USA SEASON 1
| Standings | Entries | Rules | Progress Chart |
The newest phenomenon from the UK meets the Usenet phenomenon! You pick the acts 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 and rec.arts.tv.x-factor newsgroup (ATAI and RATXF, 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 afternoon of Wednesday, October 26, 2011, the day after the twelve X Factor finalists are announced, I will post a call for entries on ATAI, RATXF, and any other message boards where the contest may be of interest. Players wishing to participate may either reply directly to this post or e-mail me at tjwuthrich[at]frontier[dot]com. (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 twelve remaining acts however he/she wishes, based on how certain he/she is that each will win The X Factor.
2. The following restricitions apply on dividing your CPs:
Other than that, you have complete flexibilty. You can give CPs to all twelve acts, or to just four 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 US season, let's use the Top 17 as an example. If you are 40% certain that Melanie Amaro will win the competition, 30% certain that Josh Krajcik will win, 25% certain that the Stereo Hogzz will win, 3% sure of Stacy Francis, and 2% certain of InTENsity, your entry would look like this:
Melanie Amaro - 40 Josh Krajcik - 30 Stereo Hogzz - 25 Stacy Francis - 3 InTENsity - 2
Last names or nicknames are optional, but just make sure I know where the CPs are going. 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 Caitlyn Koch (eliminated at the judges' homes), Makenna & Brock (eliminated during boot camp), Kelly Clarkson (wrong season), or Ricki Lake (wrong show). Theoretically, you are allowed to give CPs to the five finalists eliminated in the first week, but I wouldn't recommend it. J
5. Entries must be timestamped before Wednesday, November 2, 2011, 5:00 pm Eastern Time (4pm CT/2pm PT)--three hours before the second finals performance show airs in the Eastern and Central time zones. Be 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. The performance stage of the competition is supposed to begin with 16 acts, four each of male soloists ages 12-29, female soloists ages 12-29, soloists 30 and over, and groups. Each of the four X Factor judges is responsible for selecting and mentoring a different category, but sometimes a judges will find it impossible to narrow the field to four and invite a fifth member of his/her "team." On the first Thursday, each judge must trim his/her team down to three, then each Thursday thereafter, one or more acts are eliminated from the competition, by the judges in the early weeks and by viewer vote thereafter. (In the event the judges cannot come to a majority on who to eliminate, the decision reverts to the viewer vote.) This continues until the week of December 21-22, and the act with the most votes in that ninth and final week wins a $5 million recording contract. As acts are cut, they are assigned placements based on how many weeks they lasted. For example, the five finalists cut at the end of the Top 17 performance are given a placement of 1, all acts eliminated in Week 2 are given a 2, those in Week 3 get a 3, and so on up to 9 for the runner(s)-up and 10 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, let's assume that Stacy wins the competition with Melanie also reaching the final week, InTENsity is eliminated in the fourth week, and neither Josh Krajcik nor the Stereo Hogzz make it into the Top 12. Here's how your final score is calculated:
| NAME | CPs | PLACEMENT | SCORE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Melanie | 40 | 9 | 40 x 9 = 360 |
| Josh | 30 | 1 | 30 x 1 = 30 |
| Hogzz | 25 | 1 | 25 x 1 = 25 |
| Stacy | 3 | 10 | 3 x 10 = 30 |
| InTENsity | 2 | 4 | 2 x 4 = 8 |
| GRAND TOTAL | 453 | ||
2. In the event any act should leave the competition during the entry period and is replaced by another, the alternate shall assume all CPs placed on the departing act. Any affected players may still make changes if they feel they need to.
2a. If an act leaves 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 act, the placements will be determined as if the departing act was eliminated that week.
3. In case any event not outlined above takes place, the commissioner (which am I) reserves the right to make an executive decision.
The Certainty Contest is a game of strategy. To win, you want to place the most CPs on the acs you think will last the longest. Using the rules above, and assuming two acts will advance to the grand finale on December 21, the best possible entry is 50 CPs on the winner, 48 on the runner-up, and 1 on each of the third- and fourth-place finishers, which would result in a score (50 x 10) + (48 x 9) + (1 x 8) + (1 x 7) = 500 + 432 + 8 + 7 = 947 points. However, if all four of your acts go out in the first week, you'd have the lowest possible score of 100 x 1 = 100 points. However, since the contest starts one week into the performance stage, you get that first week for free! Therefore, your final score will fall somewhere in between 200 and 947, with the average score being 573.
The safest strategy is to assign CPs evenly to all twelve available finalists. This works out to 8 CPs per singer with four of them getting a ninth CP, since 100 is not evenly divisible by 12. But since this method offers very little deviation, the better strategy is to take risks, but watch out. If your 50-CP performer ends up the sing-off in Week 2, your risk could backfire.
1. Once your final entry is submitted, all you have to do from then on is root (and vote) for your favorite acts. 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 The Big Bang Theory or The Vampire Diaries and watch The X Factor 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. Like on the Survivor contest, I will calculate the average number CPs for all performers and use this to create a false entry. You can use this entry to gauge how you are doing against the field as a whole.
4. Because I, commissioner of The X Factor Certainty Contest, have no advance knowledge of how the votes will go (how can I, since XF 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", which is defined as the average of the highest and lowest possible scores they can achieve. According to Nathan, 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 the eventual champion will win. If the players are still tied, the player who has given the most CPs to the first 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. The winner won't receive a trophy, a recording contract, 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, November 2, 2011, at 5:00 pm Eastern Time.
If you have any questions, e-mail me at tjwuthrich[at]frontier[dot]com. (Again, substitute the proper punctuation for the words in brackets.) Enjoy!
-- Jason Wuthrich
This contest does not now nor will it ever challenge FremantleMedia North America or Syco, Inc. for ownership for The X Factor.
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.