CONCACAF Qualifying For World Cup 2018 Prediction Contest: Round 1 [R]

Round 1 is worth 4.2% of the total. The rest is 8.0% for Round 2, 7.8% for Round 3, 30.0% for Round 4 (Semifinals), and 50.0% for Round 5 (Hexagonal). Having more games made a round worth more and I made the later rounds worth more points per game. For Round 1, predict the score of all 14 games. The second legs could need extra time, but predict the score after regulation and separately say who you think will advance in extra time or penalty kicks if that's what you predict. In each pair the first team listed will host the first leg. Predictions for both legs of each series must be made before the first leg starts. The games start on March 23.

Bahamas-Bermuda
British Virgin Islands-Dominica
Barbados-U.S. Virgin Islands
Turks and Caicos Islands-St. Kitts and Nevis
Nicaragua-Anguilla
Belize-Cayman Islands
Curacao-Montserrat

I'm going to call everybody who predicted last time:
@Dr. Gamera
@kman1456
@SocaWarrior23
@ChaChaFut
@blacksun
@Catracho_Azul
@IASocFan
@drt2k3
@jagum
@zenryan
@Revolt
@PanchoM
@TBR
@Popol Vuh
@TrueCrew
@mclip_66
@ja2ny
@Cody667
@winster
@ZeekLTK
@PARS
@Ironkick14
@thedragonrik58
@G Dawg
@icii
@Latin Pride
@ceezmad
@faiyez
@USOutlaw16
@El Niño Orgulloso
@City Dave
@NMMatt
@Matt121

That's 33 people. 12 people who predicted last time didn't have their username show up. People who didn't predict last time are welcome also.

 

@Outburstz
@chec

I want score predictions for each leg. Of the 4.2% for this round, a quarter will come from Leg 1 score predictions, a quarter will come from Leg 2 score predictions, and a half will come from predicting the aggregate winners.

 

Predict actual scores like Dr. Gamera did. Here are my predictions, which are close to Dr. Gamera's (I predicted the same score as him for exactly one leg of every series):

Bahamas 1:1 Bermuda
Bermuda 2:0 Bahamas

British Virgin Islands 1:2 Dominica
Dominica 2:1 British Virgin Islands

Barbados 3:0 US Virgin Islands
US Virgin Islands 1:2 Barbados

Turks and Caicos Islands 0:2 St. Kitts and Nevis
St. Kitts and Nevis 4:0 Turks and Caicos Islands

Nicaragua 4:0 Anguilla
Anguilla 0:2 Nicaragua

Belize 2:0 Cayman Islands
Cayman Islands 1:1 Belize

Curacao 3:0 Montserrat
Monserrat 2:2 Curacao

Aggregate winners: Bermuda, Dominica, Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis, Nicaragua, Belize, and Curacao

I'm going to adjust the score predictions differently than I have in the past. First each score prediction will get:

4 for an exact score
3 for a correct result and 1 goal too high on both teams, 1 goal too low on both teams, or 1 goal off on either direction on one team and correct for the other team
2 for any other correct result
0 for a wrong result

After the 14 games, I will add up everybody's score out of 56. The highest score will get a perfect adjusted score of 2.1. The lowest score will get an adjusted score of 0. Perfect scores and scores of 0 can happen more than once if there is a tie. Everybody else will be distributed proportionally. To give a simple example, let's say the highest score was 31 and the lowest score was 10, for a range of 21 (I picked 21 because it is a multiple of 2.1). Each person's adjusted score would be (score - 10)/10. A person with 25 points would get (25 - 10)/10 = 1.5 adjusted points out of 2.1. It is likely that the scores will not work out to multiples of 0.1 and I will have to round decimals.

The aggregate winner predictions are simple to evaluate. They are worth 2.1 points (0.3 each).

If anybody wants to use these:

http://www.eloratings.net/america.html is the ELO Ratings for CONCACAF and some other countries
http://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/ranking-table/men/concacaf.html is the FIFA Rankings for CONCACAF

 

I use to grade score predictions on a 3, 2, 1, or 0 scale but then I decided that a correct outcome should be worth more than one-third of an exact score, so I now grade on a 4, 3, 2, or 0 scale. Just like in qualifying for World Cup 2014, this contest will include every round of qualifying and take well over two years. http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads...4-prediction-contest-hexagonal.1977735/page-4 has the final standings from the last prediction contest. In the Semifinals and Hexagonal people will need to make standings predictions, so it won't be game outcomes only. For the whole competition, 58.4% will be from score predictions and 41.6% will be from standings predictions.

 

Nobody is eliminated. Anybody can predict any round. It's possible to be mathematically eliminated from winning the contest before the last Hexagonal matchday just like a team could be eliminated before the last matchday. My reason for adjusting scores to 0 (which i have done before) is that different components are worth different percentages, and different components are not predicted equally well. For example, Round 1 has score predictions and aggregate winner predictions worth 2.1% each. I'd expect most people to get at least 5 out of 7 teams that advance correctly. In order to get 5/7ths of the points from score predictions before they are adjusted, a person would need to predict the exact score for 5/7ths of the games (10 out of 14) with the other 4 results wrong or fewer exact scores and more correct results.
You have made me thought of an alternate method of adjustment where nothing is adjusted to 0 (unless all your score predictions have the wrong result and are 0 without being adjusted). This alternate method would make score predictions and result predictions for Round 1 contribute the same amount of points for everybody combined. I would take each person's score predictions score and divide by the sum of the scores. Then I would multiple by a value determined by how good the aggregate winner predictions are. Maybe I'll type more about this later.

 

Wikipedia says there was a change and St. Kitts and Nevis will now host the first leg.

 

The first game is March 22. Would anybody else like to make predictions?

@kman1456
@SocaWarrior23
@ChaChaFut
@Catracho_Azul
@IASocFan
@drt2k3
@zenryan
@Revolt
@PanchoM
@TBR
@Popol Vuh
@TrueCrew
@mclip_66
@ja2ny
@Cody667
@winster
@ZeekLTK
@PARS
@Ironkick14
@thedragonrik58
@G Dawg
@icii
@Latin Pride
@ceezmad
@faiyez
@USOutlaw16
@El Niño Orgulloso
@City Dave
@NMMatt
@Matt121

 

The games begin on Sunday. Only 12 people have predicted so far compared to 31 in Round 1 of qualifying for World Cup 2014.

@ChaChaFut
@drt2k3

The order was changed and St. Kitts and Nevis will host the first leg.