Scorecast and Tablecast - 14/08/2023

The season's finally here, and what a fan-bloody-tastic start for Newcastle! Top of the league on goal difference after 1 game played per team and... I can't believe I'm going to say this... I'm actually excited for Man City away next weekend! Never thought I'd be saying that any time soon!

Tablecast

98 entrants this year and the gargantuan table size means I've had to rejig the design to get it to fit, somehow. I'm still working on getting the new league table embedded etc. on the Tablecast page on this website (it's still got all of last season's information on it right now) so, for the time being, I'm just going to paste the whole thing in here... first, though, the Premier League table:

Save it... frame it... just gawp at it for a few minutes before reading on...

Now, for those of you who aren't sure how the Tablecast works, here's the points system:

Unlike the Scorecast (further below), you don't accumulate points throughout the season... rather, you will always have a certain number of points based on how close your prediction is to the league table at any given time. So, if you've got Newcastle to win the league, as of right now, Newcastle being top of the table will give you 5 points. Should Newcastle only be in 2nd position by the end of the next game, they'll only be worth three points to you. So your score will go up and down between now and the end of the season.

Previously, it was just 3 points for a "bullseye" and 1 point for 1 away. Thing is, that meant that even towards the end of the season, the Tablecast table changed MASSIVELY from week to week, because even one team moving 3 places would massively impact the Tablecast player's score. This season, hopefully, it won't be quite as volatile. Here is the points system in its entirety:

MAIN POINTS

Bullseye = a team being in the exact position you predicted: 5 points

Near miss = a team being only one position away from where you predicted: 3 points

Other misses = 2 points if they're 2 places from your prediction, 1 point if they're 3 away

Surprises = 0 points if a team is more than 3 positions away from your prediction

BONUS POINTS

Champion = you've picked the correct top-of-the-table team: 5 points

Top 4 = you've placed a team in the top 4, and that's where they are: 3 points

Relegation = you placed a team in the bottom 3, and that's where they are: 3 points

The only tiebreaker I have set up is that whomever has the fewest "surprises" will be above another person on the same points... I might add a couple more tiebreakers in as, for example, it seems to me that Kjetil should be above John, by merit of an extra bullseye... but I've not done that yet. So, with that in mind, here's how the table looks. Of course, it's early doors, so don't get your hopes up just yet (Latimer).

Toontalk Tablecast 2023/24

So, after 1 game, it's Stuart Latimer at the top, followed by Jon Jonsson and Jon Christian, both of whom also predicted that Newcastle would win the league. Christopher Nager, Richard Rigg, and Lauren Scobie all made the same bold call but it just happens that, as of right now, the rest of the one-game table looks vastly different to theirs. Latimer has 4 bullseyes in total right now, as does Robert Pentland; the latter along with Jason Johnston are the only two to have two of the current bottom 3 in their bottom 3. June Payne, who would've been top if Wolves had held Man Utd to a draw, sits in 7th place because, despite having no bullseyes, she has 15 of the 20 teams winning points for her right now. I'm quite pleased with 12th as it puts me above everyone else in my own little clan (my real last name is Waters... so I'm above David in 20th, John in 26th, Kay in 48th, Michael in 67th, and Sarah (who'd have been rock bottom if Man Utd hadn't scored) in 86th.

Hopefully, Rory Shoemaker isn't too disheartened at propping up the table at this early stage... while the table shouldn't change as drastically as it did last season, it'll certainly get very shuffled over the first few gameweeks.

Scorecast

102 entrants for the Scorecast which is the most we've ever had, with 70 of you taking part in both competitions. Thank you!

The scoring system has largely stayed the same for this competition which, for those of you who don't know, is:

Bullseye = getting a scoreline exactly correct: 3 points

Margin = the goal difference is correct but not the exact scoreline: 2 points

Result = home win, away win, or draw is correct, but not the goal difference: 1 point

After that, players will be separated by tiebreakers in this order:

Total bullseyes, then total margins, then the players' personal bests for the season.

All of this information can be seen on the table at toontalk.uk/scorecast but I'll post it here anyway:

Yin Mo sits at the top of the table after Round 1 by merit of one more bullseye than George Bland; both of them start the season with a very strong 16 points (18 is the all-time record, by David Morton, David Russell, Graeme Borland and one other, I think, though I don't have archives going back all the way to 2016 so I can't remember who that was). Both Yin and George correctly predicted the outcome of all 8 games, which is quite astounding for the first, usually unpredictable, game of the season.

Steve Beggs in 3rd managed 4 bullseyes which is a feat in itself... well done Steve... and Stephen Ferrell's 14 points makes him a clear 4th place early doors. I'm 12th, as in the Tablecast... nothing if not consistent... and unfortunately the Man U v Wolves game not being part of this competition means that my wife couldn't be saved from being bottom of this league after one round. Things can only get better... although someone is bound to get 0 points for a round at some point this season. Thankfully it hasn't happened yet :)

The top 10 after Round 1 contains SEVEN new entries which is pretty cool. I'll get around to sorting out the seeding based on the last couple of seasons; it's only for info and won't affect the table so I haven't prioritised it at this stage.

Once again, thank you so much to everyone who's taking part this year... both competitions have exceeded their previous numbers and I couldn't be more pleased about that (despite having to add rows at the bottom of my spreadsheets).

Tablecast is closed to new entries but I'm going to leave Scorecast open all season to catch the stragglers. For the record, it's unlikely that anyone will win unless they play all 24 rounds, though it has happened once before (Graeme Borland in the inaugural competition).

Scorecast Round 2 is now open for entry; just click this picture of Newcastle legend Fabrice Pancrate: