Euro 2008 Prediction Competition

[Krill]

Switzerland vs Portugal 1-3
Turkey vs Czech Republic 1-2

Austria vs Germany 1-2
Poland vs Croatia 0-2

France vs Italy 1-2
Netherlands vs Romania 1-1

Greece vs Spain 0-2
Russia vs Sweden 1-2

[Locutus]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Yay, I'm still last

Yeah, I have to say, getting only 6 points out of 16 predictions, that's impressive I'm not sure I could do that if I tried

[Cort Haus]

What I meant to say was:

Switzerland vs Portugal 0-2
Turkey vs Czech Republic 1-2

Greece v Spain 0-2

[Krill]

I missed the first eight games, but I've closed the points deficit from 18 to ten, which isn't too shabby.

[Solver]

Locutus, you should post the Excel screenshot again, too Despite being tied for first I probably have one of the lowest percentages of exact scores guessed. I only got 3 exact scores right, all of them in group D, too.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Krill
I missed the first eight games, but I've closed the points deficit from 18 to ten, which isn't too shabby.

I noticed that. Well played, sir.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Krill
I missed the first eight games, but I've closed the points deficit from 18 to ten, which isn't too shabby.

Yeah, both you and McMeadows are doing an impressive job of catching up on the leaderboard despite your late starts.

Originally posted by Solver
Locutus, you should post the Excel screenshot again, too Despite being tied for first I probably have one of the lowest percentages of exact scores guessed. I only got 3 exact scores right, all of them in group D, too.

Fair point, I guess I spoiled people with those extra stats You're actually not doing too poorly -- exact predictions are always pretty rare.

[Locutus]

And for those who want to play along at home

[Locutus]

BTW, quick reminder for Monk, you still haven't submitted any predictions for tonight.

[Solver]

Question on the rules... why are we predicting results after 90 minutes for playoffs? It's the final result that matters after all, not the one after 90 minutes, which may not be the final one.

[Locutus]

Because that's how we've always done it

It's also by far the most common way football bets/predictions are settled, that's just how everyone does it. Predicting the final result is problematic, if it comes down to penalties it could easily be something like 9-8 which is not really something you can predict.

Even if you just count extra time, under the golden/silver goal era that was quite biased towards certain results (i.e. against draws) though I guess as we've gotten rid of those rules that's not quite as important anymore. However, it's likely that a 120-minute match will result in more goals than a 90-minute one, so that's still biased in favour of higher-scoring results with no way of knowing in advance which matches will go for 120 minutes. It basically forces you to make two predictions in one: if you expect a match will end in a draw, you also have to predict what the result of the extra time will be. That makes it that much harder to get the right result if you expect a match will be close and end in a draw after full time. It's just a messy situation, the result after full time is more predictable and therefore it's more skillful to get it right on a consistent basis.

If you want to do it right, what you're really asking for is to predict who goes through to the next round, in addition to what the result will be after 90 minutes -- those are really two separate things. But as the knock-out phases are decided over just a single match that's almost the same as predicting the result after full time anyway, so that's just not as interesting (and it suffers from the classic rich-get-richer game design problem )

[LordShiva]

Changing prediction:

Switzerland-Portugal 1-1

[Monk]

Switzerland vs Portugal 1-2
Turkey vs Czech Republic 1-1

Austria vs Germany 3-1
Poland vs Croatia 1-1

France vs Italy 1-1
Netherlands vs Romania 4-1

(This would end up as a three-way tie for second place. Wonder how they'll figure out who gets to go on?)

Greece vs Spain 1-1
Russia vs Sweden 0-2

[Solver]

France vs Italy 1-1
Netherlands vs Romania 4-1

(This would end up as a three-way tie for second place. Wonder how they'll figure out who gets to go on?)

That would mean Italy qualifies.

[LordShiva]

What's teh deciding factor in that case?