The 2023 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[Salvarani]

Yeah, same. Most of my team has been quite settled for at least a month now, but the final 2-4 spots are a major headache. There's a price range where I really would have wanted another good pick when there are none, to make everything fit. I either have a team I'm really happy with that's a few hundred below budget (obviously not feasible) or a slightly unsatisfying team near budget.

I'm trying to tell myself to let it be until more information is available closer to the deadline, but it's hard not to come back to it from time to time!

I think I have made 5-6 changes since I posted that

I feel pretty happy with it though. More than other editions. That doesnt have to mean much for the outcome of it, but you never know.

Will be interesting to see the reveals as always.

 

[Squire]

I feel pretty happy with it though. More than other editions. That doesnt have to mean much for the outcome of it, but you never know.

Will be interesting to see the reveals as always.

Yeah, I'm also loving the possible picks this time. Most fun team I've ever had, I think.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

I wish I could share your excitement about this pool of riders. Apart from the 5 or 6 most expensive guys on my team (and at their price I better believe in them) and a couple other dudes, I can't say I'm too confident about my picks.

 

[Squire]

I wish I could share your excitement about this pool of riders. Apart from the 5 or 6 most expensive guys on my team (and at their price I better believe in them) and a couple other dudes, I can't say I'm too confident about my picks.

Well, I'm not totally confident that everyone will do well, but basically all my picks are exciting in some way or another. More so than other years.

 

[Salvarani]

I wish I could share your excitement about this pool of riders. Apart from the 5 or 6 most expensive guys on my team (and at their price I better believe in them) and a couple other dudes, I can't say I'm too confident about my picks.

I think we all may have thought about it very differently this year and what riders that we have selected.

The reveal this time will be one of the most interesting ones I can remember since I started playing this game, where my performance for sure has had its ups and downs.

Like @Squire, I am feeling optimistic. We will see how long that lasts.

 

[vladimir]

I have just started marking green in the latest CQ Excel download, riders I think could be possible for the 2024 game. Took a break now and discovered that so far I have selected 34 riders for a total cost of 7530 points. So maybe I shold just remove the rider closest over 30 points and go with my first draft ?

 

[ingsve]

I have just started marking green in the latest CQ Excel download, riders I think could be possible for the 2024 game. Took a break now and discovered that so far I have selected 34 riders for a total cost of 7530 points. So maybe I shold just remove the rider closest over 30 points and go with my first draft ?

Even if you don't go with that you should still save that draft and see how well it would do just out of curiosity.

 

[skidmark]

Hey CQ folks! just a heads up that I'm looking to get the 2024 thread up and running in the next day or two. Nice to see new posters interested in the game as well as returning players, definitely I encourage you to participate if you've ever been interested!

 

[repre]

Hey CQ folks! just a heads up that I'm looking to get the 2024 thread up and running in the next day or two. Nice to see new posters interested in the game as well as returning players, definitely I encourage you to participate if you've ever been interested!

Well, you can count on the new bunch of ukrainian players, who listens mine and riverside's podcast) We played GTs fantasy at PCS and now they want to try CQ fantasy as well. So i think we can reverse the trend of fewer players in last years...

 

[Squire]

Hey CQ folks! just a heads up that I'm looking to get the 2024 thread up and running in the next day or two. Nice to see new posters interested in the game as well as returning players, definitely I encourage you to participate if you've ever been interested!

Is the final spreadsheet for this game correct? Seem to remember there were some issues, and I might have some time now to update my statistics spreadsheet.

 

[skidmark]

Is the final spreadsheet for this game correct? Seem to remember there were some issues, and I might have some time now to update my statistics spreadsheet.

Good question - I will be making the 'create your team' spreadsheet as usual to include in the first post, so I haven't checked yet, but the most recent update is November 5th, and I will be inputting the 'official' December 31st update (assuming CQ releases a year-end update as per tradition) as soon as it comes out. So short answer - the most recently updated version will be in the 'create your team' file, but the final version may not be out until December 31st.

One thing I just realized about timing - the Aussie elite TT this year is as early as it's ever been, January 4th. The one time it was that early before, I recall a few teams who missed the deadline because they didn't realize it was starting so early. I'm mulling the idea of making the deadline in line with the road race on the 7th to give a bit more time, which breaks with tradition but allows a bit more time to sort out any issues that may come with the year end update and just generally to allow more participation. Anybody have strong thoughts or feelings about that?

 

[vickyriso]

where could I get the excel with the 2023 players scoring?

 

[pman]

My team is mostly ready to go. I have something like 28 riders, not sure I'll add any more. I am new to this but I think it'll be a fun way of rooting for some guys I wouldn't otherwise notice.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

I can think of more than a few years where having the Aussie TT before the deadline (in the hypothetical world where the TT is before the RR every single time) would have significantly impacted certain riders' popularity. So I would prefer to keep the rules the way they've been every year, and if not, then I would suggest at least disallowing submissions/revisions sent in after the 4th from newly having riders who started the TT on them.

 

[skidmark]

where could I get the excel with the 2023 players scoring?

Just go to cqranking.com and either hit the 'downloads' button on the top left side or there is usually also a link to the latest update in the middle of the top banner.

 

[skidmark]

I can think of more than a few years where having the Aussie TT before the deadline (in the hypothetical world where the TT is before the RR every single time) would have significantly impacted certain riders' popularity. So I would prefer to keep the rules the way they've been every year, and if not, then I would suggest at least disallowing submissions/revisions sent in after the 4th from newly having riders who started the TT on them.

Yeah after posting that musing a few hours ago I realized that making an exception this year would create a lot of headaches, as well as breaking the integrity of the whole idea of selecting a team. On top of the rules part of it, part of the most fun of the game (for me but also a lot of people I think) is having the team reveal, then having the teams locked in and getting excited about the first results of the year. Having the deadline after the first results of the season would really dampen that I think. I had been thinking about how sometimes .2 races score points and people pick those riders and that was making me think maybe it wouldn't be a big deal, but the times that has happened is usually a novelty pick that's not going to shake up the game, not a WT rider that many people are likely to pick.

So yeah, deadline stays as it has traditionally has been; if people miss the deadline so be it, we have included late entries unofficially in the past in order to be inclusive and allow people to have the fun of following along, so we can take that route.

 

[Squire]

Good question - I will be making the 'create your team' spreadsheet as usual to include in the first post, so I haven't checked yet, but the most recent update is November 5th, and I will be inputting the 'official' December 31st update (assuming CQ releases a year-end update as per tradition) as soon as it comes out. So short answer - the most recently updated version will be in the 'create your team' file, but the final version may not be out until December 31st.

What I meant was whether this final game update:

Update #42: It's Vader Time

spreadsheet link

... is up to date, due to things like this:

KOLZE CHANGIZI Sebastian at some stage had his name changed to CHANGIZI Sebastian Kolze, which hadn't been picked up on.

That's a 25 point difference to 6 teams, and does make some minor changes in position, but 28th place is the highest affected.

Similarly, BLUME LEVY William got changed to LEVY William Blume without anyone noticing. 35 points for two teams. Ray10's position isn't changed, but both of these misses raise Redhead Dane in the table. Inside the top 80 now!

I say we ban these Danes who can't decide what order their names go in.

But I guess maybe not. So I'll check through some Danes maybe, but might not catch all of them. Probably not going to make a huge difference though, but I'm a bit OCD when it comes to having things correct.

And I also think you're making the correct decision by not having the deadline after quite a significant race, which the Aussie TT is. Yes, it's likely to be won by one of the WT riders that could be in some teams, and if some WT riders do poorly it might also influence selections. And what if some unknown cheap guy wins it and is into big profit already with a result that potentially promises more points?

 

[ingsve]

My team is mostly ready to go. I have something like 28 riders, not sure I'll add any more. I am new to this but I think it'll be a fun way of rooting for some guys I wouldn't otherwise notice.

There is generally no point to having fewer than 33 riders. You can always fill out a team with riders who got 0 points last year (neo pros for example) Just look at the team rosters for next year to find any riders that are at 0. Any points those 0-cost riders scored would be a pure bonus for the team.

 

[skidmark]

What I meant was whether this final game update:


... is up to date, due to things like this:


But I guess maybe not. So I'll check through some Danes maybe, but might not catch all of them. Probably not going to make a huge difference though

Yes, sorry I wasn't clear - what I meant was "I don't know if the last update matches the last CQ download, but it's irrelevant as the thread for the new year will have the most updated info on the Create Your Team spreadsheet so you can just use that right away". Now that I just posted the new thread, you can just input your provisional team on the Create Your Team sheet to check it against the most recent (November 5th) update.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

@Devil's Elbow remarks made wonder how high the correlation between the leading score post LBL and year end leader was. Excluding 2020 because the calendar was understandly completely different, here's how it looks like:

Teams that were both leading after LBL and at the end of the year are in green. Will Blues in the bottle be the third ? They have a bigger gap than anyone I can recall at this stage bu then again skidmark's legendary 2012 team wasn't even top 10 at this stage of the season so who knows.

The correlation is suprisingly high (R² of .8) considering we are only about a third of the way through the season scoring wise and the teams leading after LBL and the end of year tend to be different ones (probably heavier focus on the classics for the former). Using the equation from the trend line, we would expect the winning score to be 15576 points. Let's see how far off this ends up (every team outside of a wonky three year stretch in 2015-2017 has been within 1k of the expected value).

So Blues in the Bottle maintained their pace for the rest of the year beating out the projected winning score comfortably (by 760 points). The interesting part is that had their team fallen back to the pack somehow and the #2 team had ended up winning instead, then the projection would have been very close (Senderos undershot the 15576 target by about a 133 points which is less than a 1% difference). That makes me feel pretty good about the accuracy of the prediction.