Joey Russ

Torva Messor’s original list had Vervoort on it, but I’m guessing he changed his picks afterwards to his truly accepted picks, making my comment afterwards irrelevant...

Wait, you were able to get Vervoort through? She was rejected when I sent in my team and presumably others as well...

I honestly don’t see why people think that having a B Team will game the system. As you can probably tell, it’s instead a mix of very interesting folk (some younger folk, some older folk as well, but all interesting to my eyes), and apart from my joker, I don’t expect any of them to make the drop 40. It’s not supposed to win, but instead it shows an eclectic side that I have...

I also noticed that Cancerous Hatred didn’t enter this year, so maybe Gerard Tierny will make a comeback this year...

Here is mine. Think I’m likely to make a spot in the top 10, but I doubt this is a winning team. Andretti, John - American racing driver Blanco, Kathleen - Louisiana governor during Katrina Bracknell, Leah - Zoe Tate from Emmerdale Cappotelli, Matt - former American professional wrestler Clegg, Johnny - South African musician Cocks, John - New Zealand celebrity builder Cryne, Patrick - Barnsley owner Curley, Tim - Criminal who was part of the Penn State scandal Da-Ren, Fu - Taiwanese sports journalist Dignam, Christy - Lead singer of Aslan Dragojevic, Oliver - Croatian singer and pianist Franklin, Aretha - American soul singer Fraser, Stuart - Noiseworks guitarist Gilbert, Greg - Lead singer of the delays Gleason, Steve - former New Orleans Saints football player Hirono, Mazie - Hawaiian senator James, Clive - Australian author and critic Jose, Jose - Mexican singer and musician Jowell, Tessa - English labour party politician Lewis, Steffan - Plaid’s Brexit spokesman Lima, Devin - Singer of LFO Lorimer, Peter - Scottish footballer Mack, Ted - Australian father of independents Masekela, Hugh - South African trumpeter Manikin, Spanky - Award winning Filipino actor Miller, Liam - Irish football player Newton-John, Olivia - Legendary pop star Nolan, Linda - Member of the Nolan Sisters Obayashi, Nobuhiko - Japanese director Raudonikis, Tommy - Rugby league footballer Rea, Chris - Driving Home for Christmas singer Ricksen, Fernando - Rangers footballer Rowe, Holly - ESPN journalist Smith, Mark E - Lead singer of The Fall Stefansson, Stefan Karl - Robbie Rotten Stiles, Nobby - English footballer Tapie, Bernard - French businessman Thomas, David - Lead singer of Pere Ubu Tsvangirai, Morgan - Key opposition figure to Robert Mugabe West, Rosemary - British serial killer

Because Ronnie Wood is not immortal unlike Keith Richards.

I always knew that there would be an uprising of cancer picks with the new drop 40, but I don't think the B Teams will really affect who makes the drop 40 tbh. It has more deep picks that people don't often expect to make the drop 40, so I wouldn't really expect any of the names above (maybe Cryne is the exception, but he's already on a lot of main teams) to make the drop 40 this year

And I like to share my thoughts on what I think on other people's team, just for fun. I already mentioned that I really like gcreptile's team; very risky, but may turn out to be very rewarding. And even with him being unlucky with having Monson and Redstone join his main team after Dudley's and Willow's demise, I still think he could win. People have won in the past with having old people who didn't make the drop 40 as recently as last year, so not all is lost. I think one of the other riskiest teams this year is DevonDeathTrip. He went for a lot of oldsters with minimal 40 chances (Blanco, Lorimer) and even went with a lot of names that he has brought up on the forum himself (Clegg, Remigino, Goldberg). Along with his two potential uniques, I think this might have DevonDeathTrip go back to his glory days. Death Impends, while never in doubt to be a strong team, looks strong and might be a 20/20 team this year. While I honestly have no idea who Laura Barry is even though I tried looking her up after you announced your team, I absolutely love your Cynthia Heimel pick. Very much a name that goes for one of my interests (feminism), and honestly would have made a spot in my B Team if I had known about her. I did know about David Shutts, but he was one of those names that I looked at but completely ignored afterwards, so no doubt that he'll score points for you now... RadGuy, you say you might not make the top 20, but I say that's a strong team right there imo. Some interesting punts, and once again, has a lot of old people with minimal drop 40 chances like DevonDeathTrip with no FFBI types. Honestly, I like that some of the contenders are completely moving away from FFBI in general. Speaking of that, Toast has always been one of those people who avoids FFBI, and I think she has a strong team to prove that you don't actually need FFBI to do very well in the DDP. Some strong picks on her team (honestly, why didn't the committee plump for Willie Nelson), and I love to see a team with mainly well known celebrities in the top ten. Grim Up North looks like on paper to be this years rookie of the year. Of course, I haven't seen many other rookie teams, but he does a decent enough job with other dead pools that I think he'll be fine here. And finally, the Dead Cow. This year is actually going to be quite interesting between you and me, especially since we share 14/20 picks (it was 13 but Willow unfortunately died before the starting, but she may not receive a QO by the looks of it anymore). So it's a game between Youngs/Tapie/Stiles/Willesee/Falkholt/Toothill vs Forster/Fraser/Jowell/Nolan/Smith/Stefansson. Really going to be a tight game between us, though I think you have the better team especially with Youngs and Stiles. Not to mention if one of our shared picks don't obit, we'll both fall behind. Some very great teams this year, and as I said before, I think it'll be a while before we can guess the true contenders...

And now my analysis for my B-Team John Andretti - Metastasis is gone, but I'm unsure of his current condition of his liver tumor, though he's probably safe for the year. 25% Hal Blaine: He's the one that I tried to save from the list of the lost as a result of the abomination of my drummers theme team, and he's honestly not that bad since he's rumored to be in poor health. Please, if he's still alive next year, I want someone else to pick him. 40% Kathleen Blanco - Those gravely ill reports make me think she'll be gone before spring. 90% DJ Casper - No idea on how ill he is, just picked him cause his prognosis is poor, but I couldn't find room for him on my main team. 50% Johnny Clegg - He's on a farewell tour and his prognosis is very poor, as his cancer will strike back eventually. I was going to say he's a 2019/2020 death, but with The Living End and Thomas Jefferson Survives picking him, he's probably cursed. 60% Tim Curley - Likely unique, but probably not dying cause he very much has that fraudster feel - 35% Oliver Dragojevic - Doing alright, but he's interesting enough of a name that I least wanted to say that I picked as an interesting person Steve Gleason - He's more likely to die if we're following Joost's timeline than Ricksen, but since he has no drop 40 chance, and I felt that Ricksen would be a better picked. I shoved him here instead. 70% Jose Jose - Another pancan in remission person, though with his other health woes, I think he's a better pick than Clegg. 75% Steffan Lewis - The young person with terminal cancer but we don't know what type it is. Feels like a Spade pick if he was dead pooling in 2018 tbh. 50% Peter Lorimer - Likely fucked, I wonder how he is still around after six months with an aggressive brain tumor, but he feels like an outlier. 95% Olivia Newton-John - Picked solely as my joker to say that if she somehow dies in the next 12 months, I could say I picked her somewhere. Like so many others, I think she'll see 2019 easily. 15% Nobuhiko Obayashi - The very interesting pick that I wished that he was younger, and he probably won't see spring as his diagnosis is 6 months. And I knew one of the other contenders would pick him for their B-Team, and as it turns out, it was Thomas Jefferson Survives. 95% T Boone Pickens - Currently in failing health. It could be a few years before he's gone, but this one put me close to home more than any other, but sadly he's way too old for main team glory, even if he does somehow turn out to be unique. 50% Tommy Raudonikis - Cancer is back for the third time, and this time he's not expected to survive this.One of the last minute arrivals to trouble consideration I mentioned earlier in the how's your shortlist thread (funnily enough, the other one at the time was Pete Stokes). 70% Holly Rowe - The cancer has spread, but I'm not sure where it spread to, and even so, she seems to be doing alright at the moment. 40% Bernard Tapie - He's probably dead this year, he looked in poor health in those photos. 85% Thuy Thanh Truong - Kind of picked her just to prove I knew who the Kobayashi of 2018 was. She's doing alright at the moment, but she's certainly interesting. And it would be funny if this turns out to be a unique stealer tbh. 60% Rose West - Was only a sub, but she made the team due to the unfortunate demise of the much more interesting Cas Willow. Anyways, she's a fraud. 15% Billy Wright Jr - The annual don't know the test results till January person, and he wouldn't be that great of a pick either 40%

When do you think you’ll put the first prediction for 2018?

Is there a reason why what place the people were who were on last years list appear blank despite that column still showing up on the main page?

Gotten by none other than Deathray, the original host of this.

The first New Years Eve hit ever on here...

Maybe so, but I will be hoping to go up against someone different this time, even if it’s a much more experienced player. I think improved research will mean a better result for me, but we will see...

Ah yes, a pool where you actually hope for picks not to die. A great and unique game for this forum.

Bad luck to them, as the deadline for obits has unfortunately passed...

Derek Dudley points can be given as well.

That’s why I need to put a note on my longlist: Don’t put people you never really considered before on your team in the final days, unless you find some news on them that really do make them a good pick.

Oh, if people are doing there likelihoods here’s what I think of mine: Leah Bracknell - Think she’s a goner, and I think she’ll die sometime in early March like Sam Simon or Martin Crowe. But there’s always a chance she’ll live longer than expected. 90% Matt Cappotelli - More of an end of the year death, but he will be worth a lot of points if he dies. 80% John Cocks - Think he’s a cert to die, especially since he’s doing no treatment and is waiting it out. Obit is trickier, but he already got a Mail mention and he’s actually a real celebrity unlike Suisala, so 75% Patrick Cryne - I will be surprised if he’s here at spring due to go all the factors that RadGuy mentioned. 99% Rayya Elias - An outlier for pancreatic cancer rather than a fraud imo, but I wouldn’t call her death a guarantee. But I think it’s likely, so 85% Jacqui Forster - This is my biggest punt pick. She’s terminally ill, and she got a Guardian nod, but it’ll be interesting to see if they pick up on her again after she dies. Exact age may be an issue as well, but Death Impends said she was in her mid 50s, so I’ll say 85% of death, 40% of obit Dean Francis - His prognosis may be January 2019, but he already wasted a few months on crowdfunding bullshit which isn’t working, so I think he’s dead before 2019. 95% Stuart Fraser - Not entirely sure how ill he is, but lung cancer can be a bastard even when we thought people were doing okay. 75% Greg Gilbert - There was already some news that we thought he might not see out the year, and if he’s still alive in 2019, he would have passed two years. 90% Vanessa Goodwin - Stepping down may have hindered her obit chances, but her prognosis is grim enough. Plus, DDT picked her. 80% Clive James - He can no longer writing for the Guardian. That sends a red flag in my head. 85% Tessa Jowell - Looks terrible at her public appearance in December. Has the same cancer as Gord Downie, except she’s older. 90% John McCain - Continues to keep looking worse in photos, and also has the same cancer as Jowell, but he’s in his 80s. He may have better health care than most of the others, but his odds of seeing 2019 are very grim. 95% Liam Miller - Already has pancreatic cancer which can be very deadly, and there were already reports that he is gravely ill. He may be younger, but pancreatic cancer can still be very deadly. 95% Linda Nolan - Already regretting putting her on my team, especially since I put her on the same way that Al-Baghdadi was put on last year, and I agree with others that she’ll see the year out. That said, Bernie Nolan didn’t really look like a good pick either, and she was dead by July. Still, she’s more likely to survive than not. 30% Fernando Ricksen - He might be 2019 if he follows Joosts timeline, but I think he’s iller than we think. 70% Mark E Smith - Admittedly another punt pick, but my gut feeling is that he’s iller than what is already known. 60% Stefan Karl Stefansson - Metastasis is gone but the primary tumor is still there. His cancer is aggressive as well, so I think he’s more likely to die than not, but as likely as Greg Gilbert. 80% Morgan Tsvangirai - Many of his supporters are calling for him to step down, so I think he’s pretty ill right now if allies are calling for that. 85% Marieke Vervoort - She doesn’t strike me as the kind of changing her mind after euthanasia papers are signed, especially since she is having more bad days than good days. She’s clearly suffering a lot and, tbh, I doubt she’ll still be here in a week. My only 100%. B Team analysis coming later.

I've just twigged that my entry was already confirmed before the new year, so I don't have to worry about whether my entry was received or not...

But the title winning picks don't always come from the big newspapers. Andrew Millwall, for instance, was only briefly mentioned in a Sky Sports article, while Yosra El-Essaway only got a article by the tabloid The Sun.

Oh, and if you want a bit of a sneak peak for next year, this is the list of jokers that I have seen posted or twigged on due to being first on the list on the DDP 2018 page. No doubt there will be many more, but I'm preparing myself a bit early for 2018.

Doesn’t mean that it’ll stop them from choosing her again.

I’m gonna wait till after the final DDP “update” (quotes cause there’s no other hits this year) to calculate points. There was only one more hit after Michael, and that was Rose Marie. Some surprises to come...