I'm not talking Dodger baseball, I'm talking about Xeifrank's sideboard contest / game that doesn't get enough action from our membership group. I will lay some of the blame on our feet as we do not promote the game like we should. TBLA is extremely lucky that Xeifrank has decided to use TBLA as his arena for promoting his simulator. The amount of work he puts into this on a daily basis staggers me when you consider what he gets out of it. He may not even want more action then he's getting, but I at least want to put the word out that if you are not playing this game, you are missing out.
When Xeifrank first started the simulation contest last year it was a simple fare. He gave you the top 100 outcomes of the upcoming game based on his simulator. The contest involved picking the one you felt was going to be the score for the game and you got points awarded based on where that score was in the simulation. It was a simple no brainer game that a gin soaked bag of bones was able to win the 2010 contest.
In an effort to make it harder, Xeifrank added in some complexity that I was not fond of so I stopped playing. It seemed like too much work for me, and I mentioned that a few times. The hardcore players told me I was wrong and basically said GFM and leave them alone to play their game. Chagrined but still looking for a way to add some drama to the game threads I tried to incorporate some contests in our own threads with TBLA dollars being awarded for various things. That has pretty much been a failure.
A few weeks ago on a whim I popped over to one of Xeifrank's game contest threads and found that Xeifrank had taken his game to a level that I applauded. He still has the game simulator going but now he gives you starting betting points per month (100) and you can now bet on Over/Under props or odd based prop bets. You decide yourself how much to bet, you can bet nothing or go all in. These are the new rules:
July Rules:
There will be eight questions. Five of them will have even money odds, the other three will have higher paying odds. You may answer any amount of the questions as you'd like and wager any amount as long as your wagers don't go over your remaining bankroll. Every person starts out with 100 points to wager with. A wrong guess loses points and a correct guess wins points (odds will always be whole number). You still pick the game score from the table of scores. Each game score has odds associated with it. You will be given a free 5 unit bet on the game score. If you pick the correct game score you win 5 times the odds for that score. For questions where a starting position player is the answer, I will allow guesses of "starting SS" instead of "Dee Gordon". But if you guess a players name, then that is your final guess. I will keep a Google Docs spreadsheet keeping track of everyone's bankroll. As people play for the first time, I will add them to the spreadsheet. A minimum of 250 units must be risked over the month to be eligible for the title.
This is more my style, I can't say enough how much I love how this contest has evolved. Here is what today's prop bets are:
Actual Contest Questions
A. O/U Total Runs Scored: 6.5 (1:1)
B. O/U Dodgers runs minus Rockies runs: 0.5 (1:1)
C. O/U Matt Kemp Total bases plus stolen bases: 2.5 (1:1)
D. O/U Dodgers hits minus Rubby De la Rosa strikeouts: 1.5 (1:1)
E. O/U Rubby De la Rosa HRs Allowed: 0.5 (1:1)F. (Prop bet) Juan Uribe gets an RBI: (2:1)
G. (Prop bet) Andre Ethier or James Loney hit a HR: (3:1)
H. (Prop bet) Rubby De la Rosa strikes out 10 or more batters: (5:1)
Check it out, if you love to gamble and what baseball numbers person does not like to gamble, then I think you will be pleasantly surprised with what Xeifrank has come up with. Even with one week to go you have plenty of time to try to dethrone me as current champ. With bets like these you can easily turn 100 points into 345 in a just a few games.
For lurkers who don't feel they have anything to say in our threads, this contest is a good place to dip your toes into the TBLA murky waters of interaction. No off topic stuff happening over there, just good old fashioned betting, without having to worry about how to buy those shoes tomorrow because you felt Rubby was going to K 10 batters tonight.
I honestly can't see any of the current rabble dethroning me so Xeifrank needs some new blood to take a crack at me.