Rules

Idea behind the Contest

Inspired by Nathan Sanders' Survivor Certainty Contest, I'm once again running an Amazing Race 11 Certainty Contest.

For those unfamiliar with certainty contests, essentially what you do is put down points towards the teams that you feel will go the furthest in the game. The more certain you are they will do well, the more points you put towards them. You get the best score by putting lots of points on the teams that win, comes in second etc. After the final episode, the person with the highest score wins the contest.

How to Play

You distribute one hundred (100) "certainty points", or CP's, amongst the various teams to reflect how certain you are that they will win Amazing Race 11. For example, if you think Mickie and Minnie have a 45% chance of winning, Donald and Daisy a 25% chance, Chip and Dale a 20% chance, and Goofy and Pluto a 10% chance, then your entry would look like this:

Mickie and Minnie      45
Donald and Daisy       25
Chip and Dale          20
Goofy and Pluto        10

Restrictions on dividing your CP's:

  1. You must assign at least 1 CP to at least four different teams.
  2. No one team can be given more than 50 CP's.
  3. CP's are positive integers, so you cannot assign fractional/decimal CP's like 20.5 or 10 1/2.
  4. The total of the CP's you use must be exactly 100.

Other than that, you have complete flexibility. You can give CP's to all teams remaining in the race, or just to four of them, or anything in between, as long as you obey the restrictions above.

You can post your entry to the alt.tv.amazing-race newsgroup, or email me at pecafan@rogers.com. Be sure to sign your entry with the name you wish to be referred to in the contest standings (which will be posted on the Contest Standings page each time a team is eliminated from the race.

Entries will be accepted until a few days before episode two airs, Friday, February 23rd 2007, at 6:00 PM Eastern.

If you submit multiple entries, only the latest one will be counted (that is, I will presume that subsequent entries are updates to old entries). You can view all the entries on the Player Entries page, once the contest deadline has passed.

Scoring System

Your score in the contest is calculated by multiplying the CP's you assigned each team by their final placement in the Amazing Race. The contest begins after the first episode, when presumably one team in the race has been eliminated, so for our purposes we will ignore that first team. The first team eliminated after the contest begins counts as a placement of 1, the second team eliminated counts as a placement of 2, and so on.

Non-elimination weeks will be included. So, if five teams have been eliminated and then week six is a non-elimination episode, then the team eliminated the next week in episode seven will get a placement of 7. Only episodes in which teams actually check in to the mat will be counted.

The highest score wins the contest, so you want to score as many points as possible. This is achieved by putting CP's on teams which last deep into the race, and get larger multipliers.

The eventual race winners will get a bonus of +2 to their final placement. Assuming the normal three non-elimination episodes, this means that the winner will get a placement of 15. This change will emphasise the importance of picking the winner.

Using the sample entry above, suppose that Chip and Dale win the Race, Mickie and Minnie are the first team eliminated, Donald and Daisy the third team eliminated, and Goofy and Pluto finished in second place. Then:

Team CP's Placement Score (CP's times placement)
Mickie and Minnie 45 1 45
Donald and Daisy 25 3 75
Goofy and Pluto 10 12 (Runner up) 120
Chip and Dale 20 15 (Winner) 300

This entry would score a grand total of 540.

Potential Strategies

The highest possible score you can get is to split your CP's 50-48-1-1, with the winning team having 50 CP's, the runner-up having 48, and the last members of the final four having 1 CP. This gives you the maximum possible score of 1347. So if you are absolutely certain of who the winner, the runner-up, and the third and fourth place teams are, then you should assign your points this way.

However, this is the riskiest strategy, and will result in a very low score if you happen to be way off. Your score would be a mere 153 points if your predictions are exactly reversed, with your predicted winner being eliminated first, your runner-up being eliminated next, and your final teams being eliminated 3rd and 4th. This is the worst possible score, so all scores will range between 153 and 1347, and the average score will be 750.

The safest strategy is to assign equal CP's to each of the nine teams. This works out to 10 points on each team. Following this strategy raises your minimum score to a whopping 550, but your maximum score is only 870. Playing it safe will guarantee you a mediocre score. You won't win, but you won't come in last either. A fake entry labled Mrs. Equal has been created if you wish to track how this particular strategy will work.

So, in order to win, you'll need a strategy somewhere in between risky and safe. You've got to take some risks to win the Amazing Race, but if you get too risky, it could all come crashing down when your 50 CP hopeful winner gets eliminated first. So plan carefully!

How To Enjoy

Once you enter, there is nothing more you have to do. After each episode, the Contest Standings page will be updated, showing everyone's new score and ranking, as well as their updated best/worst-case scenarios.

Given the way this contest is structured, you actually don't want to be scoring points until later in the race, when the placement numbers start getting high, and they greatly multiply the CP's you put in. It should be fun to watch!

The only prize for this contest is the glory of winning, and bragging to all about your incredible insight into the inner workings of the Amazing Race. But then, most of us already do that. :)

Remember, contest entries must be in before Friday, February 23rd 2007, at 6:00 PM Eastern.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at pecafan@rogers.com. Enjoy!
-- PecaFan