I see the Phoenix supporters at the top of the board are getting scared!

Actually, I stopped thinking Phoenix would win weeks ago... I just wanted to have a Phoenix prediction until it was time to change.

Heh, that's part of the reason I'd like to see a "true" oracle challenge one day, where people are locked in to their picks before the start of the contest. The biggest complication would be handling later round matches where people would have impossible picks based on earlier eliminations, but with a fair penalty system, it could work.

Personally I really dislike this idea. Having both at the same time would splinter interest and would give you two contests that both have less competitors than the current one. And I think the way the current contest works is much more fun - it gives people a reason to come back every day and it requires you adjust for new information learned during the contest, which is an important skill. Plus allowing people to predict up to the last minute leads to greater participation. People can find out about it in the middle of the contest and join in, and if they like it, they come back next time. If predictions were closed before the contest, that would never happen.

Hm...better yet, require everyone to send their picks through email on top of that.

I've thought about having secret predictions before, but the main reason I don't is that it would destroy the "board contest" feel. Right now you can see other people predicting, you can comment on their predictions, etc. If you made predictions by email (or more likely, submitted them through a form), it would feel a lot more like you were just predicting by yourself instead of competing with a big group.
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....TCELES B HSUP