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arg0
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Topic: 10 free Nexy Arche blades for testers Posted: 01/12/2018 at 5:22pm |
Updates: 2018-01-14: clarified that "lucky" and "qualified" testers may be anywhere in the world, not just US or EU. If you live outside the US and think you would otherwise qualify as "skilled player", read this follow-up post. 2018-01-21: There are currently about 20 applications as lucky testers, (only!) 3 as qualified testers, and 4 as skilled testers. To participate as skilled tester, the threshold is currently about 1900 USATT Rating. 2018-01-23: New (earlier!) deadline for applying as "skilled player": 25 January 2018, 23:59 GMT. The reason is that the selection process may become more complicated and we may need some time to give the non-selected players the opportunity to apply in the other categories, instead. 2018-01-26: No more applications for "skilled players", please. I will deal with the selection probably tomorrow.
Hey Nexy fans, you may remember the Nexy Rubicon and Karis giveaways from about 1 year ago. Recently, Nexy has released the Arche blade ( here is the announcement).  Oscar, the president of Nexy (user Nexy in this forum), is giving away 9 Arche blades for free (value $130) to 9 players in this forum that are willing to test and review the blade. You may wonder why the title says 10: well, I will run a separate test session and circulate a 10th blade. Here is the deal: - 3 Arche blades will be given to "qualified reviewers" (anywhere).
- 3 Arche blades will be given to "lucky members" (anywhere).
- 3 Arche blades will be given to "skilled players" in the US.
- 1 Arche blade will be circulated in Europe and finally be sent back to me.
The 9 " selected testers" (qualified, lucky, skilled) are expected to order any item (even small) from the Nexy Tabletennis store and pay shipping costs to their location (likely about 20-25 USD). On top, they will get a free Arche blade. Testers will be able to select handle shape and preferred weight of the blade. In exchange for the free blade, testers are expected to test the blade for at least a few training sessions and to post a fair review of the blade in this forum. Qualified reviewers will be decided by lot. Any forum user may apply as qualified reviewer. You need to have a sound history of reviewing table tennis equipment. You can apply by posting in this thread (NOT by PM to me!) and adding a few words explaining your experience in reviewing table tennis equipment and one or more links to reviews you wrote. You also need to specify a number between 56 and 4849. To win, you must be among the 5 users that come closest to the number resulting from the concatenation of the LAST two numbers of the German Lotto "6aus49" of the January 31, 2018, draw (that's the fifth and sixth number, the "Super" number is ignored). A few examples: each number drawn is between 1 and 49 and numbers are displayed in ascending order, so if the last two numbers are "8" and "24", the winning number is 824; if the last two numbers are "33" and "48", the winning number is 3348. The draw is at 19:25 German time. Deadline for applying as qualified reviewer is January 28, 2018, 12:00 GMT (that's noon). If your post was modified, it's the "last modified" date that counts. In case of draw, the user having a post with earlier posting/last modified date wins. If Oscar or I feel that your profile does not match our expectations as qualified reviewer, we will move you to the pool for the draw of lucky members (see below). This will be done before the draw, so that you could still choose a different number, if you so wished. Lucky members will be decided by lot. Any forum user may apply as lucky member. You can apply by posting in this thread (NOT by PM to me!) and specifying a number between 12 and 4445. To win, you must be among the 5 users that come closest to the number resulting from the concatenation of the FIRST two numbers of the German Lotto "6aus49" of the January 31, 2018, draw. A few examples: each number drawn is between 1 and 49 and numbers are displayed in ascending order, so if the first two numbers are "3" and "24", the winning number is 324; if the first two numbers are "12" and "45", the winning number is 1245. The draw is at 19:25 German time. Deadline for applying as lucky member is January 31, 2018, 12:00 GMT (that's noon). If your post was modified, it's the "last modified" date that counts. In case of draw, the user having a post with earlier posting/last modified date wins. This may sound complicated, but we needed to find a random number generation mechanism that is transparent and tamper-proof. The results of the draw will be visible here (in German) and here (in English). In case of conflict, the German results are official. In case that for any reason there is no draw on January 31, the numbers of the subsequent draw will be used. Skilled players will be the three applicants having the highest US rating according to the latest Ratings File published on the teamusa.org website not after January 25 31, 2018. The rating may not express absolute skill, but it’s an objective number. Applicants please send me their rating, full name, and ZIP code via PM. Be aware that, if you get selected, the shipment data (name and ZIP code on the parcel) needs to match the rating data on teamusa.org. Deadline for applying as skilled player is January 25, 2018, 23:59 GMT 31, 2018, 12:00 GMT (that's noon). To make the process transparent and allow for community checking, I will publish the rating of the winners (rounded to the nearest 50 points for privacy reasons) in this thread in order to allow for a community check, before the blades are sent out. I will not publish their full name or ZIP code. I will also, from time to time, publish the approximate rating of the third best applicant, so that you may decide whether you have any chances before applying. You may only apply for one category of testers: qualified, lucky, or skilled. If for any reason there are not enough participants in the qualified or skilled groups, we will select a correspondingly higher number of lucky testers. Selected testers will be announced here and receive detailed instructions about how to proceed by PM. Please await instructions before ordering. I will organize a separate testing session for Europe-based players that wish to test the Arche blade. I will wait until after the draw because I need to get the blade in first place, and second, because this will allow interested players that weren’t selected as testers to still test the blade. In this testing session, one blade will be circulated among interested players in a geographically sensible order. Each tester gets the blade for free and pays traceable shipping to the next tester. The last tester ships it back to me. If you have questions, please post them publicly in this thread. Thanks and good luck! P.S. Note that, since the German lotto numbers are from 1 to 49, do not repeat, and are put in ascending order, certain numbers can never be an exact match, such as 2018, 1111, 969, etc. However, this is irrelevant, because the only thing that counts is getting closest to the winning number. See this post for a discussion. P.P.S. Thanks to Connor for coordinating this at Nexy's end.
Edited by arg0 - 01/25/2018 at 7:04pm
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MCollins
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Posted: 01/12/2018 at 6:45pm |
Awesome that you guys are doing this, Arg0. I play Lissom and my practice partner plays Rubicon, so this blade is certainly interesting.
I'd like to apply to be a lucky tester. I'm going to guess 2223.
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My Feedback http://mytabletennis.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=75703&title=feedback-mcollins
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ohwell
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Posted: 01/12/2018 at 8:21pm |
My lucky tester application: 5 10
Edited by ohwell - 01/12/2018 at 8:21pm
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tuco
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Posted: 01/12/2018 at 9:30pm |
I like to apply to be a lucky tester.
My lottery number: 2746.
thanks,
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fatt
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Posted: 01/12/2018 at 9:37pm |
I'd like a mathematician to tell us if there is a number or a group of numbers that theoretically maximizes chances to win. If there is then this lotto thing really cool at first gets annoying as favoring smarter people who can think; an unacceptable way to sneakily filter the dumb out of the game; yeah, yeah, I am hearing "what's wrong with that?" and you make a point too. Well, even the dumb can be lucky sometimes so I am going for 812 as a Lucky tester.
Edited by fatt - 01/12/2018 at 9:39pm
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arg0
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 2:19am |
Well, the fact is that your chances to win very much depend on other people's choices, too. You chose 812. Imagine one now chose 811 and one 813. Your chances to win would suddenly become very slim even if you had chosen the most likely number.
I could have based the draw on a single lotto number. This would have made it completely random. Just, there would have been very few numbers to choose from... If anyone can suggest a better system, I'll consider that for any future initiative.
PS. Note that you can change your number anytime before the deadline.
Edited by arg0 - 01/13/2018 at 2:21am
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fatt
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 2:45am |
hey hey your system is great it has all the drama etc...you've got a nice ball rolling, we all know that.
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arg0
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 3:26am |
arg0 wrote:
PS. Note that you can change your number anytime before the deadline. |
That wasn't meant personally. I meant, if anyone feels surrounded by other entries, they can change anytime.
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vanjr
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 7:50am |
Nominate for most convoluted giveaway of 2018! Awesomeness.
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Sword Yokahama Yue or Gambler Fire Dragon FLC or AVX J power or ?. Double inverted. Red on one side and black on the other. I can't seem to commit....
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zeon
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 8:01am |
I would like to apply as a lucky tester
lucky number 333
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Blade chuan chih-yuan Rubber: FH haifu whale2 BH Shark 2 Feedback:http://mytabletennis.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=79017&KW=feedback&PID=978171&title=feedback-zeon#978171
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windysummer1
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 8:13am |
applying for lucky tester, my number is 840
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Mkeats
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 9:04am |
Also applying as lucky tester. Numberis 3513
Edited by Mkeats - 01/13/2018 at 7:51pm
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viva
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 10:21am |
lucky tester 1215
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My trade feedback here: http://mytabletennis.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=40170&title=viva-buy-sell-feedback
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BH-Man
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 12:22pm |
Is there an UNSKILLED, UNLUCKY category just for BH-Man???
Nah, BH-Man already got him an Arche and confirms it will work just as good as the KKH when he runs out of them.
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Kangp
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 2:52pm |
LUCKY! Number: 642
Edited by Kangp - 01/13/2018 at 2:52pm
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SmackDAT
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 3:04pm |
Lucky tester, 1500!
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arg0
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 4:12pm |
fatt, if you don't mind I'll move you to the pool of experienced reviewers (it's currently empty, btw, so your chances could be higher; you may want to choose a higher number for the other pool, though)
all, the ratings threshold for winning an Arche in the skilled players group is currently 0 (that means, any rating wins), because up to now I've got only one candidate.
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fatt
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 4:22pm |
OK you're the boss. Pressure on me now.
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SmackDAT
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 5:07pm |
arg0 wrote:
fatt, if you don't mind I'll move you to the pool of experienced reviewers (it's currently empty, btw, so your chances could be higher; you may want to choose a higher number for the other pool, though)
all, the ratings threshold for winning an Arche in the skilled players group is currently 0 (that means, any rating wins), because up to now I've got only one candidate.
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Unfair to EU testers with the skilled players group, can I post a video of myself playing or something?
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vanjr
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 5:57pm |
SmackDAT wrote:
arg0 wrote:
fatt, if you don't mind I'll move you to the pool of experienced reviewers (it's currently empty, btw, so your chances could be higher; you may want to choose a higher number for the other pool, though)
all, the ratings threshold for winning an Arche in the skilled players group is currently 0 (that means, any rating wins), because up to now I've got only one candidate.
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Unfair to EU testers with the skilled players group, can I post a video of myself playing or something? | And they say a USATT rating is nit worth much!
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Sword Yokahama Yue or Gambler Fire Dragon FLC or AVX J power or ?. Double inverted. Red on one side and black on the other. I can't seem to commit....
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arg0
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 6:27pm |
SmackDAT wrote:
arg0 wrote:
all, the ratings threshold for winning an Arche in the skilled players group is currently 0 (that means, any rating wins), because up to now I've got only one candidate.
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Unfair to EU testers with the skilled players group, can I post a video of myself playing or something? |
I know, but I found no other objective way, besides organising a tournament between candidates  I only have one candidate up to now for the " skilled players" group (this probably sounds like an awful name, any native English speaker feel free to suggest anything better). SmackDAT and other non-US "skilled players", if you can come up with an approximate US rating, I many consider including you in the pool, in case your "converted" ratings are clearly higher than those from US candidates, so that an exact rating is not necessary. Your approximate rating will however need to be confirmed by the community, so you will have to either post a video, or proof of your valour (non-US rating, proof of having beaten Viktor Barna in 1935), etc. This would make the whole selection not really objective, but certainly more fun. I am confident that at the end we'll reach a gentlemen's agreement.
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arg0
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 7:13pm |
fatt wrote:
hey hey your system is great it has all the drama etc...you've got a nice ball rolling, we all know that. |
vanjr wrote:
Nominate for most convoluted giveaway of 2018! Awesomeness. | Thanks, this is why I keep re-using it! And you've seen nothing yet (read below).
fatt wrote:
I'd like a mathematician to tell us if there is a number or a group of numbers that theoretically maximizes chances to win. If there is then this lotto thing really cool at first gets annoying as favoring smarter people who can think; an unacceptable way to sneakily filter the dumb out of the game; yeah, yeah, I am hearing "what's wrong with that?" and you make a point too. | No need for a mathematician, some basic programming skills and brute force can do, as well. Thanks Fatt for motivating me to finally write my first program in Python. It's just a small program that runs through all the nearly 14 million possible draws of the 6aus49 lotto and calculates the frequency of the concatenation of the first two numbers, and the last two numbers. I will simply call these numbers firsttwo and lasttwo. Well, it turns out that, perhaps not surprisingly, the most frequent firsttwo number is 12, and the most frequent lasttwo number is 4849. They occur exactly 178365 times. However, before you all jump ahead and choose these numbers, let's consider a few things: - you don't need to guess the exact number (fortunately), but just to come close. This means that you'd be better off by choosing a frequently-occurring number that is also surrounded by other frequently-occurring numbers. Now it turns out that 12 is not the best choice, because numbers 0 to 11 can never be a firsttwo number. Also, 4849 is a bad choice because there is no higher lasttwo and the next lowest is 4749, that is 100 units lower.
- to get a better picture you may use 'binning', that is, creating bins of, say 100 numbers (e.g., from 0-99, 100-199, etc.) and see which one occurs most frequently, and then, say, use the central number of the bin (e.g., 50, 150, etc.) as your guess. Now, it turns out that even in this case, the "best bin" hevily depends on the size of the bins, see the following image:
 - finally, your chances with any number are fundamentally affected by the numbers guessed by others, which may change as new users join the draw or user's change their numbers, so it's impossible to determine beforehand which is THE best number. 12 may be the most frequent firsttwo number, but if you chose 12 and another user chose 13, your chances would be very slim.
Of course, one could write a program that determines the most likely number by also taking into account all the other user's choices... And knowing that, certain users could decide to change their guesses a few seconds before the deadline... 
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Nexy Arche & Nittaku Violin LG. Join the Nexy Clan! Also member of Violin & 1-Ply clans.
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arg0
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 7:24pm |
vanjr wrote:
And they say a USATT rating is nit worth much! |
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SmackDAT
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 7:39pm |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSZ7JvqK9Ew
Guesstimate anywhere between 2000-2300, you could use the median of that or ask the community?
If I am 2000+ and that is in the skilled player list then please add me in it
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Dream1700
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 8:36pm |
has anybody here actually used an asymmetric blade for any considerable length of time as their main blade?
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Stiga Offensive Wood NCT FH: Vega Europe 1.8 BH: Vega Europe 1.8
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Shauneh
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Posted: 01/13/2018 at 10:56pm |
Lucky tester, 3339
Edited by Shauneh - 01/14/2018 at 7:44pm
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HarmonicTT
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Posted: 01/14/2018 at 12:34am |
735 lucky tester
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h0n1g
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Posted: 01/14/2018 at 3:19am |
Sign me up as a reviewer. I'm happy to post the links to the reviews i've done in the past if needed.
thanks for arranging this, sounds great!
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fatt
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Posted: 01/14/2018 at 3:40am |
if SmackDat can't be a reviewer then he gets my seat; I saw him playing.
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arg0
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Posted: 01/14/2018 at 4:30am |
h0n1g wrote:
Sign me up as a reviewer. I'm happy to post the links to the reviews i've done in the past if needed.thanks for arranging this, sounds great! |
Please post a link or two. And select a number for the draw.
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