Who even are Blinkova and Burel? No idea, but they've done us all who went 0-2 a favour by making us now the odds on favourite to get the tie. Doesn't matter for me, but more interestingly, Medvedev barely made it out. Easy last set but he really clawed his way back from 2 sets down...

He's the only one I picked to get out early, I thought I was pretty smart with that but it turns out that's the most popular answer in BSFL (only Medvedev No). In fact, the first six submissions all have the same on that. Even Cro2 have that same one. Are we really so much on the same page with this guy? Edit: Saw the wrong column. Heh. I actually have Sinner and Rublev out as well.

On Dakar, Loeb won't win. So Sainz has an easy last day, it's now his to lose. I really lost a point here, thought I'd picked him to win but must have been in two minds.


We're all pained. We'll not let you forget this so soon. You join the Hall of Shame with CLS63 -- who managed to gift me 3 points yet somehow found a way to meet Steve at the airport, wait for him to shower, then take him for beer, while Clubhouse airs. We know where your priorities are...

I know what you guys do/did, I followed you here and there around and before Covid, but missed out on my last visit to the region. Was in Cambodia for a bit but didn't find much luck there contacting some P2P as they were mostly in the capital (I was very far away). You guys and Thailand have always been ahead in our region. Singapore believes itself to be the "blockchain hub" but apart from fancy conferences and degen gatherings as is the culture these days, they have nothing like the Bitcoin communities you and others do.

I'll ping in summer, maybe I swing by Saigon (everyone's private these days no?) and I'll want to transact in BTC =)

@CLS63 Steve is harder to catch than a jackpot at midnight, but hope you got a rub of his luck, some photos are worth several thousand words


Saw a little here and there but most of the first half of Mali-RSA

Speaking of our boys, Endo put in a shift in Japan's tough win over Vietnam (meeting their ex coach too) in AFC Cup (I'm watching that a little bit more as am more familiar). Minamino was the star of course, but it's always nice to see a Red, past or present, taking wins abroad.

No fancy wins to share here (yet)...

Superbru solved. Hate doing picks on last day, I know I'll forget tomorrow. Morocco finally get a statement win. AFCON is flowing this edition huh?


Guys, it turns out Amoura didn't even feature in the line up, apparently suspension from a much earlier game I wasn't even aware about until AFTER the game. It's so hard to follow team lineups haha.

You guys want to be kind to me and accept that a book would void this if he didn't even have a chance to play? Or you want to carry it forward to Algeria's next game vs Burkina Faso on Saturday?

I'm, of course, happy to honour my sidebets as it's my fault for not checking so properly.

Edit: I see Trofo's post above, which somehow I only saw when trying to post this. Voided it is! Heh heh. I'm lucky.

^Yeah Sainz finished this day bottom of the pile, but importantly, his closest rival has a huge penalty (and also ran into problems just after he did) so the lead still looks strong. Two more days to go, whichever team makes mistakes first will not win.


What the actual, Ige? I would never in my life think you'd forget a single pick from now on (but it happens to all of us I know, maybe my turn one day). This is way too fishy to be coincidence. A bad, bad, bad, bad sign for the Sheriff, whom we all rely on to ensure fairness.


No, they always overperform. Football, handball, waterpolo... I think they start out knowing they're not the best, get really far, and then eventually quality and overall technique cost them the ultimate prize.

Just like Cro2 *cough cough cough*

Well, yes, did we forget Bitcoin's cradle among the true cypherpunks of our and our parents' generation? Of course, just having BTC and degening with it is rubbished by some, but I suppose punks everywhere are rubbished on their (lack of) authenticity. For me, you use Bitcoin and that's enuogh.

OP: Nice to see you VN guys going strong, I might contact to reach out -- do you know any similar network in Cambodia and Lao?

^^ Yeah I lost a pretty acca that was just waiting for RSA to win (4/1 odds), everything else hit easily and I had to put up with the missed penalty and actually dominant first half from the S Africans. Damned idiots. Even my draw on Superbru didn't work out.

P.S. Superbru been down for me the whole day, you guys experiencing the same? Need to enter picks for tomorrow's matches onwards.

Hurricane Mou has now ended. Always thought Mou was entertaining, then as he mellowed even somewhat likeable, but mostly, always misunderstood (mostly his own fault I would have to say).

Forwards forgetting how to score, they're to blame, really. Anyway, De Rossi at Roma now, time to get back all those lost points on picking Roma wins. It won't be so much down to him but the new manager bounce.

wtf... I thought I put Sainz as the winner, haha!

Not going to whine, jayce has the same answer.

Edit: Cro put up a good fight, didn't realise the decider happened tonight. Blew a final quarter lead too...


Not at all. I'm not knowledgeable, this is just nostalgia.

Even when I used to watch it, I didn't know names, it'd be my uncle telling me the cars and what they'd be doing (when fixing). It's far removed from F1, it's just the 2 men and their car. And there's no practice session either, you get a map at the start of the race and then your navigator has to be on point or you lose your way. If I remember from the 1990s, drivers even go out to fix their own engines/tyres/whatever it is so really it's a guy, his car, and his navigator. I know the team follows also and of course they have to because you can crash in the middle of nowhere.

In any case, the rally is quite close to my childhood memory because back home, dirt biking is also popular in the jungles. And I never drove a Range Rover but for many years in a past life, I learned to drive, eat, sleep, live, work in my very own Land Cruiser, that thing pulled me out of so many scrapes I almost belief my life depended on it. Nowhere near the rally experience but it's somehow nostalgic and related to me.

Anyway Sainz won in the past but no way was he a top dog this one, actually not won anything with current team. It's really his lead now rather than his rep that makes a strong case.

That's got to be the lowest I've ever seen for BTC! 1 mbtc min, or has it been lower before?

Obviously Sportsbet also has to take into account costs -- I personally don't see myself withdrawing that amount except to pay for pool fees (haha) but understandably, $40 makes sense to Sunday gamblers, I've been there, scrounging books for the tenners they still keep on my account haha.

2024/25: Min withdrawal $40 at 0.0001?

12. Sean Strickland
11. Mayra Bueno Silva
10. Mike Malott
9. Marc-Andre Barriault
8. Movsar Evloev
7. Brad Katona
6. Sean Woodson
5. Ramon Taveras
4. Gillian Robertson
3. Jasmine Jasudavicius
2. Yohan Lainesse
1. Jimmy Flick

NOT go the Full Distance 5

Well done casperBGD! Merseyside rep and you're killing it, not a bad way to end the season breathing down the neck of morvillz7z (pretty good showing from you, enjoy the bonus!).

I'm 32 entire points behind the leader, that's about 10 correct scores -- more or less -- so it's really a small margin. Half a game per round. Or shall we say an average of 1.5 points per Game Week.

Freiburg keeps letting me down. I lose on a lot of draws I think, my least favourite outcome to pick.

Enjoy next half-season, peeps.

Burkina Faso nil, Mauritania nil, I smell something in 2nd half.


He doesn't have to do it SO obviously haha. Crazy he needs 2 goal involvements to earn a point for his shoddy team. Problem wth bookie odds is that I actually bet on qualifiers (both AFC and AFCON) and the odds are usually right. I think group games tend to be too careful, and then panic happens when a goal's allowed (as with Egypt).

Forgot to mention I love the inclusion of Dakkar rally -- used to follow that on TV in my youth, and I think it doesn't get the love it deserves. This Sainz guy, I'm backing him to be a legend in this year's edition. He's already fallen to second place at today's stage so it doesn't look good on me, but I won't use VAR and allow this to take its course. He still has a healthy lead but more importantly, seems to be the least error-prone, so the penalties on the ones chasing should see him through.

He's 62. He had spinal injuries in his last race after a crash, has a habit of retiring races early but man his performance in this one...

Alongside sad news that a driver has passed after an earlier accident. Dakar is hellish and the drivers who brave it are something else.


We're really struggling, aren't we? I know it's still many points left to fight for but I think we need to give credit to the guys who've also come up from Div3 and Div2... their quality has shone through and made this the toughest season so far at the top. If I remember, the lead at the top has always been wide and even relegation decided pretty early (?) but the way the table looks now it's almost as if we'll only mathematically know some outcomes on 2nd last week.

What we're all disappointed with (Hhampuz, in particular) is Div3b -- we need new blood, strong blood.

So. Very. Tempting. To switch my picks to draws. I did it for Cameroon, following Trofo's wisdom and got rewarded for that. The question for me remains about just how good are the favourites, really. Impossible to tell and bookmaker odds to me are extremely unreliable for these cups.

P.S. Guess Salah wants to come back to Liverpool early, huh? Endo not so much =D


You're too kind. But I get it, the date was close and network wasn't friendly. I'm always happy to help out in future with fronting people too, in case you stragglers don't want to overburden the Tro

No, there are other examples predating these guys. Current role models for sure, and equipped with personal dietitians and more modern equipment to help them make even more use of every tiny optimisation.

I know Giggs was also a clean eater and fitness maniac. We've also got Brighton's Milner (formerly Liverpool) who's playing more minutes as his age gets riper. They may not have had the super coaches Ronaldo does but they don't drink any alcohol (famously Milner celebrates with Ribena haha)... Giggs I think doesn't even have butter. All to stay fit and healthy. Imagine Milner left Liverpool because they couldn't guarantee him minutes!

Werner did okay, didn't he though? I watched most of the game, had money on Spurs so shame they didn't win but I thought it was going to be
 show once they equalised so early in 2nd half but like Trofo, I was really, really surprised they started him. Nice call on Richarlison, actually really hope he shows up more often. Defence like United you need to take advantage off in numbers.

Glad I didn't take Konsa off as I wanted as he returned a standard 6.


That was the whole thinking behind my KdB buy. The double game week, should be peak KdB before he gets injured again heh heh.

I know it's pointless for me at this point, but I keep thinking I really have to up my game with this FPL stuff, every season I keep thinking I can commit but I miss a few simple things here and there, so really just trying to put up some small wins to keep my flagging motivation up.

Damn those Div1 leaders are solid. vd309 is on another level with that GD but it does seem you need 4 or 5 goals per round to have hope of getting points. I was pretty lucky darxiaomi and me differed on picks that went my way for underdogs, and not his for underdogs (sorry man).

I still feel like getting 2 more draws is enough, but 1 more win probably secures me in this division (I'm doing mental calculations with matchups) -- jayce, Slissy, mv1986, mitch are all my opponents.

Whoops, forgot to clear me squad out as I initially thought Toffees-Villains would blank (so far so true) but City sitters all scored poorly so I'm happy I got Raya in for Ederson. Palmer no brainer, glad I bought into that hype. Just a tad higher than the average on a squad I wasn't sure in, but plenty left to play for. Don't even need to look at United-Spurs game as I've got no one from either team. United fans celebrating maybe... Regret or smart move? A whole week left to find out, huh?

Just realised my win is already confirmed with darxiaomi, sorry my friend! Borneo nicks it all from under Argentina's belt, but I know it was luck -- Tajik boys actually almost upset China.

O' Sullivan in the final. Easy. Carter? No one saw that coming. Carter winning? Even less so. He only needs one frame now, with play resuming in a few hours. Even leading 5:3 and looking strong on Frame 9, Carter was still just under 2/1 on bookies to win this final. Guess snooker is even more unpredictable than tennis -- I'm going to have to really mix my next picks around for Seeds 4-10 after this.

Now that I don't need to worry about Spanish Cup final, is Barca 3/1 really worth it? Real over 2/1 look like a steal...