The 2014 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

Page 58 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Update 41: Are we there yet?

Not quite. But almost.

Even though we're approaching the end of season, a lot of points are handed out in this week's update. The winner of the first edition of the game, ingsve, finishes the season in style as he collects 868 points from Gilbert, Hagen, Barguil and Chaves among others and can call himself this week's top scorer. Yours truly takes 2nd place while some of the games regulars completes the top 5.

This week's top scorers:

1. ingsve - 868
2. Hugo Koblet - 748
3. HelgeBlendet - 728
4. the asian - 669
5. Skibby the bush kangaroo - 633

the asian, 4th on the top scorer list, is our highest mover this week, jumping from 109th to 92nd, while ingsve, jumping 16 places, is very close to completing the double.

This week's high jumpers:

1. the asian +17
2. ingsve +16
3. jsem94 +12
4. hilltopfinisher +10
5. ----AG---- +9
5. Roderick +9
5. Total Package +9

In the top 10, it's time to finally crown our winner. With a 600 points lead, it's almost impossible for Cykeltyven to overtake Pentacycle in 1st place, and we can safely congratulate Pentacycle - whose goal was to finish in the top 100 - with the victory. Well done! Pentacycle has made some very good and rare picks in Bardet (163% profit), Navardauskas (333% profit), Wellens (567% profit), Sepulveda (371% profit), Benoot (713% profit) and Theuns (908% profit) and that combined with some high scoring riders like Contador and Gilbert has been enough to set the winning team.

Cykeltyven looks set for 2nd place, while the last podium spot is still up for grabs as only 80 points separate 3rd from 7th place.

Two new teams enter the top 10 this week. Hugo Koblet jumps from 12th into 6th, while tomazo moves from 13th to 10th. will10 and Kazistuta makes way.

Top 10:

1. (-) Pentacycle - 14289
2. (-) Cykeltyven - 13693
3. (-) Oliveira - 13421
4. (+4) minessa - 13380
5. (-) Ruudz0r - 13358
6. (+6) Hugo Koblet - 13347
7. (-) rywann - 13341
8. (-4) The Hitch - 13298
9. (-) freshman - 13266
10. (+3) tomazo - 13215

For most of the teams, their place in the game is almost settled, and this week we were able to safely crown our winner. However, a few things can still happen in the top 10 - and the battle for 3rd is still wide open - so stay tuned for next week's update as well!

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/download/de8kpzfrfdbud2a/CQ+2014+update+41.xls
 
Wow, lots of points this week! I definitely thought I did better than 60th overall this week with the points I had. Nevertheless, I moved up a bit, but end a mere 17 points out of the top 20, with (I don't think, at least) nothing more to come in. Oh well, round numbers are overrated anyway.

Onto next year's sheet, with my 163 rider long list! Phew.

For those who are wondering, the solution we came to with regards to 'wrapping up' the game was that Hugo, the game's founder, could unofficially crown the winner, since Pentacycle is so far ahead. For those still battling for a spot of prestige, I'll be doing the last couple of updates (up to Taihu Lake) to let the dust settle and officially present the top 10, etc. A post for next year's game will start within a few weeks of the end of this game.
 
Apr 27, 2012
92
1
8,685
:confused: :confused: Should or shouldn´t I cheer for Bonifazio in China!? :confused: I can drop from 3rd in CQ Manager game if he does well, but it's up to him for me to get into 3rd in Youth game... Believe me, I can fully sympathize with my rivals at this point. :p
 
Congratulations to Pentacycle - a worthy winner. Congratulations too for skidmark for a great first year overseeing the game. Many thanks as well to all the people who provided update posts, and indeed everyone who contributed to the thread.

Even after all this time I would also like to reiterate my thanks to Hugo for creating the game which adds so much to my enjoyment of the cycling season, and which has led to the other games.

Good luck to those chasing the podium and the top 10 in the next couple of weeks.
 
oliveira said:
:confused: :confused: Should or shouldn´t I cheer for Bonifazio in China!? :confused: I can drop from 3rd in CQ Manager game if he does well, but it's up to him for me to get into 3rd in Youth game... Believe me, I can fully sympathize with my rivals at this point. :p

106 points already for Bonifazio and 3rd on GC after the last(?) selective stage, 10secs from 2nd place - could be making up the remaining deficit of 147 points to be challenging for 1st place in the youth game,.
 
Update 43: Boni's Fast, Yo! Rare Pick Causes 11th-Hour Podium Shakeup

(note: there was no update 42; I got the CQ download when it finally showed up mid-week, but it hadn't even accounted for the end of Hainan, so I decided to hold off until this week since barely anyone scored)

By far the biggest revelation (if it can be called that for an almost post-season race with little competition) of the 2.HC Tour of Hainan was Nicolo Bonifazio of Lampre. The young Italian captured 251 points from the event, which made his 5 CQ Game owners very happy indeed. And, as 3 of those owners were in the top 20 of the standings, it caused some shakeup at the top, including the podium of the game.

This week's high scorers

1. fauniera 251
1. Ruudz0r 251
1. Bellsax 251
1. Reno 251
1. Milanello 251

Remember how I said 5 teams had Bonifazio, and how he scored 251 points? I hope you can connect the dots to understand the above list.

This week's top movers

1. fauniera (+9)
2. Bellsax (+5)
3. Milanello (+4)
4. NairoQ (+3)
5. Ruudz0r (+2)

That's 4 of 5 repeats, with Ruudz0r's +2 being pretty significant (see below). NairoQ, with Palini and Kamyshev, is the interloper on this list (also the highest non-Bonifazio scorer). fauniera's leap of 9 spots lands their team in the top 100, in the nice round 100th place.

Top 10

1. Pentacycle (-)
2. Cykeltyven (-)
3. Ruudz0r (+2)
4. Oliveira (-1)
5. minessa (-1)
6. Hugo Koblet (-)
6. rywann (+1)
8. The Hitch (-)
9. freshman (-)
10. tomazo (-)

Some interesting jockeying going on, despite the fact that only 3 teams in the top 10 scored any points this week (Pentacycle scored 78 from Wippert and Markus, because of course he did). But Ruudz0r leaps onto the podium by virtue of having Bonifazio, Oliveira falls off. And rywann's meagre 6 points from Juan Pablo Suarez gets him into a tie with game founder Hugo for 6th place. I can't say I remember having a tie in the top 10 at season's end in the previous incarnations of this game, but someone correct me if I'm wrong. Milanello, a Bonifazo owner, made an agonizingly close run to the top 10, moving up 4 spots to 11th but ending up 63 points short.

The season is officially over after this week's Taihu Lake; I haven't combed through teams to see who has riders (although I see already at least one team has Jesse Kerrison), but I'm expecting next week's update to simply finalize things. I will provide it when it's available and then we can look ahead to next year!

Spreadsheet at dropbox
 
Official End of Season Update

So, as predicted last week, the Tour of Taihu Lake (last race ranked .1 or higher) had very few participants and very few points on offer. In fact, the asian was this week's high scorer with 5 points from Gavazzi; however, everyone else in the game pretty much tied for 3rd with zero points, as archieboy got the week's only other points from Jesse Kerrison (3 points). So congratulations, if you didn't finish in the top 5 any other week this year, you technically have this week!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this windfall of points did not lead to any place shuffling, and so our top 10 as highlighted last week is also the final top 10. Congrats to Pentacycle for officially winning the year! For those who don't want to pick through the spreadsheet, I have to highlight a particularly impressive aspect of Pentacycle's team this year, which was the combination of popular and unique picks. Of course he had Contador, who was a game-changer this year for all involved, and the inevitable sort of Boonen-Vanendert-Chaves picks (and also popular ones that didn't work out like VDB, Andy, Goss), but also a good number of high-profit, fairly unique picks. I'll highlight a few:

Philippe Gilbert - 1696 points, profit of 747, picked by 29 (not that unique, but not that popular)
Romain Bardet - 1149 points, profit of 446, picked by 2 (!)
Ramunas Navardauskas - 806 points, profit of 564, picked by 9
Ben Swift - 745 points, profit of 587, picked by 23
Tim Wellens - 748 points, profit of 616, picked by 11

And then young guns like Sepulveda (unique pick), Theuns (2 teams) and Benoot (unique pick) who picked up handy profits of around 200 points for low investment. It takes luck to win this game, but it takes some serious skill to pick riders that can put you in a place where you can win if they mostly do well.

With that, we bring the year to a close. I want to thank all 150 teams that participated, and look forward to starting discussions about next year really soon. Congrats to our podium of Pentacycle, Cykeltyven and Ruudz0r!

final spreadsheet at dropbox
 
Thanks for the update, this game is really the mother of all cycling games on the net:D
Really surprised to finish as high as 13th this year. It really should be impossible to finish that high when 8 og your 12 most expensive riders are on negative score... Question is who to keep next year:D
My own personal top 5 picks for this year:
1. Tim Wellens 566 % and 616 points benefit. I am still amazed why only 11 managers picked him.
2. Philippe Gilbert 178 % return and 747 points profit. I think most people agree that Phil as had a quite mediocre season, but obviously 121 managers thought he would do worse.
3. Alberto Contador 207 % and 1315 points profit... It's not often that a guy that abandons TDF throgh a broken bone in his leg is crucial to winning the CQ game. Could he have broken 4000 points without the injury? I will let the 112 managers who thought he was too expensive at a cost of 1228 decide:D
4. Eliot Lietaer 1015 % and 119 points profit. This is really what I enjoy most with this game. Finding obscure talents and follow them through the season. Only two others had Eliot, but he might be more popular next year. Crashed a few times this season and is probably the best climber at TSV.
5. Sergey Lagutin 210 % and 221 points profit. Nothing spectacular. But unique picks are always cool, and dropping back to pro conti and riding the Russian race schedule proved as I predicted to be the right medicine for this old warrior.

Many thanks to all who have given the weekly updates, and I really hope this game will continue for many years to come!!!
 
Thanks to everyone involved in the organization and updating of the files! Huge fun to follow as usual.

Very happy with 30th after a quite bad start into the season and my early feeling of picking EBH being a mistake was spot on. Not sure if he'll get a second chance.

Some other puzzling picks I made:
Moreno Moser (-266 pts: are you kidding me?)
Maxime Monfort (-117: leading two GTs does not lead to many GC points)
Goss, De Gendt, Hoogerland (-151,-100,-125: I gave them a chance... well... not good...)
Jungels, RJvR, Dombo (-132,-102,-87: they were risky picks and exploded in the wrong direction)

Guys saving my season:
Formolo: 59 -> 593 and only picked 7 times!
Gallopin: 542 -> 1014 and only picked 9 times!
Gilbert and Adam Yates had great seasons and both were quite rare.

Add Boonen, Vanendert, Chaves and Aru to the mix and you have the good parts of the squad. It's nice to see a steady improvement of Mateo Trentin, but he just doesn't explode as I hoped for (including the last 2 years).

Looking forward to next year. Seems like there might be a lot of risky comebacks at lower teams. Oh... and thanks to Andy Schleck for retiring... I just know I would've picked him next year just because...
 
LaFlorecita said:
At the start of the year I posted on here "last time I pick Andy", well he didn't even give me a choice:p

you can still choose to pick him, Flo ;)

only costs 25 points or something; you never know, I did that with Efimkin the first year of the game and he came out of retirement to get, well, something like less than 100 points. And then retire again. But, you can still do it!
 
skidmark said:
you can still choose to pick him, Flo ;)

only costs 25 points or something; you never know, I did that with Efimkin the first year of the game and he came out of retirement to get, well, something like less than 100 points. And then retire again. But, you can still do it!

NO. :p :p a waste of 25 points and a space
 
Thanks to all those who helped run the game this year and congratulations to Pentacycle on his convincing win :cool:

With the fourth season done and dusted, it's time to look at the all-time rankings. Even though, The Hitch closed the gap to a single point during the summer, skidmark's late season resurgence means that he holds a somewhat comfortable 544 points lead before next season. Mc_mountain is a distant third.
skidmark 53625
The Hitch 53081
mc_mountain 51613
EvansIsTheBest 51036
Kazistuta 50843
ingsve 50130
bicing 50010
MADRAZO 49721
Armchair Cyclist 49015
The Amateur 48168
Tuarts 47898
will10 47757
Ferminal 47609
Hugo Koblet 47507
theyoungest 47086
Handbrake 46495
Mellow Velo 45422
sublimit 44985
Jancouver 44867
Jpettersen 43908
Object 43487
Jakob747 42920
al_pacino 42845
Geraint Too Fast 40598
Blues in the bottle 40307
trotters aotearoa 40021
TeoSheva 40001
Tomazo 39631
Ruudz0r 39524
minessa 39463
gustienordic 39283
shalgo 37747
auto de fé 37524
greenedge 37262
Netserk 37236
18-Valve. (pithy) 36823
Ham-N-Eggs 36701
Gotland 36675
vladimir 36498
Kvinto 36127
adamski101 36035
Squire 35717
Skibby the bush kangaroo 35678
Froome19 35629
Lortnoc 35550
nobilis 35507
jsem94 35488
AntonioRossi 35307
LaFlorecita 35109
HelgeBlendet 35055
Maaaaaaaarten 34868
the asian 34774
AAC1983 34472
ansimi 34455
CraZyCaLL 34316
just some guy 34287
DJ Sprtsch 34103
Total Package 33362
King Of The Worlds 33164
Popchu 32799
Panda Claws 32653
the_fool_on_the_hill 32141
auscyclefan94 32014
CQmanager 31740
Jan the Man 31017
hilltopfinisher 29620
Nyssinator 29439
Kevin Rudd's Hairdryer 29314
Waterloo Sunrise 28454
Luke Schmid 27977
FF'Wilco 27956
Kwibus 26733
Timmy-loves-Rabo 26449
kurtinsc 26301
Karbonkel 25506
taiwan 24616
Sasquatch 24544
The Cobra 24270
hrotha 23655
ironted 23555
SteelyDan 23528
togo95 23523
AussieGoddess 23485
*Falze* 23379
nck1000 23283
lancaster 23071
cineteq 23070
Sylvester 22808
Duartista 22800
Pentacycle 22608
Martin 22343
Moondance 22341
PeterB 22337
Yellow Knight 22177
Spider1964 22100
Bumeington 22050
GP Blanco 22018
Bellsax 21998
Sneekes 21780
element 21562
Afrank 21530
asdfgh101 21482
roundabout 21395
LightBing 21311
luckyboy 21123
jaylew 21063
gerundium 20970
Eyeballs Out 20957
Eric8-A 20778
comodoro 20499
VeloRooms 20338
search 20329
Andrichuk 20236
NairoQ 20099
R_O_Shipman 19774
Jraama 18291
Tigerion 18213
tgsgirl 17370
Zam_Olyas 17160
whittashau 16596
coinneach 16432
Rocksteady 16040
jencredible 14490
Swede1 14137
CasperVG 13753
schullster46 13739
Michele 13658
Reuell 13572
Havetts 13494
flyers 13209
SantiBotero 13128
Tank Engine 13123
fedaia 12999
Strassenrennen 12766
Michielveedeebee 12696
djlovesyou 12344
chinaboy 12133
omloop van het houtland 12050
freddybobs 11985
nvpacchi 11716
The Aluminium Monster 11709
nordicICE1024 11660
Housoe 11485
miguelvazpinto 11388
Von Mises 11378
reader11 11363
Damiano 11335
Youri900 11314
Midnightfright 11280
Wigwan 11167
DnthasldHoff 11082
Pcutter 11006
bubbles 10962
Ambiturner93 10874
Cuyphagist 10857
Zaschrona 10856
joy118118 10803
mortand 10574
dogboy 10559
Barrus 10495
coppiman 10450
Blackbandit222 10394
Inzaghi 10353
Kjellus 10273
Passista 10204
Vitapen 10148
dlwssonic 10130
Dim 10118
Ruby United 10111
martyfulu 10038
benreynolds 10027
FlorinM 10021
keithmcmahon 9958
Spare Tyre 9924
Pabryan 9876
Fowsto Cope-E 9825
royalpig180 9735
henry olonga 9686
Moncoutie 9589
Dekker_tifosi 9587
sykkelerbest 9570
Team Riis 9561
zapata 9489
Kato777 9479
Makiavelli 9424
ForzaCampagna 9218
Parrulo 9178
Team Sky Fans 9145
Jimy-Arts 8980
bullet50000 8752
Sydney21 8719
microdose 8675
deValtos 8624
sosososik 8468
XlandaluzeX 8341
Contre la montre 8181
Jiaying 8180
Thibaut Pinot 8041
Team Kapiris 7903
Arnout 7628
Akubra 7469
who dat 7357
jens_attacks 7329
Libertine Seguros 7272
Weeley Wheeler 7176
Sdrawkcab 7088
sigsky 7019
Jukebox 7013
Vonn Brinkman 6696
Phoenix118 5724
Wiggins_fan 3423
 
EITB, thanks for the running totals, that's awesome to look at! And not just because of my position in it, I mean it's cool to see that running total for everyone (although I'm curious how many of those players have played all 4 years).

To everyone, I've been thinking about the game for next year. I think we've hit upon a set of rules that work quite well, but have heard a few different proposals for how to change the game. Hugo always maintained that the simplicity of the game was one of its hallmarks, and I'm inclined to agree, so as I'm intending on continuing to organize it I'm interested in preserving the very simple nature of it. Other ideas involving trades of riders or active rosters or a points valuation based on something more than raw CQ points can spawn other games, that's great, but my feeling is that's not what this game is about.

That said, if there's one thing I would consider changing, it might be the total points for teams. MC provided me with some info on how CQ points have changed since the game has started:

total points scored by all teams

2010 217683
2011 229067
2012 239226
2013 234051
2014 238259

average of the top 18 teams (not always the WT)

2010 7154
2011 7802
2012 8401
2013 8156
2014 8369

So, if the initial goal was for 7500 to be an 'average' team, it might be worthwhile considering an increase in team value. Then again, who knows what will happen if WT rosters are reduced as they are supposed to be, the total might go down. And I have zero interest in reducing rosters, I love the fact that you have to pick as many riders as you do, it's fun to follow more riders.

I've talked to MC and Hugo about this over PM and we're all kind of ambivalent about such an idea. Regardless, it's late enough in the year that people have probably been picking their teams, so I'm not really inclined to make any changes for next year, but this is more just to see what people think. So yeah, opinions are welcome, maybe somewhere indicating which option you're closest to of a) keep it the same, b) change it now! or c) change it maybe, but next year.

Thanks!
 
Aug 4, 2010
198
0
0
1st let me say thanks to all who organized, ran, up-dated and did all the work to make this game as enjoyable as it was.

This was my 1st year to participate in the game, and I was close enough to see last place I have to vote to keep things like they are. Its easy to play have 30 riders total 7500 pts or less. Trading or replacing riders although seems like a good thing how much confusion will it cause? What happens when riders don't get put on the right teams?? Regular teams hardly ever switch riders in the year so why here.

Some of the fun is being able to select a team and not having to micro-manage it. Adding more rules and variables doesn't always make things better sometimes less is best and I think this is one of those things. Just my thoughts on the issue. Thanks for your time,
Chuck
 
Mar 14, 2009
3,436
0
0
If its not broken, dont fix it.

On the other hand, if you dont try to make it better by making changes you will not improve the game and you may be missing out.

Personally, I'm open to changes but only in the team size or team budget area. Less or more riders or lower/higher budget is OK with me either way.

That way we may realize that: A) We go back to the old version or B)We keep the new version. There is not that much to risk.

Proposal 1) I think 25 riders may work well with our current budget as many teams are stuffing free riders just to fill out their team anyway.

Proposal 2) Increase the budget to allow for more expensive riders. 8500 may work and its not that far from the current budget.

Once again, "if you don't try you'll never know"
 
I'm completely against trades or active/inactive rosters. The fact that you have to deceide early and live with it is the beautiful part of the game.

I don't think we should increase the budget. Looking at the CQ-rankings it seems that teams will be more similar with higher budgets as most of us will zero onto the same underperforming top riders. Hoping they will bounce back into the 1700 - 2000 points range. With a budget of 7500 points you will have to choose wisely among the options whereas you could easily fit everyone of those into a team worth 800-8500 points. I fear with an increase of the budget the game will become more top-heavy and dependent on the performance of the high-end riders. I'd definitely prefer the current budget.
 

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts