Week eight results saw three successful challenges, from Brough, who recovers his recently lost Number One slot, and Steve and Oddy, who both go up a place. Ron, Cats, City and Red beat off opposition and hold their respective places. Well done Brough The defections of Bob and Badger meant that Cow and Blue had no competition. I have left those two players in place in the table below for illustration purposes. 1. Brough Tiger 2. Bucks 3. Redcgull 4. Chaninbar 5. Oddy 6 Reebok 7. Steveo77 8. Uncle Cracker 9. Smokethedeadbadger 10. Havinacow 11. Cityhull 12. Sir Percy 13. Mwildcats 14. Wooly 15. Bluesky 16. Boston Bob 17. Ron 18. Jambawamba There has been debate recently, revolving around the issue of there being little movement in the league table. This is true, and although it may be frustrating for some, it is, nevertheless, realistic - in no league table of performances, does one competitor, leap several positions. Where the system falls down is that defenders don't move as a reward for beating off their challenger. (Incidentally, Oddy has risen from 11th to 7th, to prove the exception to the rule) I have given this some more thought, and in an effort to please everyone, which may not be possible, I am suggesting the following drastic changes. Using Ron's idea of 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw as a starting point, this is my proposal. Three points for a win - nothing for a draw, as there won't be any, and in the unlikely event of both selections falling at the same fence, the three points would go to the selection with the longest odds. This alone would change the competition to a standard league comp but without the financial bonuses, so to retain the challenge element, I'm proposing that we still have the lower player challenging the player above him, but with the challenger also deciding which race to pick from. To safeguard against a challenger picking what may to all intents and purposes be a one horse race, there would need to be a minimum number of runners, I'd suggest 8 minimum decs at 10am on the morning of the race, with staking as now - win or ew. And it would have to be NH only - sorry you beach bums! We would have to start afresh, so your efforts so far will count for naught, except that we would use week 8's final table as a starting table to decide who challenges who. Positions for those on equal points would be decided by a "financial average" of the returns of a player's bets over the course of the season. Which will effectively be three months now! This is however, just a proposal. I WOULD like some feedback before implementing it, and I suspect that those at the bottom end will like it better than those at the top, but try to be objective if possible! Bob and Badger - can I ask you to reconsider your participation, based on the above proposal? Thanks Ron and others for ideas, and thanks for reading my lengthy posts
I'd be willing to give it a go, the above proposal sounds interesting and should make it a bit more of a competition
I'm not sure I can take credit for the 3 points for a win Reebs. I think someone else mentioned that first. I did float an idea of 3 points for a win, 2 for a second and 1 for a third (ie both challenger and challenged could score points but could also both score zero points). This would reward those who regularly selected winners/ placed horses and help them to move up the table.
Whatever you decide on Reebok its fine by me... I don't get much time at the moment to look at many cards anyway, so it works for me just looking at the 1...
What do you think of my original idea of running it totally like the football league in as much as each player plays each other twice home and away. This means the winner has had to really prove himself against everyone else. I think your original reticence was that it would prevent any newcomers but this would be the case anyhow with the proposed system as points would already have been accumulated. With regard race selection I wonder if you would need state that it must be a handicap of 8 runners or more as there are an awful lot of novice hurdles with a Henderson or Nicholls hot pot and very little else in the race. We could also include the all weather if the criteria was simply 8 runners or more handicap as they have quite competitive races taking place also. When all is said Reebs I will support whatever you choose to do and these are merely suggested as ideas for consideration, you are the boss however and I will be happy with whatever you decide.
