Top Chef Fantasy League

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Syracuse Orange programming to bring you this important message...

Look, I gave you the heads up in my first post.  This blog will primarily be a Syracuse basketball related blog.  But there will be other posts  from time to time.  Among my other interests I laid out for you are cooking and games.  Particularly, anytime I can turn something into some form of gambling or fantasy league, I am all in.  Just side bets though, no gambling problems here.

So there I found myself this past Wednesday night, watching the premiere of the latest Top Chef season.  Half-jokingly, I suggested to Lindsey that we should do a fantasy Top Chef league.  She didn't hate the idea and that was all I needed to take it and run with it.

So with that I proudly introduce to you the scoring system for the first annual Top Chef fantasy league.  Feel free to play along at home.  I will post a weekly scoring update to encourage participation.

Chef Eliminated in Week ___:

1 - (-10) pts
2 - (-8) pts
3 - (-6) pts
4 - (-4) pts
5 - (-2) pts
6 - 0 pts
7 - 2 pts
8 - 4 pts
9 - 6 pts
10 - 8 pts
11 - 10 pts
12 - 15 pts
13 - 20 pts
14 - 25 pts
15 - 50 pts


Quickfire Win: 5 pts
Elimination Challenge Win: 10 pts

Quickfire Honorable Mention: 1 pt
Elimination Challenge Honorable Mention: 2 pts

Quickfire Dishonorable Mention: (-1) pt
Elimination Challenge Dishonorable Mention: (-2) pts

Member of the winning Restaurant Wars Team: 5 pts
Member of the losing Restaurant Wars Team: (-5) pts

And just for fun, here are the teams that Lindsey and I wound up with in our draft this weekend and some quick analysis.

Our stakes still need to be finalized before the first real episode tonight, but they will probably involve steaks.

Lindsey:
Micah Fields
Jeffrey Jew
Eliza Gavin
Sheldon Simeon
Elizabeth Binder
Kuniko Yagi
Tyler Wiard

Jay:
John Tesar
Kristen Kish
Brooke Williamson
Chrissy Camba
Joshua Valentine
Bart Vandaele
Danyele McPherson

Left Out: Carla Pellegrino

Lindsey was most happy that she got Elizabeth Binder so late, she thinks she has a chance to be real good.  I was also happy Lindsey wound up with Binder, because I don't remember her at all from the premiere.  She was really upset that she didn't wind up with the Asian Model, Kristen Kish, originally haven taken her with her 2nd pick before switching to Jeffrey.

I think Eliza will be good and would have gladly had her on my team, but not over either of my top two picks, so I can't complain too much.  I love my late round grabs of Josh and Bart.  They may be voted off the first two weeks, but at least I get to vote for that awesome mustache and accent in the meantime.

We both were a little surprised at the end to look up and realize Carla was the one left out.  I think she could stick around for a long time solely based on her brash personality and the storyline/ratings that will generate.  Confrontational people tend to find a way to skate by at the judges table.  I'm not accusing Bravo of rigging anything for better ratings, I'm just saying Tim Donaghy may be on their Board of Directors.

Quickly, I will apologize for not getting this post up sooner, as the first real episode airs tonight.  But if you still want to play along at home, fear not.  Because there is an odd number of chefs, you can easily skip week 1 with no real issues.

Happy Drafting!