BOTB

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

Thanks, I'd hate to have to enter under another board

T3nnisFan · Social player

That someone else is me! :)

It's only temporary while Steven is not running it.

More info can be found here: T3nnisStats! The entry form will be up tomorrow!

-- Edited by T3nnisFan on Thursday 20th of June 2013 10:05:44 PM

T3nnisFan · Social player

Wimbledon 'Battle of the Boards' replacement competition

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

T3nnisFan wrote:
Thanks Steven!
2 more entries needed from u guys to qualify for the team comp! ~1.5 days left before entries close! http://t3nnisstats.webs.com/

-- Edited by T3nnisFan on Saturday 22nd of June 2013 08:44:05 PM

Bob in Spain (that would be me) from this board has entered but as an individual. If I am needed to make up numbers, I can change it to representing this board.

However, given my success (or lack thereof) last time and the fact that I filled out the predictions form in about 2 minutes flat, my board associates would probably want me to stay as an individual entry. wink

-- Edited by Bob in Spain on Saturday 22nd of June 2013 10:26:26 PM

steven · Tennis legend

Thought I'd give this a bump - info & entry form are at the link in the previous post.

jake270392 · Intermediate Club Player

Just entered :)

Ratty · County player

I've seen these strange BOTB threads, but never read them before. How extremely odd to devote so much time and effort ... to what end?

Just so I understand this correctly: chaps painstakingly predict the results of lots of tennis matches. The most likely winning strategy is obvious - to go with the higher ranked player every time. But it's likely that this strategy will NOT actually win, given enough contestants. The winner, whose success is almost entirely due to chance, achieves an ephemeral and unwarranted kudos.

Illogical.

blob · All-time great

Ratty wrote:
I've seen these strange BOTB threads, but never read them before. How extremely odd to devote so much time and effort ... to what end?
Just so I understand this correctly: chaps painstakingly predict the results of lots of tennis matches. The most likely winning strategy is obvious - to go with the higher ranked player every time. But it's likely that this strategy will NOT actually win, given enough contestants. The winner, whose success is almost entirely due to chance, achieves an ephemeral and unwarranted kudos.
Illogical.

Agreed - illogical.

Almost as illogical in fact as if someone were to try to achieve the same kind of ephemeral and unwarranted kudos by repeatedly, sneeringly and archly commenting in pseudo-intellectual fashion on how pointless and fruitless the activities of the rest of the human race are.

Further, what if they did so in face of, at best, marked and repeated apathy to such entreaties from the target audience. Such single mindedly persistent displays of querulousness would indeed be perplexing.

And then if that same person had a continuously wilful failure to acknowledge that the human race is, evolutionary, and by necessity, a social species. A trait which manifests itself in modernity in trivial ways, enjoyable to those individuals, to fill their free time and share a common experience with other members of the species; thus strengthening the bonds of community and identity between said individuals. A proven requisite characteristic of efficient societies of mankind, something which logic, intriguingly, has never been.

Additionally, if they employed a false naiveté in questioning these actions of others as though genuinely confused by them and additionally occasionally underlining their sardonic superiority with an oh so post-ironic 'smiley' face.

Finally, what if for such weighty issues of psychology and philosophy as their agenda seemed to demand, they chose as the very best and most appropriate place to unleash the full weight of their cogitation, despite the multitudinous alternatives available to them, they selected a free internet forum dedicated to the very narrow subject of British Tennis players?

Well, surely someone wrapping themselves and their questioning in a cloak of logic could never fail to recognise the illogic of doing all those things.

It could surely never happen.

But, if it did, how impossibly illogical and ironic that would be.

steven · Tennis legend

Ratty wrote:
I've seen these strange BOTB threads, but never read them before. How extremely odd to devote so much time and effort ... to what end?
Just so I understand this correctly: chaps painstakingly predict the results of lots of tennis matches. The most likely winning strategy is obvious - to go with the higher ranked player every time. But it's likely that this strategy will NOT actually win, given enough contestants. The winner, whose success is almost entirely due to chance, achieves an ephemeral and unwarranted kudos.
Illogical.

biggrin biggrin

Er, I think most people enter because it's fun (a strange, pointless concept down in the sewers, I know) - at least, it is fun if you count tearing your hair out as French players (GEMs for short) and Ernests Gulbis screw up your plans (by winning matches they are expected to lose and losing matches they are expected to win) as fun, but apparently lots of people do, as the 400+ entries we got for each slam from a fairly limited pool and the 10000+ the ATP get for similar competitions for the Masters events from a much larger pool would tend to confirm.

It's also quite sociable, especially in the BOTB team format. Not just online either - I have ended up meeting quite a few BOTBers from various places at tournaments and DC ties and I know many of the other entrants have too.

Anyway, as someone who seems to think people only make predictions so that they can point to them in the unlikely event they come true and conveniently forget about all their predictions that crash and burn, I'd have thought you'd like the idea of all these 'silly' predictors putting their money (or at least their ticks) where their mouth is, thus making their incorrect picks as conspicuous as their correct ones. smile (and it has been a BOTB custom to highlight the 'heroic' failures as much as the successes)

As to whether it is all luck, the fact that some entrants manage to consistently finish at or near the top and others consistently at or near the bottom (in some cases learning from their mistakes and then doing consistently well in later years) suggests that is not the case. Undoubtedly, strategies that mainly go with rankings tend to work better than those that involve predicting that every upset that could conceivably happen will happen, so to that extent you are correct. However, strategies that mainly go with rankings but use knowledge or research to factor in performance on the specific surface, H2H info and recent form tend to do best of all, with large numbers of human entrants usually outperforming the automated entrant who picks the higher-ranked player to win every match, though you won't be surprised to learn that the latter usually (though not always) does better than the average human entrant.

You should have a go - you might find that some of the more mercurial players (or, er, muppets as BOTBers tend to call them for short) drive you to even greater depths of despair than we members of the forum manage to do. wink

Sandman · Social player

Ratty wrote:
I've seen these strange BOTB threads, but never read them before. How extremely odd to devote so much time and effort ... to what end?
Just so I understand this correctly: chaps painstakingly predict the results of lots of tennis matches. The most likely winning strategy is obvious - to go with the higher ranked player every time. But it's likely that this strategy will NOT actually win, given enough contestants. The winner, whose success is almost entirely due to chance, achieves an ephemeral and unwarranted kudos.
Illogical.

Personally I enjoy the games and will often place bets with the bookies alongside my selections. Not only is it a bit of fun but it's earned me a bit of money aswell.

Ratty · County player

Sandman wrote:

Not only is it a bit of fun but it's earned me a bit of money as well.

Ah, I've often wondered what "fun" is, thank you. And actually, I recently purchased from Amazon a new module called "Party Time with 21st Century Youth", but haven't loaded it yet because my data-banks have been full. However, I think that the "How to Pretend to be Clever" module has served its purpose, so here goes ...

... nearly done ...

... WOWZA THAT IS HELLO LIKE TOTALLY AWESOME EGREGIOUSLY (*) FO' REAL DAWG!!!!!! HOW CAN A DUDE LIKE ENTER UR TOTES WKD CONTEST????

(*) Like my geeky RAM sh*t is still kinda corrupted I guess

LordBrownof · Futures level

blob wrote:
Ratty wrote:
I've seen these strange BOTB threads, but never read them before. How extremely odd to devote so much time and effort ... to what end?
Just so I understand this correctly: chaps painstakingly predict the results of lots of tennis matches. The most likely winning strategy is obvious - to go with the higher ranked player every time. But it's likely that this strategy will NOT actually win, given enough contestants. The winner, whose success is almost entirely due to chance, achieves an ephemeral and unwarranted kudos.
Illogical.

Agreed - illogical.

Almost as illogical in fact as if someone were to try to achieve the same kind of ephemeral and unwarranted kudos by repeatedly, sneeringly and archly commenting in pseudo-intellectual fashion on how pointless and fruitless the activities of the rest of the human race are.

Further, what if they did so in face of, at best, marked and repeated apathy to such entreaties from the target audience. Such single mindedly persistent displays of querulousness would indeed be perplexing.

And then if that same person had a continuously wilful failure to acknowledge that the human race is, evolutionary, and by necessity, a social species. A trait which manifests itself in modernity in trivial ways, enjoyable to those individuals, to fill their free time and share a common experience with other members of the species; thus strengthening the bonds of community and identity between said individuals. A proven requisite characteristic of efficient societies of mankind, something which logic, intriguingly, has never been.

Additionally, if they employed a false naiveté in questioning these actions of others as though genuinely confused by them and additionally occasionally underlining their sardonic superiority with an oh so post-ironic 'smiley' face.

Finally, what if for such weighty issues of psychology and philosophy as their agenda seemed to demand, they chose as the very best and most appropriate place to unleash the full weight of their cogitation, despite the multitudinous alternatives available to them, they selected a free internet forum dedicated to the very narrow subject of British Tennis players?

Well, surely someone wrapping themselves and their questioning in a cloak of logic could never fail to recognise the illogic of doing all those things.

It could surely never happen.

But, if it did, how impossibly illogical and ironic that would be.

As my little sister would say - ZING!

korriban · Challenger level

I think someone's been overdosing on Alan Moore graphic novels!