The 2017 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[Eyeballs Out]

Maybe we should start trash talking to drum up interest and excitement.

I am going to take all of you guys down.Most likely in a humiliating fashion.

I'm going to finish in the top 40 for the first time so watch out

[Brullnux]

I am going to break into the top 100 in such a way that you'll wish you'd never gotten into cycling. That's how hard I'm going to rock this competition. Yeah. Damn. Betya scared now.

[barmaher]

I don't see much value in the higher end of the market. Only 4 of my long list of 50 are priced at higher than 500 points, with none higher than 800 points.

[Jancouver]

Maybe we can list all the 0-pointers available, so Jancouver can make a team of 6 expensive guys and 27 0-pointers? If those expensive guys all double their points as Jancouver says, he scores 15000 points and likely wins

May be a great strategy for those not picking with their heart. Unfortunately, in my case, I always try to pick a combination of unique riders and riders I like.

This year I at least included the most obvious picks and only left out Lopez as I didn't want to risk any rider on Astana & Katusha. So top 20 is doable while still being somewhat creative and having some of my favs riders included. Therefore, Top 20 is my goal for next year too.

[Jancouver]

BTW what is the rule about name dropping in this thread? I hope I didn't break the rules by posting the list of expensive riders.

[PeterB]

BTW what is the rule about name dropping in this thread? I hope I didn't break the rules by posting the list of expensive riders.

You mean as if you gave like some good advice to somebody with that list? Don't worry...

[skidmark]

There doesn't seem to be a lot of interest this time around, going by this thread alone. We could be looking at a record low number of entrants, apart from the first edition. Does anyone know if the game is being promoted on other platforms such as Twitter, like it was a few years ago? (I ditched my social media accounts years ago due to time constraints)

I have no real gauge for how popular the game is going to be this year, but it's possible that the participation level might regress for any number of reasons, among them the relatively truncated time frame (this is the earliest deadline of the editions that I've run, and the initial post was up a few days later than I usually put it, I think), the fact that the game has been running for seven years and might naturally 'settle in' a little bit, or any number of factors. But who knows - last year I was worried we'd have fewer than 120 entries and then we got blitzed on the last day and I ended with over 140. But honestly, 120 teams, or 100, would still be an impressive competition.

I know the velorooms folks have been quite active in promoting the game on social media and otherwise in the past; their forum had some bugs that didn't allow me to post the main thread until today, so maybe the hype will start ramping up.

At any rate, I'm glad the people who have posted so far are excited about coming back; this should be a fun year to pick, there are definitely a number of directions to go in terms of picking riders.

[DJ Sprtsch]

It will turn out just fine. We're a quiet bunch, that's all.

[Karaev1]

This is really hard... I already built 2 teams with completely different riders and I am happy with both of them... Can't decide between some old guys that changed teams and should have better season and some really young guys that have a ton of potential...Probably gonna wait till the last day to see if any new teams and cyclists will reveal their calendar.

I'm really intrigued about 2 young Colombians that were great picks last year... Pretty sure one of them will make my team while the other won't...Or maybe the other way around...

[PeterB]

How about asking one of the mods to pin a temporary announcement in the PRR section that the game is on? Both to lure new players as well as to remind returning ones it is time...

[PeterB]

This is really hard... I already built 2 teams with completely different riders and I am happy with both of them... Can't decide between some old guys that changed teams and should have better season and some really young guys that have a ton of potential...Probably gonna wait till the last day to see if any new teams and cyclists will reveal their calendar.

Last year I was playing with an idea of suggesting that players could submit two, reasonably different teams. This could help if you can't decide between your heart and head, so that you can have one team to really cheer for and the other team that you build more professionally. At the end I thought it was more exciting if you had to decide for just one team but if more people like this idea maybe we can try. Btw velorooms folk already have such second team

[skidmark]

BTW what is the rule about name dropping in this thread? I hope I didn't break the rules by posting the list of expensive riders.

There is no hard-and-fast rule about what you can and can't speak about in this thread - I make the game rules, but I'm not interested in making rules about what people can say here. But, just like if people start revealing their entire teams before the deadline, lots of people have the perception that name-dropping in this thread isn't really in the spirit of fairness, as it potentially alerts people who haven't done as much 'work' in finding riders for their team. So, my only request is to be reasonable and respectful of people's needs. Your post, which outlined a good dozen or so riders, all among the top scorers in CQ points and therefore riders that it's unlikely people would be unaware of, is not on the wrong side of the line of what is ok to post here, I think. Certainly, no one seems to be bothered by it. But if you mention a more obscure pick, like saying 'what do you guys think about this guy who scored 130 points last year as an U23 and signed for this team', I think that might ruffle more feathers (for the record, I just pulled those facts out of the air, I am not thinking of any rider in that example). So yeah, just use common sense and discretion, really.

[skidmark]

How about asking one of the mods to pin a temporary announcement in the PRR section that the game is on? Both to lure new players as well as to remind returning ones it is time...

Yes, I was intending on posting something this week. Two years ago I talked to a mod about making an announcement thread and getting them to sticky it on the PRR section; that happened and probably led to it being the most participated year. Last year I PM'd the same mod but didn't hear back, so I just posted my own thread on PRR and updated it to bump it to the top every once and awhile when there was a week/3 days/etc left. I'll probably do a similar thing this year.

[Martin]

This is really hard... I already built 2 teams with completely different riders and I am happy with both of them... Can't decide between some old guys that changed teams and should have better season and some really young guys that have a ton of potential...

I used completely different tactics. First of all I made a team of "must have riders". This year it was around 15 riders. Then I build a long list of riders (this year around 50 names) who for ever the reason I think might do better next year and try to combine them so that in the final, I wont exceed 7500 points and the will have 33 names.
This year I spend around 7-8 hours creating a team, more then ever before. The short list of must have riders was done within half hour, but then it became a nightmare. I had to alter a game plan, and had to drop some interesting "must have" riders too so I would fit in game rules.
In the end I am confused too ;-)

[HelgeBlendet]

Just scimmed through cqranking and put together a list of 95 guys I want to have on my team. The 33 most promising came in at 10800 or so. Feels harder than ever to pick the 33 guys. Every combination misses some must-haves and includes some i-don't-know guys. There will be lots of tinkering over the next week.

[Squire]

This is really hard... I already built 2 teams with completely different riders and I am happy with both of them... Can't decide between some old guys that changed teams and should have better season and some really young guys that have a ton of potential...

I used completely different tactics. First of all I made a team of "must have riders". This year it was around 15 riders. Then I build a long list of riders (this year around 50 names) who for ever the reason I think might do better next year and try to combine them so that in the final, I wont exceed 7500 points and the will have 33 names.
This year I spend around 7-8 hours creating a team, more then ever before. The short list of must have riders was done within half hour, but then it became a nightmare. I had to alter a game plan, and had to drop some interesting "must have" riders too so I would fit in game rules.
In the end I am confused too ;-)

To the bolded: In my view, there are only 3-4 absolute must-haves. Maybe just two. Most of the other spots in my team have been changing a lot. There are a few more than the must-haves which have been constant, but that's mostly because I decided early on that they would definitely be in my team, and I don't expect them to be in almost everybody else's team.

My strategy analysis for this year was from a slightly different perspective than last time, so this year my team shouldn't look like skidmark's less talented brother. I'm still going for the "scientific approach", but I'm pretty sure I won't top the popularity rankings again this year, and I might even have a potentially unique pick.

Hoping to break into the podium spots in 2017!

[Polliwop]

I have my team ready, but how do I get it to skidmark? I've tried clicking on his name but that doesn't give an option. How do I send a pm then?

[Hugo Koblet]

I have my team ready, but how do I get it to skidmark? I've tried clicking on his name but that doesn't give an option. How do I send a pm then?

Yes it does. If you click the user's name, you get to their profile. Then on the left side it says "CONTACT POLLIWOP
PM: Send private message".

[PeterB]

I have my team ready, but how do I get it to skidmark? I've tried clicking on his name but that doesn't give an option. How do I send a pm then?

You must have more posts to be able to send private messages I think, is it 10?

[Polliwop]

I have my team ready, but how do I get it to skidmark? I've tried clicking on his name but that doesn't give an option. How do I send a pm then?

Yes it does. If you click the user's name, you get to their profile. Then on the left side it says "CONTACT POLLIWOP
PM: Send private message".

Nope. Counting (see next message).