It was a fitting race to the finish, but like his TQBR Prediction Game-winning savior Sergio Martinez on Saturday, Pretty Toney pulled it out late over rival JB to win all the marbles. Ladies and gentlemen, in honor of the TQBR Prediction Game 1.0 winner, I give you…
It was either that, or photo-shopping James Toney with some make-up on, and I never have learned how to Photoshop stuff. Congrats to PT, who had a perfect weekend on the scorecards, and I’ll be in touch with him about his prize. And thanks to everyone for playing. He joins previous champion Spidershark in the TQBR Prediction Game Hall of Champions.
Before we get into a bit of a breakdown of the past weekend, I want to make sure everyone knows we’ll start 2.0 this week. It’s a fresh start for people who didn’t place as high as they wanted, and for people who joined late to start on even footing. A miniature discussion of prospective rules changes follows at the end of the entry.
So back to PT’s tally: He hauled in 1300 points, with his accurate calls of Martinez-Kelly Pavlik (Martinez UD12) and Lucian Bute-Edison Miranda (Bute KO4, which was a round late but nobody else got closer). A mere four people saw a UD for Martinez, with many of us expecting a closer call on the scorecards. Ten people with with Martinez overall, compared to 16 for the favorite Pavlik, and those picking the upset got an extra 100. All but one person went with Bute, with four people saying KO4 for the accuracy bonus.
Lotsa fun gang. I look forward to kicking things off with Chris Arreola-Tomasz Adamek and Carl Froch-Mikkel Kessler. Be on the lookout for those prediction entries between Tuesday and Thursday. Here are your final standings in the meantime for 1.0. As usual, if you detect any tabulation errors, let me know and we can adjudicate:
STANDINGS
Pretty Toney: 6850
JB: 6350
David Schraub: 6200
Hit Dog: 6050
B-Side Meth (Tim Starks): 5550
Knees Up Neville Brown (Dobbler): 5500
cNceddie: 5400
Alexmac: 5000
Arthur Billette: 4950
Team Monica (edub): 4900
Unifythebelts: 4850
Cardscott5: 4850
cguenard (Chris): 4800
fadein2bolivian: 4800
Geordie Dancer (Andrew Harrison): 4500
PI Joe (Irvin Ryan): 4400
Paul Kelly: 4400
severuck: 4250
PJ Prediction King (PJ): 4200
Kid Gruesome (Scott Kraus): 4200
DukeShadeBlue: 4300
Always Wrong (RoWyN): 4150
ScottB: 4000
Not Sure (Jay Ari Yin): 3750
willfrank: 3750
stickfigure: 3450
The Queensberry Fools (Eugene Dammrod): 3200
sam.fong: 2950
Bigmaxy: 2600
the legend: 2600
Donkey Puncher (Brian.McNeely): 2050
epark88 1750
Beccapooka: 1050
Eric Naff: 1050
marlon vera 650
Israel: 600
gavaniacono: 550
venom.0420: 500
Bob77: 500
Jay Cliff: 500
Baron: 500
FlorencioR: 500
mekiko: 0
nameless: 0
faz: 0
OK, here’s the miniature rules discussion.
Any last-minute rules change suggestions, hit me up now. The thorniest problem for me is what to do with late submissions. I can’t think of a better way to handle it than I have, though, so I’d need someone to come up with a good idea on this or else we leave it the way it is.
Obviously, I took into account the strategic issue some of you raised about last-weekend predictions and the privacy thereof for the potential #1 contenders. I also think we’ll have a rule for voiding predictions in the event of special circumstances, like a fighter weighing in significantly above the limit, and for handling the length of the game when the schedule makes it difficult to do a 12-fight sequence. I’ll re-post the new rules this week with an adaptation for all that and any other last-minute changes. Alas, I don’t think I’ll be able to keep a better tally of any other kind of stats than I have, because stat-keeping is really the only unpleasant thing about this all for me — and as much as I appreciate people offering to lighten the load, I can’t agree to take on new workload burdens expecting others to help, because sometimes people mean well but don’t come through on their promises and that would leave me holding the bag.
Thanks to those of you (I believe JB has been a pioneer of many of these ideas) who have contributed to making the game run more smoothly.
