SEASON 7
| Standings | Entries | Rules | Progress Chart |
The #1 dance show of the summer season meets Usenet's #1 prediction contest! You pick the dancers who you think will go the farthest. The longest they last, the more points you score. At the end of the season, the player with the highest score wins.
1. This contest is open to all subscribers of the alt.tv.american-idol newsgroup (ATAI, for short), regardless whether they are regulars, semi-regulars, or lurkers. Registration is absolutely free, and there is no limit on the size of the field. The more, the merrier. Visitors of my website, the Game Show Warehouse, or members of any other newsgroup, message board, or discussion forum of which the commissioner is a member, may also enter if they so choose.
2. On the evening of Thursday, July 1, 2010, soon after the third elimination has aired in the Eastern and Central time zones, I will post a call for entries on ATAI and any other forums of interest. Players wishing to participate may either reply directly to the respective thread or e-mail me at tjwuthrich[at]verizon[dot]net. (Remember to replace the words in brackets with the punctuation they describe.)
1. Each player wishing to participate will be given 100 Certainty Points (CPs) to distribute among the eight remaining dancers however he/she wishes, based on how certain he/she is that each will be crowned America's Favorite Dancer.
2. The following restricitions apply on dividing your CPs:
Other than that, you have complete flexibilty. You can give CPs to all eight dancers, or to just three of them, or anything in between, as long as you comply with the restrictions above.
3. If an entry is determined to be invalid, the player will be notified of what he/she did wrong and will be asked to try again.
4. If I receive multiple entries from a single participant, I will accept his/her latest valid entry. In other words, I will assume that subsequent entries are updates to old entries.
Since this is the first season with this Top 11 format, let's use the guys from season 6 as an example. If you were 40% certain that Russell would win the competition, 30% certain that Legacy would win, 25% sure of Nathan, 3% sure of Jakob, and 2% sure of Phillip, your entry would look like this:
Dominic - 40 Legacy - 30 Nathan - 25 Jakob - 3 Phillip - 2
Last names, initials, or nicknames are optional, but make sure I know where the CPs are going. Also, they do not have to be in any order, although I would advise arranging the names alphabetically to make the "record-keeping" a little easier. Just don't try to give points to people like Joshua Allen (wrong season), "tWitch" Boss (all-star--not eligible), Bret Michaels (wrong show), or Nigel Lythgoe (cheater! J). Theoretically, you are allowed to put CPs on either of the first two Top-10 dancers eliminated, but I don't recommend it.
5. Entries must be timestamped before Wednesday, July 7, 2010, 5:00 pm Eastern Time (4pm CT/2pm PT)--three hours before the fourth performance show airs in the Eastern and Central time zones. Make sure to include the name you wish to go by in the standings. If you do not sign a name, I will take the name in the "From" header of the entry.
1. This year, the performance stage of the competition begins with 11 dancers, six men and five women (there were to have been five guys, but it was too tough a decision for the producers), who are paired at random with one of twelve "all-star" dancers from past seasons. Each Thursday, one dancer is eliminated from the competition, by the judges in the first five weeks and by viewer vote thereafter. When two dancers are left, the one with the most votes that week wins the title of America's Favorite Dancer. As dancers are cut, they are assigned placements based on how long they lasted. For example, the first finalist cut is given a placement of 1, the second 2, the third 3, and so on up to 10 for the runner-up and 11 for the winner. This placement is multiplied by the number of CPs you have placed on that dancer, and your total score is determined by adding up the multiplied points. The player with the highest score at the end of the season is the winner.
Going back to the example above, which used the top 10 guys from last fall, you may recall that Russell won, Jakob was the runner-up, Legacy was eliminated in the seventh week, Nathan went out the week before, and the judges cut Phillip after the second week. Here's how your final score is calculated:
| NAME | CPs | PLACEMENT | SCORE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Russell | 40 | 10 | 40 x 10 = 400 |
| Legacy | 30 | 7 | 30 x 7 = 210 |
| Nathan | 25 | 6 | 25 x 6 = 150 |
| Jakob | 3 | 9 | 3 x 9 = 27 |
| Phillip | 2 | 2 | 2 x 2 = 4 |
| GRAND TOTAL | 791 | ||
2. In the event a dancer leaves from the competition during the entry period and is replaced by another dancer, the alternate shall assume all CPs placed on the departing finalist. Any affected players may still make changes if they feel they need to.
2a. If a dancer leaves from the competition without actually being voted out (i.e. injury, personal reasons, etc.) over the course of this contest and is replaced by a previously eliminated finalist, such as Comfort replacing injured Jessica in season 4, the placements will be determined as if the departing finalist was eliminated that week.
The Certainty Contest is a game of strategy. To win, you want to place the most CPs on the dancers you think will last the longest. Using the rules above, the best possible entry is 50 CPs on the winner, 49 on the runner-up, and 1 on the third-place finisher, which would result in a score of (50 x 11) + (49 x 10) + (1 x 9) = 1,049 points. However, if your 50-CP dancer goes out in the first week, followed by your 49- and 1-CP dancers in that order, you'd have the lowest possible score of (50 x 1) + (49 x 2) + (1 x 3) = 151 points. However, since the contest starts three weeks into the performance stage, you get the first three weeks for free! Therefore, your final score will fall somewhere in between 451 and 1,049, with the average score being 750.
The safest strategy is to assign CPs evenly to all eight available dancers. This works out to 12 CPs per dancer with four of them getting an thirteenth CP, since 100 is not evenly divisible by 8. This raises your minimum score to (13 x (4 + 5 + 6 + 7)) + (12 x (8 + 9 + 10 + 11)) = (13 x 22) + (12 x 38) = 742 points, but the best you can do is (13 x (11 + 10 + 9 + 8)) + (12 x (7 + 6 + 5 + 4)) = (13 x 38) + (12 x 22) = 758 points. Since this method offers very little deviation from the 750 average, the better strategy is to take risks, but watch out. If your 50-CP dancer commits a technical error in Week 4 that Nigel calls him/her out on, your risk could backfire.
1. On American Idol, the judges are granted the opportunity to save one contestant from elimination per season. The judges SYTYCD do not have the power to override the viewer vote, but in the Certainy Contest, players do have the power of veto. Once and only once, each player may overturn an elimination by reassigning all CPs he/she placed on the dancer eliminated that week to another dancer of his/her choice. However, this new dancer must be one that he/she has not placed any CPs on previously. For example, if you have CPs on Billy but none on Alex and Billy is eliminated first, you could transfer his CPs to Alex.
2. The veto deadline for each week is when the next performance show begins on the East Coast, which is usually Wednesday night at 8:00 pm Eastern Time (7pm CT/5pm PT). All vetos expire the night of the final performance show.
1. Once the show starts, all you have to do from then on is root (and vote) for your favorite dancers. After the East Coast airing of the results show--usually within 24 hours--I will post the weekly leaderboard showing the current scores and remaining CPs for all participants. If you live in the Mountain or Pacific time zone, however, please be advised that the standings may be posted before the show airs on your Fox station (if I do it Thursday, it's one less thing I have to do on Friday). You might also be an irrepressible fan of CSI or The Office and watch SYTYCD on tape or DVR later. Either way, this post may be considered a spoiler.
2. If the CPs on an otherwise valid entry do not total exactly 100, the individual CPs will be proportionally calculated. For example, a split of 50-20-11-9, which adds up to 90, would become 50-25-14-11.
3. The other Certainty Contests include an aggregate entry, a false entry calculated by the average number CPs for all the contestants. But in addition to that, this contest will feature a "turf war" by creating two aggregates, one for the ATAI newsgroup and one for other discussion forums. The issue of dual membership will be handled at the discretion of the commissioner.
4. Because I, commissioner of the SYTYCD Certainty Contest, have no advance knowledge of how the votes will go (how can I, since the show is live on the East Coast from here on out?), I have the option to participate as well.
5. On the weekly leaderboard, players will be ranked based on their expected score, the average of the highest and lowest possible scores they can achieve. According to CC creator Nathan Sanders, this gives a more accurate picture of who has the best chance of winning the contest than ranking by best-case or worst-case score. All three of these scores will match the current score after the final week.
6. If two or more players are tied for first place at the end of the season, the player who has given the most CPs to America's Favorite Dancer will win. If the players are still tied, the player who has given the most CPs to the runner-up will win, and so on. If the tying entries turn out to be identical, the player who submitted his/her entry first will be ruled the winner.
7. In case any event not outlined above takes place, the commissioner (which am I) reserves the right to make an executive decision.
8. The winner won't receive a trophy or any other kind of tangible reward, but you can't put a value on the bragging rights over the rest of the group.
Remember, contest entries are due Wednesday, July 7, 2010, at 5:00 pm Eastern Time.
If you have any questions, e-mail me at tjwuthrich[at]verizon[dot]net. (Again, substitute the proper punctuation for the words in brackets.) Enjoy!
-- Jason Wuthrich
This contest does not now nor will it ever challenge 19 Entertainment or dick clark productions, inc. for ownership for So You Think You Can Dance.
For more Certainty Contest action, visit Nathan Sanders's Survivor Contest or Peca Fan's Amazing Race Contest.
Return to the results page or visit the Game Show Warehouse.