Day 34 - All or Nothing

It all seemed so easy last week. I was winning lots of days, and on days when I wasn't winning, I often got 2nd place. I had a lead, and a good one too. It seemed unlikely that anyone could catch me, so much so that when I got Hexed on Friday, I shrugged it off - 'Have the points, I can spare them!'. Pete ran out of T-shirts, and it seemed that all I had to do was see off Nick's challenge and both contests would be mine.

Oh, the complacency...

With Pete now repeating his T-shirts, the full implications of the new scoring-rules slowly dawned on me. Pete scores half points, but anyone ranked below him scores no points. In effect this means not only that you have to beat Pete to score anything but that if Pete is 2nd-placed and your opponent is first, then the opponent gets 3 points compared to your zero - a huge points-gain in one day and one which yesterday allowed Nick to come flying back into contention, only one point behind me. Where did my lead go?

So what should the tactics be? Bear in mind that Pete's T-shirts should now be at their strongest as he is repeating, whereas Nick and I are running on low. Perhaps, then, I should try and ride out the storm, play mediocre 'shirts for a week or so, until Pete is reduced to O'Neills and Quiksilvers. But Nick may have the same idea, and all the time Pete is clawing his way back with his half-points. And if Nick runs out during that time, the plan could backfire as then both Nick and Pete will be repeating their Tees at full strength while I flounder with the tail-end of my wardrobe. And if they are both repeating, I can only score points with a first place ranking.

The risk of that strategy seems too high, the odds too long, the gamble too great. Perhaps then, the only option is to come out with all guns blazing (but that's what Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid did and look what happened to them) and fight fire with fire. Play my strongest remaining T-shirts against the best that Pete and Nick can produce. These crazy rules can only be defeated by outright wins - you can't argue with 3 points. Of course, resources are now limited and I could have a few days of glory before crashing out of the sky like a fallen-Icarus. But to quote liberally (and probably inaccurately) from 80's science fiction movies - 'The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long' and 'It's better to burn out, than to fade away'. Yep, it's all or nothing, do or die, to be in with a chance of a win.


But that's exactly what they'll be expecting me to do...

?

ThEcHoOk

PS. In today's contest, Pete won again with his blurry lady, I came second and Nick came third, so Pete gets 1.5 points and no-one else gets anything.