LDOG

Sorry, a question: is it possible for a group to not have any europeans or there has to be at least one?

In a mosque. Apparently one shooter is one of those people that spend time on 4chan and admire Trump.

I disagree, it's incredibly dumb... since there is so little space players are just bumping into the opponents all the time with little to no passing or running skills involved. It's only pure brute force until you reach the ingoal.

Yes, Conrado Moscoso is their best chance in men's singles, doubles and team but the pan am games are basically the world championships of this sport so it will be really tough. In theory Mexico is the main favorite to take all the golds in the sport. Edit: also Bolivia are World champions in women doubles, I forgot that.

Some of our best sailors won't go. I'm only expecting gold in lightning. In every other class Brazil is either slight or strong favorite.

Just a quick rundown of sports in which I'm expecting gold medal chances for our team: Sailing -1 Canoeing -1 Rowing -2 Pelota -3 Swimming -2 Judo -1 Hockey -2 Basketball -1 Tennis -2 Softball -1 Basketball is usually pretty random but we will take our best team here as preparation for World cup. Plus probably 3-5 more golds from outside chances (handball, football, racquetball, shooting, etc). Should be 20 total, give or take one.

Ufff that's a lot. Yeah, back below Brazil and Cuba I guess.

The only two positions that to me are absolutely fixed are USA 1st and Argentina 7th. We haven't improved one bit, the funding got a massive cut with the current government, the talent of our generation between 22-26 year olds is little and the YOG kids are still too young. We're still rellying on the 30+ people, pretty much the same people as 2015 but 4 years older. Canada with a decent athletics team will keep 2nd IMO.

Different pictograms for Kata and Kumite?

South Africa wins in Vancouver and retakes the 4th place in general standings from England. Olympic qualification is looking nasty for european teams as things stand. Only 4 stages to go for England to turn things around. If they don't, we are only going to see (at best) 2 out of GB, France and Spain in Tokyo.

I like this. I'm bored to see our athletes celebrating qualifications and then finishing 30+ at the olympics.

IHF president is egyptian, no surprise. America is unbalanced because outside ARG, BRA & CHI the rest of the southern nations are simply terrible. From the north Greenland and Cuba are very decent and clearly the 4th and 5th strongest teams in the region. And even if Cuba drops out like almost always, USA, MEX and DOM are still better than Uruguay or whoever is 4th in the south.

Yet both were eliminated despite the upsets.

Rank Flag #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 

This was a bit predictable. Real Madrid has been looking clueless last few weeks and has a disaster winning rate when Ramos doesn't play. I say it in every page but Ajax has solid players in all lines and very developed gameplan.

The thing is, if we just do that "bonus for correct guesses" and no other change, then these users wouldn't change their strategy. I mean, probably they would care more about getting most of the bets right, but the strategy of betting only 10s and 1s would be untouched. There would be like two paralel games, one in which you try to guess as many bets as possible and another in which you try to win only your 10 point bets. We have to make changes to the point distribution itself, otherwise that strategy will still be the dominant one. As for deducting points, Dunadan already showed it wouldn't have any real effect (well, at least with the way I proposed, there could be other variants that make it work more efficently).

Yeah, go ahead with that. Also, is the next one for Tokyo or earlier?

No, there was one for London in the old forum. It was organized by quasit, he created the rules we still use to this day.

That is a rule already, you can't bet 0 points in a question.

First, I didn't participe in this one or in the Pyeongchang one. So I'm not "crying" because I had no dog in this. I'm just trying to help figure out a system that makes the biggest number of bets count, because that way the contest is more entertaining in my very personal opinion (though I think most users will agree with me on that point). I don't care if you or Dunadan win them from here to the end of time, that is not the issue. You are not the only two trying that strategy anyway. Second, I organized 2 of them. So I saw everyone's posts back then and of course I know what you've been doing. Also, because you've been very outspoken about your strategy since day 1. Not exactly a secret.

Are you suggesting that maybe the thing is that there are more "easy" bets than there should be? Or maybe putting a limit to the 10 and 9-pointers that can be placed would balance things better?

No, both had the same system as this one.

Last year I thought we had to spice things up and have a "lost bet, points deduction" kind of system. Like, right now the system is: you're given x maximum points to distribute and when you lose a bet you only lose points from that maximum of points. What I had in mind was: you're given x points to distribute and when you lose a bet you lose points from the total points you earned with the bets you won. This way people will think twice before throwing 10s around without considering much consequences. It's a good strategy but breaks the spirit of the contest in a sense. Obviously, with this alternative system I would give a lot more points to initially distribute so very different strategies can take shape ("high risk, high pay" vs "conservative distribution", etc). I was already thinking about it for Pyongyang but I had to make that bet contest quickly so I couldn't give shape to it. Also, I'm not exactly a mathematics genious so I could be terribly wrong in my ideas. But now we have wumo taking over this, so I'm sure he will come up with a better points system

Chile won against France in the classification matches my worry is not going down anytime soon. Semifinals tomorrow: USA-NZ, Arg-Samoa

Damn, has Elgendy ever lost anything? This is some Bolt/Ledecky level stuff.