@tgordon92,
Looks like markr's race to lose now...
Eight (excluding wheel158*) of us now have a positive return on our investments.
Code:Day 15 Standings (97% complete) Optimal Team
1 markr 383 323.50 NOC Score Cost
2 tgordon92 374 323.50 CAN 89 77
3 wheel158* 372 323.50 NED 64 60
4 wheel158 365 323.00 SUI 47 45
5 George 351 323.50 KOR 47 39
6 Skin Rip 348 323.50 JPN 39 38
6 jetabor 348 323.50 OAR 32 22
8 Ticomaya 347 323.50 ITA 26 18
8 Ecartmill 347 323.50 BLR 13 7
10 ehBeth 320 322.00 SVK 11 6
11 jetabor's wife 320 323.50 HUN 5 4
12 fbaezer 319 323.00 GBR 9 4
13 lmur 315 323.00 KAZ 1 1
14 Ian 313 323.50 UKR 5 1
15 Oralloy 310 321.00 NZL 2 0.5
16 McGentrix 309 322.00 SLO 4 0.5
Total 394 323
Since we're down to the last day, I've removed wheel158* so that everybody can see where they really stand. The data for wheel158* is still in the Google sheet if you want to see it.
Code:Day 15 Standings (97% complete) Optimal Team
1 markr 383 323.50 NOC Score Cost
2 tgordon92 374 323.50 CAN 89 77
3 wheel158 365 323.00 NED 64 60
4 George 351 323.50 SUI 47 45
5 Skin Rip 348 323.50 KOR 47 39
5 jetabor 348 323.50 JPN 39 38
7 Ticomaya 347 323.50 OAR 32 22
7 Ecartmill 347 323.50 ITA 26 18
9 ehBeth 320 322.00 BLR 13 7
10 jetabor's wife 320 323.50 SVK 11 6
11 fbaezer 319 323.00 HUN 5 4
12 lmur 315 323.00 GBR 9 4
13 Ian 313 323.50 KAZ 1 1
14 Oralloy 310 321.00 UKR 5 1
15 McGentrix 309 322.00 NZL 2 0.5
SLO 4 0.5
Total 394 323
@wheel158,
I just about crapped my pants. I was posting that I figured this last curling gold had clinched a tie barring a miracle in bobsled. Then I checked out the bobsled standings, and OAR is on top. It took about 30 seconds to realize that the top teams hadn't run yet. That was 30 seconds of horror.
@markr,
Funny in retrospect (but not at the time, I'm sure). Right now, Switzerland is in the lead in 4-man bobsled (with a few more teams to go).
@wheel158,
With OAR's hockey victory, tgordon92 is hanging in there. One (medal) down, three to go for a tie.
Code:Day 16 (Final) Standings Optimal Team
1 markr 398 323.50 NOC Score Cost
2 tgordon92 393 323.50 CAN 89 77
3 wheel158 376 323.00 SWE 54 47
4 Skin Rip 360 323.50 SUI 47 45
5 Ticomaya 358 323.50 KOR 53 39
6 George 357 323.50 JPN 39 38
6 jetabor 357 323.50 OAR 37 22
8 Ecartmill 356 323.50 ITA 26 18
9 fbaezer 341 323.00 FIN 12 10
10 jetabor's wife 336 323.50 BLR 13 7
11 ehBeth 334 322.00 SVK 11 6
12 Oralloy 331 321.00 HUN 5 4
13 McGentrix 326 322.00 GBR 9 4
14 lmur 326 323.00 BEL 3 2
15 Ian 318 323.50 KAZ 1 1
UKR 5 1
NZL 2 0.5
SLO 4 0.5
Total 410 322
Thanks everybody for participating. Congratulations to tgordon92 and wheel158 for their medal-winning performances. It was a tight race that came down to the last day - had the last event gone a certain way, there would have been a tie for first. Almost everybody had a positive return on their investments.
I'm curious - was having access to the standings in near real-time (via the Google sheet) a good thing, or did it take away from some of the suspense? Maybe it didn't matter because folks are tracking it all themselves, or because much of the action probably happened while folks were sleeping.
For those who are interested, wheel158's original team scored 391 - 15 points higher than his official team, but still in third place.
@markr,
Congrats markr on your gold medal and to tgordon92 and wheel158 on their podium finishes. Great to take part in a competition without a whiff of scandal (I'm sure those rumours about ehbeth's use of steroids were just that - rumours)!
Fair play and thanks to you for starting the comp and keeping us up to date throughout. Enjoyed it.
@lmur,
Well played to everyone especially the top three....another excellent ran tournament, thanks markr.....bring on the next one.
@markr,
markr wrote: . . . I'm curious - was having access to the standings in near real-time (via the
Google sheet) a good thing, or did it take away from some of the suspense? . . .
Bravo, markr! Your Google sheet was very handy, chock full of good data.
Thanks for running a fun game.
@markr,
Thanks for organizing and running a great time.
markr wrote:
I'm curious - was having access to the standings in near real-time (via the Google sheet) a good thing, or did it take away from some of the suspense? Maybe it didn't matter because folks are tracking it all themselves, or because much of the action probably happened while folks were sleeping.
sooooo ... after picking my team I could only have told you definitely 3 of the countries I'd selected (the ones I've lived in) so I wasn't tracking anything
it was fun to watch things go up and down over time ... so, again - THANK YOU !
@markr,
markr,
Thanks for running everything, and setting up the Google sheet. Personally, I thought it made things more suspenseful to see the real-time scores, and wonder who had a chance to win; especially on the final few days.
Congrats to everyone... Though I changed my team and ended up scoring less, I would've felt dirtier having OAR in my country list. Perhaps that's just me...
Lastly, I liked this format better than the previous format. I think it will result in a wider variety of teams during the Summer Olympics.
Kudos to markr!
@wheel158,
As the author of the previous format, I like this format better.
A similar thing could be made for the Summer Olympics.
The real-time page was great.
Congrats to markr and all medalists.
@fbaezer,
Is it too late to make my picks?
I enjoyed following this thread. Markr did a great job of setting this up and reporting the updates. It was a bit of a challenge to keep up with because of the time difference.
I'm glad to hear the positive feedback on the format. I also prefer it because, depending on where the data is pulled from, it can be difficult to manage split teams - not only assigning the points to the correct gender, but dealing with mixed team events. Also, drawing the lines to form groups can be tricky. Often the first team not to make the cut is the obvious choice for the lower group. When the data can be automatically pulled in using nothing other than spreadsheet commands (I've written Python programs in past games to scrape web sites for verification purposes), these are a breeze to run. If the official site doesn't make it easy, I've found wikipedia to be simple, prompt, and accurate.
For kicks, I downloaded the 2016 results (real, not fantasy), and used the same budget formula (top three - 0.5) under the (false) assumption that these would be the predictions for 2020, and the budget came in at 809.5 (USA=379, GBR=221, CHN=210). Our top scorers this time were at about 125% of budget which might put the top Summer Olympics scorers around 1000 (we've been in that ballpark before). Also, although it would be possible to create even larger teams, my guess is they'll be about the same size we just had.
I think it's important to have a reasonably accurate set of predictions. Any predictions will work, but if they're obviously way off, then it becomes easy to cherry pick the ones that were underestimated. I hope Gracenote (or somebody else) puts together a comprehensive (all countries, all medals) set of predictions for the Summer games. I think using the previous results to determine costs would be a poor first choice.
@realjohnboy,
We missed you. This came together kind of late. Could anything have been done differently to have caught your attention?
@markr,
markr wrote:I'm curious - was having access to the standings in near real-time (via the Google sheet) a good thing, or did it take away from some of the suspense? Maybe it didn't matter because folks are tracking it all themselves, or because much of the action probably happened while folks were sleeping.
Well, it didn't matter to me because the only thing I really tracked in realtime was how well my figure skating predictions did. And I did that by watching the skating live on TV.
But had I wanted to do real-time tracking, your Google thingie probably would have been useful to me, so I'd suggest keeping it.
