Here we go again.
to a new season of F1 Pools (2007 edition). This is the fourth year I'm hosting the game and the third chance for someone to de-throne the reigning champion. All previous attempts have failed, some more spectacularly than others, so the list of past winners is a bit short on diversity:
[SIZE=3][B]F1 Pools Hall of Fame - Champions[/SIZE] 2004 dnbn 2005 dnbn 2006 dnbn[/B]Will this be the year someone finally defeats him or is he simply too good? If you want to earn a place on that list of greats (OK, so far it's only a great), now's the time to start doing something about it. Post a guess! Do it today! Or tomorrow. Or at any time before the Australian GP qualifying.
Because I can resist change with the best of them, there's been no tinkering with the game rules. Those of you who've participated before may skip this part and go straight to the duels list at the end of this post. Those who haven't may want to peruse the rules (see below) before submitting their guesses. I'm aware the rules section probably isn't the most lucid piece of writing you've ever run into but I'm linguistically challenged so it is what it is. If in doubt, ask me and I'll clarify.
Game rules (subject to minor changes in case I think of cleverer ways of formulating things)
F1 Pools is a game that deals with team effort rather than individual drivers. The game is loosely based on soccer betting. Basically, as a game host, I pick team-vs-team duels, you predict the outcomes and post your guesses in the appropriate game thread using the familiar (?) 1X2 system where 1 = home win, X = draw and 2 = away win. The home team is the one mentioned first.
Both reliability and pace need to be considered when rating a team’s performance in relation to its duel opponent (more on that below). Every car/driver combo that either sets a time in qualifying or finishes the race counts towards a duel outcome. Note that they must actually reach the chequered flag, simply being classified isn't enough. Possible grid and/or time penalties are ignored but disqualifications stand. Failures to set a qualifying time and/or finish the race can and will be used against a team.
The basic idea is that by picking "1" you're predicting a home team sweep. Logically "2" is then an away team sweep which leaves "X" for everything else. So far so simple. It gets a bit more complicated if and when people start falling off the track, blowing up their engines and what not, so here's a summary of how various race/qualifying results translate into duel outcomes (team A vs team B) :
[color=teal]1 the home team gets all its cars nicely lined up ahead of their opponents on the timesheets corresponds to finishing orders AABB, AAB, AB and just A see item * below X a "draw": a mixed grid/split result/any deviation from the above (or below) i.e. finishing orders ABAB, BABA, ABBA, BAAB, ABA, BAB, ABB, BAA see item ** below 2 as in 1, but now it's the away team that does the winning[/color]* If you can’t beat them on track, you can still earn points for reliability. A finishing order ABB (team A wins on pace, B on reliability) translates into an X because this is supposed to be a team sport and there are 2 cars in a team. However, an AB finish does not warrant a punishment for unreliability because team A hasn’t done any worse than team B in that respect (A wins on pace, no one on reliability, hence the outcome is a 1).
** No unreliabilty punishments for draws. An ABA result is an X and a mission accomplished for team B in that they’ve managed to beat one of their opponents on track.
Confused? Don't be, this really isn't as complicated as it looks. The definition of a draw (X) may seem a bit artificial/strange but I needed/wanted it to be a realistic duel outcome and this was the only way I could think of to achieve that.
As for scoring, points will be awarded for every correct answer and since this is a betting-inspired game, guessing an unlikely outcome right is worth more than being right about something expected. Instead of any fancy odds-calculating, your guesses are used as an indicator of probability so that for each correct guess, your score will be 1 + the fraction of players that guessed wrong. An example: let's say 50 % of you have picked 1, 40 % X and the remaining 10 % 2. If 1 is the correct guess, the clever 50 % will score 1 + 0.5 = 1.5 points. Similarly, if X is the way to go, the score will be 1 + 0.6 =1.6 points etcetera. Points will be added up throughout the season and the person with the highest points total will be crowned the champion.
You may in theory use whatever format you wish when posting your guesses but something simple along the lines of "122 XXX X12 X1X" would be great.
Deadline for guesses/edits is the start of qualifying.
Here are the first duels of the season:
[B][SIZE=3]F1 Pools 2007: Australia (Round 1/17) [/SIZE] [/B] [B]Qualifying duels: Race duels: [/B] [COLOR=red]1 Renault - Ferrari 7 Renault - Ferrari [/COLOR] [COLOR=silver]2 McLaren - Honda 8 McLaren - Honda [/COLOR] [COLOR=darkblue]3 BMW Sauber - Toyota 9 BMW Sauber - Toyota [/COLOR] [COLOR=red]4 Red Bull - Williams 10 Red Bull - Williams [/COLOR] [COLOR=silver]5 Toro Rosso - Spyker 11 Toro Rosso - Spyker [/COLOR] [COLOR=darkblue]6 Super Aguri - Red Bull 12 Super Aguri - Red Bull [/COLOR]Go on, take a guess! And be plentiful! The more the merrier and all that.
Good luck!
