20212 Wimbledon Suicide Draw Pool: How it Works

[dave g]

Suicide pools are a very simple concept that test your ability not only to pick a winner, but to project your winner through the ups and downs of a draw. You'll also have to know what players can easily win an early round match for you but can be counted on (at least by yourself) to falter as you go through the 14 days of a Slam.

For each day of play, you have to pick one - yes, just one - winner each from the men's and women's draw out of all the matches played that day. But once you pick someone, you cannot choose them again for the rest of the tournament. So you really don't want to pick a top player to win in early matches (unless you know something we don't).

To survive in the suicide pool, you will have to have gone through up to 14 successive days of picking a winner. Sure it may sound easy (and probably will be) on the first few days of play - but as you get deeper into the draws, you have to start picking based on not only who you think will win, but who is likely to lose down the road. And remember, if you are still alive come semi-final time, you are not only picking who you think would win a semi, but also who would lose the final, since you could not pick the same player again. If the player you picked loses that round, you are out of the pool.

Men's and Women's draws are played separately. So if you lose on the men's side but are still alive on the women's, you continue playing the women's draw.

Picks will begin with the release of the Order of Play for Day 1 - you will have until play begins on Day 1 to make your Day 1 picks. Your selections have to be for a Day 1 match. Subsequently, you can pick your Day 2 winner as soon as the Day 2 order of play is announced, and so on.

Each day, a thread will be started that reads in the header : "2021 Wimbledon ATP/WTA Suicide Pool Day __ Pick". This is where you'll post your pick for the corresponding day. There will be separate threads for the men's and women's game. The Day 1 thread will be posted sometime shortly after the order of play for Sunday of Week 1 is released, and you will then be able to make your first pick.

This tournament, we are going to be using a new parser. This parser will go through the posts, find the last post entered by each user and create a compilation of the results. This means that if you have changed your mind, all you have to do is enter your new pick. If you are submitting someone else's pick for them, you will have to either enter both picks into your post (such as "I pick Nadal, and Jim picks Djokovic"), or send a PM (private message) to the user running that pool.
Please do not include any of the following text: symbols such as " ! ", do not thank us ( "Thanks" ) or be nicely polite ( "Peter Pan for me, please!" ). We appreciate your manners, but it makes it harder for the parser.
Last, please do not format your post. Plain text works best for us. No colors, special fonts, or anything else.

NOTE: The new TAT2.0 has a feature that is you are composing a post (or a reply), if new posts are added to the topic while you are composing, YOU WILL BE INFORMED OF THOSE NEW POSTS PRIOR TO POSTING YOURS. Therefore, the SUBMIT action may require TWO clicks (original plus confirmation because new posts have been added while you composed your post). Therefore, at times of great use, as in the few hours before the SP starts, make sure that you have posted properly; do not click submit and sign-out or dash to another topic, as your post may not have been recorded. Make sure it was.

Also, please type the names of the players that you are picking last name first. We sort the picks alphabetically, and typing the last names first will help make sure that all people picking the same player show up on the spreadsheet together.

Check this board daily for any updates or rule changes that might be made due to irregularities in the tournament (such as rained out days, etc.).

[dave g]

It's a rare occurrence, but it is a possibility that TAT may be off line for technical reasons during the AO Suicide Pool. If you're unable to log into TAT to make your Suicide Pool pick you can email your pick to tatpicks@yahoo.com

All contest rules still apply and your pick must be made before the start of play for that day. And the email option is only available to make a one time pick - we will disqualify email picks that contain selections for more than one day of play.

Please only make your picks via email if TAT is offline.

And make sure that you put your TAT member name in your email!

[dave g]

Please enter picks family name first. We will sort the picks alphabetically, which well group the picks for each player together. Having the picks entered partially personal name first and partially family name first will cause the sorted names to not have the individual players grouped together. For example, consider the list of picks below:

Andreescu
B. Andreescu
Sabalenka
Brianna Andreescu
A. Sabalenka
Aryana Sabalenka

This list of picks sorted alphabetically will become:

A. Sabalenka
Andreescu
Aryana Sabalenka
B. Andreescu
Brianna Andreescu
Sabalenka

However, if the picks had been entered family name first, the alphabetically sorted list would be:

Andreescu
Andreescu B.
Andreescu Brianna
Sabalenka
Sabalenka A.
Sabalenka Aryana

This alphabetical sorting of picks by family name places all of the versions of a players name together in groups. This makes it much easier to do things like count how many times each player has been picked.

[ptmcmahon]

Just to make sure I'm not making it harder - we don't have to put in first name do we? (unless doing it because of multiple people with last name)

[texasniteowl]

Double names: Do you want Agut or Bautista Agut? Fokina or Davidovich Fokina? Minaur or DE Minaur?

[ponchi101]

For the Spaniards, the FIRST last name is the one they go by. R. Bautista Agut is Bautista.
De Minaur is actually one single last name

[dave g]

Just to make sure I'm not making it harder - we don't have to put in first name do we? (unless doing it because of multiple people with last name)

You only have to put in the first name if there are two players with the same last name on the same day, like the Williams sisters. In that case, you only need to add enough for us to correctly identify which player you are picking.

[dave g]

Double names: Do you want Agut or Bautista Agut? Fokina or Davidovich Fokina? Minaur or DE Minaur?

Since one of the most important uses of the name is to be able to sort them and have all versions of the name be grouped together, in the cases of the Spanish names, you can use just the first of the two last names. For instance, the "Bautista"s will be in the same clump as the "Bautista Agut"s, where as the "Agut"s won't be clumped together with the "Bautista Agut"s.

With de Minaur, please use both names. I am not sure that I would automatically know who "de" was.

So, my requests match ponchi101 suggestions, but for slightly different reasons.

[texasniteowl]

For the Spaniards, the FIRST last name is the one they go by. R. Bautista Agut is Bautista.
De Minaur is actually one single last name

oh! yeah, I think I remember now. the second last name is their mother's family name, right? So Bautista Agut...Bautista is the father's family name and Agut was his mother's family name, right?

[texasniteowl]

Since one of the most important uses of the name is to be able to sort them and have all versions of the name be grouped together, in the cases of the Spanish names, you can use just the first of the two last names. For instance, the "Bautista"s will be in the same clump as the "Bautista Agut"s, where as the "Agut"s won't be clumped together with the "Bautista Agut"s.

Gotcha. I wasn't thinking that through. I'm not awake yet.

[dave g]

Since one of the most important uses of the name is to be able to sort them and have all versions of the name be grouped together, in the cases of the Spanish names, you can use just the first of the two last names. For instance, the "Bautista"s will be in the same clump as the "Bautista Agut"s, where as the "Agut"s won't be clumped together with the "Bautista Agut"s.

Gotcha. I wasn't thinking that through. I'm not awake yet.

Of course, that will only work until we get some "Davidovich Agut"s on the tour.

[Cainim's Back Hand]

Oops. I will follow protocol moving forward. My apologies.

[ptmcmahon]

Guessing the parser isn't going to like that someone picked "The Giant American"

[ponchi101]

Dave will like it because that is NOT a valid pick. So one more person bites the dust.
(Yep, I can be a jerk sometimes. Actually, plenty of times... )