Asunto: Competition Fights Back

O21 NT
Aus 8-0

U21 NT
Aus 3-1

The pairing could have been done previous to the competition starting via a sign up period. We would have had the chance to see what the pairing are in the advance, this would have offered clarity and time to take the mick... The EPL fantasy league adopts that format.

U21's:
Australia U21 1-1 Scotland U21

Seniors:
Guatemala 1-9 Australia

Minkee,

We decided on a random pairings system just based on the fact that we wont know who has signed up for the competition until all the tips are in. So we could get 10 new teams register this season and they all come in and want to join this competition, then we would have needed to re-jig the format again and it would be a lot of work.

Im pretty sure Dave will let you know of the system that we will be using, as to how we make the pairings either after this week or at the end of the competition. We wont know who gets who until the random draw is made, that was the idea behind it... basically so a user couldn't say... "hmmm im 1st and leading by 10 points, i dont need to tip well this match - i'm pretty safe here." Really the only down side where there is the possibility that you can be drawn against the same person each and every week without a way of stopping it.

its nice to see you all as passionate as your team as us scots are. :D im watching Mr tiger.
Rumour has it me and tiger are 50/50 on a 10-1 scotland win - we stand to make 1000000 pounds in return.

Sssshhhhh

This is only intented to be constructive criticism but what was the rush to start this competition? Saying that I understand there is a new enthousiasm from the community for the new U21 team and you both needed to surf the momentum...

A sign up period would have solved the two issues you mentioned and in the meantime giving time to everybody to understand the format.

I find the fact that you could be paired with a potential "top dog tiper" for several weeks highly unfair. A "correct" system pairing involves strategy as you say but I think it does add something to the game.

You can always use the random pairing for the 1st week, see who's in and then device a proper pairing for the following week taking into account your number of entrants. I can help with that if you need assistance, there's plenty of format available online.
You would get 4 standings (Senior, U21, overall and League(pairing)). Anyone joining later can still enter the first 3 standings freely...

That said this competition looks already to be a succes from the numbers of sign-ups and I'm sure we'll all enjoy it regardless the format...

Interesting idea. One of my reasons for wanting it random was to kind of allow for variant guesses and no penalties for tipping early rather than later. Assuming the pairs were known the one who posts last has the best chance of working out how to gain the points.

We could make it that you can't get paired up with the same person two weeks in a row and no more than X times to reduce the possibility of constantly drawing the better tipper. I am open to suggestions, in fact I enjoy hearing them because it gives other views that aren't the same as Tigermaster's or myself.

Our reason for starting it early was to get most of the WCQ matches in the frame and to use the fact the U21's were new.

Assuming the pairs were known the one who posts last has the best chance of working out how to gain the points.
This can be solved by submiting the tips via sk-mail...

Or what you can do is to rank tippers each week, give them points accordingly and add them up each week. It's not very different than the normal competition but it would get close to the pairing system.
That system wouldnt penalise too much if you missed one tip, that said it would all depend on the scale.

I like the pairing system as it is like a league system but as you said you need to know your numbers first.

Anyway the 1st round is completed. I'll add the scores up shortly.

The correct results for maximum points were:

Australia U21 5 - 1 Scotland U21
Guatemala 0 - 5 Australia

Will use the scoring system as mentioned in the opening post for this round, most likely will continue it for the rest of the competition but I'll discuss this with Tigermaster.

U21 Ladder: (u21 comp player)
1) sx890410 - 4 points
2) ss16 - 3 points
3) Achmid - 3 points
4) fantum - 3 points
5) Minkee - 3 points
6) borkos007 - 2 points
7) vivski - 1 point
8) snappa - 1 point
9) cometer - 1 point
10) uberfurious - 0 points
11) naphtali - 0 points

Senior Ladder: (senior comp player)
1) Achmid - 3 points
2) fantum - 3 points
3) borkos007 - 3 points
4) snappa - 3 points
5) vivski - 2 points
6) Minkee - 2 points
7) sx890410 - 1 point
8) ss16 - 1 point
9) uberfurious - 1 point
10) naphtali - 1 point
11) Tigermaster - 1 point

Overall Ladder:
1) Achmid - 8 points
2) fantum - 7 points
3) borkos007 - 7 points
4) sx890410 - 5 points
5) ss16 - 5 points
6) vivski - 5 points
7) snappa - 5 points
8) Minkee - 5 points
9) naphtali - 2 points
10) uberfurious - 1 point
11) Tigermaster - 1 point
12) cometer - 1 point

For those interested here was this week's pairings.

Round 1 Pairings For BP's
borkos007 v sx890410
ss16 v snappa
vivski v Minkee
naphtali v fantum
uberfurious v achmid


Interesting week, we got 11 participants in each competition already so that's a positive. Some interesting things came out of this that despite sx890410 picking the correct winner and margin in U21, that they still split the U21 bonus points. Then there was the case with vivski v Minkee where Minkee took the U21 bp's and split the senior bp's but vivski took the overall bp's.

Anyway all 3 ladders after the first round are shown with sx890410 leading the U21 comp and Achmid leading the Senior comp, whilst both Achmid and fantum are leading the pack overall.

Anyway round 2 shouldn't be too far off, will post up the fixtures probably tomorrow and any changes (if they occur) to the scoring system.

Am I still welcome to join in this week?

yep, it's open right up until it closes later in the season. You just don't score anything for the weeks you fail to lodge a tip.

Anyway after discussion with Tigermaster it is decided to stick to our original format. This might as has been mentioned lead to some misfortune in pairs, but the bonus points on offer are relatively small. What has changed is that we are making it such that you can't draw the same opponent more than 2 consecutive weeks.

Anyway, this week's tips are:

Australia U21 v Iran U21
Cymru v Australia

Note that the Cymru v Australia game is Cymru (2nd XI) vs Australia (domestic div 2 and under excluding 1st XI)

Being a II player, is Ielati considered for Cymru v Australia or is he left available to the U21?

he'll be considered depending on what else we've got available.

Ok, let me know because he's been on the bench for the last two U21 games...

Yeah no problem I should have a squad determined by tomorrow's training updates.