Early Favorites....who not to bet on and who to pay attention to

[d10]

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i had 100 contracts on her expire at zero.

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That's interesting, I didn't realize you had so much of her. That probably wasn't a very high percentage of your holdings though was it? Was this from your $10k fund? Either way I don't feel as bad anymore about taking such a big loss on Ayla.

[GrannyMae]

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i had 100 contracts on her expire at zero.

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That's interesting, I didn't realize you had so much of her. That probably wasn't a very high percentage of your holdings though was it? Was this from your $10k fund? Either way I don't feel as bad anymore about taking such a big loss on Ayla.

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it was nothing. $500 i think.

it was personal contracts. i do a lot of speculation bets at the beginning, and probably lose a few bucks overall, tho never had lost $500 on a single person in one of these 'pre-seriousness' plays. these plays are 1/2 the fun of it. sort of like the 20 extra quinellas i buy when i go to the window to put $100 on a horse to win.

with idol tho, by the time it is down to 10 contestants, all the games are done, and my $$ and fund $$ are in one or two contestants.. never more.

[pete fabrizio]

Here's a pretty interesting Blake Lewis performance on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2cj8XXzRC8

This guy could make some noise if he makes it to the fan-voting rounds, since he'll probably be pretty unique.

[revots33]

EW has their weekly AI power list posted on the web. They rank Porcelana 2nd, which is wayyy off IMO. Be very surprised if she makes top 24.

[Jiggymike]

Does anyone else thinks it's hard or almost impossible to pick favorites so early on? Sure, Sundance had one of if not the best voice but does anyone expect him to win? I definitely don't. In fact I don't know if the best pure "singer" ever wins, it is a combination of factors from what I can tell. Unfortunately, I've only come close to watching one season the whole way through (season 4) and a lot of last season, where I thought Elliot and Chris were the best but Chris was too rock and Elliot wasn't marketable enough (although they did make 3 and 4). No way I could place bets at this point based on what we've seen and if I had to I would just go with the better looking contestants (Jenry/hotter girl of the friends/cute Indian girl). Once you get closer to the top 12 you find out who can really sing and who can't (ala Elliot last year). That doesn't mean the person will win but you can at least ride them for a while if they start low. Also, Porcelana was gross, I can't imagine her going far either.

[revots33]

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Does anyone else thinks it's hard or almost impossible to pick favorites so early on? Sure, Sundance had one of if not the best voice but does anyone expect him to win? I definitely don't.

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Why do you definitely think Sundance won't win? He's my top pick so far.

If I had to rank so far I'd pick Sundance, then backup singer, then maybe hotter friend from Jersey. But voice-wise I think Sundance and the backup singer are miles ahead of the rest of them so far this year.

Then again, Paris was incredible during her audition last year but fizzled out. So yes it is definitely hard to handicap this early (we haven't even seen most of those put through to Hollywood yet), but you can still start sorting people into "favorite", "keep watching", "dead money", etc.

[Jiggymike]

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Does anyone else thinks it's hard or almost impossible to pick favorites so early on? Sure, Sundance had one of if not the best voice but does anyone expect him to win? I definitely don't.

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Why do you definitely think Sundance won't win? He's my top pick so far.

If I had to rank so far I'd pick Sundance, then backup singer, then maybe hotter friend from Jersey. But voice-wise I think Sundance and the backup singer are miles ahead of the rest of them so far this year.

Then again, Paris was incredible during her audition last year but fizzled out. So yes it is definitely hard to handicap this early (we haven't even seen most of those put through to Hollywood yet), but you can still start sorting people into "favorite", "keep watching", "dead money", etc.

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When you talk about "favorites", do you mean to win the whole competition or just to go far? I'm not sure if people handle this like a poker tourney where getting to the FT is like one goal, and then winning is another. Obviously you don't have to pick the winner to make money but it would be nice. I would estimate Sundance makes finals but I would not pick him to win just yet. I guess you could say he probably had the best voice, but yeah whatever, not sure what that means in terms of results. Still you guys probably know better than me, I'm just puttin gideas out there.