The 2022 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[EvansIsTheBest]

At the top, EvansIsTheBest successfully continues to run out the clock on all challengers, losing 49 points to Rakim but still maintaining a 4-digit lead. While the season is not quite over, the game effectively is. Adding up all the points from GC in Malaysia (places 1-50), I quickly did the math in my head and came up with 1115 points. This means that even if Rakim's 33 riders were all riding in Langkawi and swept places 1-33, it still wouldn't overturn the lead. So barring something like Martinez getting his entire year DQ'd this week, it's over mathematically, even on the theoretical level. Congrats to EITB on a great year!

Looks like I can finally relax lol.

Green Jersey Competition
No scoring at the top this week, although LosBrolin gets 10 points on the week to move into sole possession of 5th place. I haven't fact-checked this, but a comment upthread suggested that ray10 has no active riders in Langkawi, which means that it would be mathematically impossible for anyone to catch EITB in these rankings. I'll make everything official next week, but it is looking pretty solid at this point.

If this holds it will be the first GC/Green Jersey double. It felt like every week my team was either top 5 or scored 0 points.

 

[GlennGow]

I promise you nothing.

 

[Kazistuta]

Well, since my last omissions were Evenepoel and Hindley (and Riabushenko), I can't help feeling my heart deceived my head in this years edition. Sagan instead of Remco is me leaving 2700 points on the shelf, and since I don't recall which guy I replaced Hindley with, I'll just assume it would have netted me the same as I'd lost by having Riabushenko instead of Sam Bennett (part of the Sagan for Remco package change). Still Even a Pole would have given me a top3 this year, so there's that. At least I can take consolation in getting a late weekly win and enjoy the fact that Remco is almost unpickable next year Thanks for organizing, Skidmark. Will be ready, without Remco, Hindley and perhaps even Sagan next year.

 

[tobydawq]

I promise you nothing.

Very ominous first post.

 

[skidmark]

Update #41: sam2837 takes the final week as EvansIsTheBest is the confirmed winner of the CQ Game 2022

Well folks, this is it. 41 weeks since the CQ points started flowing in Australia, we've reached the end of the season, with Langkawi being the last race .1 or above in 2022. With one final week of scoring, we have one more weekly winner to highlight before confirming the final standings for another year of this game.

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank	Team	Points this week
1	sam2837	281
2	DJ Sprtsch	246
3	vladimir	180
3	Amis_Velo	180
5	Kazistuta	171

Despite the very limited amount of riders in this game that were in Langkawi, we did not have a multiple-team tie at the top of the standings. The clear winner of the week is sam2837, who had 4 scoring riders. Of course, the must-have was Langkawi overall winner Ivan Sosa, who brought 158 points to his 26 owners. sam2837 also had 2nd place Hugh Carthy (110 points, 5 teams), as well as smaller amounts from Gianni Moscon (8 points, 11 teams) and Hugo Toumire (5 points, 5 teams). DJ Sprtsch lands a clear 2nd place, with George Bennett (78 points, 5 teams), Marijn Van Den Berg and Max Kanter (5 points each) supplementing Sosa's points. vladimir and Amis Velo tie for third, but with completely different riders: vladimir had Sosa, Matteo Jorgenson (12 points) as well as Kanter/Toumire (5 each), whereas Amis Velo had Carthy and Einer Rubio (70 points, 4 teams).

Green Jersey Competition

Rank	Team	Total
1	EvansIsTheBest	380
2	ray10	353
3	Leadbelly	249
4	Rakim	239
5	LosBrolin	238

No teams in the top 5 overall of this ranking scored any points this week - 18-Valve scored 8 points to pull within 2 points of the top 5, but it wasn't quite enough. EvansIsTheBest and ray10 have been well in front of this competition for a long time now, and this week solidifies EITB at the top of the ranking.

Top 10 Overall

Rank	Up/down	Team	Points
1	(-)	EvansIsTheBest	18662
2	(-)	Rakim	17585
3	(-)	ray10	17157
4	(-)	search	17020
5	(-)	MADRAZO	17018
6	(-)	squire	16867
7	(+1)	Bonimenier	16503
8	(-1)	laarsland	16393
9	(-)	Riverside	16349
10	(-)	NielsB	16207

The lead has looked commanding for much of the season, and the air of inevitability grew thicker as the weeks passed. But now I can officially crown EvansIsTheBest as the winner of the 2022 CQ Game!

Their team's 18662 points ranks as one of the most successful CQ Game seasons ever, and the 1077 margin of victory surely is among the largest as well. EITB had 7 1000-point scorers, led of course by Remco, but also including Girmay, Higuita, Rodriguez, Martinez, Ayuso and Hindley. With the Giro and Vuelta winners, as well as riders that scored a ton in the early season and other who scored a ton in the later season, it's no wonder that EITB doubled up with the Green Jersey win as well.

Rakim does not get the win, but had a great season to finish in 2nd, and ray10 hangs on for 3rd after a solid season as well. Lower down in the top 10, only one spot flips this week (7th and 8th trade places), and the table stays the same otherwise.

Congrats to our winner and our top 10! And thank you to everyone who participated this year, I hope it was fun and that you'll come back for the 2023 edition. I'll have year-in-review updates until then, but the game is officially over.

spreadsheet at dropbox

 

[Rakim]

It was a nice ride
Thanks to DeLie for my 2nd place this season. And thanks a lot for Skidmark's time for organizing and managing fantasy this season!
See all you guys next season! Good luck!

 

[SafeBet]

Thank you @skidmark for yet another year of fun with fantasy cycling.

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

Yes, agree completely! Even though my team didn't keep up once the season was really underway, it is so much fun to participate.
Just looked back, I was in the top ten with 1900 points in week 7. A highlight, that and the #2 spot this week.

 

[Earns1985]

Yes thanks for organising the game.
With a top 30 in the end I am a lot better then my first year here, but still room for improvement..
Already looking forward for the 2023 edition.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Thanks again skidmark for organizing the game this year. When I put my team together I certainly didn't expect it to become one of the most successful team ever. It's wild that I finished more than 1000 points clear despite Dumoulin retiring midway through the season (but I guess everybody was affected similarly), wasting a roster spot on Rivera (although thankfully I swapped out Haas for Groves at the last minute) and not having De Lie or Sheffield.

Spoiler: 2022 Optimal CQ team

EVENEPOEL Remco
VLASOV Aleksandr (unique pick; comodoro)
PEDERSEN Mads
DE LIE Arnaud
KRISTOFF Alexander
HIGUITA GARCIA Sergio Andres
MARTINEZ POVEDA Daniel Felipe
HINDLEY Jai
RODRIGUEZ CANO Carlos
GIRMAY HAILU Biniam
AYUSO PESQUERA Juan
KOOIJ Olav
ARENSMAN Thymen
SKJELMOSE JENSEN Mattias
THOMAS Benjamin (unique pick: zaka_fan)
MEINTJES Louis (unique pick: ray10)
ZINGLE Axel
VAN GESTEL Dries (no one)
SCHMID Mauro
HERMANS Quinten
SHEFFIELD Magnus
VAUQUELIN Kévin (no one)
PICCOLO Andrea
VUILLERMOZ Alexis
GROVES Kaden
JUNGELS Bob
KANTER Max
KÄMNA Lennard
DUJARDIN Sandy (no one)
TURNER Benjamin
CONCI Nicola
STRONG Corbin
KAMP Alexander (no one)
Score: 29036
Price: 7496

4 riders that no one saw coming. 3 unique picks (congrats to their managers). Everybody else was picked multiple times the collective did alright.

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

No wonder I ended up something like 60th as I only have six riders on that list.
Vauquelin, wonder what his ceiling is.

 

[vladimir]

Thanks for organizing Skidmark and also thanks to EITB for compiling the best possible team! My best pick of the year was probably Kristoff, and I am also happy to sneak into top twenty for the first time this year on the final week of the game. Already started to consider riders for next year. And it feels like more big names than normal has had a poor year this year due to injuries/sickness, and hence seems very good picks for 2023.

 

[search]

has been fun to follow this year, thanks to Skidmark for all the updates, and also EITB for the optimal team.

Would be interesting to know how those two former Gazprom guys on there would have fared otherwise. In the end, even not doing the full season, I'd say both are likely to have benefitted from the team change.

 

[adamski101]

Thanks Skidmark for running the game again. Congrats to EvanIsTheBest on the win.

 

[MADRAZO]

I can only join the thanks to Skidmark for all his work and a big concratulations to EvanIsTheBest with the clear win and great team. With pretty much all my expensive picks doing badly or at best mediocre I guess I can be quite satisfied with my 5-place, but with the late change of a Evenepoel-team based team (also with Higuita included) to a Pidcock based one I still feel this was perhaps my best chance ever to win this game if not for that, so still its a bit dissapointing, but I look forward to trying again next year, and at least its a succes to win the very close battle with Squire with our always quite similar thoughts and teams ..

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

I can only join the thanks to Skidmark for all his work and a big concratulations to EvanIsTheBest with the clear win and great team. With pretty much all my expensive picks doing badly or at best mediocre I guess I can be quite satisfied with my 5-place, but with the late change of a Evenepoel-team based team (also with Higuita included) to a Pidcock based one I still feel this was perhaps my best chance ever to win this game if not for that, so still its a bit dissapointing, but I look forward to trying again next year, and at least its a succes to win the very close battle with Squire with our always quite similar thoughts and teams ..

You never know what the future might hold. In 2020, I was leading the rankings when covid shut down the season. I was still 3rd (with neither of the top 2 having Evenepoel) when he crashed out of Lombardia. If you had asked me then I would have said that it was my best chance ever to win the game. Yet here we are today. You passed Hugo Koblet for 2nd on the all time aggregate score this year so if you keep putting together those kind of teams it will happen sooner or later.

Which reminds me, I should probably publish an update of the all time rankings now that the year is over (spoiler skidmark is still safe in first):
Spreadsheet with the all time scores plus a few other fun goodies

 

[ray10]

Fine : My first podium here !

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Ended up exactly matching last year's result in 24th, a bit disappointed given that I was higher than that basically all year (up in 6th partway through the Tour!) but my team mostly stopped scoring after that. Only shared nine riders with the perfect team on the end and neither of those were Evenepoel or De Lie so it makes sense.

Other than that, congratulations to EvansIsTheBest on a historic season and thanks as always to Skidmark for organising, and also to JumboVismaFan for filling in mid-season. Been another good edition even if it wasn't close in the end.

 

[Jumbo Visma Fan :)]

Well, my first edition certainly one that isn’t going to be remembered. A dismal 70th place was the result, which is where I was most of the season. Still, the Spanish duo of Rodriguez and Ayuso kept me engaged and rooting for them, especially Rodriguez, all season. In doing so, I’ve found one of my new favorite riders, which is a great consolation prize from this season. Thanks for all of the support during the Month of May and my filling in for our wonderful host Skidmark.

 

[bminchow]

Tanks Skidmark and JumboVismafan!! Well done. And well done to Thymen, Juan, carlos and Jai for making up for my horrible big money picks (Pidcock, Hirschi, Lopez, Carthy.) Only 5 guys in the red so i guess I'll take that.

 

[MADRAZO]

You never know what the future might hold. In 2020, I was leading the rankings when covid shut down the season. I was still 3rd (with neither of the top 2 having Evenepoel) when he crashed out of Lombardia. If you had asked me then I would have said that it was my best chance ever to win the game. Yet here we are today. You passed Hugo Koblet for 2nd on the all time aggregate score this year so if you keep putting together those kind of teams it will happen sooner or later.

Which reminds me, I should probably publish an update of the all time rankings now that the year is over (spoiler skidmark is still safe in first):
Spreadsheet with the all time scores plus a few other fun goodies

Thanks, that is a nice consolation and also gives a bit more hope for the comming years

Skidmark does seem a bit out of reach for the rest of us in that alltime overall ranking, but ultimately the topgoal must still be to take that topspot from him, over the next 10 years time but I suppose its likely easier to just win one of those editions than cathing him Anyways if it was easy to win it would not be as fun to try and I look forward to keep trying, and concratulations again on your great team this time.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

As expected, nobody has managed to pick a squad in which every rider individually is in profit: on average, we had 6.9 riders per team, so about 20% of those selected, who failed to break even. The riders that damaged most teams in this regard, and the 5 that were in the Popularity team, were Tom Dumoulin, Tom Pidcock, David Dekker, Florian Vermeersch and Quinn Simmons.

Eyeballs Out, although he only came 31st overall, came closest to the elusive error free squad, with only Rohan Dennis (90% of cost) and Amund Grondahl Jansen (65%) in the red: this is the only team on which everyone returned at least half of his cost. Search also had only 2 negative sccorers, but Eduard Grosu and Gorka Isagirre didn't come as close to breaking even as Eyeballs Out's pair. Honourable mention to Niels B who has just three who scored lower in 2022 than 2021.

Conversely, no less than 26 teams managed to choose at least one rider who failed to trouble the score-keepers at all. The unfortunate Alvaro Hodeg, who cost JSpear, the only manger to select him, 290 points, was by a long measure the most expensive of the zero pointers that were picked.

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

If you counted my team as one of the 26, it should not. Don't know if anyone cares, but maybe for future statistical reasons?
My 0-point rider actually scored 4 points (Nahom Zerai). But CQ changed his name mid-season.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

If you counted my team as one of the 26, it should not. Don't know if anyone cares, but maybe for future statistical reasons?
My 0-point rider actually scored 4 points (Nahom Zerai). But CQ changed his name mid-season.

So maybe there were 25 teams that had at least one rider without point.

CQ quite often alters the name they give riders: if you see it happen to a rider on your team, the best thing to do is to drop a note to the game organiser, who will probably be more than happy to make the adjustment (I know I would, I am sure Skidmark would). Then your scores, or your avoidance of zero pointers, can be accurately recorded.

 

[Bonimenier]

Conversely, no less than 26 teams managed to choose at least one rider who failed to trouble the score-keepers at all. The unfortunate Alvaro Hodeg, who cost JSpear, the only manger to select him, 290 points, was by a long measure the most expensive of the zero pointers that were picked.

Makes me wonder how Hodeg is doing. It's been over half a year that any news came out about him afaik.