What's Your 2017 Report Card?

[msc 17,974]

Ok, so with 2017 nearly history, how do you rate your success (or lack of) in the various deadpools you took part in?

 

 

 

Hartlepool Deadlypool - Marked improvement on previous years. Never going to win with RadGuy's 150 points pre-January 1st, but a likely top 5 finish is nothing to be sniffed at. B+

 

Hare's Pool - Lots of people died, though for a lot of them, my belief in their ability to fight illness long and hard was practically the kiss of death. Choice and luck is very important here. B-

 

Deathrace - Finished before I'd even noticed it'd started. D.

 

Death by Numbers - Lead for a bit, likely losing to Gcreptile. Unlucky in that Yahoo take down their obits after X amount of time, but then, that's what you get for picking no mark no names. A-

 

Alt Obits - First time in, top ten finish. Could have gone worse. Completely overestimated the fame threshold, given some of those getting QO for it!  B

 

Scavenger Hunt - If I'd actually taken my specialist subject of the 5 (Doctor Who!) seriously, the game would have ended long ago and I'd spared everyone the long wait. F, as result.

 

DDP

 

1. Pan Breed - Picked too many obscure non-obiting folk, ignored too many gift horses, and chucked the likes of Steve Hewlett for Anna Holmlund on Hogmanay. There is talk of bad luck elsewhere, but the team did as it deserved. C-

 

2. Here's Who You Could Have Won - looked like beating my main team until Gord Downie's death. A rag tag bunch of obscure programmers, musicians and the like which has done well above expectations to finish with 80+ points. B+

 

3. Not the List of the Missed - Just a daft bit of theme team fun. Got 1 success from 20 names, and amusingly, the actual List of the Missed is full of names rejected from its shortlist. Well, that's sods law for you...  C

[Joey Russ 7,136]

If I had to give a report card to myself:

 

Hartlepool - Both this year's team and next year's team are a gag team (some of you might not get the gag the first time around especially with the 2018 lineup). Still, I did better than expected this year tbh, and the fact that my first hit there was the person who I put on first... C-

 

Hare's Pool - While I definitely won't win this time, I still believe that the four month lead over everyone else between May and September was definitely one of my crowning achievements in my first year of dead pooling. I may not be in the top 5 in the end, but, eh, I'll take what I got. B+ 

 

Deathrace - The other major achievement in my first year of dead pooling was a top 3 placing in the deathrace, even though I was one of those who recognized that death row was needed in order to win. Even without the death row inmates though, the fact that I'm down to 4 survivors from one year shows that it was still a fine team to debut with. A- 

 

Death by Numbers - Like the DDP,  I had many list of the losters on there, even with my replacements. I'm glad it shifting back to the 50 man team next year. C

 

Inverse DP - Er, I need to order my people differently. D+ 

 

DDP 

 

Day In The Death - I'll definitely take a top 20 appearance without the use of a joker and two list of the lost folk. Rookie year, and that means I could definitely make an improvement next year. B+

 

Advent Avalanche - Did much better than expected, especially with it breaking the 100 point boundary. B-

 

Don't Stop The Beat - An absolute abomination of a team. F 

[YoungWillz 19,765]

Hmm, marking your own work? And before the test is over? It's all changed since my day....and what the hell is alt obits?

 

Anyway:

 

DDP (1) 12 Lords A-Leaving, 8 Ladies Dying: Willz has made a marked improvement on 2016, one-quarter of his team expired. And indeed another three from his 2016 list also expired. May indeed be ahead of his time. A-

 

DDP (2) Comedy Cremations: Again, Willz has seen his hit rate increase to one-fifth of his team. Seems he was serious about having a laugh. Strong C.

 

DDP (3) Hits of 36 Years Ago and Hits Today: Whilst one hit out of 20 may seem low, afaik only two people who had top 30 UK hits in 1981 have died in 2017. So essentially it is a hit rate of 50 per cent. Excellent work given the circumstances...B+

 

Hartlepool: Slight increase on last year with two hits. With his experience, should do better. Weak C.

 

Hare's Pool: Willz seems to have thrown darts at old newspapers. Small improvement on last year, should do worse next. F.

 

Deathrace: Willz seems to have given up completely on this. Should really use this as the basis of his Hare's Pool team, given that they do die, just after the summer. In any event, more hits than last year overall, so improving. C+.

 

Death By Numbers: Strong start, weak finish. Had more hits this year than last on a reduced pool and gets bonus marks for Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. B+.

 

Inverse DP: Double the number of hits on 2016, still - on a horrid year for popular deaths a fair showing in the top half of the table. B.

 

Scavenger Hunt: Fail. F.

 

Generation Game: Steady progress, while this is done on the basis of continuous assessment, Willz still has the chance of completing this course within the expected duration of 5 years. B.

 

Windy City: 2016/2017 Willz was very poor. For the coming semester, however, there has been astonishing improvement. Suspect plagiarism. B+ (subject to investigation).

 

ABC: D. Obviously.

 

Grammys: Keeping a close watch on him in this class. Seems to be matching his peers with zero hits. (Unawarded).

 

Shadowlist: Marked improvement but still only hitting a fifth of his potential. What's a fifth of an A? Whatever that is, that's what he gets.

 

Midsummer: Came 7th this year. Good attempt. B.

 

Advent Avalanche: Out of the top positions but still time to make a good showing before this opens again. (Unawarded).

 

Poker: The cards were against him, rather like this report card. Not last, so E.

 

Deathlist Cup: Sport has never been Willz strong point. Tap in from the other team. Suggests he take up more academic pursuits. F.

 

Joker's DP: 6 hits. Bit of a laugh really. A jest if you will. D.

 

DL Prediction: Improvement on last year, but still not psychic overall. Recommend additional telepathy lessons. C+.

 

[msc 17,974]

Re @YoungWillz, the Alt Obits deadpool.

[YoungWillz 19,765]

1 minute ago, msc said:

Re @YoungWillz, the Alt Obits deadpool.

Ah. Not playing that!

[drol 10,392]

Well, I'm happy about DDP 6th place and more than likely Inverse DP victory. I stand a chance in Windy City DP and was an early contender in Hartlepool (then I fell out of grace, rules are quite complex). The rest went quite bad.

[Death Impends 7,536]

Well...

 

DDP: Probably my finest DDP performance yet (even if 2015 remains the one where victory was the most plausible). There were some small errors that proved fatal in such a close season, namely never really thinking about Wetton while being eager to jump on board with Ricketts. But my craziest gamble in Julia Perez was a success. I'm also proud of the fact that I've improved enough to finish above Spade once before his temp retirement. A

 

DDP Theme: Had potential to be a top 10 finish in the theme team league after the sneak info Eugene Cernan was poorly bore fruit, on top of a successful unique joker hit in Drever. But everyone else stayed put for the rest of the year. What could have been if Sellers and Glenn lived another month... C+

 

HPDP: My team each year is roughly half ill, half high point hopefuls. Usually the first half does well, the second half sod all, but I got some gains from both ends this time. For getting a unique Hollywood Squares hit in Shelley Berman, I give it a A- EDIT: My strategy was enough to win it! A+

 

Deathrace: I should give it an A+ for winning - and the fact only two names from it are still alive - but the death row inmate predicament did taint the season. B I guess.

 

Hare's: Like half of my team died, and half of them too early, the other half held on long enough to give it a respectable performance. Disappointed Ted Mack hasn't delivered since he seemed a solid falltime prospect. B+

 

Cup: A solid performance with multiple last minute come from behinds and steamrolling gcreptile, no deadpool slouch himself. The last round was unlucky for me but there I celebrate deadsox's impressive luck instead of ruing my own lack of it. A-

 

Midsummer/Advent: Didn't win either this year but my picks for both died within the month. B

 

AODP: As mentioned before I mostly just go for old people and then throw in a few young certs to buoy my scoreboard position. Currently at 20 out of a pool of 60 or so. B-

 

Windy City: Probably won't win my title defense but I'm doing well enough IIRC. B

 

Poker: Looking likely I'll win it largely because of my luck with straights. A+

 

Inverse: -69 points. Beavis and Butthead laughing go here. Still manages to be mid-table scoring in a brutal year, so C-

[Joey Russ 7,136]

I think that in this year MMMDP it was quite funny that I legitimately thought Smith Hart was dead and that I won my first dead pool ever, only to find out moments after I made that post that he had posted a half hour earlier. He ended up dying a month and two days after the start, but that got to be one of the best dead pooling bloopers of the year for sure...

[Predictor 1,009]

E-

 

Unlikeable attention whores like Catherine Nevin & Larry Pickering really let me down this year. Yer dyin'? Yeah sure, when's your next meeting for Mythomaniacs Anonymous? Likewise, Thor Hansen has been terminally ill for like a gazilion years now and is still alive for whatever reason. The Regis Philbin pick came from a National Enquire-esque article that I completely bought (not literally, lol). Candy fucking Samples, the old porn pioneer, got her effing Wikipedia site deleted, so I'm glad she didn't die cuz she'd probably not even get a local obit.

 

Oh, and then there's that bastard Baron Waqa, whose size rivals that of the nation he is governing. Let's see, what else do we got here? Oh right, Leo Sharp, the useless drug mule who could have had the decency to let us know that he died BEFORE 2017. My other "hit", Robert Raiford, was obviously not famous enough for the UK journalists, despite reporting JFKs funeral on the radio, so that was a wasted pick. Algimantas Dailide is one of those old Nazi pricks who conveniently are too frail to appear in court, only to live on for another bloody decade. Stephen Hawking was not exactly my best attempt at grabbing some Drop 40 points, bet he'd laugh at me with his robotic voice at my stupidity. Sue Lyon was a wild shot in the dark from the beginning, so not surprised that one didn't pan out.

 

On the other hand, Baby Peggy, Kurt Hamrin, Pat Hitchcock, Dorothy Malone, Princess Christina Magnuson & Dean Stockwell were decent enough selections. Even Ewa Fröling was okey, maybe a bit too soon though. Israel Kristal was a safe bet, thank God for supercentenarians with high mortality rates (and, errm, low scores). Wilford Brimley is one pick I can't ever get mad at even if he lived to be 100, he's my own little Clive Dunn, who played a contemporary of Hume Cronyn & Don Ameche in Cocoon despite being 20+ years younger than 'em.

 

All in all, it was a shite year, but at least their collective carpenting skills became apparent, because they carved a really nice wooden spoon for me.

[/rant]

[time 8,134]

DDP (Main Team) U. Failed to submit the work on time. Must do better.

DDP (Theme Team) E. Two names successfully identified but only one QO. Must do better.

HPDP D-. Three hits, including two uniques. Would have been a D but submitted 11 names. Must do better.

10/10 - C - 5/10 hits, so, average mark for average performance.

[gcreptile 10,395]

DDP The Love Boat:

Big successes next to stupid failures. One more hit and it would have been top ten. But I wanted more. The annual DDP cult pick didn't work (Rayya Elias). C+

 

The B-Team:

Did much better than expected. Can't really complain. A

 

Shameless 2.0:

Made the triple digits (just barely and with the birthday bonus). But then I couldn't have hoped for more (except abolishing such names). I did not find a couple of names, especially Gordon Aikman. A-

 

Deathrace:

I continue to be bad at it. Why didn't I pick Mario Soares? I just don't know. D

 

Hare's Deadpool:

Disappointing. Couldn't even match last year's score. A couple of misfires, especially the german names. D (still got 11 hits, but others were simply better)

 

Hartlepool Deadlypool:

If this gets updated once more, I will probably not be doing all that bad. But the non-obit for Ben Suisala (and the early death of Jimmy Snuka) killed my chances. C

 

Shaun's Death by Numbers:

I am probably going to win it. In spite of a couple of non-obits. Since I basically just collected the best names out of my three DDP teams, it shows that my research was good enough to win some more, if I had been more focused. A-

 

Rotten Deadpool:

The team is still running until April 13th. I keep updating in my mind. 6/10. Still alive are George Bush Sr, Dilip Kumar, Hutton Gibson and Ginger Baker. 7/10 would be a personal best, I think it will happen. B

 

ABC Deadpool:

I'm leading, but also submitted early. So an achievement with some caveats.. B

 

Windy City Deadpool:

It will probably not match my expectations. Bracknell, Di Masi, Catherine Nevin... C+

 

Generation Game:

Still leading as far as I know and I'm willing to call it a great success. Picking the baby boomers just has too many twists and turns to plan. A

 

Poker Deadpool:

Two hits behind Death Impends, but also 480 pts, so a lot of the difference is bonusses. I didn't want to give a couple of names away (like Suzanna Leigh), so I guess it's an ok performance. Wonderful idea, hope it starts again in January. I think I was also hampered by uuh... forgetting that it ends in December. B-

 

Scavenger Hunt:

Eh, could have been better. I guess, it could also have been worse, as I have no idea about cricket, or Doctor Who. C+

 

Edit: Deathlist Cup:

Promising first rounds, but thoroughly slaughtered by DI. Was DI's best result and my worst, in that competition. So I shouldn't feel as ashamed as I do. I think I need to stop picking those typical very old, very frail, repeatedly hospitalized people, like Dilip Kumar, Sri Sri Sri XYZ.... (well, NOW he's dead), MK Karunanidhi, Billy Graham, there's a theme team in there... C

[Grim Up North 3,587]

Hares - I'm leading with 57 hours to go and have beaten previous best score and most hits so even if someone beats me now I'm giving myself an A.

 

Death by Numbers - at one point I think I might have been leading this pool but as the updates dried up so did my deaths and now I'm definitely not; 4th on last update - bad transfers and some good topplers that just haven't toppled plus when I look at teams above me I'm mixing with some dead pool veterans and maybe I'm just not good enough (yet) B+

 

Inverse - in third but 20 points behind Drol - still not bad for a first effort and I'm giving myself another B+

 

Death List Cup - Quarter Finals - better than I thought I would do and made me start doing some better research B-

 

Advent Avalanche and Midsummer - I cure death bed cancer - Ami Brown and Muhammadu Buhari both make miraculous recoveries after I pick them F

 

Windy City mid term report - Catherine Nevin 500 points - meh - C

 

Anyway some modicum of success has encouraged me to wade in a bit deeper and enter Death Race and DDP for 2018 so I guess I'll have more to write in my End of Year report for 2018. 

[Death Impends 7,536]

7 hours ago, gcreptile said:

I think I need to stop picking those typical very old, very frail, repeatedly hospitalized people, like Dilip Kumar, Sri Sri Sri XYZ.... (well, NOW he's dead), MK Karunanidhi, Billy Graham, there's a theme team in there... C

 

He's still with us. Are you mixing him up with that one really old rabbi?

[gcreptile 10,395]

2 minutes ago, Death Impends said:

 

He's still with us. Are you mixing him up with that one really old rabbi?

Aah yes, true.

[CaptainChorizo 1,928]

Deathrace D-,I think I got 1 hit

 

Hares-C-Looks like I am 1 spot off midtable

 

DDP Main-B+  Looks like I will net my 4th top 10 finish

 

DDP Theme- D+- 5 hits out of 40

D for Film Theme

C for Wrasling

Just 2 hits out of 20 with a bunch of geriatric is not good

Got 3 of the 4 biggest wrestling deaths(Snuka,Steel,Heanan) missed Koloff

 

Inverse-B+ Didn't suffer as much carnage as a lot of teams,1-2 better choices from winning

 

Death by Numbers -D Way off the pace from better performances in the past

 

HPDP -C+ Not a bad performance but very far off from 2016-2015

 

Windy City  - C Respectable

 

Poker -B  9picks  out of 20 in 6 months aint too shabby,although huge fail on picking Nevin and putting her in top spot

 

Scavenger Hunt-C+  Got a few hits but never within striking distance

 

AA 2017 (TBD)

 

Midsummer-A+  I won

 

 

[Torva Messor 254]

On 12/27/2017 at 07:25, msc said:

Ok, so with 2017 nearly history, how do you rate your success (or lack of) in the various deadpools you took part in?

Away from deathlist:

Won (I think, 29 hours left to go) the $20 pay-to-play local dead pool, with a sixty-three point lead. Third time win, administratix giving up. Five out of ten. A

 

BoingBoing unofficial dead pool: abandoned when the administrator requested his account to be anonymized. Leading with five stiffs from slate of ten and would win if this played out to tomorrow.  Lost count of point totals. A

 

Alt.obituaries dead pool: highest number of stiffs (14 out of 40) for personal best, ranking eighth out of over sixty is not personal best. I'd be higher if the Daily Doubles (two stiffs in a day: who plans for that?) didn't exist. I thank high-profile Canadian entertainers for making news of their ailments high-profile a well. B