Well done Feanor for becoming the first new Immortal and congratulations KayceeKool on making it. Like you, I had a target, trying to catch Wes and Postie and my chances were as poor as yours! Having someone you're trying to catch does help with the flagging motivation towards the end.

Kudos to all who are crossing the finish line. In the last couple of days, I've missed two sets, by simply forgetting, so there must be some subliminal flagging motivation going on here!

A couple of sets I've had recently have been so difficult I wished I had missed them so you may be no worse off!

well done all ... big pat on the back to feanor for being the first of the new immortals

Thanks very much. Congratulations to rbearusa & Magijoh1 for a great race and a special chapeau to Feanor for achieving your first Immortal

Immortals number nine and ten: ProJunior (repeating) and alan56 (second new).

Lunabelle and Winteriscoming both have crossed the line, bringing the count to 12 (with 4 new).

Well done everyone. I'm still playing to maintain a reasonable ranking, but it's a bit half-hearted now. Did Terry once say he was going to try and work out a way of letting players stop once they reached Immortal without slipping down the table?

I think that applies to the regular play, but not HC. So we have to keep at it in HC to make sure we don't slip from current rank.

Things are speedind up: hardie58 (repeating), flopsymopsy (3rd HC Immortal) and strnog1 (4th HC immortal) are 13th to 15th to the checkered flag - an unprecedented run of top placings by Hardcore candidates!

Wasn't strnog1 already a previous Immortal? Definitely kudos to him/her for making it in HC, though.

Thanks Wes. It's all your fault I did that - I wanted to see if it was easier doing HC with the ** categories in place.


Strnog1 was a previous Immortal and so was I, plus we had both done Hardcore before. I feel like Sir Steve Redgrave who said, after getting his fourth Olympic Gold, that if anyone saw him sit in a boat again they had his permission to shoot him. I'm pretty sure I swore after doing HC the first time that I'd never do it again... but Sir Steve got a fifth Gold so what the heck?

It's raining Immortals: Carti, MikeMaster99, alanwong5, bubblesfun , sooz888 and Emma-Jane. Carti, MikeMaster99 and alanwong5 are new and bubblesfun is the 5th HC player to make it. And yes, all hardcore immortals so far are repeats for both badges this season.

Running totals:

Immortals overall: 21

Hardcore Immortals: 5 (in 1st, 4th, 13th, 14th and 18th overall)
New Immortals: 7

Next three: cubswin2323 (repeating and would have placed much higher if not for a lack of play around New Year), amcoffice (new) and Dando (repeating).

Running totals:

Immortals overall: 24

Hardcore Immortals: 5 (in 1st, 4th, 13th, 14th and 18th overall)
New Immortals: 8

Whew - I made to immortal! I'd like to relax, but now I'm worried..... Do I have to keep playing to the end of Global Challenge to avoid losing the immortal status? Fingers crossed for the relax option.

amcoffice

You can't lose the Immortal status, but if you stop playing you will lose your position in the table - some people care about the latter, others don't.

Anyway, congratulations! You are Immortal!

(Which means taxes forever. )

Thank you for the quick response, flopsymopsy. Heading to the couch - right after I finish this GC set. (I don't know if I can stop this madness.)

amcoffice

Doesn't the Challenge stop when 30 cross the Immortal line? Or am I thinking of something else?

When 30 new ones do, yes. That count as of now is 13.

Speaking of that count:

dunnell (new), mrsniceguy (repeat), knud77 (repeat), genoveva (repeat), BaronBatty (new), Jane_and_Doug (new - does that mean they're now each half immortal?), pyonir (repeat), Picard25 (new) and Dobrila (new) are the most recent graduates.

Running totals:

Immortals overall: 33

Hardcore Immortals: 5 (in 1st, 4th, 13th, 14th and 18th overall)
New Immortals: 13

Best estimate for last set: Saturday afternoon.

I really hope so! I'm assuming I'll manage to hang on 'til then...

Four additions today: ghosttowner (HARDCORE), hosertodd, martin_cube and dippo make it across. No new Immortals this round, but ghosttowner is the first HC player who does not yet have Hardcore Champ.

Running totals:

Immortals overall: 37

Hardcore Immortals: 6 (in 1st, 4th, 13th, 14th, 18th and 34th overall)
New Immortals: 13

Best estimate for last set: Saturday afternoon. Nine of the ten HC badges are locked up, but there's a fierce battle for 10th with four players in the span of 8,000 points.

Thanks Wesley! I guess that is one of the advantages of being laid off from work...I didn't miss many games! Always a silver lining I guess.

Getting closer to the end:

NazPastorRick, tootie0406, Zippy826, CourtCSQ, Luica-pazzza, invinoveritas, Harrynj and JMElston are past the magical 2 million points.

NazPastorRick, tootie0406, Harrynj, Zippy826, CourtCSQ and invinoveritas are all new Immortals. On the other hand, JMElston is making Immortal for the FIFTEENTH time - apart from GC 1, he never missed the title! (Usually he also did the winner ceremonies here - what's up with you?)

Running totals:

Immortals overall: 45

Hardcore Immortals: 6 (in 1st, 4th, 13th, 14th, 18th and 34th overall)
New Immortals: 19

Four more sets after this one if the game doesn't run long. This would also make it one of the fastest GCs ever at 1488 games (only GC9 was shorter than that at 1470 and GC13 was also 1488, every other GC ran beyond 1500)

That was an enormous amount of fun although my family wondered why I was so obsessed with getting on the 'net twice a day while vacation! I'm also in awe of the HC Immortals. I'll give HC a crack next time around but there's so many topics I know so little about that I have no expectations of anything other than embarrassment :-)

Here's our daily package of Immortals:

pain52 (new), meifeng (repeat), the-ellie-mae (new), traveler56 (repeat), froggyx (new), StetsonHat (new), grayyam (repeat), Cleo565 (repeat), pollucci19 (new) and Jaxxon (new).

Running totals:

Immortals overall: 55

Hardcore Immortals: 6 (in 1st, 4th, 13th, 14th, 18th and 34th overall)
New Immortals: 25

Is that Terry over there holding a checkered flag ?

Arrrrrrgh yet again I never made it. Oh well, I'll be back ... lol

Going into what looks likely to be the set that will see the "30 new immortals" mark broken, we add Tomwheat, soplar and Scaevola to the Immortals list. All three are new.

Running totals:

Immortals overall: 58

Hardcore Immortals: 6 (in 1st, 4th, 13th, 14th, 18th and 34th overall)
New Immortals: 28

Five more players (two of them repeats) have a reasonable shot at making it in this afternoon.

...and 13 minutes later it's all done and we have the 30 new Immortals - four out of the five players mentioned used their chance VERY quickly:

nannywoo and frajan complete the 30, browsin52 and Guido24 secure their repeat performance. Edzell_Blue is the last candidate within realistic striking distance (hermet technically has an outside chance with a very strong set involving several bonus topics)

Edit: Edzell_Blue becomes the 63rd Immortal and the 31st new one.

Running totals:

Immortals overall: 63

Hardcore Immortals: 6 (in 1st, 4th, 13th, 14th, 18th and 34th overall)
New Immortals: 31

Might even have made it if the TV Stars Category was actually about TV Stars and not people who have taken part in Survivor. Sorry, they aren't stars. I don't think we even get Survivor in the UK anyway.