LAST EDITED ON 05-07-12 AT 10:28 PM (EST)

Hangin' in Hawaii

Man, that ascent up that building looked scary. It would've been beautiful to be up there, but man would that have been scary. Overall, it was a good finale, with Rachel and Dave certainly being deserving winners (and then some!). The leg design seemed a little weird for a finale leg, though, with the final Roadblock task being a little baffling. Even if it's not a memory thing, I was hoping for something bigger and more grand than what they ended up doing, though.

Ah well, at least Rachel & Brendon didn't win.

Finale Results
1st place - Rachel/Dave (2x)
2nd place - Art/J.J. (1.3x)
3rd place - Brendon/Rachel (.7x)
4th place - Vanessa/Ralph (0x)

No Art/J.J. Love

The finale picks are always interesting because the picks suddenly start spreading out among a bunch of the remaining teams. It's mostly due to gamesmanship and strategy, I suppose. This season, it seemed like the sexy upset pick was Brenchel, with Rachel/Dave garnering a lot of other votes. Art/J.J. barely drew any, which was kind of surprising.

Maybe their lousy edit scared people off.

Rachel/Dave were also the first team to say the word "million" and they said it almost right off the bat at the start of the leg.

The final Greatest Gainer Award goes to Weez, who managed to climb 10 ranks overall this final week! Nicely done!

The final Perfect Bet Award also goes to Weez, largely thanks to a smart Rachel/Dave bonus pick. Last week's second place guy, beau_30, had a great week as well, also nailing the bonus game.

And now the moment you've been waiting for. I must say this final was amazingly close, with 1st and 2nd place being decided by a mere 3.6% difference in scores.

But who was the winner? And where did everyone place?

(highlight below to see the Top 10)

Leaderboard
1. IanQuentin - 5220
2. beau_30 - 5029
3. louislam - 3825
4. ARNutz - 3552
5. jbenz - 2825
6. vennui - 2620
7. michel - 1816
8. chiubakka - 1800
9. Ontheroadagain - 1728
10. Weez - 1468
11. KwietOne - 1431
12. Element King - 1312
13. shillfiell - 940
14. Jims02 - 899
15. Georjanna - 859
16. qwertypie - 848
17. CTgirl - 759
18. flipxycd - 700
19. Starshine - 600
20. Molaholic - 183
21. bbenzenberg - 91
22. michiganhugefan - 72
23. alemattos - 41
24. kduck - 27
25. Yogi - 24
26. FFantasyFX - 2
27. esquire - 2
28. Max Headroom - 2
29. sarah1234 - 1

In the end, it was IanQuentin who came out on top, becoming the TAR20 Casino Game Champion, with beau_30 snagging the Silver Medal and louislam grabbing the bronze. beau_30 managed to gain a little bit of ground in the final week, but it wasn't quite enough to catch up to IanQuentin's All-In bet on Rachel/Dave.

IanQuentin's win is also a first for the TAR Casino Game, making him the first winner ever to not participate in Week 1. Yep, IanQuentin joined a week late, with a piddly 15 points to start, making his overall win all the more impressive. He very gradually climbed his way through the ranks, improving each week until finally hitting #1 in Week 7. From then on, he was a constant feature in the Top 5, ultimately snatching back the top spot in Week 10 and successfully defending it in the finale.

beau_30's story was somewhat similar in that he started in the mid teens in the rankings and moved his way into the Top 5 by Week 5. And, like IanQuentin, he never looked back, managing to win Week 6 of this season. Congratulations, sir!

louislam never finished 1st or 2nd in any particular week... But, at the same time, louislam managed to never finish in worse than 6th place the entire season. That is just ridiculously good, and shows an amazing amount of consistency throughout the season. Bravo!

Special shout-outs to michel and jbenz, who also managed to remain in the Top 10 for every single week, a very impressive feat. Also props to KwietOne who won the most weeks, with 3 wins total. Congrats all around!

And, of course, IanQuentin has now joined the prestigious TAR Casino Game Hall of Fame!

Previous Casino Game Champions
TAR5 Casino Game - zombiebaby
TAR6 Casino Game - VA Slim
TAR7 Casino Game - esquire
TAR8 Casino Game - Neobie
TAR9 Casino Game - Neobie
TARX Casino Game - bighair
TAR All Stars Casino Game - Higgs
TAR12 Casino Game - KwietOne
TAR13 Casino Game - CTgirl
TAR14 Casino Game - 5cats
TAR15 Casino Game - taffnic
TAR16 Casino Game - Yogi
TAR17 Casino Game - Yogi
TAR18 Casino Game - ARNutz
TAR19 Casino Game - Max Headroom
TAR 20 Casino Game - IanQuentin

I Dare You!

I dare you to take a nice relaxing summer off, so you can be fresh for the TAR21 Casino Game!

(And that dare is mandatory.)

As always I'd like to thank each and every one of you for playing the TAR Casino Game. It's always a delight to get the gang back together, season after season, to gamble away our points on frivolous nonsense like adding to 7. You're a great group of folks, always bringing that magic balance of fun and competitiveness. These kinds of things are essential to having a good game and that's not something I can manufacture on my own. So thanks to you guys for being awesomesauce.

This game has been going on so long now that I honestly can't imagine watching TAR without it. Regular TAR without anything riding on it seems boring.

Or maybe I just have a gambling problem. Either way! Thanks again for playing. You are all the best!

I'm always looking for suggestions and comments on ways to improve the TAR Casino Game, so let me know what you liked, disliked, were indifferent to, whatever. If you have some ideas for future gimmicks (like how we had dares this year), let me know! Some of these suggestions have definitely helped me while brainstorming new ideas!

Enjoy your summers, everyone! See ya for TAR21!

If it means robbing Brenchel of a TAR win, I'll take 14th place. Honestly, though, I was expecting a little worse out of them overall, so I have to at least commend them on a good race run.