There are 12 punters playing for glory in the 2008 Middlesex Averages prediction competition.   If you click through the link to the “results after three matches” (below) you can see details on the runners and riders in the competition this year. And what a contest it turned out to be this year. 

In the past, at least two of the three  computerised benchmarks have done better than the humans, but that isn’t the case this season, with 4 people intrepid people beating all three computerised benchmarks.  

But let’s start with the hall of shame: Comebackgatt bringing up the rear with 206 points (remember folks, that points are unwanted in this game – the fewer points the better).  Diamond and Loverboy were next with 198 and 187 respectively.  Never before has such a knowledgeable trio of supporters foreseen with so little comparative accuracy. 

But then, reigning champeen Dingy Bags only managed 178 and a cruel 11^th place, continuing a tradition of reigning champ failures in the year after winning. 

But it has been an odd year; our computerised benchmark “1^st class average”, normally ahead of all the humans, racked up a walloping 177, unable even to beat Hippity on 174, who in turn was just behind that other (normally) bankable computerised punter “Middlesex 2007 Averages” on 172.  Not a fag-paper to be had between those three. 

Janet comes in a very respectable 6^th, on 165,  just behind the third benchmark, the wisdom of crowds “poll of polls” that pools all of the human predictions, on 157. 

So, four people managed to beat all of the computerised benchmarks, including yours truly in 4^th place on 153.  In third came Chiangmai Cheers on 148 and in second place, after a shaky start in the competition, Barmy Kev nearly pulls off a surprise win with 143. 

But Daisy completes a trio of female-won competitions this season with an extraordinary score of 139. I have just called out the good news to Daisy, so with any luck she’ll soon come up to my office to claim her miniscule prize.  So I must rapidly draw a veil over proceedings, simply to publish the results page below……    

….. and of course to tell readers that the base spreadsheet for the game at this stage is published at the Googledocs link below, if you want a butchers at the raw numbers.  

 http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pwWi9CpG2dsiBuuEZgNzlIg  

If anyone wants to see the full spreadsheet model that includes all the predictions and the formulae for computing the winners, you are very welcome to do so.  Please e-mail Ged at gedladd@hotmail.co.uk and he’ll e-mail you a copy of the spreadsheet. 

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