The 2015 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[Jspear]

Cool! Thanks Skidmark for organizing all this...much appreciated!

 

[Ruudz0r]

Re:

Cool! Thanks Skidmark for organizing all this...much appreciated!

Indeed thanks a lot Skidmark!

 

[LondonPat]

Huge thanks to skidmark and all others who have contribute dot running the game I have really enjoyed it - one of the best fantasy games for me and interest kept up all year.

And congrats to Cykeltyven too!

.

 

[greenedge]

Thanks for the great work skidmark, it was a fun year. Congrats to fauniera and MADRAZO, for leaping into the top 10 and also Cykeltyven.

 

[Jancouver]

Thanks to skidmark and all others that helped with he updates! Congrats to the winner and to all those that finished above me

The competition is getting better and better and we can expect a fearless fight for glory next season for sure. Happy holidays and Merry Christmas to all!

 

[GP Blanco]

A big thanks to all the people who ran this game. In the end I am happy with finishing 13th. It is not the first place I had at the end of the Tour de France but still better than last year when I finished around the 20th spot. Looking forward to next year!

 

[uspostal]

Thanks to everybody who had a part in the game this year, big or small it was appreciated by all. Special thanks Skidmark for setting it all up and getting out teams together. A thanks to everybody who played the game you all made it interesting.

Chuck

 

[Karaev1]

This was an amazing game and I want to thank Skidmark who provided some amazing work and made this game way more interesting. For me it was the second game and my team performed way better and I managed to finish 14th which is way higher than I thought at the start of the season.

I already started to build my team for the next season and I hope I will once again be in the top 20 so I can stay interested for all the year. A top 10 would be amazing. As I start checking possible cyclist for my new team I saw that there are a lot of medium-high cost picks that could be very good so I expect many different teams. Can't wait for the new season of cycling already! Let's the Tour Down Under start!

 

[shalgo]

It looks like Marc Soler is showing up as scoring zero points for fauniera but 111 points (his actual score) for merengues. At least, that is what the spreadsheet shows when I download it. So it appears that fauniera should have another 111 points, moving him/her into 8th place overall.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

It looks like Marc Soler is showing up as scoring zero points for fauniera but 111 points (his actual score) for merengues. At least, that is what the spreadsheet shows when I download it. So it appears that fauniera should have another 111 points, moving him/her into 8th place overall.

Yes and Hernandez Jaramilo scored 25 points. I think it's because there's a space behind their names.

 

[PeterB]

Re:

Yes, space behind the name is the problem.

Also I would like to thank skidmark and everyone who contributed to organizing the game. I am fairly happy with my team performance, even if the final podium was eventually not within its reach. I tried to prefer "safer" picks over riskier ones even if profit potential was not that high, and it worked - but just to some extent. I must in any case admit that even if I replace my worse picks with better ones from those riders from my long list, whom I left out at the last moment, I would not be able to achieve Cykeltyven's score. I find it amazing that Cykeltyven won with such a margin despite that his team did not contain any specially unique riders, just the right mix of popular ones.

I also tried to put together the best possible "green team", although not using any sophisticated method. Is anyone aware of better possible combination than mine achieving 24 176 points?

 

[martyfulu]

Enjoyed the game this year doing much better than i expected coming 45th or therabouts. Thanks to skidmark et al for running the game for being so enthusiastic and knowledgable all year. Didnt get to watch too much cycling this year because of my schedule but this gave me an interest.

 

[rote_laterne]

Thanks skidmark for running the game, all the others doing updates and participating in the game and congrats Cykeltyven. Looking forward to next year.

 

[Skibby the bush kangaroo]

Re: Re:

I also tried to put together the best possible "green team", although not using any sophisticated method. Is anyone aware of better possible combination than mine achieving 24 176 points?

I believe it is possible to do marginally better (computed via numerical optimization):

Name CQ2015 CQ2014
RODRIGUEZ OLIVER Joaquim 1750 1150
ARU Fabio 1756 1092
DENNIS Rohan 1005 528
BOASSON HAGEN Edvald 1068 429
BAKELANTS Jan 973 417
PORTE Richie 1359 415
HERMANS Ben 778 363
ALAPHILIPPE Julian 826 358
LANDA MEANA Mikel 967 239
THEUNS Edward 1064 227
BENOOT Tiesj 872 214
FELLINE Fabio 965 202
ROGLIC Primoz 519 169
NAESEN Oliver 506 151
BOOKWALTER Brent 596 143
GULDHAMMER Rasmus 659 141
BOECKMANS Kris 674 129
ROSA Diego 507 127
FEDRIGO Pierrick 488 126
BILLE Gaëtan 475 116
EWAN Caleb 716 95
HENAO MONTOYA Sergio Luis 916 92
LAMMERTINK Maurits 455 92
DE CLERCQ Bart 418 90
DE BIE Sean 466 89
LATOUR Pierre 453 71
CAMPENAERTS Victor 388 60
TORRES AGUDELO Rodolfo Andres 465 53
KUMP Marko 534 28
CLAEYS Dimitri 389 27
BEVIN Patrick 397 17
MARECZKO Jakub 449 15
DOMBROWSKI Joseph Lloyd 399 10
Total 24252 7475

 

[PeterB]

Re: Re:

I believe it is possible to do marginally better (computed via numerical optimization):

Cool, thanks. That green team of mine did not have Rodriguez+some cheaper riders, and instead included Chaves, Roelandts, Lampaert and Gesink who did not make it to your ideal combination. It seems more or less almost every rider is replacable, without losing too many points overall.

Looking at the list, it seems clear why the best team was still so distant from the best possible result. It contains quite many random riders. Maybe next year I too will go for some more random picks...

 

[skidmark]

Hey everyone,

just want to talk about a few things for next year (I meant to get this out last week, but I've had a few life interventions). I have a request for feedback, preceded by some feedback of my own.

First, I'm going to make a new rule on the deadline for submissions. The last two years, there has been consistent and heated debate at the start of the season about whether or not to allow teams after the 'official' deadline. I don't want to address this on an ad hoc basis anymore; I also want this game to be inclusive to all who want to participate and make a reasonable effort to do so. As such, I'm going to have a submission deadline and a revision deadline that are 24 hours apart. The submission deadline will be when you are required to submit a team; the revision deadline will be to allow for changes to teams that have double riders, are over the limit, etc. This will allow me to more thoroughly check over the teams to ensure that they are compliant, and allow a window to correct honest mistakes. This game has operated under the principle of 'you are responsible for any mistakes in your team', and that still holds true; it is difficult to catch all the errors (case in point: nobody noticed until the game was over in mid-November that there was a space after the name of a zero-pointer in one of the top ten teams). But having 24 hours to look over the teams will allow me to be a bit more proactive and thorough about it, and not be entering teams until the last minute and feeling pressure to publish the spreadsheet. A byproduct of this will be that if you are unexpectedly without internet access, or misread the time zone difference and submitted your team a few hours after the submission deadline, I can still accept those teams without fear that they've been given an advantage by exposing them to other team's picks. Teams submitted in this 'grace period' will not be allowed to make revisions in case of error; if a rider is doubly entered or a team is over the limit, I will simply drop riders until the team is compliant. Teams will NOT be accepted after the revision deadline, period. Our self-imposed 'publication ban' of our own teams on the game thread will be lifted at the revision deadline. Hopefully that will satisfactorily solve this contentious topic.

One large thing we discussed in the lead up to this season was whether the points total should remain at 7500 or be changed. There was some discussion, but it was too close to the season to make a change. I would like feedback on this for next year, and I'd like it by December 1st so I can give people over a month's notice if there is going to be a change. Here is a post by LaFlo at VeloRooms in October outlining the average PT team's CQ score, which was the loose basis for this game:

It was average of all PRT teams.

2010:
Average 6904 but minus Milram and Footon who scored quite low it would be 7300. 6 teams scored 7500+ points.

2011:
Average 7648, minus Saxo-Sungard, 7846. 10 teams scored 7500+.

2012:
Average 8366. 11 teams scored 7500+. In 2010 the 6th team scored 7800, in 2012 9375.

2013:
Average 7986. 11 teams scored 7500+.

2014:
Average 8396. 13 teams scored 7500+.

2015:
Average 7803. 10 teams scored 7500+, but 7 teams scored 10,000+.

Just some statistics, I'm not sure if the budget should be bigger, we all have to work with the same budget anyway.

Last year, I was strongly considering changing it to 8000 given the upward trend in recent years. Two things make me consider it less strongly this year: 1) the trend went back down this year, and 2) future revisions to the PT, which may or may not happen, would reduce riders on a team and likely have the same effect on scores, so changing it back in a year is a possibility; all things equal, it might be easier just to keep it the same.

Anyway, I'm open to feedback. Let me know by December 1st if you have strong feelings either way. If there's a clear majority, I'll go with it, but if it's not clear, I'll just make the call to my best judgement.

Thanks! Oh, and I intend to get next year's game thread up by about December 10th.

 

[Jspear]

I'd leave it at 7500.

You have to think good and hard to create a good team, but it's still very doable.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Personally I prefer leaving it at 7500 as it makes comparisons between much easier which I think is quite interesting.

 

[LaFlorecita]

I don't really care if it's 7500 or 8000, I think pushing up the budget could be interesting, but we will all have to work with the same budget so in the end it doesn't really matter that much.
Good point by skidmark about the upcoming UCI reforms.

 

[shalgo]

I also prefer keeping the limit at 7500.

 

[HelgeBlendet]

I really like the idea of the new deadline rules. That should eliminate the usual discussions in the first week, hopefully.

I'd also prefer to keep the limit at 7500.

 

[rote_laterne]

I also prefer 7.500 points as I think teams will differ more thous making the game more interesting.

 

[jsem94]

Keep it at 7500!

 

[adamski101]

keep it at 7,500

 

[comodoro]

+1 for 7.500