Inverse Dead Pool 2021

[Death Impends 8,043]

Reaper takes archbishop, and many teams are no doubt chagrining this Yuletide surprise of the death of the great Desmond Tutu. Indeed, the highest-ranked teams to not pick him, BabyBlue and machotrouts, now rise to joint first, and it forces me to dust the cobwebs off the rulebook and see how to break a tie again!

 

"If two or more teams are tied at the end of the year, the tie will first be decided by who has less hits."

 

machotrouts has 5 hits (Walker, Lloyd, Harding, King, Philip) to BabyBlue's 2 (Bayh, Sang-chul).

 

As stands, BabyBlue will win in an exciting end to my final hosted Inverse if the remnants of the year don't have another surprise in store.

 

=1.	BabyBlue	18
=1.	machotrouts	18
3.	Pedro67	19
4.	drol	20
5.	Sir Creep	23
=6.	Grim Up North	28
=6.	Sideik	28
8.	Toast	29
=9.	The Quim Reaper	30
=9.	YorkshireBanker	30
11.	deadsox	32
=12.	Spade_Cooley	34
=12.	The Old Crem	34
14.	Bibliogryphon	35
15.	Charles De Gaulle	36
=16.	Annami	37
=16.	Book	37
=16.	JoeMoneypenny	37
=16.	Perhaps	37
20.	BuffaloPhil	39
21.	gcreptile	40
=22.	An Fear Beag	41
=22.	Banana	41
=22.	Great Uncle Bulgaria	41
25.	Death Impends	46
=26.	CaptainChorizo	47
=26.	Funeralopolis	47
=26.	ThereWillBeDeaths7	47
29.	msc	49
=30.	En Passant	50
=30.	Newjack	50
32.	theoldlady	57
33.	Salmon Mousse	59
34.	Joey Russ	60
35.	YoungWillz	61
36.	maryportfuncity	68
37.	LizLemon	75
38.	machotrouts' mum	81
39.	GuyFromFuture	83
40.	chilean way	86
41.	The Unknown Man	93

 

[Toast 16,232]

8 minutes ago, Death Impends said:

"If two or more teams are tied at the end of the year, the tie will first be decided by who has less hits."

 

[Death Impends 8,043]

And that's me now making a tiny edit to the opening page before I hand it over to macho

[Sir Creep 7,071]

I poo-pooed Tutu

I had forgotten Tutu was part of this AARRGGHH 

 

 

However hope springs eternal and if Sir David Attenborough drops over in 48 hours Sir Cunto can still prevail.

Now Sir Cunto would NEVER root for a person to die….. but…

[Sideik 236]

50 minutes ago, Sir Cunto said:

I poo-pooed Tutu

I had forgotten Tutu was part of this AARRGGHH 

 

 

However hope springs eternal and if Sir David Attenborough drops over in 48 hours Sir Cunto can still prevail.

Now Sir Cunto would NEVER root for a person to die….. but…

I think Rob burrow could serve your purpose as well

[Death Impends 8,043]

And one more last-minute twist. But it only reinforces the Tutu-induced narrative. Everyone's expectations Betty White would see 100 were quashed by mere weeks, but newly-minted leader BabyBlue tempered their expectations enough to attain a solitary lead.

 

1.	BabyBlue	25
2.	machotrouts	28
3.	YorkshireBanker	30
=4.	drol	34
=4.	Spade_Cooley	34
6.	Sir Creep	36
=7.	Pedro67	37
=7.	Charles De Gaulle	37
=7.	JoeMoneypenny	37
=7.	Perhaps	37
=11.	Toast	39
=11.	Book	39
=11.	BuffaloPhil	39
14.	Grim Up North	40
15.	Sideik	41
=16.	The Quim Reaper	42
=16.	Banana	42
=18.	deadsox	44
=18.	An Fear Beag	44
=20.	The Old Crem	48
=20.	Bibliogryphon	48
=22.	Great Uncle Bulgaria	51
=22.	En Passant	51
24.	CaptainChorizo	55
25.	Annami	56
26.	gcreptile	59
27.	YoungWillz	61
=28.	Funeralopolis	63
=28.	msc	63
=28.	Joey Russ	63
31.	Death Impends	65
32.	ThereWillBeDeaths7	66
=33.	Newjack	68
=33.	maryportfuncity	68
=35.	theoldlady	78
=35.	Salmon Mousse	78
37.	LizLemon	88
38.	machotrouts' mum	91
39.	GuyFromFuture	96
40.	chilean way	108
41.	The Unknown Man	111

 

[YoungWillz 21,211]

Thanks Betty, by not picking her I've jumped up the table substantially.

 

Makes me feel a lot better. 

[TQR 14,457]

A mere couple of days ago, I was up in the podium positions. Then Tutu and White happened.

 

Poo, bum, shit and piss.

[Death Impends 8,043]

Well that's that. The Inverse Dead Pool has closed its curtains for another year and it was a classic season with @BabyBlue Artie Shaw/Sadhana-ing their way to the top in the last week of the year. Not bad at all for a team that was joint 38th in early February when Susan Bayh died! But what seemed like a costly mistake then (Bayh was worth 15 points) ultimately survived the "marathon not a sprint" aspect of most dead pools, with BabyBlue only further scoring two further hits - Yoo Sang-chul in June, and Betty White on New Year's Eve. They gradually climbed up the leaderboard thanks to avoiding landmines like Murray Walker, Sarah Harding, and Greg Gilbert, but it was the dramatic last-week death of Desmond Tutu that allowed them to take the lead, in a tiebreaker with machotrouts, which soon became a solitary lead as macho placed Betty White higher than BabyBlue.

 

And said machotrouts is a name who you'll be getting very familiar with in the sphere of the Inverse Dead Pool. He won in 2018, considerably outpaced his mum with a podium place in 2021, and starting this year will be the Inverse Dead Pool's new host. Yep, after four years of keeping everyone's favorite live pool ticking, my new co-hosting of the DDP meant sacrifices had to be made, and thus it was time to pass the Inverse baton. As the man himself admits, macho continues the time-honored tradition of our pool being hosted by someone who is alive, so we're undoubtedly in good hands.

 

Play us out, BabyBlue...

 

 

[TQR 14,457]

Very happy to hand my crown to @BabyBlue. Grats! 

[Pedro67 234]

Well done baby blue

[theoldlady 2,343]

Congratulations @BabyBlue! 

[An Fear Beag 1,560]

Congratulations BabyBlue on a well deserved victory.

 

I decided this year to gamble on the young cancer types surviving the year, while avoiding the oldies that seem healthy enough but are liable to drop without warning.

Sarah Harding and Greg Gilbert proved that this was a somewhat sub-optimal strategy!

 

Thanks DI for hosting what is definitely my favourite pool, and thanks to Macho for taking it on. 

[gcreptile 11,074]

Well done Baby Blue!

Tricky pool this one.

[The Old Crem 3,629]

Well done Baby blue.

[machotrouts 854]

Post-match analysis of my 2021 "hits":

 

On 17/01/2021 at 23:49, machotrouts said:

Preemptive congratulations to the following 25 people for seeing 2022. My 2021 survivors squad:

1. Queen Elizabeth II
2. David Attenborough
3. Billy Connolly
4. Donald Trump
5. Dick Van Dyke
6. Angela Lansbury
7. Jerry Lee Lewis
8. Paul Gascoigne
9. Bobby Charlton
10. Shannen Doherty
11. Rob Burrow
12. Doddie Weir
13. Bill Turnbull
14. George Alagiah
15. Olivia Newton-John
16. Betty White
17. Rolf Harris
18. Henry Kissinger
19. Prunella Scales
20. Murray Walker
21. Norman Lloyd
22. Sarah Harding
23. Tom Parker
24. Larry King
25. Prince Philip

 SUB: Sidney Poitier

 

I'm not a great picker – but I'm a pretty good ranker.

 

1. Larry King, 2 points.

There's no such thing as a guaranteed Covid death, right? Even extremely ill people often end up getting a symptomless lucky break. If he'd been a popular pick, I'm not sure I'd have bothered, but nobody else picked him – so, in the spirit of contrarianism, I simply had to. It's quite satisfying to start the game in sole last place and slowly rise up the ranks! Makes me feel like I'm playing against rubberbanding AI opponents.

 

2. Murray Walker, 6 points.

Old guy who died. It happens.

 

3. Prince Philip, 1 point.

I just quite liked the symmetry of him and his ball-and-chain flanking the list from either side. And he wasn't that old, was he? 99 in royal years is like 27 in normal human years. He's basically Kurt Cobain. No wonder all the British internet went greyscale to mourn the tragic death of this young boy. 

 

4. Norman Lloyd, 5 points.

I have a sort of rule that anyone who's in the Inverse 50 on age grounds alone must make at least one appearance on my team – even if, statistically speaking, that age is Holy Shit How Can You Possibly Not Be Dead Already years old.

 

5. Sarah Harding, 4 points.

Quite a speedy cancer turnaround – I thought I was pessimistic expecting her death to cancel a Girls Aloud 20th anniversary reunion in 2022, when actually, she's died so far in advance, the rest of them now have enough time to plan a Sarahless reunion without it seeming insensitive.

 

6. Betty White, 10 points.

Well, me and People Magazine both.

 

 

On 31/12/2021 at 19:44, Death Impends said:

 

2.	machotrouts	28

 

36 places above my mother? I'll take it!

 

(The Inverse Dead Pool 2022 – hosted by your reigning runner-up – is now open, if any of you haven't noticed. Team submissions close in 24 hours! Don't miss it!)