Rio 2016 - Fantasy Olympics Game

markr, I really like this idea. My only suggestion is to go down to 5-cent increments to make things more fair at the bottom.

Really, this is a similar idea to the multiplier, just with a salary cap implementation instead. And $135 seems spot on. My team cost $135.2 (if you divide USA in half, $25 each).

Want to test things out with the next Winter Olympics? I think the salary cap might need to be smaller, since there are fewer events and teams, but not sure.

Have you been to this page:
https://en.zweeler.com/game/olympics/FantasyOlympics2016/groups#

Other than the method for determining cost (I'm not sure what theirs is), I essentially duplicated what they did ($50 max, $1 min, $0.1 increments). I had considered providing several significant digits (why not make them as exact as can be represented by floating point numbers?), but I kind of like the idea of rounding to $0.1. It adds sort of an element of randomness that might push a country in the direction of being a bargain or not being a very good deal. But I'm not stuck on $0.1. Did you notice that I discount the previous host's cost and inflate the current host's cost? Those factors, 0.9 and 1.4, are also negotiable.

Yeah - the cap is what I think makes it cool. Note that your team cost $135 for 15 countries. The zweeler site provides a $135 budget for 10 countries. However, you were constrained to certain countries in each of the four groups.

I'd be up for giving this a try in 2018. I'll create something for Winter and we can see what it looks like.

Link to Google spreadsheet for Winter Olympics:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rDFEVFY4dOnjor4SYGc70S8EODX44vAJS-D1cxYcfpg/edit?usp=sharing

As with Summer, I didn't include Group A because of the split countries. The average cost per country with a value greater than $1 is a bit more than twice the same average for Summer. A budget of $135 might not be bad for 10-country teams in Winter.

Your 2014 scores/standings are wrong. I looked back, and the order was:

Rank Username Total
1 wheel158 466
2 realjohnboy 453
3 tgordon92 450
4 McGentrix 416
5 fbaezer 414
6 Jahiegel 386
7 Skin Rip 377
8 ossobuco 369
9 sdelong 348
10 Ticomaya 343

http://able2know.org/topic/231559-10#post-5590577

Did you purposely omit Group A countries?

Yes - see previous post.

Less than three weeks until opening ceremonies, so it's time for my biennial return to A2K to ask whether anyone is interested in getting things started for Fantasy Olympics 2018!

it's only been about an hour since I wondered if this was going to happen again

Goody gumdrops.

Mexico will participate with 4 Winter Olympic athletes!

One was born in Mexico, but adopted by a Canadian couple.
Another has lived in Sacramento since he was 2 years old.
The third Olympian is an American woman married to a Mexican man. This will be her fourth Olympics. The first three she competed for the USA.
And the fourth... well he's a former triathlete, and made it in the late qualifiers in Iceland.

I'm planning to host something along the lines of what we briefly discussed in 2016. It's not intended to replace or compete with the "normal" format. I've been holding off announcing it because of the Russian situation. This new format is dependent on "expert" predictions, and I'm planning to use Gracenote (http://sportsdemo1.gracenote.com/documentation/vmt). They keep updating their predictions, but they haven't factored in the individual Russian athletes yet. I fear they may not allow much time for people to put their teams together. I'm expecting this new format to be much more closely contested (top to bottom). People can pick their favorite countries and probably still be close (unless they pick a bunch of countries that don't win anything).

If you want details I can post them to gauge interest.

Whether or not I host this, I'd likely continue to verify the results that are posted for the normal competition - especially if the Olympic results are posted at a site that's easy to scrape.

I like the idea that markr proposes in addition to the regular format. Markr, when you mentioned verifying results for the normal competition, were you also volunteering to run the regular pool?

No, but I did kick off the other format in a new topic.

Here's where I'm at with this at the moment. The likelihood of my verifying the results for the normal competition is dependent on my ability to automate the process in a timely manner. I'm committed to running the other format even if I can't get the process automated soon enough for it to matter.

If someone else were to start the regular pool, I'd be willing to post the daily updates (take over if desired) if/when I automate the process. Otherwise, it's more work than I'm willing to sign up for. The problem is that I can't commit until I see some results posted somewhere, so whoever starts it needs to be willing to finish it.

My hope is to set up a Google sheet (I've already got most of it done) that automatically pulls in the results. If successful, I'll share that so folks can get quasi-real time updates. Updating A2K is then just a matter of copying/pasting.

Hi Guys

Is anyone doing a Winter Olympics ???