Playing Carefully

By Ged
October 1 2009

Here are the final results of the Middlesex 2009 prediction competition. Nine punters played for glory this year. Most years we get a new winner and most years at least some computer-generated entries do better than the people. Find out who has won this coveted, yet miniscule MTWD prize for 2009 and whether one or more of these golden rules has been broken.

There are 9 punters playing for glory in the 2009 Middlesex Averages prediction competition:

GED LADD

COMEBACKGATT

AUNTIE JANET

BARMY KEV

BLASTER 89

HIPPITY

DAISY

MR TRELLIS

M INFINITUM

In addition, as always, three computer generated benchmarks play:

1ST CLASS AVERAGE

MIDDLESEX 2008

POLL OF POLLS

And what a contest it turned out to be this year.  Normally at least two of the three computerised benchmarks have done better than all the humans, but that hadn’t been the case in 2008, when 4 intrepid people beat all three computerised benchmarks.

This year the “1st class average” benchmark made a bit of a return to form, although the outright winner did in fact beat all the benchmarks.  The “Middlesex 2008” came rock bottom (and by a long way too), which says a lot about consistency of performance in our squad year on year. 

But let’s start with the hall of shame: Auntie Janet brings up the rear with 265 points (remember folks, that points are unwanted in this game – the fewer points the better).  Hippity next with 259 points – close run thing for the wooden spoon there.  There’s been no room for untrammelled optimism in this game for a long  time.  

At this juncture I think it is best to draw a veil over the lower-placed people and announce the top three in Miss World order.

In third place came Comebackgatt with 180 points.  In second place, after a shaky start in the competition, for the second year running, Barmy Kev nearly pulls off a surprise win, with 167.  But Blaster89 is the outright winner, with 161 points, bettering even the 1st Class Average which scored 166. 

The base spreadsheet for the game at this stage is published at the Googledocs link below, if you want a butchers at the raw numbers. 

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tfspe4dSCdGqEyLmIAeN6mQ&output=html

If anyone wants to see the full spreadsheet model that includes all the predictions and the formulae for computing the winners, you are very welcome to do so.  Please e-mail me  at gedladd@hotmail.co.uk and I’ll e-mail you a copy of the spreadsheet.

Get in touch by e-mail, Blaster89, and we’ll somehow arrange to get your prize to you.  Dingy Bags is still waiting for his 2007 prize and there wasn’t even a postal strike back then.  Daisy won in 2008 which made prize delivery that much easier.  But we’ll find a way.

Once again, many congratulations to the winner, Blaster89.