LAST EDITED ON 11-03-10 AT 10:57 PM (EST)

Good Detour!

I was very impressed by the production of this leg, particularly in terms of the Detour options. Both of them were relatively challenging, they both suited the Russian location well, and they were both fun to watch. Watching the piano Detour was particularly interesting, since it makes you wonder whether you could've done it quicker, or if the chaos of the race just made that 10 times as difficult as usual.

Of course, all those pianos certainly didn't help.

Week 6 Results
1st place - Jill/Thomas (2x)
2nd place - Brook/Claire (1.5x)
3rd place - Michael/Kevin (1.6x)
4th place - Nat/Kat (1.1x)
5th place - Chad/Stephanie (even)
6th place - Gary/Mallory (.3x)
7th place - Nick/Vicki (0x)

Standing PAT

(Just as I wrote that now, I realized I never used that as a pun for the bonus game. Shucks.)

For the second week in a row, the bonus game ended up being a difficult one. Nat/Kat were still popular picks for the regular bet, and I suspect those who didn't pick them suspected they'd finish 2nd or 3rd. Still, because it was a difficult bonus to nab, the few who did get it correct reaped a huge reward, which we'll talk about.

We did lose two players this week due to the bonus game, vince3 and taffnic. Falling behind, they went for the big payout, which is certainly understandable. And I'd do the exact same thing too. Go big or go home.

Thanks for playing the game, both of you. Free cocktails on me!

Week 6 of the TAR17 Casino Game shall be henceforth known as Weez Week. Weez racked up both the Greatest Gainer Award for climbing 12 ranks total, as well as the Perfect Bet Award (3.4x) for getting a correct PAT wager, with the rest of the points going to Jill/Thomas.

Weez went from 46 points in 16th place to 156 points and 4th place in one week. See, these are the kinds of big shifts that are possible. Play smart and pick your spots carefully.

Leaderboard
1. Yogi - 319
2. vennui - 231
3. louislam - 196
4. Weez - 156
5. ARNutz - 155
6. CTgirl - 129
7. Belle Book - 124
8. cahaya - 118
9. flipxycd - 118
10. mikey - 98
11. Jims02 - 90
12. Molaholic - 79
13. Ontheroadagain - 78
14. kidflash212 - 64
15. sarah1234 - 53
16. KwietOne - 40
17. MzTee - 35
18. Snidget - 33
19. michel - 31
20. chiubakka - 30
21. popeave - 27
22. bbenzenberg - 26
23. HistoryDetective - 22
24. Nume - 21
25. beau_30 - 20
26. Starshine - 16
27. shilfiell - 15
28. samboohoo - 15
29. jbenz - 14
30. Element King - 12
31. kduck - 10
32. 5cats - 9
33. FFantasyFX - 8
34. IanQuentin - 7
35. esquire - 7
36. Georjanna - 6
37. Deshawnator22 - 6
38. vince3 - 0
39. taffnic - 0

Yogi is still in the top spot, but the group behind him is starting to catch up. Can he hold off all of these players within striking distance?

Week 7 Payout Table
1st place - 2x
2nd place - 1.7x
3rd place - 1.3x
4th place - Break even
5th place - .7x
6th place - .3x
7th place - 0x

Looks like a boring table, but there a trick to it, if you check out the Loser Bonuses...

Bonus Game - Better or Worse?

Another new bonus game for the season! Let's see how it goes!

In this game, all you gotta do is predict whether the teams will do BETTER or WORSE in this upcoming leg. You may make predictions on as many teams as you want, but the more teams you guess on, the more risk you face (but the higher payout you may get).

Here's how it works.

1. Decide how many points you want to risk on this bonus game, and place your wager. The maximum bet is 20 points.

2. Pick out one of the teams and make a prediction whether they will do better in this leg than the last one. Or in other words, is this team's final placement at the end of Leg 7 better or worse than how they ended Leg 6?

3. Now, if you so desire, make predictions on other teams. For example, an acceptable bonus wager could look like...

Bonus - 5 points
Jill/Thomas - Does worse
Brook/Claire - Does worse
Gary/Mallory - Does better
Nick/Vicki - Does better

Or it could just look like...

Bonus - 5 points
Jill/Thomas - Does worse

Make as many guesses as you want.

4. If you get a single one of your predictions wrong, you lose the whole bet.

5. If one of your team finishes in exactly the same position as before (i.e. Jill/Thomas finishes 1st again), you still lose that prediction, thereby losing the whole bet. If you're making a "Does worse" bet on Jill/Thomas, you're guessing they'll finish 2nd-7th, not 1st. A "does worse" bet on Brook/Claire would be guessing they finish 3rd-7th... And so on down the line.

So, if you think a team may finish in the same position as last week, you may want to leave that poison pill alone.

If all of your guesses are correct, you will score a payout based on how many teams you went for.

Bonus Payout Table
All 7 Correct - 10x
All 6 Correct - 8x
All 5 Correct - 6x
All 4 Correct - 4x
All 3 Correct - 3x
Both (2) Correct - 2x
All 1 Correct? Why Didn't You Bank Your Points? - 1x
At Least One Wrong Answer - 0x

Max Bet - 20 points

While 10x sounds great, I don't even know if the results will make that possible... All it would take is one repeat finish to ruin the whole thing.

(Or maybe everyone finishes in the same spot as last week? Wouldn't that be hilarious?)

TAR17 Teams Remaining
Brook/Claire
Chad/Stephenie (+0.5)
Gary/Mallory
Jill/Thomas
Michael/Kevin
Nat/Kat
Nick/Vicki (+0.5)

Good luck!

Are Jill/Thomas and Nick/Vicki easy bets for the bonus game, or are they going to repeat and mess everything up for you?