True...I would guess say that your best option, and the way to truly hedge your bets, would be to only use a runner-up where you feel like you must. There's a definite balance point between being too cautious and and not cautious enough. This year, I would say that caution is the slightly better bet, because here we are on Oscar day, and no one can say with any certainty who will win Director, Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, and several below the line categories. (And would you be willing to bet the farm on Picture, Adapted Screenplay, etc.?) If you go all the way with DeNiro in Supporting Actor, and he loses, then you've got nothing for that category. But if you go DeNiro and your runner-up wins, you at least get something. So my advice would be only use runners-up when you're equally split between two nominees. It's tough, especially in a year like this one. Last year or the year before, I would've been fine with only a few runners-up, but this year, so many categories are still up in the air.Greg wrote:It is all relative to how well your picks for winners do compared to your picks for runner-ups. As an extreme example, if none of your choices for winner wins, but every one of your choices for runner-up wins, you would do much better from hedging.Mister Tee wrote:I wonder if dws or some other math-inclined mind could tell me if my instinct is correct here: that, under these rules, whatever one gains from the stray single points for runners-up is offset by the point one effectively loses for every runner-up designated. Which is to say, I wonder if shooting for the 3-points you’d get for any correct prediction is a better strategy than hedging your bets. (Note that rolotomassi won the Globes contest in precisely that way) I’m going to do separate tabulations and see which way works best this year.
So, all that out of the way, here are my picks. The lack of runners-up in a lot of categories doesn't meant I'm confident about those picks. Basically what I did was this: If someone asked me what was going to win Best Picture, I would answer Argo. Not confidently, but I would have an answer. Same thing with Lawrence in Best Actress. So if I can give an answer, I'm not going to put a runner-up. If my answer would be "I don't know", then I give a runner-up.
Picture
Argo
Director
Steven Spielberg (I SHOULD go with a runner-up, but I can't think of any reason to put Lee over Haneke over Russell...none really make sense)
Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis
Actress
Jennifer Lawrence
Supporting Actor
Robert DeNiro (RU: Tommy Lee Jones)
Supporting Actress
Anne Hathaway
Original Screenplay
Amour (RU: Django Unchained)
Adapted Screenplay
Argo
Cinematography
Life of Pi
Editing
Argo
Score
Life of Pi
Song
"Skyfall"
Production Design
Anna Karenina
Costume Design
Anna Karenina
Sound Mixing
Les Miserables (RU: Life of Pi)
Sound Editing
Life of Pi (RU: Skyfall)
Visual Effects
Life of Pi
Makeup
The Hobbit
Foreign Film
Amour
Documentary Feature
Searching For Sugar Man
Documentary Short
Redemption (RU: Innocente)
Live Action Short
Death of a Shadow (RU: Curfew)
Animated Short
Paperman (RU: Head Over Heels)
Animated Feature
Brave (RU: Wreck-it-Ralph)
