Hello all! You may be wondering why my activity on the Devilish Rake has slowed a bit lately. Well, things have been quite busy, and they're about to get even busier. I do plan to finish my recap of PGA Tour Q-School First Stage, although no Umcees made it out of the stage who contested sites in the third and final week of the stage. However, since Tom Hoge was the only Umcee participating in a tour-golf event the other week--and he struggled at the no-cut Zozo Championship in Japan off a missed cut at the Shriners Children's Open in Vegas the week before--I decided to not designate an Upper Midwest Connection of the Week. Same thing went for last week, as there were few events and no Umcees in them. That'll change this week, with two Umcees in Troy Merritt and Erik van Rooyen taking on the newly relocated World Wide Technology Championship at El Cardonal in Los Cabos, Mexico. Additionally, three Umcees--Chris Meyer, Kaylor Steger and Thomas Longbella--will tee it up at DP World Tour Q-School in Spain this week. We don't know how many will advance from each of the four sites, but it's usually 20 to 25 (plus ties).
But that isn't the only development around here. At the suggestion of a colleague from Minnesota State Mankato, I am participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) for the first time, starting tomorrow. My goal is to compose a 50 000-word novel in the course of November. That means I'll need to write 5000 words every three days on average, all devoted to the novel. My time to add to this blog will, as a result, be somewhat constrained by this project and one other, more recurring tradition.
That tradition, which I have observed for the last eight seasons, is picking all 123 proper-stage ties in the world's oldest surviving soccer competition, the FA Cup. For those who are unfamiliar with the competition, it begins every August with village and small-town clubs from all over England (with a few from Wales and the Channel Islands as well) pitted against each other. Gradually, these semiprofessional clubs are joined by full-fledged pro sides based on their placement for the year in the English league hierarchy until the third- and fourth-tier teams join in November, followed by Premier League and Championship elevens in January. The one thing I love about the Cup is its relative democracy. Because the pairings are openly drawn, the hope is always there that a shoestring club can defeat a bigwig. Though in practice, the winners have usually been from the top flight of the English game. West Ham United was the last to violate this general rule back in 1980.
I will publish my first-round picks sometime between the final whistle of midweek league action and noon CDT Friday, 3 November. If you want to do your own picks, here's the scoring system I use as my baseline:
10 points for a correct first-round pick
20 for a correct second-round pick
25 for the third round
50 for the fourth round
100 for the fifth round
200 for each quarterfinal
500 for each semifinal
1000 for the final
I also pick scores. This year, after participating in Phil Annets' pick-'em contests for the Euros and the World Cup the last two years (and intending to do so again for Euro 2024), I decided to assess bonus points for team scoring. Whether a team I pick to win does so or not, they get a point plus one more for each goal scored across the tie if I picked the right score for that team. Where applicable, this includes any replays (first four rounds only) and extra time, but not penalty-shootout goals. These are multiplied by a tenth of the baseline points for each round above, but if the combined exact score is correctly predicted, the total bonus doubles.
See you soon with my picks for the first round proper!
Edward the Scop
No comments:
Post a Comment