Spring Classics 2015

Nix wrote:Purist players are

Nix wrote:

Purist players are a strange bunch .. they claim to like planning and strategy but don’t like numbers (or facts it seems) being thrown at them.

Warning: hold up your crucifixes, numbers follow.

So far this year 844 players have signed up to play at least one of these ‘fun’ purist games.

Whereas 1,930 players have signed up to play at least one of those ‘no fun, too easy, teams all the same’ standard games.

Seems like we have the tail wagging the dog.

Just one question on those numbers what’s the split of premium vs no premium on the purist side ?

My thinking is that the majority of players playing fun purist are likely to be premium players purely because we as premium members can play every competition given to us and non premium players would rather play the std big race competitions 😕

Its come to this point
Its come to this point now

The rules are the rules, and will be set by those that set the rules. Just play to the rules as everyone else has to, and don’t continually try to get them changed, if you don’t like them its tough, but it doesn’t matter what numbers you throw at them, they are not going to change. It seems 90% of players are happy with whatever the rules are and get on with it and play to those rules, and if they win, they win, if they loose they loose, but its all been fun, and fun can be had regardless of the transfers as its the same for all.

Picking 3 big names and a
Picking 3 big names and a filler does not always work and sometimes the 4 lesser riders score better.

My TdF purist team last year had Froome and Cav in and everyone knows what happened, so basically after the first stage my race was lost, whereas those people with lesser riders went on to out score me.

A lot of it is down to luck as well but giving people masses of transfers is not the way ahead and you just have to accept if one or more of your big names crashes or does not make the top 10 or top 20 thats what you have to accept and move onto the next race.

stumps wrote:…The more

stumps wrote:

…The more transfers the more it complicates matters and the less effort people have to put in as they just make sweeping changes…

I wish I had a way to prove this… I think, for example, of the last mountain stages of a GT… If everybody has 3 transfers left, well, you pretty much have to stick with the GC favorites… But (!) if you get 4 or 5 transfers, you’re more likely to bring in a wildcard that someone else doesn’t think is that good or go for a breakaway rider … In my mind, the less transfers you have the more people will go for the safer bets, the favorites… I know I can’t prove it, though, my closest comparison would be to compare the proportion of different teams in a Purist competition (no transfers) to the proportion of different teams at each stage of a Standard competition… 😕
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stumps wrote:

…the vast majority of those riders will never ever get picked unless its as a 3 point or similar, filler in a team…….

If most people would transfer in the favorites for each race if they’re using, say, 3 transfers per race, wouldn’t having 4 or 5 transfers available let you change these ‘fillers’ without losing out on bringing in on the favorites? For example, here comes Scheldeprijs and you only plan to use 3 transfers… You bring in Cavendish, Kittel and another big name sprinter. wouldn’t you also like to bring in a ‘filler’ from a small team, too? Another ‘Big Name’ probably won’t fit… :W Wouldn’t that make for more varied teams rather than more similar teams?

TERatcliffe26 wrote:You can’t

TERatcliffe26 wrote:

You can’t name a winner of schelderprijs…?…

What’s that, you say? That I’m ignorant of such a prestigious race? :W That my numbers must therefore be skewed and I am too lazy to account for that race because of my ‘utter disdain’ for sprinter-friendly races? :W

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That I should therefore, update my data on the Spring Classics to reflect the possible inclusion of Sheldeprijs and De Brabantse Pijl? :W
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Well, if I must… 😕 😉

Bringing Sheldeprijs and De Brabantse Pijl into the mix brings us 78 new iders and 1 new team (Team Novo Nordisk) into the ‘Spring Classics’ competition…

Household names like Marcel Kittel, Elia Viviani and Theo Bos (Sheldeprijs) and Peter Stetina and Mikhail Ignatyev (Brabantse Pijl) only rode 1 race in this series of races and they were one of these two races…

Which brings our total to 769 (!) (:O) different riders in these races and 46 teams and makes Greg Van Avermaet your ‘must have’ throughout the series, having completed 9 of the 13 races and placing in the Top 20 4 times… Edvald Boasson Hagen should get an honorable mention, since he also completed 9 races, but only managed a Top 20 in 2 of them… 😕

This is from the Cyclingnews
This is from the Cyclingnews Calendar:

28 February Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Elite Road Belgium 1.HC
1 March Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne Road Belgium 1.1
7 March Strade Bianche Road Italy 1.HC
22 March Milan-San Remo Road Italy WT
25 March Dwars door Vlaanderen Road Belgium 1.HC
27 March E3 Harelbeke Road Belgium WT
29 March Gent – Wevelgem Road Belgium WT
5 April Tour of Flanders Road Belgium WT
8 April Scheldeprijs Road Belgium 1.HC
12 April Paris – Roubaix Road France WT
15 April De Brabantse Pijl – La Flèche Brabançonne Road Belgium 1.HC
19 April Amstel Gold Race Road Netherlands WT
22 April La Flèche Wallonne Road Belgium WT
26 April Liège – Bastogne – Liège

I guess the largest gap is between Strade Bianche and MSR… 😕 15 days… I don’t know Scheldeprijs very well… I can’t name any winner off the top of my head… :W I hope we get De Brabantse Pijl, if it comes between choosing bewteen it and Scheldeprijs…

Dave Atkinson wrote:
i’m not

Dave Atkinson wrote:

i’m not totally against splitting spring classics into two, but there’s some races (strade bianche for example) that don’t fit either, and it means non-premium users would need to use two of their eight competitions to play, which seems a bit harsh considering a three-week grand tour is only one

Because now the standard and purist comps are completely different games, could we do –
1) Purist Belgian classics (not including Strade Bianche but including Schildeprijs and MSR)
2) Purist Ardennes classics
3) One standard spring classics competition encompassing all races? (with a fantastic prize)

Reason for Schildeprijs – a sprinter scoring at MSR, G-W and Schildeprijs is a viable option, otherwise all purist teams would be more geared towards who will win RVV – bit of a game changer.

Regarding non-premium users I wouldn’t expect many to use any of their 8 games on a purist only competition anyway, plus, where a three week tour is only one comp, the length of time from Omloop to LBL is two months – they are getting their money’s worth.