Youth CQ Ranking Game 2014

[mc_mountain]

Update 3.3 - Forty for Formolo

As can often be the case, younger riders have better point scoring opportunities away from the major races, especially in the early weeks of the season. Yates and Villella managed 5 points for finishing Paris Nice, and Sam Bennett again mixed it with the big sprinters on Stage 2 of Tirreno-Adriatico to net 10 points. More points came the way of Davide Formolo (40pts), managing to always finish in the front group in the Tour of Taiwan. Young Dane Magnus Cort (37pts) winning two stage and the GC at Istrian Spring Trophy. Walewater pairs these two riders and picks up some smaller points to be the weeks leading scorer, and second place in the movers list. Taking the opposite positions this week is ray200 with Formolo and Fedi (28pts).

Weekly top scorers

1. waleweter 88
2. ray200 81
3. Zam_Olyas 73
4. Nicosix 68
5. Trudgin 66

Weekly high movers

1. ray200 (+23)
2. waleweter (+18)
3. Zam_Olyas (+16)
4. minessa (+15)
5. Trudgin (+14)

Dropbox Link

 

[skidmark]

woo hoo! Back in the top ten! Bring on the spring.

 

[Pentacycle]

13 of us are going to be very happy with Gougeard, who's gone into profit with just one race. Great talent!

 

[mc_mountain]

Update 3.4 - Gougeard Comes Good

In an impressive display of his talent, jeune francais, Alexis Gougeard score an 80 points win in one of his first races for AG2R, and in an instance goes in to profit. Also as a result Pentacycle is able to move closer to our leader Ruudz0r. Del1962 is also able to jump into the top 10. Riders also into profit this week are Theuns, Dassonville, Balykin and Dayer Quintana. Leading scorer for the week allobroges puts together Gougeardf's 80 with 46 from Demoitie (from 11th and 4th in last week's Belgian 1.1 races) and several 5 pointers to make it 141 for the week and a jump of 19 places.

Weekly top scorers

1. allobroges 141
2. Serva la Bari 119
3. minessa 100
4. Hugo Koblet 99
4. Kazistuta 99
4. asdfgh101 99

Weekly high movers

1. Serva la Bari (+32)
2. Kazistuta (+23)
3. Bellsax (+22)
4. al_pacino (+21)
5. allobroges (+19)


Dropbox Link

 

[mc_mountain]

Update 3.5 - Senechal Scores, Bennett into the Black and Alaphillipe Accrues

Florian Senechal continues to pick up points in the classics, the only member of the BOTD at E3 to make it to the finish with the heads of state. Meanwhile on Sunday Sam Bennett, managed 12th in the sprint at Gent Wevelgem. Over in the Volta Catalunya Julian Alaphillipe continued his strong showing in the sprints to accrue points with 35 points since the last update. Senechal leads for the week with 41, Bennett in second with 35, but that;s enough to take him the leading scorer for the game and to go into profit

Also into profit this week Sebastian Henao scoring his first points, but also seems to have changed from a mother's maiden name of Marin to Gomez, so initially his points werent coming through, but some quick changes and hopefully its sorted.

Two of the bigger 2.2 races also took place this week, with points for Stefan Küng (25) for winning Tour de Normandie and a few minor points for a few others there and for the only other rider into profit this week Federico Figueiredo at the Volta ao Alentejo.

If were not for the presence of mc_mountain in the weekly top scorers I might have missed the initial absence of the points for Henao, but it still wasnt enough to topple the race and weekly leader Ruudz0r (also the monthly leader). Last year's winner is second behind CraZyCaLL in the weekly movers.

Weekly top scorers

1. Ruudz0r 129
2. CraZyCaLL 124
3. mc_mountain 120
4. --Reno-- 111
5. MADRAZO 101

Weekly high movers

1. CraZyCaLL (+15)
2. comodoro (+12)
3. MADRAZO (+10)
4. --Reno-- (+9)
5. Jpettersen (+8)

Monthly top scorers

1. Ruudz0r 467
2. Pentacycle 402
3. mc_mountain 337
4. del1962 301
5. Trudgin 268

Monthly high movers

1. Trudgin (+34)
2. ansimi (+32)
3. Serva la Bari (+30)
4. Pentacycle (+27)
5. Hugo Koblet (+20)

Dropbox link to Spreadsheet

 

[del1962]

Thanks for the update, nice to reach the heady heights of the top 5.

 

[Ruudz0r]

Cant complain

Thanks for the update mc_mountain!

 

[ray200]

Congratulations Ruud

 

[mc_mountain]

Update 4.1 - Doull Dominates, Cort Collects

Unique pick Owain Doull GC and Stage win at Le Triptyque des Monts et Châteaux gains Nicosix 33 points, while Magnus Cort scores 32 from Volta Limburg Classic for walewater, who leads the scoring for week, combining Ewan's 5 points and Konrad's 15 points for a total of 52 for the week. Towards the top of the rankings, Pentacycle gets to within 100 points of our leader, with third in the weekly scoring.

Weekly Top Scorers

1. waleweter 52
2. Nicosix 47
3. Pentacycle 37
4. Mellow Velo 32
5. oliveira 30

Weekly High Movers

1. Nicosix (+14)
2. waleweter (+7)
3. oliveira (+5)
3. Serva la Bari (+5)
3. just some guy (+5)
3. Mellow Velo (+5)

Dropbox link

 

[Nicosix]

Finally a nice week with Ewan, Ludvigsson and especially Doull being an unique pick!

First time I've got my name in the recap

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Interesting game variant this one. It looks from a first impression that there won't be many possible paths to victory, because:

A) Only a small number of riders will score heavily. And...
B) Initial points costs are low enough to include all or almost all of the big scorers.

So it will essentially be compulsory to have all or most of that small number. You can't make up for missing some guys with big returns with other high scorers. Is this impression correct?

Eg riders like Kudus or Bennett are heading towards double last years tally already and as they have leadership roles at strong pro-Conti outfits will almost certainly rack up a lot more points unless they get injured or something. Am I right in thinking that there's no real way in this game to compensate for the absence of more than a small percentage of the big point getters?

 

[mc_mountain]

Interesting game variant this one. It looks from a first impression that there won't be many possible paths to victory, because:

A) Only a small number of riders will score heavily. And...
B) Initial points costs are low enough to include all or almost all of the big scorers.

So it will essentially be compulsory to have all or most of that small number. You can't make up for missing some guys with big returns with other high scorers. Is this impression correct?

Eg riders like Kudus or Bennett are heading towards double last years tally already and as they have leadership roles at strong pro-Conti outfits will almost certainly rack up a lot more points unless they get injured or something. Am I right in thinking that there's no real way in this game to compensate for the absence of more than a small percentage of the big point getters?

Well, yes, to win you will need to have some/most of the key high point scoring riders - but that's no different to any of these games, and as for paths to victory, only one team can win, so there will only ever be one path to victory. But also you need to have chosen riders that score well but that arent on lots of teams (case from last year being Hofland).

The budget is designed so that you can't pick all the expensive 'dead certs', indeed there are only 4 teams with both the two riders you identify (with, of course, the benefit of hindsight). The rider with the biggest profit so far is only on 5 teams (Bolivar)

There is definitely room to have a few flops in the team (last year's winner had 3 or 4), but if he'd missed Coquard he could only have finished just inside the top 10 at best (try doing well in the main game this year without Boonen).

For your reference last year 30 riders picked in the game got a profit of over 100 points, and 55 returned a 200% increase. The winner had 7 of the best 24 riders, by profit.

To really get a feel for the game you will have to play next year and see how easy/difficult is to pick your team, and then to see how well that team does against the competition.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Well, yes, to win you will need to have some/most of the key high point scoring riders - but that's no different to any of these games, and as for paths to victory, only one team can win, so there will only ever be one path to victory. But also you need to have chosen riders that score well but that arent on lots of teams (case from last year being Hofland).

The budget is designed so that you can't pick all the expensive 'dead certs', indeed there are only 4 teams with both the two riders you identify (with, of course, the benefit of hindsight). The rider with the biggest profit so far is only on 5 teams (Bolivar)

There is definitely room to have a few flops in the team (last year's winner had 3 or 4), but if he'd missed Coquard he could only have finished just inside the top 10 at best (try doing well in the main game this year without Boonen).

For your reference last year 30 riders picked in the game got a profit of over 100 points, and 55 returned a 200% increase. The winner had 7 of the best 24 riders, by profit.

To really get a feel for the game you will have to play next year and see how easy/difficult is to pick your team, and then to see how well that team does against the competition.

I'm definitely planning to play next year.

As a matter of interest, has there been a pattern regarding the high scoring riders over the last year and a quarter?

In the first part of this season, it seems that most high scorers (for instance all three of three of the riders mentioned in the last two posts) are guys who signed for teams with a few things in common: PC level, strong enough that they get a decent race calendar and can offer support, but weak enough that the neo pro is very often the leader. Is that just a coincidence, or has that sort of situation generally been optimal?

(Obviously the rider being a freak talent would be truly "optimal" but I mean in the more general run of things).

 

[mc_mountain]

I'm definitely planning to play next year.

As a matter of interest, has there been a pattern regarding the high scoring riders over the last year and a quarter?

In the first part of this season, it seems that most high scorers (for instance all three of three of the riders mentioned in the last two posts) are guys who signed for teams with a few things in common: PC level, strong enough that they get a decent race calendar and can offer support, but weak enough that the neo pro is very often the leader. Is that just a coincidence, or has that sort of situation generally been optimal?

(Obviously the rider being a freak talent would be truly "optimal" but I mean in the more general run of things).

Well last year you had Coquard and Biongiorno as 2 of the 3 best riders by profit (partly as they had relatively lost cost - Coquard riding track, Biogiorno largely riding uncq rewarded italian amateur scene). but it would definately appear that Pro Conti is a good place to look. However there are cases like Demare's first year at FDJ, Moser at Cannondale and Quintana at Movistar where WT level hasnt impinged on their point scoring and has perhaps enhanced it. I guess too there will also be examples of riders that might fit the template you've identified but who go on to have the kind of season that wouldnt make a massive impact on the game.

Also there are big, but perhaps difficult to identify, points returns to be had from u23 riders (last year - Simon Yates, Sondre Holst Enger, and a couple we missed liked Herklotz).

There are some more stats on the first year's game at the end of the Velorooms thread for last year's game which you can find here. The 'optimal' team from last year had 5 WT, 7 PCT and 3 u23s (and would have won the game by 1500 points).

I guess as with the main game, you have to make an assessment of the rider, and then assess the situation they will be in for the year ahead.

 

[skidmark]

Update 4.2 - No olopaine, no ologaine: this week's high scorer has 3 best scoring riders

**note: I'm stepping in for mc because he's, in turn, stepping in for Hugo in the main game, so this is just a cameo**

This week in youth cycling was a relatively big one for this game, with 3 popular riders getting over 50 points - Davide Villella (33 teams) got 50 points from his mountains jersey and finishing points in Pais Vasco, Simon Yates (29 teams) got 54 points from his GC placing in the same race, and Sam Bennett (15 teams) got 59 points for a top 5 in Scheldeprijs and finishing points for Paris-Roubaix. Only 2 participants (olopaine and 18-valve) had all 3 riders, and were unsurprisingly 1-2 in the weekly rankings. Both had Daan Olivier (18 points), but olopaine got the nod for the week rankings by virtue of having 3 riders (Henao, Laporte, Stuyven) pick up 5 points each whereas 18-valve had 2 (Henao, the other Yates).

Under 23 races got some points too, as Dylan Groenewegen (unique pick to Pentacycle) got 30 points from winning the U23 Flanders. Exciting young prospect Tao Ghoweveryouspellit Hart got his first ever CQ point for his 15th place finish. allobroges also gets a 'unique pick' shoutout for Antoine Demoitie, who got 28 points from his 6th place finish in GP Pino Cerami.

Here's the overall, with Ruudz0r holding down the fort in top place as Pentacycle couldn't make a big weekly dent despite the unique pick. Pentacycle has the unique opportunity to be leading both the main and youth games, so keep your eye on that guy...

Weekly top scorers

olopaine 196
18-valve 191
allobroges 156
MADRAZO 148
del1962 147

Weekly high movers

olopaine +22
18-valve +16
Wallenquist +15
the fool on the hill +14
search +13

 

[mc_mountain]

Thanks skidmark...

here's a link to the spreadsheet.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Sénéchal, Kudus and Villella are the only reasons my team is doing reasonably well at the moment.

 

[skidmark]

Thanks skidmark...

here's a link to the spreadsheet.

Aaaah! After all that I forgot the link, ha. I guess I'm rusty after a month and a half of not doing updates...

 

[Nicosix]

Yannis Yssaad nice 6th in Denain!

 

[mc_mountain]

Update 4.3 - Allobroges dominates with Demoitie

With almost double the second place score for the week allobroges continues his rush up the rankings thanks to his unique pick Antoine Demoitie and his first major win netting him 80 points. In another french race this week Allobroges also picked up 28 points from near unique pick Yannis Yssad (shared only with Nicosix). With a few other smaller points and a total of 133 points for the week, he moves up 4 places to 4th. A remarkable achievement considering the team features the 6th least popular combination, 5 unique picks and another 4 riders picked 5 or fewer times.

Elsewhere there were a couple of important Nations Cup events and also the u23 version of Leige Bastonge Leige. SteelyDan took full advantage placing Thomas Boudat on the second step of La Cote Picarde and then the first step of the podium of ZLM Tour for 50 unique points, and a 5 place rise to tenth in the rankings. It was a good week too for former Paris-Roubaix Juniors podium finishers with Mads Wurtz second to Boudat and Anthony Turgis (not selected) 1st and Geoghegan Hart 3rd at LBL u23. Senechal and Gougeard from 2012 PR juniors have already proved their worth, while 1st and 2nd of 2013 ahead of Geoghegan Hart, Pedersen and Van Hooydonck are yet to get off the mark.

All 3 of the top 3 scoring riders this week were unique, Demoitie (90pts allobroges), Boudat (50pts SteelyDan) and Dassonville (48pts Serva la Bari). Only Alaphilippe of the top 10 this week was picked by more than 3 teams.

Weekly Top Scorers

1. allobroges 133
2. SteelyDan 67
3. Serva la Bari 60
4. mc_mountain 45
5. Nicosix 44

Weekly High Movers

1. Serva la Bari (+10)
2. IlPirata92 (+5)
2. SteelyDan (+5)
4. allobroges (+4)
4. Nicosix (+4)

Link to Spreadsheet

 

[Ruudz0r]

Last week was not a good one for me, good thing Sam won today !

 

[mc_mountain]

Update 4.4 - Bennett Bonanza #2

With his second 1.1 race victory of the year Sam Bennett continues to emerge as a potentially essential rider in the game, and in doing so helped cement Ruudz0r's lead as those teams without the Irish netApp rider fall away this week. Another rider on our leader's team starting to show his worth is Bonifazio, with a couple of podium places at the Tour of Turkey. Elsewhere olisimpson22 was our weekly leader thanks to Bennett, Laporte (28pts 6th at La Roue Tourangelle) and Willwohl (24pts 7th behind Bennett) to total 153 for the week, and 3 place move into the top 10 at 8th. Also at Rund um Köln The Amateur got 32 unique points for Asbjørn Kragh Andersen's 5th place.

Weekly Top Scorer

1. olisimpson22 (C4F) 153
2. oliveira 151
3. olopaine 149
4. 18-Valve 143
5. Ruudz0r 127
5. Slow Rider 127

Weekly High Movers

1. the_fool_on_the_hill (+14)
2. search (+11)
3. Ben1376 (+7)
4. IlPirata92 (+6)
4. The Amateur (+6)
4. Slow Rider (+6)

Spreadsheet at Dropbox

 

[Nicosix]

With both Adam Yates and Davide Formolo in my team, I should have a nice week this time

 

[mc_mountain]

Update 5.1 - Adam Yates' Amazing Yield

In what must be the highest ever scoring week in Youth CQ game history, with the first 12 teams in the weekly list scoring over 300 points, when there have only ever been 5 weekly scores of 300 and over in the past. Adam Yates scores a total of 216 points, the second highest amount from a single race from any rider in the history of the game. Moreno Hofland scored 354 at the 2013 Tour of Hainan, but was only on 3 teams. In last Year's Tour of Turkey Eritrean Berhane scored 169 for the purposes of the game, but with the removal of Sayer from the race would have beaten Yates' total with 225. Also scoring well this week was Davide Formolo, bringing in 99 points. There also looked to be good points to be had from Merhawi Kudus but a succession of crashes took him first out of contention and then out of the race. Another absentee from the standings at the end of the race was Adam's brother Simon.

Elsewhere Rick Zabel scored 48 points in a German jersey, Magnus Cort won two 1.2 Danish races and the impact of the American Tour came back into things for the first time since January with points from Jarmillo and Carter Jones.

With such high scoring there is also a big shake up in the standings and a new leader, with the new 1st and 2nd each jumping 5 places and 3rd jumping 10 places from 13th. There are now two teams over a 1000 points for the season and a third team also into 'profit' by virtue of not using all the budget.

Our top scorers for the week The Hitch and gustienordic both have the 3 highest scoring riders on the week, Yates, Formolo and Zabel, while 3rd on the week and now 3rd in the rankings Oliviera has the top two and Grosu a unique pick who grabbed 30 points from Carpathian Couriers Race. in 4th place Ram has the winner of the Tour of Gila, Carter Jones as well as the two from the Tour of Turkey. Nicosix takes 5th place.

Weekly Top Scorers

1. gustienordic 363
1. The Hitch 363
3. oliveira 353
4. ---ram--- 352
5. Nicosix 344

Weekly High Movers

1. The Hitch (+34)
2. Cyivel (+33)
3. gustienordic (+30)
4. ---ram--- (+28)
5. ingsve (+27)
5. Nicosix (+27)

Spreadsheet at Dropbox

 

[skidmark]

This is a good salve for taking Yates out of my CQ main game team at the last minute... good stuff, I've got you in my sights, MC...