Blech's Eliminator Cup - 2012-13

The BE-Cup returns, and will kick off this weekend in GW7. For more info and rules, here is the link to last year's thread, with links to links that will take you back to additional history and rules if you're so inclined:
https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/threads/blechs-eliminator-cup-2011-12-r.1847548/

For the newbies, there are tie-breakers and other minutiae, but the simplified explanation is that you will be "eliminated" from the competition if you finish with the lowest score. You don't need to finish first; just don't finish last. We're remove one each gameweek until we crown a new champion.

While of no benefit to me given that I just barely avoided relegation last year, the BE-Cup will continue to recognize some of last year's successful efforts with immunity during the first few weeks as follows:

Three weeks (gw7-9): Vegas, as the Small Rocks Champ.

Two weeks (gw7-8): FC St.Pauli and Bigger Boat as last season's champs from VSR and Dust (Dynamo Teso won Sand but didn't return) AND ThiKu Mariners as the 2011-12 BE-Cup Winner

One week (gw7): ColdDogSoup, FC Touchline Ban, and ChrisSuttonsSlippers as last season's second place finishers in Small, VSR, and Sand (I believe Cassville was second in Dust and didn't return, but welcome any clarification/correction on that).

So, 7 teams are safe this week. If you're not one of them, then you need to finish at least 24th of the remaining 25.

PS -- Pursuant to BE-Cup rule 2,467,723, I continue to reserve the right to change the rules whenever I desire......

 

32. Wewunwunce [27 points; GW7]

Always good to start out the first week of a competition with a little controversy, and we arguably will have that here. The BE-Cup committee was going to issue a lengthy press release, but I've scrapped it. In a nutshell, the question revolves around what to do with Mal's squad, Smash ya out da park. For those not paying attention, Mal apparently had too much to drink and thought he was making changes for a different team but instead made changes for his Rocks team, and ended up with two illegal players on his team, Long(c) and Tevez. Obviously, with Long as captain, there is little doubt that alcohol was involved, but that doesn't fix the mess. After removing the 15 illegal points from Mal's tally of 41, he lands on 26, arguably deserving of elimination this week. So, the options and reasoning:

1. Rules are rules, and the Rocks' rules remove illegal points and that means Mal is out. Also, I want to keep this simple this season, and had planned to cut back on weekly write ups and don't have time calculating scores by hand.

2. The Rocks' rules are harsh to not permit autosub to kick in, and either with the bench points that would come in after Long and Tevez are removed or with the points from the players accidentally taken out, Mal edges back ahead of Wewunwunce. Also, this isn't a typical situation where illegal players came in and has extenuating circumstances.

3. Boot 'em both! Wewunwunce is bottom of the table and only scored 27, and while autosub would save Mal, he doesn't deserve to be saved, if for no other reason than that he apparently hangs out at times with Dr. Heckle!

Suffice it to say, we've gone with option 2, and the mighty Sand League that keeps winning gold medals ends up with the first elimination as well. To clarify, we don't intend to set a precedent and make no promises of similar scoring adjustments in the future, and reserve the right to boot anyone out of the competition who requires us to make scoring adjustments by hand in the future. BE-Cup week 1 ends with the following thoughts:

a. Mal still has Younes Kaboul on his roster so he needs as many breaks as he can get.

b. Mal needs to stop drinking with Dr. Heckle. He was quite lucky that he only ended up in front of a computer making fantasy football trades and not becoming part of some urban legend for having drawings put on his face or kidneys removed in the bathtub.

c. Mal means bad in Spanish, and this will now be easy to remember. Bad Mal, Bad Mal, Bad Mal.

d. Most importantly: Friends don't let friends make fantasy trades drunk.

 

the competition would have to have integrity before you could question it.

unfortunately, no perfect solution here. as i noted above, the Rocks illegal player scoring rules would just remove the illegal points (so the rules were on his side in that sense), but the BE-Cup has never adopted those rules for this competition.... and, personally, i think the Rocks rules are a little harsh and punitive on this issue. i certainly don't want to encourage people to game the system (and i can think of some creative ways to do it), but with the game itself having autosub, i thought it was an unwarranted additional penalty (under these circumstances) to make him play with only 9 field players when autosub would have otherwise brought in the 2 points on his bench to move him out of the elimination spot. since those 2 points were enough, i didn't even have to think about the tougher question of whether you truly unwind the erroneous trade and put back into his lineup the points for players that were accidentally taken out and/or let him get captain points from such a player. in the end, the fact is that even without a captain, the 10 legal players that he has scored enough after i manually did autosub, and at least on this occasion that was good enough for me.

to the more "serious" point, i hope we're not losing you as one of the Cup's supporters. we may be down to only 2 left.....

 

31. FC Touchline Ban [20 points; GW8]
32. Wewunwunce [27 points; GW7]

Close call for 1800, who gets 2 bonus points from Tevez to leap from 19 to 21 points and avoid back-to-back eliminations for Sand. FCTB had begun to turn things around in recent weeks, but the Bale baby caused an unexpected absence and looks to have been the critical moment for this gameweek.

The other turning point would be to return to 2011-12, as FCTB's second place finish in VSR earned one week of immunity, whereas a first place finish would have meant two weeks of immunity and safety this week. Alas, it was not meant to be.

 

bonus points still to come, and this time 1800 has the small lead and it's Bally Boys trying to find a way out. both have Tevez, and whoever leaves can regret not giving him the armband.

 

30. Bally Boys FC [24 points; GW9]
31. FC Touchline Ban [20 points; GW8]
32. Wewunwunce [27 points; GW7]

It did become a battle of bonus points. With the games and autosubs in the books, the battle at the bottom had 1800 at 21 points and Bally Boys at 19. Both had Tevez, so both picked up 3 bonus points there, and both had to sweat out not making a wiser captaincy decision having elected to place the armband elsewhere. BBFC grabbed another 2 boni from Yaya, which put both squads on 24, and that was it for the scoring as Rooney drew a bonus point blank. With both teams on 24, I had to dig up the tiebreaker rules from many years ago:
https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/threads/blechs-eliminator-cup-2008-09.792002/

"In the event two or more teams are tied, then the tiebreakers will be:
1. Which team scored more points without captain points being doubled?
2. Which team scored more points without the benefit of auto-subs?
3. Which team had more points scored by its bench?

The team that has scored fewer points on any of these levels is the team that is eliminated. The other team or teams survive and live to fight another day."

Tempting as it was to ignore the rules on the grounds that I wrote them over 5 years ago, the BE-Cup remains a Cup with great integrity! So, I stuck with the existing rules. Both teams got 1 point doubled from their captain (1800 = Crouch and BBFC = Rooney) under the first tie breaker, but the resulted tipped to 1800 under the second tiebreaker for not needing an autosub to get his 24 points while BBFC had McAuley's 1 point come on for Jenkinson. Definitely a tough way to go.

As an interesting aside, both teams had 1 point remaining on the bench had we gotten to the third tiebreaker, so had BBFC simply started McAuley and put Jenkinson on the bench, then they would have been even on all tiebreakers and the rules would have called for both to be eliminated! Now that would have been fun.

This is 1800's second week in a row to flirt with elimination. Cutting it close can sometimes be a good tactic as like group play in the World Cup, it isn't necessary to finish first and sometimes you just have to find a way to survive on an off day. But, there's also something to be said about not making a habit of it.

Final note: Immunity played no role this season. Vegas now has to keep an eye on the scores like the rest of us.

 

Results are in:

29. 352 Sizzle [17 points; gw10]
30. Bally Boys FC [24 points; GW9]
31. FC Touchline Ban [20 points; GW8]
32. Wewunwunce [27 points; GW7]

A new low mark, and one that will be difficult to beat. ThiKu (22), TopShelf (23), and Real Newark (24) breathe a sigh of relief. We have half of the first group of eight. Onward.

 

Gameweek 11 is in the books:

28. 1800-WC / Nomadic Funny Symbols [21 points; gw11]
29. 352 Sizzle [17 points; gw10]
30. Bally Boys FC [24 points; GW9]
31. FC Touchline Ban [20 points; GW8]
32. Wewunwunce [27 points; GW7]

There is something to be said about making sure you survive when you have a bad week; and then there's some saying about playing with fire and getting burnt. And, while digging for sayings, it ultimately appears that 1800 went to the well too many times, but since I'm on ignore and this won't be read anyway, let's call it a day at that and graciously and quietly move forward with neither tears of sorrow nor a massive victory celebration and parade.

Notably, after proclaiming their league to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, there have been some problems at the deli, with the mighty Sand grabbing 3 of the first 5 eliminations. I'm pretty sure the rules were clear, but just in case, the point is to not have the lowest score and to stay "in" the competition..... Also, the bonus points were reasonably kind this week so I can't rant about that, so what's up with 1800's symbol in his new team name. A very clever way to make sure you end up at the top of the list when doing an alphabetical sort, but, again, the point is to be at the top when doing a numerical sort.....

Real Newark (26), Top Shelf (27), and Rockville Gunners (28) made up the danger zone. Close enough to worry, but safe in the end.

 

GW12 is done:
27. Pittsadelphia [15 points; gw12]
28. 1800-WC / Nomadic Funny Symbols [21 points; gw11]
29. 352 Sizzle [17 points; gw10]
30. Bally Boys FC [24 points; GW9]
31. FC Touchline Ban [20 points; GW8]
32. Wewunwunce [27 points; GW7]

Pittsdadelphia is the first VSR team to go, and we now have an elimination from each league (with 3 from Sand).

The Danger Zone is Smash ya out da park (21), Nellie Wanderers (26), and Real Newark (27). Not really that dangerous this week given where the elimination mark ended up, but repeat appearances for all of them, with Real Newark now being in the DZ for three weeks in a row.

 

"Dead Team Walking"
GW13 is in the books:

26. Rockville Gunners [29 points; gw13]
27. Pittsadelphia [15 points; gw12]
28. 1800-WC / Nomadic Funny Symbols [21 points; gw11]
29. 352 Sizzle [17 points; gw10]
30. Bally Boys FC [24 points; GW9]
31. FC Touchline Ban [20 points; GW8]
32. Wewunwunce [27 points; GW7]

The danger zone is AC TIG (30), blechs_dawgs (32) and FC Weymouth (32). It was the first DZ visit for my dawgs and for Weymouth, and a scary one for me when you factor in that we miraculously picked up 4 bonus points from non-scoring defenders to avoid elimination.

We are now one gameweek away from having the first 8 eliminations and completing the first quarter of the competition.

 

"Rounding Out The Bottom 8; A Tough Week For VSR"

25. In-A-Gadda-Da-Eden [27 points; gw14]
26. Rockville Gunners [29 points; gw13]
27. Pittsadelphia [15 points; gw12]
28. 1800-WC / Nomadic Funny Symbols [21 points; gw11]
29. 352 Sizzle [17 points; gw10]
30. Bally Boys FC [24 points; GW9]
31. FC Touchline Ban [20 points; GW8]
32. Wewunwunce [27 points; GW7]

8 are gone, and we are 1/4 of the way done. It's a second elimination for VSR, who nabbed two of the last three eliminations, and who grabbed two of the three danger zone spots this past week with Aviators (32) and ChrisSuttonsSlippers (32) joining Small's FC St Pauli (30). The VSR group will be looking to turn things around quickly as the second quarter of the competition begins.

With VSR picking up its 2nd elimination this past week, Dust is now the only league with 7 teams still in the competition.

 

"It's Tough Playing With 9"

24. ChrisSuttonsSlippers [31 points; gw15]

A tough campaign for CSS continues as the Slippers become the first squad eliminated in the second 8 of the competition. This is also the first time that the eliminated team did not have the lowest score of all of the Rocks teams; CSS ended up third from the bottom, but still ends up on the chopping block as the two lowest scoring teams this week are already out.

The elimination will carry with it some second-guessing, some directed at CSS by management and some directed at EPL managers by CSS. With full runouts in gw14, CSS expected WBA's James Morrison and MUN's Chicharito to get minutes (and 2 points from either would have been enough to avoid elimination), but rotation raised its ugly head and both sat this past weekend. And with a variety of shades of red boxes on the bench, CSS ended up only fielding 9. Meanwhile, the one CSS trade of the week - Adam for Taraabt - looked promising on paper but ended up a wash with each scoring 2 points this week. Had the trade been Morrison for Taraabt, CSS is still in the competition, and any other trades to get 10 on the field would have worked as well. As a final kick in the gut, the obvious choice of Mignolet against Norwich rather than Jussi against Chelsea backfired, with the 2-point differential being the difference between staying and going.

No BE-Cup for you, this year.

As noted above, it was very tight this week and a mere 2 points (perhaps 1 point and a tiebreaker) would have made the difference. The danger zone had several teams needing to watch the score board, led by Cold Dog Soup (32), Glorydaze (33), and ThiKu (34). Onward and upward.

 

Sorry!

 

"Can We Recount Bonus Points Just One More Time?"

23. Nellie Wanderers [34 points; gw16] **tiebreaker**
24. ChrisSuttonsSlippers [31 points; gw15]

When the sand had settled after the initial posting of bonus points, Nellie sat on 34, headed toward elimination with a couple of squads on 35 and Glorydaze sitting safely in the 3rd Dangerzone position with 37. But, then, someone got the bright idea to watch the games again, and suddenly the magic PPI was shifting, and dragging the bonus points along with it. Sessegnon owners were peeved to lose a point, but Glorydaze suddenly saw Shawcross' 3 bonus points evaporate, and suddenly a 3 point margin was a tie. Alas, it leads to slightly unusual incident, but it didn't change the result, as the first tiebreaker remains the removal of the doubling of captain points (Ba's 2 for Glorydaze and RVP's 6 for Nellie).

The other 2 in the dangerzone with Glorydaze were Tyrant (with 35) and Aviators (with 37 after picking up an extra 2 bonus points in the Wednesday post-gw shuffle).

This is elimination number "4" for Sand, which started with such promise and now has little to brag about other than the size of Dr. Heckle's boat. For those tracking these things at home, VSR is next with 5 teams remaining, Small still has 6, and Dust still has 7 teams in the competition having suffered only the Bally Boys elimination in the early weeks.

In addition to going out on a tiebreaker, Nellie departs with a new high score for an elimination, although it followed that the elimination mark would be on the high side since scoring for the week was higher. The 32 Rocks teams had an average score of 51.59, which is the second highest gameweek average of the season (with the current high being the 55.81 in gw1 aided by the Chelsea double gameweek). By comparison, the last two gameweeks had been 42.03 and 43.09.

 

With the Monday game AND with lots of autosubs to come, here is the list of teams still in the comp that currently have less than 30 points:

Kopite Juniors ---- 11
AC TIG ---- 16
BiggerBoat ---- 17
Real Mos Eisley ---- 17
FC Springfield ---- 21
Lees Summit Rangers ---- 22
ColdDogSoup FC ---- 24
Central Park Rangers ---- 26
Smash ya out da park ---- 26

Kopite has 8 to be added from autosub and autocaptaincy, plus Vermaelen and Podolski to play, and would seem to be in the greatest danger at the moment, but crazier things have happened.

 

"So Close; But Not Enough"

22. Real Mos Eisley [26 points; gw17] **tiebreaker**
23. Nellie Wanderers [34 points; gw16] **tiebreaker**
24. ChrisSuttonsSlippers [31 points; gw15]

As Kopite noted, Santi came early for the holidays for a few savvy owners, with plenty of other Arsenal scorers and autosub points coming into play for others.

In the case of Real Mos Eisley, 7 points from auto sub and 2 points from autocaptaincy took the gameweek tally to 26 points, but that ended up not being enough as the removal of the 2 captaincy points was just enough to lose the tiebreaker against the 1 captaincy point relied upon by Smash ya out da park. Yes, for the second week in a row, we went to a tiebreaker.

For RME, there may be some second-guessing in the locker room as they played with only 8, even after all 4 autosubs came in!!!! And, with 5.9 sitting in the bank and no trades since gw5, RME could have bought anyone this past week to replace anyone of his goose eggs and avoided elimination.

The RME departure is yet another blemish on the Sand crew, as they now run their tally to 5 eliminations out of the first 11.

The danger zone was Smash ya (26), Cold Dog (31), FC Springfield (32), and Lee's Summit (32). With a flurry of games to come in the next week, we'll tally up another 3 eliminations in quick succession, with the Fellaini-teams all checking their benches to see if they have enough depth to survive during a period when unexpected absences are all the rage.

 

21. Glorydaze FC [35 [points; gw18]
22. Real Mos Eisley [26 points; gw17] **tiebreaker**
23. Nellie Wanderers [34 points; gw16] **tiebreaker**
24. ChrisSuttonsSlippers [31 points; gw15]

A little shorter than usual this week given the short turn around. Two teams that had already been eliminated had lower scores, but Glorydaze was at the bottom of the remaining 21 and rounds out the first half of the second group of 8. 35 points sets the new high mark for an elimination in a week that ended up as the second highest scoring week of the season (behind gw1) with an average of 53.66. I'll confess that it didn't strike me as such a high scoring week while it was happening, with several of the likely captain suspects such as RVP, Rooney, Bale, Cazorla, Suarez, Aguero, Tevez, and others being passable at best and even disappointing in some cases. But there is no refuting that the points ended up being there, and this was without the benefit of any double gameweek teams as was the case in gw1.

The danger zone was Top Shelf (41), Bigger Boat (45), Central Park Rangers (45), and ThiKu (45), with it being far too early in the season to see a departure in the 40s.

We're down to 20, with only a couple of days to reset and get ready. As always, this is the time of year when it doesn't hurt to have bench players who will come on to cover unexpected rotation. Best of luck to everyone, and happy holidays.