The Lone Ranger 2022/23 - Round 1

Welcome to the start of The Lone Ranger for 2022/23! It is our fourth season of The Lone Ranger and we've crowned woodork , SydneyR and MCM Hoop over the past 3 seasons!

Entry is FREE and couldn't be simpler. All the rules are below – for those who played last season there are no changes but there is now a prize on offer across the forum... if you can take the title in The Lone Ranger AND also become champion in one of Home & Away or our QPR Prediction League you can win a QPR shirt ahead of 2023/24*. Take 2 of the 3 titles and win a QPR shirt.

You start The Lone Ranger with 10 lives and the aim of the game is to ensure you don't lose all your lives, thus avoiding elimination. If you are the last player standing when all others have fallen by the wayside you will be crowned “The Lone Ranger”. The game has been played over 33 rounds in the past and the intention will be to have the same amount this season. Due to the World Cup break there will be more midweek rounds this season as a result so watch out for them.

All you have to do it pick a team from The Premier League or Championship you think will win from the fixtures each week (available teams depends on the days the teams are playing and also who you have selected previously – more on this below). The team you select can be playing at home or away, you simply pick a team you think will win.

So entry literally consists of just typing 1 team name each week.

Each player who enters starts the season with 10 lives.

> If the team you picked wins you gain half a life
> If they draw you lose 1 life
> If the team you picked lets you down and gets defeated you lose 2 of your lives

Lose all of your lives at any stage and you are out of the game. So players will drop out at various stages but it will be a month or two before anybody is eliminated.

The catch is you can only select each team once for the duration of the game. So if you choose QPR in Round 1 you can never select them again. You effectively have a choice of 44 teams at the start of the season, then 43, then 42 and so on from the Premier League/Championship selection pool. You can only select Man City and Liverpool once! There will be a separate Team Log in 'The Lone Ranger' section of the site that will be updated each week to remind you which teams you have already selected but please try to avoid selecting the same team twice.

If you forget to enter a round or enter a team you have already chosen in the past you will lose 2.5 lives as a penalty.

The game could end at any point later in the season but in the event that a number of players have avoided elimination by the last round of the season the winner will be the player with the highest remaining total of lives - so you need to keep totting up the wins regardless of whether you are close to elimination or not.

MCM Hoop was our champion last season with 5 lives remaining at the end of the campaign and we had 5 players who avoided elimination. Nobody has made it through all 3 seasons of The Lone Ranger. It’s tough!

In the event that players are tied on lives, the player with the longest consecutive winning streak at any stage of the season will win. If that is still tied it will be the player with the longest unbeaten run followed by the highest number of wins predicted.

ENTERING THE GAME:

If you are not already a member you simply need to become a site member to play The Lone Ranger; it is FREE and takes literally a minute to get logged in by clicking HERE. Once registered you stay logged in whenever you visit the site in future and can also post your QPR views across the site. You will also be able to take part in our other prediction games... the QPR Prediction League and Win, Lose & Draw. As I mentioned above if you can triumph in 2 of the 3 competitions this season you can win a QPR shirt.


Below are the fixtures available fixtures for Round 1. You simply need to choose any team you think will win, hit 'reply' above and post the team name to complete your entry. You'll need to repeat this each round throughout the season; each week of the competition will have its own thread with available fixtures.

This competition will mainly just run each weekend with a midday Saturday deadline, but sometimes there may be midweek rounds to make sure we get the full quota of 33 rounds. I will try to make it clear in advance when these are coming up - this usually happens later in the season when the FA Cup kicks in but with the World Cup this season they will be more frequent than usual.

Some rounds may have less teams available to choose from depending on the dates of fixtures and which leagues are active - for example Friday night matches will never be available to allow for a Saturday deadline.
Round 1 this season only has Championship fixtures available as the Premier League starts a week later but this is the only round of the season when this will occur. There will be a week off each time it is the international round of fixtures and there will be a break during the World Cup.

I will usually put up a few weeks ready for entry in advance.

Here we go then...

Round 1 fixtures: - simply select one team you think will win and post their name below to enter

Blackburn Rovers v Queens Park Rangers
Blackpool v Reading
Cardiff City v Norwich City
Hull City v Bristol City
Luton Town v Birmingham City
Millwall v Stoke City
Rotherham United v Swansea City
Wigan Athletic v Preston North End
Middlesbrough v West Bromwich Albion
Sunderland v Coventry City
Watford v Sheffield United


Points of note this week > No Premier League matches this week. Huddersfield Vs Burnley unavailable as they are playing on Friday night


Entries to be received by midday on Saturday 30 July 2022


Rule breakdown:








*UK Only – If you win 2 of our 3 Prediction Games (QPR Prediction League / The Lone Ranger / Home & Away) you win a QPR 2023/24 shirt of your choice