World Cup Sweepstake?

[TheFatBuoy]

Can I just forewarn you all that I'm going to get a bit clever during the course of this post, and quote from two, yes, two, different posts! So it may go horribly wrong.

Sounds good to me, as long as Neil is willing to disclose his bank details to us all!

Heh - well probably best to do it via email, but it's no more risky than giving someone a cheque, as all the details are on there anyway.

Depends how easy it is for everyone to pay into another account using just a sort code and account number.

Shouldn't be too hard - it's normally all that's required on online banking - it's certainly adequate on smile (the co-op) who I bank with. As far as paying in at an actual bank branch, as long as they're paying in at their local branch of whoever it is you bank with, then their system should easily recognise one of their own sort codes, so it should be fine, and it'll go through instantly.

[tubeguru]

OK, so I will accept cash, cheque, Paypal or online transfer - that should cover everyone!

So far we have 13 people interested, assuming standclearofthedoors' posts aren't just in this thread for the sake of it

[tubeguru]

Sorry - GBP only for this competition you foreigner ...

But send me some green anyway - the exchange rate's really good right now!

[Root]

Careful - when Geoff thinks Football he probably means the Superbowl...

[zeibura]

Careful - when Geoff thinks Football he probably means the Superbowl...

haha ;D no in this game you actually use feet!

i'm interested.

[tubeguru]

Sure, why not. £3 is a bit steep though - I could only stump up £1.70 for a "Silver Edition" Bakerloo EP!

I'm happy to program this if you want... I haven't programmed in ages and have been wanting something simple to do to get me back into it. Might slightly favour the author though ... just kidding. Let me know if you want me to.

I'm glad you mentioned that, because I had the same idea myself. In fact, I got out my old BBC Micro computer last night to see if I could still remember how to program in BASIC.

And guess what - I can!

I wrote a rudimentary program to choose the country names for each player. Now, obviously, it's a bit rough round the edges (no value checking for example), contains VERY bad programming techniques (GOTO) and I can't be arsed to mess with the output format much.

But it works, and here it is in all its (un-renumbered) glory:

>VDU2
>LIST
10 DIM COUNTRY$(31)
20 FOR A=0 TO 31
30 READ COUNTRY$(A)
40 NEXT A
50 CLS
60 PRINT "PLEASE ENTER NUMBER OF PLAYERS: ";
70 INPUT NUMPLAYERS%
90 FOR X=1 TO NUMPLAYERS%
96 PRINT "PLEASE ENTER THE NAME OF PLAYER " X;
97 INPUT NAME$
100 PRINT: PRINT "HOW MANY COUNTRIES FOR " NAME$;
110 INPUT NUMCOUNTRIES%
115 PRINT
120 FOR Y=1 TO NUMCOUNTRIES%
130 SUBSCRIPT%=RND(32)
135 SUBSCRIPT%=SUBSCRIPT%-1
140 IF COUNTRY$(SUBSCRIPT%)="NULL" THEN GOTO 130
150 PRINT "TEAM NUMBER ";
151 PRINT Y;
152 PRINT " FOR " NAME$ " IS ";
160 PRINT COUNTRY$(SUBSCRIPT%)
170 COUNTRY$(SUBSCRIPT%)="NULL"
180 NEXT Y
190 NEXT X
1000 DATA POLAND,GERMANY,COSTA RICA,ECUADOR
1010 DATA ENGLAND,PARAGUAY,TRINIDAD & TOBAGO, SWEDEN
1020 DATA ARGENTINA,IVORY COAST,SERBIA & MONTENEGRO,HOLLAND
1030 DATA MEXICO,IRAN,ANGOLA,PORTUGAL
1040 DATA ITALY,GHANA,USA,CZECH REPUBLIC
1050 DATA BRAZIL,CROATIA,AUSTRALIA, JAPAN
1060 DATA FRANCE,SWITZERLAND,SOUTH KOREA,TOGO
1070 DATA SPAIN,UKRAINE,TUNISIA,SAUDI ARABIA
>


And here's a sample output when run:

<b>>RUN
PLEASE ENTER NUMBER OF PLAYERS: ?2

PLEASE ENTER THE NAME OF PLAYER 1?TUBEGURU

HOW MANY COUNTRIES FOR TUBEGURU?4

TEAM NUMBER 1 FOR TUBEGURU IS JAPAN
TEAM NUMBER 2 FOR TUBEGURU IS ARGENTINA
TEAM NUMBER 3 FOR TUBEGURU IS ITALY
TEAM NUMBER 4 FOR TUBEGURU IS CROATIA

PLEASE ENTER THE NAME OF PLAYER 2?UNDERGROUND MASKER

HOW MANY COUNTRIES FOR UNDERGROUND MASKER?2

TEAM NUMBER 1 FOR UNDERGROUND MASKER IS TRINIDAD & TOBAGO
TEAM NUMBER 2 FOR UNDERGROUND MASKER IS POLAND
>
</b>
Genius ...

[Root]

That's pretty much how I would have done it.

Nice one - now I don't have to, it would probably have taken too long anyway...

Just an idea - if you possibly can, send your program to someone else on the forums to run so that we know you're not simply running and re-running it until you get great teams .

[Soup Dragon]

I'm game for the sweepstake as well. So long as I don't get Serbia & Montenegro, now that it's official that Montenegro will get it's independence there will no doubt be lots of squabbling over team selection. It was the same for the Eurovision this year and S&M had to pull out at the last minute. Remember when Denmark won the European Championships when Yugoslavia pulled out?

[Going Underground]

Yeah, how could we forget

Arsenal signed a Dane that scored a wonder goal, something like Jon Jensen (please feel free to correct me on that )
He then failed to score once in about 2 seasons at Highbury

[tubeguru]

Just an idea - if you possibly can, send your program to someone else on the forums to run so that we know you're not simply running and re-running it until you get great teams .

No

Actually, what I need to do is change it so that I enter the names first and it then randomly chooses which ones are picked in which order.

That way no one gets an unfair advantage of having a full choice of 32.

[TheFatBuoy]

Just an idea - if you possibly can, send your program to someone else on the forums to run so that we know you're not simply running and re-running it until you get great teams .

No

Actually, what I need to do is change it so that I enter the names first and it then randomly chooses which ones are picked in which order.

That way no one gets an unfair advantage of having a full choice of 32.

Good thinking. In that case, you'd probably need a separate field for each player's entry i.e. FatBuoy1, FatBuoy2 etc.

[tubeguru]

Give me a few minutes and I'll just add that bit in.

[tubeguru]

OK, I've added a name jumbler:

>VDU2
>LIST
10 DIM COUNTRY$(31)
20 FOR A=0 TO 31
30 READ COUNTRY$(A)
40 NEXT A
50 CLS
60 PRINT "HOW MANY PLAYERS ";
70 INPUT NUMPLAYERS%
80 DIM NAMES$(NUMPLAYERS%-1)
90 FOR W=0 TO (NUMPLAYERS%-1)
100 PRINT: PRINT "PLEASE ENTER THE NAME OF PLAYER " (W+1);
110 INPUT NAME$
120 NAMES$(W)=NAME$
130 NEXT W
140 FOR X=1 TO NUMPLAYERS%
150 V=RND(NUMPLAYERS%)
160 V=V-1
170 IF NAMES$(V)="NULL" GOTO 150
180 PLAYERNAME$=NAMES$(V)
190 PRINT: PRINT "PLAYER NUMBER " X " IS " PLAYERNAME$
200 NAMES$(V)="NULL"
210 PRINT "HOW MANY COUNTRIES FOR " PLAYERNAME$;
220 INPUT NUMCOUNTRIES%
230 PRINT
240 FOR Y=1 TO NUMCOUNTRIES%
250 SUBSCRIPT%=RND(32)
260 SUBSCRIPT%=SUBSCRIPT%-1
270 IF COUNTRY$(SUBSCRIPT%)="NULL" GOTO 250
280 PRINT "TEAM NUMBER ";
290 PRINT Y;
300 PRINT " FOR " PLAYERNAME$ " IS ";
310 PRINT COUNTRY$(SUBSCRIPT%)
320 COUNTRY$(SUBSCRIPT%)="NULL"
330 NEXT Y
340 NEXT X
1000 DATA POLAND,GERMANY,COSTA RICA,ECUADOR
1010 DATA ENGLAND,PARAGUAY,TRINIDAD & TOBAGO, SWEDEN
1020 DATA ARGENTINA,IVORY COAST,SERBIA & MONTENEGRO, HOLLAND
1030 DATA MEXICO,IRAN,ANGOLA,PORTUGAL
1040 DATA ITALY,GHANA,USA,CZECH REPUBLIC
1050 DATA BRAZIL,CROATIA,AUSTRALIA,JAPAN
1060 DATA FRANCE,SWITZERLAND,SOUTH KOREA,TOGO
1070 DATA SPAIN,UKRAINE,TUNISIA,SAUDI ARABIA</b>

And a sample run:

>RUN
HOW MANY PLAYERS ?5

PLEASE ENTER THE NAME OF PLAYER 1?TUBEGURU

PLEASE ENTER THE NAME OF PLAYER 2?GEOFF

PLEASE ENTER THE NAME OF PLAYER 3?KEVIN

PLEASE ENTER THE NAME OF PLAYER 4?MASKER

PLEASE ENTER THE NAME OF PLAYER 5?CHRIS

PLAYER NUMBER 1 IS TUBEGURU
HOW MANY COUNTRIES FOR TUBEGURU?3

TEAM NUMBER 1 FOR TUBEGURU IS ITALY
TEAM NUMBER 2 FOR TUBEGURU IS ECUADOR
TEAM NUMBER 3 FOR TUBEGURU IS AUSTRALIA

PLAYER NUMBER 2 IS MASKER
HOW MANY COUNTRIES FOR MASKER?2

TEAM NUMBER 1 FOR MASKER IS BRAZIL
TEAM NUMBER 2 FOR MASKER IS SAUDI ARABIA

PLAYER NUMBER 3 IS KEVIN
HOW MANY COUNTRIES FOR KEVIN?5

TEAM NUMBER 1 FOR KEVIN IS CROATIA
TEAM NUMBER 2 FOR KEVIN IS SERBIA & MONTENEGRO
TEAM NUMBER 3 FOR KEVIN IS IVORY COAST
TEAM NUMBER 4 FOR KEVIN IS POLAND
TEAM NUMBER 5 FOR KEVIN IS CZECH REPUBLIC

PLAYER NUMBER 4 IS CHRIS
HOW MANY COUNTRIES FOR CHRIS?8

TEAM NUMBER 1 FOR CHRIS IS IRAN
TEAM NUMBER 2 FOR CHRIS IS PORTUGAL
TEAM NUMBER 3 FOR CHRIS IS ARGENTINA
TEAM NUMBER 4 FOR CHRIS IS TOGO
TEAM NUMBER 5 FOR CHRIS IS SPAIN
TEAM NUMBER 6 FOR CHRIS IS GERMANY
TEAM NUMBER 7 FOR CHRIS IS FRANCE
TEAM NUMBER 8 FOR CHRIS IS COSTA RICA

PLAYER NUMBER 5 IS GEOFF
HOW MANY COUNTRIES FOR GEOFF?1

TEAM NUMBER 1 FOR GEOFF IS PARAGUAY
></b>

I think that works quite well.

[Root]

Cor, Chris is one rich bastard!

[Going Underground]

Looks good as long as I get better teams than that when it's done for real