Board 8 > ATTN: yoblazer

(+) Yeah! (+)

How many contests have you won* by now (including this one)? Like 6 or 7?

*placed high enough to win a prize

How on earth do you do it?! There's so much luck involved with these contests and it's rare to have one person win so many times.

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Before this contest, I've won money three times. I've finished in the Top 50 (Top 25, actually), four times. If I win money in this contest for both the bracket and battle, which is possible, I'll have won money five times and finished in the Top 50 six times.

I have been really fortunate and lucked out a few times with close matches, but I've also flubbed my fair share of predictions (Mario Sunshine says SHINE GET). I don't have a crazy secret; I just look at the big trends in the most recent few contests, try to see if any big changes in gaming (new systems, hyped releases, huge news) could affect the way GameFAQs visitors vote, and do my best to go from there.

Take the last two contests, for example: it's pretty clear that Square has fallen off the map, their only mainline game in years being disregarded by the fanbase and destroyed by Portal. I wouldn't take any Square character (outside maybe Terra and Kefka for some flippin reason) to equal their 2007-2010 strength. The Western games that have taken over the industry in Square's stead don't produce the kinds of characters and memories that would really endear themselves to GameFAQs voters, so I now have doubts about Western games ever making a big splash here. So basically, Nintendo, which has managed to keep itself somewhat relevant (aka way more relevant than any other Japanese developer) should be even more dominant. I'll be banking huge on Nintendo for whatever our next contest is.

Unless it's fictionals. As one of the people here who has towed the fictional line for years, I'm pretty much obligated to go with the bat. =)

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Yoblazer: http://8board.webs.com/ariel.jpg
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That is very impressive. I finished #7 in 07 but thats about it. My percentile on average is below 90. How much money you win total? Dont quit your day job.

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I think I've won $550 total in cash and game prizes. I made the bracket for a friend who won second place in CB 2004, so there's another $250 that we both used to buy some sweet games (I got MGS3 with that prize money).

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Yoblazer: http://i33.tinypic.com/ml36gl_th.gif
Watch and you'll see... someday I'll be... part of your world!

From: PartOfYourWorld | #002
I don't have a crazy secret; I just look at the big trends in the most recent few contests, try to see if any big changes in gaming (new systems, hyped releases, huge news) could affect the way GameFAQs visitors vote, and do my best to go from there.

I think that's how everybody does it. Here on Board 8 we have over 200 Gurus who enter each contest with the intent to win. Yet no one else is seeing the same success rates you are. There's got to be more to it than that.

Take the last two contests, for example: it's pretty clear that Square has fallen off the map, their only mainline game in years being disregarded by the fanbase and destroyed by Portal. I wouldn't take any Square character (outside maybe Terra and Kefka for some flippin reason) to equal their 2007-2010 strength.

Right, but it's hard to quantify exactly how much weaker they've gotten. It's one thing to identify trends, and another to do the kind of numerical analysis on said trends that's needed to win these contests.

For example, how did you know that Pokemon was going to beat Ryu/Ken even as 60%+ picked them to win their Round 3 match? How did you foresee that Pokemon would beat Samus, historically a Top 10 character? How did you know that Pokemon was going to lose to Mario/Bowser? You could have seen that Pokemon was getting stronger based on the GOTD performance, but it would have been hard to use any historical data or "trends" to pinpoint exactly where they would end up.

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From: PartOfYourWorld | #004
I think I've won $550 total in cash and game prizes. I made the bracket for a friend who won second place in CB 2004, so there's another $250 that we both used to buy some sweet games (I got MGS3 with that prize money).

You are responsible for somebody placing above me?

If not for 2nd and 3rd getting the same prize money, I would have a new vendetta.

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