paddyfool

Many thanks to YoungWillz for running this! Apologies for bailing myself, but I'll definitely be submitting a team, at least.

I got there first ;-)

Looking at this year's deathlist, please try to predict exactly which out of its fifty entries will prove a hit this year by submitting a list of names from the deathlist 50 whom you actually predict to die. Points will be allocated as follows: +1 per death correctly predicted -1 per death incorrectly predicted +3 if the number of deaths you predict matches the actual number of deaths EDIT for clarity: by which I mean the number of names in your list matches the actual number of deaths +1 if you only miss the correct total number of deaths by 1 -2 if you miss the total number of deaths by more than 5 +1 bonus for a "unique" correct prediction (predicted by no other punter here) +1 bonus if you pick the bookie's favourite (single most popular guess in this contest) and they are a hit. -1 penalty if you pick the bookie's favourite and they are a miss. EDIT: A further +1 bonus for every 3rd correctly predicted death (+1 on 3rd, 6th, 9th etc) You may if you wish select one entry as a joker, for whom all rewards, bonuses, and/or penalties will be doubled. Entries in by Jan 7th, please, either by pm or by posting here. Any deaths before then will still score for any lists entered at least 24 hours before the death and will still count towards the total deaths for the year. EDIT: Additional bonus added to give a better chance of punters netting actual positive scores.

Congrats, YoungWillz!

A very reasonable prediction, but already taken

This is incredibly unlikely to succeed, but just so that I can crown myself right away, I'll go with 0 hits. And so I take the throne, as the first ruler of 2020. Winning ;-)

Congrats YoungWillz! Short and sweet post-mortem analysis: shorter-than-outcome lists did somewhat better than longer ones. If someone was to run this again, it might be worth balancing the books by having an additional bonus point on offer for teams with the most hits. Or by increasing the bonus for being on the money for total deaths to 4, and for being just 1 out to 2. Incidentally, after some consideration, I do not intend to run this again this year.

Skimming through this list https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/xmE66MrmQT/2019-notable-deaths, it's hard to pick out one figure who overshadows all the others. You could ask 5 people and get 5 different answers. Although Peter Mayhew stood literally head and shoulders above most people on that list...

And the scores are in. No time for commentary for now, except to point out just how close things are at the top: Player Score Hits Change in score YoungWillz 7 7 0 Banana 6 8 1 Sir Creep 6 7 2 Phantom of the Midway 6 7 0 The Quim Reaper 6 6 2 alt obits guy 5 6 -2 drol 5 6 2 Joey Russ 3 7 0 Grim Up North 3 5 -2 John Key 3 3 0 Great Uncle Bulgaria 2 8 4 Book 2 7 0 Torva Messor 2 6 0 Sean 2 5 -2 Bibliogryphon 2 5 2 En Passant 1 7 0 Dr_T 1 6 0 gcreptile 0 5 1 SuperSowder 0 5 1 Master Tech 0 4 -2 BlackLivio 0 4 2 Zefph -1 4 4 ebless -2 8 0 The Cosgroves -2 4 2 msc -3 7 2 Squonk -4 5 0 nantonian2013 -6 4 0 theoldlady -6 2 -2 The Old Crem -7 6 0 Gooseberry Crumble -8 6 0

How high would you factor that propensity? If it's twice as likely that we'd see a death during one of the last 9 days of the year as on one of the other 356, the probability of no more deaths becomes 50% (calculated as (25 / 27 )^9 ). Which still beats any individual possibility out of the 37 names that cumulatively make up the other 50% of possible outcomes... (Apologies for over-analysing this :-) )

Queen TheOldLady chokes on her crumble and custard. Opinion is divided on whether she got her just desserts. KingThe Quim Reaper ascends to the throne! Will he be the last monarch left standing at year's end? Only time will tell...

I'm away from computer, but I believe YoungWillz' pole position is still safe for now. Tony Britton was not picked by many punters.

That's yer lot. On average we've seen one death every 27 days so far this year. The probability of there being no more deaths is therefore roughly (26 / 27) ^ 9 or 71%, so with no clear warnings that anyone else is at death's door, the odds are this is it for the year.

Alas, Sir Creep, although it would be classy to win with a unique like d'Estaing, I'd estimate your chances of victory as being less than 5%. Meanwhile, with only 10 days left to go, the probability of no more deaths has risen to about 70% (calculated as (28/29)^ 10). YoungWillz, are you getting excited yet?

Good article here on the somewhat deathlisty matter of the recent slide in life expectancy that's been overlooked while people focused on Brexit: https://thecorrespondent.com/177/the-biggest-story-in-the-uk-is-not-brexit-its-life-expectancy/23433342405-302f1fdb?fbclid=IwAR26LhvOFX12fTffeD3jvw_nP7J32t9DahnUPuU-IymK1em1ppC3NBIG-F0

I hadn't heard of Sheila Mercer until she died (and I'm British). Hadn't heard of Harry Reid either until just now, but perhaps I would have if I was American. I had heard of de Cuellar (and his current successor, Guterres), but appreciate that few UN secretary generals get much press (Kofi Annan may have been an exception, partly due to all the upset at the UN over the Iraq war). Incidentally, the following picks were the least popular in my correctlist game (getting either 1 or 0 picks; and some of those getting 1 pick may only have been chosen for the solo bonus). All of them could probably be dropped except Jimmy Carter, whose health seems to have gone downhill significantly: Alan Greenspan Cleo Laine Honor Blackman Hosni Mubarak Jimmy Carter Valery Giscard d'Estaing Dick van Dyke Larry King

Happy Birthday Boudicca! Hope you get a break from politics and get to enjoy the day.

Lib Dem, tactically. (Not that it made any difference in a safe Tory seat). But, although the night was a general cluster***k and it's seriously time now to get out of the country that just elected our own version of Trump, I'm not too sad to see Swinson gone.

Arg, what a shitshow of choices we have in the UK today. I suspect Farage will be far from the only person spoiling his ballot. I'll continue to have my tiny shout at keeping worst-of-the-lot mini-Trump Johnson out, but I expect it'll be a futile effort.

Yet it looks like the other two lists were ranked the other way around. And I can see why - the switch isn't really all that explicit when it says "The rank will determine the number of points that player scores with a hit" since it would also determine the number of points if it was the other way around. I would have done the same as Cap'n Chorizo and, presumably, Bibliogryphon, if I were still in this game.

At the current rate of deaths, I make the probability of no more deaths occurring to be about 50%. If roughly 1/30 days see at least one death, then the probability of a day without a death is 29/30... so the probability of no more deaths is currently about 29/30 ^ 20.25, or 0.50. (I haven't adjusted for any variation in the deathlist's hitrate by month, as I CBA to look up how much this varies).

Another 13 points for me too. Think I'll be sliding down the table..

Apologies - it was too high, stemming from the summary of a research article on the topic here: http://endoflifestudies.academicblogs.co.uk/how-many-people-in-hospital-today-will-die-within-a-year/ The real figure from the article linked is 45% (3x the figure among young adults, not 3x the overall average figure).

Being elderly and admitted to hospital is never a good lookout. Roughly 75% of people aged over 85 admitted to hospital will be dead within one year.

Banana also has Bob Barker, and would end up with more points overall in the event of his passing.