The game prediction contest has <moved!>

The new home of the Game Prediction Contest is...

Golden Executive chessforum

Please welcome <Golden Executive> as the new contest manager!

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Love chess.
Wish I were better at it.
USA

About my peculiar moniker, "YouRang":

There used to be a show on American TV called "The Addams Family". One of the characters was a creepy 6'9" zombie-like butler named "Lurch" (pictured in my avatar, with a rare smile). In the show, someone would summon Lurch with the bell-pull (a hangman rope), which would make a loud GONG sound, and Lurch would promptly appear and say (in a deep voice), <"You rang?"> (sample: http://www.addamsfamily.com/addams/...). Kind of a dumb show really, yet it has long had cult-like following. Recently many original episodes became available on DVD (http://www.amazon.com/Addams-Family...).

Anyway, I picked "YouRang" for my user name because I was out of my mind at the time, but I'm better now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Glorious accomplishments:

- 2005 Co-winner of <"Best Avatar" Caissar>! (thank you! thank you!)

- 2006 Biel prediction contest (1st place [tie] in final standings prediction)

- 2006 User name "YouRang" named among top 100 TV catch-phrases (http://www.tvland.com/originals/cat...)

- 2007 Defeated GM Arno Nickel (with the help of 2000+ other members & their computers) in the classic: Chessgames Challenge: The World vs A Nickel, 2006

- 2007 Took 1st place (tie) in <lostemperor>'s Final Standing prediction contest for the Linares tournament

- 2008 Defeated GM Gert Jan Timmerman (with the help of 3000+ other members & their computers) in the classic: The World vs G Timmerman, 2007

- 2009 Achieved a draw with the black pieces in my rematch with GM Arno Nickel (with help of 2000+ other members and their computers) in the classic: Chessgames Challenge: A Nickel vs The World, 2008

- 2010 On May 6, User: thegoodanarchist spotted a license plate that said "URANGG", presumably in honor of my moniker.

- 2010 Finished in top 25 with 2,200 chessbucks in Summer leg of chessbookie. (Just 2 bets: predicted Ponomariov was winner of Dortmund, and Caruana as winner of Biel).

- 2010 Won a silver medal in 123 Ranker for the Pearl Spring tournament. (It would have been gold except <Winter> stole it with a fantastic perfect final round. Grrr...)

- 2011 Won gold in <lostemperor>'s Wijk aan Zee 2011 Final Standings prediction contest by finishing in first place for all 3 contests -- absolute ranker, least-squares ranker, and pair betting ranker! Yee-haw!

- 2011 Won silver medal in 123 Ranker for Bilbao tournament.

- 2011 I was honored in a chessvibes.com cartoon: http://www.chessvibes.com/cartoons/...! [Thanks to <Blunderdome> for finding this]

- 2011 Won gold in <lostemperor>'s Tal Memorial 2011 Final Standings prediction contest.

- 2012 A pun I suggested for for the game Akobian vs The World, 2011 ended up winning the <Best Pun> Caissar award! In that game, the World team used a queen sac to force a draw with a flourish. The pun: "Drawma Queen".

- 2012 Won silver and bronze in <lostemperor>'s Wijk Aan Zee 2012 Final Standings prediction contests.

- 2012 Won a bronze in Betting Ranker for the Dortmund 2012 tournament. A complete surprise.

- 2012 At LOOONG last, I managed to make it into my own <Game Prediction Hall of Fame> by winning two golds in Biel 2012 -- both first place ties in Standard Ranker and 123 Ranker :-)

- 2012 Won gold in <lostemperor>'s Bilbao 2012 Final Standings prediction contest.

- 2012 Defeated GM Varuzhan Akobian (with the help of *only* 1500+ other members & their computers) in the classic: Chessgames Challenge: The World vs Akobian, 2012

- 2013 Succeeded in completing a full year without any glorious accomplishments!

- 2014 Defeated GM Simon Kim Williams with the black pieces (with the help of 1100+ other members & their computers) in the classic: Chessgames Challenge: S Williams vs The World, 2013

- 2014 Won two medals in the World Chess Candidates tournament prediction contest: Silver in Betting Ranker and bronze in 123 Ranker.

- 2014 Had a late surge to win two medals in the Norway 2014 prediction contest. Gold (shared 5 ways) in 123 Ranker, and Bronze in Standard Ranker. Also won a silver in <lostemperor>'s Final Standings Betting contest, so it's sort of a perfect sweep: One medal of every color. :-)

- 2014 Defeated Super-GM Arkadij Naiditsch (with some assistance by 1400+ other members & their computers) in the classic: Chessgames Challenge: The World vs Naiditsch, 2014. Some hocus-pocus was involved.

- 2015 Won the <Best Avatar Caissar> award for the 2nd time (see first glorious accomplishment above). I don't like to brag, but (here comes some bragging) this victory has been described as "a small landslide" (The Caissars chessforum (kibitz #1506))

- 2016 Won yet another <Best Avatar Caissar> award for the third time (see 2005 and 2015). Unlike last year's "small landslide", this election was very close, and it even involved a "Steve Harvey-esque" winner-announcement fiasco:

(1)The Caissars chessforum (kibitz #1820)

(2) The Caissars chessforum (kibitz #1895)

I wouldn't want to have <The Caissars>'s job, lol.

- 2017 Took a break from cg.com...