10 free Nexy Arche blades for testers

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

My lucky tester application: 5 10

Edited by ohwell - 01/12/2018 at 8:21pm

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. 

Edited by fatt - 01/12/2018 at 9:39pm

hey hey your system is great it has all the drama etc...you've got a nice ball rolling, we all know that.

Nominate for most convoluted giveaway of 2018! Awesomeness.

applying for lucky tester, my number is 840

lucky tester 1215

LUCKY!

Edited by Kangp - 01/13/2018 at 2:52pm

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.

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.

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. 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.

vanjr wrote: And they say a USATT rating is nit worth much!

 

has anybody here actually used an asymmetric blade for any considerable length of time as their main blade?

735 lucky tester

if SmackDat can't be a reviewer then he gets my seat; I saw him playing.