Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Spam reduction

In an effort to decrease the level of spam on the blog I have enabled that you verify you are a human and not a meat popsicle before submitting a comment.

If this becomes too cumbersome and everyone doesn't mind a few viagara offers please LMK and I can disable this feature.

~Chris

PS - A free can of slightly used tennis balls to the first person that gets the movie reference correct.

54 comments:

  1. So who protested Chalkley? Last I heard it was a non-4.5 captain. Maybe the answer was in the post which was deleted. If so, who was it?

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  2. Only slightly...The Fifth Element

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  3. Harold wins....

    Remind me next time I see you to get you the prize.

    Chris

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  4. I tried to locate who protested Chalkley. It is not published anywhere. Greg, Chris, Lance, Harold, any idea on how we can locate this person. Someone should try to get that info from Letan!

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  5. It has to be someone who reads the blog. Let us know who you are. Why hide? Must be a 5.0 captain.

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  6. If it is someone who reads the blog, that narrows it down to about 5 people.

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  7. I found the link for filing a grievance. It gets submitted to Cheryl.

    http://www.houstontennis.org/Content-Public/Page-Edit/Page.asp?iID=350700867

    Can someone follow up and find out?

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  8. Boy this is funny. Haven't seen this blog alive in months!

    Come out come out.

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  9. Get Mike back on the blog and get him to answer who protested!

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  10. The protest for Chalkley was turned in by the 6:06pm poster.

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  11. H A R O L D G A R D N E R . . . .

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  12. Who the hell is Harold Gardner?

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  13. That's stupid! Harold is an HTA Advisory Board member. He wouldn't subject himself to do that.

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  14. Poster 7:45 PM --> YOU ARE AN IDIOT!!!

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  15. Harold Gardner does have a reputation of being a jerk and petty but why would he protest a player he'll never play against?

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  16. I would say don't shoot the messenger.

    It would have been done by someone in the end. Whether it was Harold or someone else why does it matter?

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  17. Harold is the former HTA Pres and current HTA Advisory Board member. Why is it so deplorable that someone in his position is attempting to maintain the integrity and legitimacy of the rating system. I don't have a problem with it at all.

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  18. This is my problem. This league consists of members. Being on a board, wouldn’t you try to keep yourself out of this thing, more like remove yourself away from this kind of situation? Shouldn’t board members monitor and suggests improvements for HTA and not get into this kind of idiocy? Even if Harold filed a grievance, it had nothing to do with him, his team or his level?
    What Letan did, I know the captains of the 4.5 would have taken care of that matter themselves. Infact one of the captain within that level would have field a grievance. So why would Harold, a board member, would want to get involve?

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  19. It doesn't matter who filed the grievance. The issue has been resolved so let's move on.

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  20. Harold Graham is the former president and current board member.

    Harold Gardner is a member of the board, league committee and is captain of the Rolido Boys.

    Not the same person.

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  21. Harold Gardner is a jerk. He has tried to pull some shady sh*t in as a 4.0 captain. I would NOT be suprised if he tried to get letan kicked out of HTA or even USTA for this.

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  22. So was it Harold that protested Chalkley?

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  23. Yes Harold GARDNER protested Chalkley. This is not a surprise to anyone who has been forced to deal with Harold in the past. Petty is the perfect word to describe him and yes he is very shady.

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  24. Did the blog style change for anyone? Lance? Did you change it?

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  25. I did not change it. I do know that some work is going on "behind the scenes", though.

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  26. That's interesting. The Tourney and Austin blogs style has not changed. It may have been a result of when you enabled verification.

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  27. Blog style has changed. Just utilizing some new tools.

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  28. New Question for the blog: What new 4.5 (4.0 bump-up) will make the most impact in 4.5's.

    I would normally eliminate anyone on Freeman's team. Freeman's new 4.5's are very strong but don't make a dent in their already strong line-up for the Hurricanes.

    1) Sebastien Chambert (I know I said to exclude Freeman's guys)

    2) Bethuel Gabriel

    3) John Grego

    4) Bo Bassett

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  29. freeman's 4.0 bumpups have lack star power from the pass. remember ahmed and narajos. we all know ahmed was overhyped and couldn't hang with the top 4.5 dawgs. narajos started off beating a reputable 4.5 rios, but got smacked afterwards. chambert will make an impact, but already have a lost to salinas. gabriel has his moments in 4.5 tourneys and will make a good line 2 singles. foster tried 4.5 last year and went 3 sets with toshi, who's a doubles players. don't know much about grego or bassett. martinez have had the most success in 4.5 and well respected in the division. most bumpups usually takes two or three seasons to adjust. it will be fun seeing the new faces of 4.5. good luck to all new 4.5 players.

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  30. Ricardo Martinez definitely made an impact last season with several strong wins considering his 4.0 pedigree coming in.

    Grego has already posted several strong wins in 4.5 doubles over several 2009 playoff teams.

    Haven't seen Chambert yet, but losing to Mike Salinas in singles is no shame.

    Bethuel Gabriel would seem a non-factor in the summer league. He is just not strong enough for a playoff contender.....no weapons.

    Bo Bassett has some good wins and a strong showing thus far.

    I'd vote Scott Foster will have biggest impact of the new crop of 4.5's, because his serve will continue to be a weapon. John Grego being second on the list and then Bo Bassett.

    The "consistency" 4.0's are likely to adjust well as getting the ball back is not enough at 4.5.

    No comments on new 4.5 Chris Towle from the board. He's gotta win a few easy points while people watch him serve and go "what the hell..."

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  31. Let me say it like this -- I have already booked a vacation the week of sectionals. I have no quams about where I fit in the food chain at 4.5.

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  32. numbers guy:

    Do you have any stats on the new 4.5's win totals over existing 4.5's?

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  33. What happened to the post about HTA playoffs?

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  34. I deleted the posting due to the fact that the HTA has decided to run playoffs for the Spring and Fall seasons. I didn't want to interfere with what they were trying to accomplish. Did anyone else complete their matches last night? Copperfield Copperheads took all four lines last night against the MPTC-Ball Hawks. Has anyone seen Donnie Bishop play? Really solid 4.5 player.

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  35. Donny Bishop, sorry about the spelling error.

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  36. At MPTC last night Schwing got a default from Westside Black Sheep at all 4 lines. Something about not having enough players available is what I heard the reason for the defaults. Kind of odd? Deucebags were up in matches 2-0 against Hurricanes B team before rain hit. Ace-n-Spinners were up 3-0 against Old School before rain stopped last match.

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  37. Isn't there a penalty to a team for defaulting all 4 lines?

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  38. Deucebags were up 3-0, and were up a set in the 4th match, when the courts started to get too slick to play on.

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  39. I think you should also remove the ability to post as "chicken shit", er, anonymous.

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  40. We talked about that and there are several levels of commenting -

    I can make it to where you have to register, but you can make up names so it is essentially anonymous.

    I can also make it to where you have to have a google acct to post comments.

    They tried it over at the tourney blog and it seems the participation went to near zero.

    We have had lots of participation with the anonymous setup.

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  41. Who all is staying up late to watch the men's final LIVE instead of DVR'ed? :)

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  42. What are the current standings of the 4.5 group??

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  43. Interesting question, 4:06. I'd already done some work to determine the winning percentage of 4.0's over 4.5's in general in 2009 (and 3.5's over 4.0's), and I'll post that along with an answer to your more specific question hopefully Monday.

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  44. Google should NEVER be a requirement. Google is so x86. Bing it baby!!!! I bing, you bing we bing.

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  45. Last week the question was asked, how did the YE09 bump-ups to 4.5 fare in 2009 when they played against existing 4.5s? For the number-phobic among you, I’d say “skip this post”!

    In the three 2009 leagues (Spring HTA, USTA, and Fall HTA which is technically a 2010 league), there were 75 matches which were exclusively between 4.0s who were bumped up at YE09, vs. 2009 4.5s, meaning either a singles match or two 4.0s who were bumped playing against two 4.5s. Of these matches, 25% were won by the 4.0s. Interestingly, this is not much higher than the 19% victory percentage for all 4.0s (not just those who were bumped) against 4.5s, 30 out of 158 matches. If I exclude the HTA leagues and focus solely on USTA, which presumably is the more reliable data (players trying harder), the percentages aren’t significantly different, although the 4.0s had a bit less success in that dataset.

    3.5 bumps-to-4.0 who played against 4.0s last year won 21% of the time, with all 3.5s being successful against 4.0s 16% of the time.

    3.0 bumps-to-3.5 who played against 3.5s were successful 23% of the time, with all 3.0s being successful against 3.5s 24% of the time.

    We all know that the best 4.0s are better than the worst 4.5s, etc., and these statistics allow us to estimate the amount of overlap between levels. Roughly speaking, I’d say there is about 40% overlap between levels, meaning the bottom 40% of 4.5s (for example) are about the same skill level as the top 40% of 4.0s. I get the 40% by simply doubling the winning percentage I see in the data, under the theory that if there were 100% overlap, one level would beat the other 50% of the time.

    To all those bumpees, I’d say: welcome to your new world of 20-25% success. Now you’ll know how your competition has been feeling!

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  46. Love the job you are doing with the numbers. It's good to see some stats that can back up or disprove some of the assumptions that have been made in this blog.

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  47. Great Job NumbersGuy! sounds about right. if i was a team captain, i would play the bumpups in line 2 singles or 3 doubles first. the bumpups will do fine 2-3 years in their new division.

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  48. I'm bored so I'll go with the most reliable way to stir up some comments. Who will be the top 4 teams in 4.5 this summer and who will be the standout singles players- say top 8 or 10?

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  49. The top 4.5 teams will be Hurricanes A, B, C and Deucebags.

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  50. Hmmmm What about Ace N Spinners??

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  51. top 10 singles:
    moser
    rios
    dibua
    sumrall
    bui
    trevino
    alzate
    martinez
    narajos
    hale

    the next big houston tourney will be lost forest and you will be able to get a better picture of who should be on top of the list and who is not. afterwards it's the coke. this will definitely tell you who's who right before summer league starts.

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  52. that's a pretty good list but jannuzi would beat all of them.

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  53. Same as always, this list never changes.

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  54. go ahead and put jannuzi in the singles line up. you'll lose that line

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