***Congratulations to OHWELOVEYERBALDYHEAD - He is the Cheltenham 2017 RAWK Champion Tipster*** 
2017 sees The 'RAWK Cheltenham Tipster' competition enter double figures and it's 10th glorious year.
With less than a week until this years Festival kicks off on Tuesday 14th March, it's time to get this years competition rolling again. The previous nine editions have all been really good fun, competitive with a healthy turnout each day.
Last years competition saw RAWK poster 'Salgar' overcome a 10 point deficit on the last day to claim top spot and win the 2016 competition.
The general rules of the game are simple and remain basically the same as last year but with the addition this year of bonus points for placed horses with larger SP's as I believe players tipping a large priced horse that manages to place should be rewarded as such.
RulesPick one horse per race each day of the festival. Points are accumulated as follows depending on where your selection is placed.
Winner - 15 points
Second - 10 points
Third - 7 points
Fourth - 4 points
Points are only awarded for places which the bookies pay out on (e.g. 1/2/3 for 8 or more runners and 1/2/3/4 for 16+ runners). Some bookies pay 5 places on really big races but this will not apply to this competition.
All important Odds Bonus points are available for certain winners and placed horses that are above a certain price. (SP). The bonus points value for winners over 33/1 and 16/1 has also increased slightly from last year.
Winner 33/1 and over = 20 bonus points
Winner 16/1 and over = 15 bonus points
Winner 8/1 and over = 5 bonus points
Placed horses 33/1 and over - 10 Bonus points
Placed horses between 16/1 and 33/1 - 5 Bonus points
NOTE: A horse cannot gain both win and place bonus points in any one race.
On each days racing you must also pick ONE NAP horse. If your
NAP selection
WINS, then you receive
DOUBLE points. In previous years, players received just a 10 point bonus for picking a NAP winner. I felt that a double point bonus may encourage people to try and NAP a more risky selection at longer odds and therefore gain more points. It also gives people further down the leader board a chance to move up with a bit more of a risk/reward tactic.
The double point NAP bonus worked well in its first year (2014) and WernerRed scored a huge 100 points on day 4 and probably would have won the whole competition had he not entered the competition late on Day 2.
So to clarify the scoring and NAP bonus - if you picked a 10/1 winner you will get 20 points as standard (15 + 5). If you made this your NAP of the day you would receive double and get 40 points. Napping a 33/1 winner would get you 70 Points (15 + 20 x 2). Napping an odds on favourite would gather no odds bonus and just get you the standard 15 points for a winner then doubled. (15 x 2 = 30). And so on.
I will provide a daily points tally and overall leader board each evening in this thread and will also update the tables on this OP.
Important info:Entries to be posted in this thread BEFORE the first race each day. (you can also post the night before if you wish).
Any Non-Runners in your selections will be replaced by the SP Favourite.
If you don't think you've got the time to make any proper selections on one of the days at least try and post something along the lines of "Fav every race". In the event of JT Favourites your selection will be deemed as the favourite that is first alphabetically.
**Anyone with edits on their original post
AFTER the start of the
FIRST race each day, will void
ALL their selections for that day!!! No exceptions**
Any player who neglects to post entries for any 2 of the 4 festival days will be removed completely from the competition. NO EXCEPTIONS. This rule allows players to miss posting selections for any one day and also gives other players the opportunity to join the competition late (Wednesday).
Please feel free to post/edit your selections right up to the time of the first race each day or maybe even post your whole weeks selections in one go. (reminder: NR's will be replaced by SP Fav)
Again, if you're pressed for time to get your entry in, I'll even except an entry posted in the thread consisting of random numbers eg: 8,5,11,9,3,2 or maybe even 'number 2 every race'. If any of these numbers don't figure in the race you will still get the SP favourite and a chance to score points.
Any questions about the point scoring or selections please feel free to ask in this thread or drop me a PM. We will not be having separate threads for chat and selections this year we can just keep it all contained in this thread.
No prizes I'm afraid - just the glory of being RAWK's Champion Cheltenham Tipster 2017 and getting your name on the much sought after 'virtual' trophy below!!
Hall of Fame
2016 Winner - Salgar
2015 Winner - Beefdog
2014 Winner - Desi Kopite
2013 Winner - Fazak_Red
2012 Winner - Alex
2011 Winner - Alex
2010 Winner - CK
2009 Winner - Somerset Red
2008 Winner - StuwieG
