PLtheRef wrote:Well, it's certainly been an interesting and intriguing contest.
Personally, I don't think Smart can be criticized for the for the templates. The length of the matches in question, were clearly marked, and as I said on Friday when I dropped off the rest of my predictions - it comes down to what is more straightforward for the TD. Personally I find it easier submitting first round predictions as a job lot - rather than day by day which occurs later.
From what I can see the points are added up to date.
Those however, are the only points I feel that I can stick up for Smart for.
It doesn't do the forum any good, if we have what is a proverbial snake hiss take in the shape of running a contest, as was done by someone, who definitely felt he wanted to make a point, given his vocalness in believing that no one other than himself was up to the job.
I told Smart to run one to show if he was any better as I'd had enough of some of his abuse, particularly during the 2012 World Championship. That said, I only see a ban from the site as genuine grounds for disqualifying someone, other than when members have gone AWOL on contests. However, somehow I think the adage 'Once you sign up, you cannot unsign' is sometimes appropriate, and guess who introduced that mantra.
That said, I don't think many who've been involved in the predictions situations before SI, were overly surprised at what happened. I've entered a prediction contest which Smart ran with 40 entries. A good number for a field, and Smart made a point of disqualifying entries for the flimsiest of 'offences' which meant that we ended up with fourteen (if that) finishers. A Premier League contest was suddenly ended just before the play-offs were due to begin (after everyone had put predictions in) - I'll be fair here and reliably state that he didn't happen to be in the lead at the time.
It's a shame because people as far as I can see, people enjoy these contests, and when not getting abuse, I enjoy running them, but I don't see how it helps or benefits the forum if someone runs it with the intention of trying to spoil it. An example of this being, bringing forward a deadline on the basis it seems of trying to catch people out.
That was definately his intencion there, bringing a deadline some odd 19 hours before the matches began so as to try and see how many missed it, unfortunately I was one of the many who missed it, so the critics made to Smart were all valid based on that. Yes every member who runs a prediction contest has the right to make their own rules regarding, for instance, points given, etc, but I definately think there should be a major rule for anyone who runs them: that the deadlines be when the macthes start in each round, rather than many many hours before cause, you know, not all people are stuck behind a pc every fu***** minute on SnookerIsland website. If Smart somehow proves that he can run a contest fair and square (though I highly doubt that) then he could run another. But I'd rather prefer it was someone with the at least a bit of common sense and be fair to everyone if they abide by the rules, but of course not the rules set in this prediction contest.
by Andre147 » 19 Mar 2013 Read
