Match # 36 Results
Auron 35.83%
Ryu (Street Fighter) 26.16%
Bowser 24.07%
Shadow the Hedgehog 13.94%

Ryu has avenged his defeat! He's now twice beaten Bowser this year after suffering the worst defeat of his career at Bowser's hands two years ago... and this time, Bowser's out of the contest. Auron cruised to an easy first place today and Shadow cruised to an even easier last, leaving Ryu and Bowser the only ones remotely close to each other - but Ryu lead from the 10 minute mark and never looked back. Strangely, a large majority of oracles had Bowser ahead of Ryu despite last round - 84 vs 22. The consensus predictions were Auron - 30.22%; Bowser - 27.95%; Ryu - 25.55%; Shadow - 16.37%. The average score was 46.31.

Best Five Picks:
1) Aprosenf - Auron 34.33% - Bowser 23.95% - Ryu 27.46% - Shadow the Hedgehog 14.26% (+49.19)
2) Kaxon - Auron 32.24% - Bowser 24.83% - Ryu 27.15% - Shadow the Hedgehog 15.78% (+48.20)
3) ScorpionX3 - Auron 35.00% - Bowser 21.00% - Ryu 29.00% - Shadow the Hedgehog 15.00% (+48.05)
4) Lady Ashe - Auron 32.00% - Bowser 27.00% - Ryu 26.00% - Shadow the Hedgehog 15.00% (+48.00)
5) Lagoona - Auron 34.56% - Bowser 25.52% - Ryu 23.26% - Shadow the Hedgehog 16.66% (+47.91)

Aprosenf was today's best predictor by a wide margin, almost a point above the rest of the pack. He was almost dead on with Bowser and Shadow, but gave Ryu some percentage that should have gone to Auron. I got the second place prediction, somehow landing myself in the top 5 for the second time in three days (not to mention getting 3 top 5's in a contest for the first time since spring 2004). ScorpionX3 got his first top 5 of the contest with the third best pick, followed by Lady Ashe, who got his 5th best pick despite missing a number of matches with late predictions - quite an impressive feat. Lagoona took the #5 spot with his second top 5 of the contest.

Another interesting thing about today's match is that there were tons of ties, including a 6-way tie for 30th (Redtooth, Camden, MegatokyoEd, Darunia, Rocktillery, and Goldslime) and a 7-way tie for 79th (TRE, BT, hochiminh, Salient, Menji, Jmast, and DP). Out of those two ties, only 3 people had the same predictions.

Complete Match Ranking:
http://www.oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k7&type=match&match=36

Current Leaderboard:
1) The n00b Avenger - 1682.91
2) smitelf - 1675.68
3) creativename - 1674.95
4) Haste2 - 1674.04
5) Master Moltar - 1673.48

The only change in today's leaderboard is that creativename drops to third, giving smitelf sole possession of second place. She gained almost a point on The n00b Avenger today as well. The only other change in the top 10 is that octoinky and Ngamer each moved up into a tie for 9th place, both passing kawaiifan. A lot of people who were below 19th moved up a spot today, since Ness26 unfortunately forgot to make a prediction.

Full Standings:
http://www.oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k7&type=total&match=36
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R.I.P. Robert Jordan, 1948-2007