Worst Episode Ever?

Maybe I was in a bad mood on Sunday night, but I thought this week's episode was really weak. It's probably mostly due to the complete lack of suspense with James/Abba's impending elimination, but the teams were so separated into tiers, it was all very similar to how last week went. A lot of this blame is mostly due to bad luck on the TAR producers' faults with the NEL schedule, but it was still kinda lame.

Week 8 Results
1st place - Jaymes/James (2x)
2nd place - Trey/Lexi (1.8x)
3rd place - Nadiya/Natalie (1.1x)
4th place - Abbie/Ryan (.9x)
5th place - Josh/Brent (.2x)
6th place - James/Abba (0x)

Groovy.

Mostly due to the "To Be Continued" format, scores were really good overall. Most of the top teams from before the TBC stayed up there (with a little shuffling around), so most people gained points overall. The Trey/Lexi and Jaymes/James swap caused some pain, unfortunately, which is why I hate TBC episodes so much in general.

We did lose two players this week, Weez, who went out on a gutsy Lucky 7 bet, and ARNutz, who bet all the points on the team of booze/booze.

This week's Greatest Gainer Award goes to IanQuentin, who climbed 6 ranks this week to crack the Top 10. Very nicely done, sir!

And this week's Perfect Bet Award also goes to esquire (2.67x), who doubled-up on a Chippendales bet, with a little help from rounding as well. Also with nice weeks were IanQuentin (2.5x), Ontheroadagain (2.1x), and then udg, vennui, and taffnic and 2x each. A lot of great scores!

Leaderboard
1. Yogi - 297 (2.2x)
2. flipxcyd - 233 (2.2x)
3. louislam - 229 (2.4x)
4. Georjanna - 219 (2.2x)
5. Belle Book - 182 (2.2x)
6. jbenz - 165 (2.2x)
7. sarah1234 - 133 (2.4x)
8. CTgirl - 131 (2.2x)
9. IanQuentin - 115 (2.6x)
10. Ontheroadagain - 110 (2.4x)
11. Floyd1 - 103 (2.2x)
12. Starshine - 88 (2.8x)
13. chiubakka - 83 (2.4x)
14. alemattos - 83
15. bbenzenberg - 73 (2.2x)
16. popeave - 60 (2.6x)
17. Snidget - 51
18. Max Headroom - 44 (2.6x)
19. kduck - 42
20. MzTee - 30
21. udg - 30 (2.4x)
22. Pplys - 29
23. KwietOne - 22
24. vennui - 12
25. beau_30 - 11 (2.4x)
26. VisionQuest - 9
27. taffnic - 8
28. esquire - 8 (2.4x)
29. Weez - 0
30. ARNutz - 0

The lack of bunching in the last episode made things a little predictable, so there wasn't much room to move in the ranks. Yogi still sits atop the leaderboard, but as the total points increase, a 60 point lead starts to shrink a little. It's definitely anyone's game still!

Week 8 Payout Table
1st place - 2x
2nd place - 1.4x
3rd place - 1.3x
4th place - .3x
5th place - 0x

Max Individual Bet - 75 points

We're going to do another unbalanced setup this week. Being able to lower that 4th place finish makes things more interesting sometimes.

Bonus Game - SAME or DIFFERENT

In this game, the object is to determine if each of the 5 teams is going to finish in the SAME rank as last week or in a DIFFERENT one. If you get all 5 of your predictions correct, you win. But if you get even one of your guesses wrong, then you'll lose your bet.

Same/Diff Payout Table
All 5 Correct - 6x
At Least 1 Incorrect - 0x

Max Bet - 15 points

Last year, when we did this game, I offered 4x on the payout, and every single person whiffed on the bonus game. So I'm upping it to 6x to see if those odds are more in line.

Your wager is on the whole set of 5 teams, so it's an all-or-nothing thing. For example, a bonus bet might look like:

Bonus - 15 points

Jaymes/James - SAME
Trey/Lexi - SAME
Nadiya/Natalie - DIFFERENT
Abbie/Ryan - DIFFERENT
Josh/Brent - DIFFERENT

Heck, you can even vote all 5 SAME or all 5 DIFFERENT if you want.

TAR21 Teams Remaining
Abbie/Ryan
Jaymes/James
Josh/Brent
Nadiya/Natalie
Trey/Lexi

Let's try it again!

I apologize for the shameless bonus game recycling this season... Those lockout teams drain my time a little more than I expected.