2019 Season - Prediction Contest

Discussion in 'NWSL' started by cpthomas, Mar 12, 2019.

  1. 59Amerinorsk

    59Amerinorsk Member

    Chicago Red Stars
    Norway
    Mar 31, 2017
    Well, I am in last place (is there a "trophy" for cellar dweller?) so what the fun, I will go with:
    NC 2, HOU 2
    TAXI 2, UTA 2
     
    CoachJon, McSkillz and blissett repped this.
  2. blissett

    blissett Member+

    Aug 20, 2011
    Italy
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    Your extra-rule would separate who predicts a generic "blow out" from who could happen to actually predict the exact score? If a game ends 6-0, and two competitors respectively predicted 6-0 and 4-0, they both get the same number of points, or the one nailing the 6-0 gets anything extra? If they get the same, I am not sure I agree with this one.

    Also, I guess it could be a way to help the robot just where it's weaker: a statistics-based robot could sometimes (if very seldom) predict a "generic" blowout, but by definition it will never predict a "statistical oddity" as the occasional 6-0 score is; a human, instead, could do that.
     
  3. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    The rule would have to be crafted well enough to make sure there's some balance, sure. My thought for this example - and it's just a thought - is that someone who nails a 6-0 prediction should get the "blowout bonus point" on top of the normal 3pt reward, so they'd still be ahead of the 4-0 predictor. That is, since blowouts are so rare, if you happen to nail it on the head, then I think it's fair you get 4 out of 3 possible points. X-D

    As for the origin of the "team score" rule, it was a derivative of a previous rule that needed correction. Previously, it was possible to get points if you predicted the total number of goals scored in a match. Understandably, this created some backwards-rewards situation when someone would predict 1-2 and the game ended 3-0. So we refined the rule to say that predicting either team's scoring capability was worth points instead of the game overall. And I think it's still worth it as-is. To use your example of predictions 3-0 and 0-1 versus a real score of 2-1, player A got the win, but player B knew how good the away team's offense would match the home team's defense, which I think is still worth something - especially since, in this case, player B correctly predicted a close game (which is what happened) while player A predicted a one-sided affair.

    Anyway, I realize I haven't predicted my midweek games yet.

    NC 4-1 HOU
    SEA 0-1 UTA
     
    McSkillz and blissett repped this.
  4. CoachJon

    CoachJon Member+

    Feb 1, 2006
    Rochester, NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    CJ Midweek

    NC 3 HOU 1
    SEATAC 1 UTA 1

    [​IMG]
     
    59Amerinorsk and blissett repped this.
  5. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It occurs to me that there's a question: Do we want participants predicting what they really think the score will be; or do we want them to do a risk/reward calculation and sometimes predict what they don't think the score will be but with the possibility of scoring big?

    If we start giving bonuses for "crazy" predictions, then we'll be encouraging some participants to make predictions they don't really think willl come true but with the possibility of a big reward. For example, suppose we were to award 10 points for correctly predicting 7 goals (hasn't happened). A participant is down in the standings and wants to take a huge risk in exchange for a huge reward, so predicts 7 goals even though thinking there's no way it will happen. And, the team indeed scores 7. Do we want to reward that?

    I started thinking this way when I considered the possibility of giving points based on the statistical likelihood of the number of goals scored. In that kind of system, a correct prediction of 6 goals would get about 30 times the number of points that a correct prediction of 1 would get.

    Here are data for the last full regular season's worth of games. They might help in thinking about possible changes to the scoring system:

    upload_2019-9-17_11-10-30.png
     
    McSkillz and blissett repped this.
  6. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    And, a thought on a reverse issue based on the Courage 1-0 win over the Dash. Some predicted 4-1, some 3-1, and one 2-2. All scored 1 point, except for the 2-2. Why should the 4-1 get the same score as the 3-1, which was closer to the true goal differential? And, the 2-2 was just as close to the true goal differential as the 3-1. This is where trying to score based on how much you missed by begins to look like a nightmare.
     
  7. McSkillz

    McSkillz Member+

    ANGEL CITY FC, UCLA BRUINS
    United States
    Nov 22, 2014
    Los Angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It does sound like a nightmare. We should just keep it simple next year, if you predict the exact score line, you get like 5 points, if you don't predict the exact scoreline, you get 0 points. See how that holds over the course of the season.

    How common is it for us to predict exact scores?
     
  8. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The winner is: the cyborg, BSBrainTrust! With blissett as the best of the humans.

    FawcettFan14 5
    Smallchief 7
    McSkillz 7
    BlueCrimson 9
    59Amerinorsk 4
    blissett 10
    lunatica 6
    SiberianThunderT 8
    Blaze20 1
    cpthomas 7
    holden 9
    CoachJon 8
    Tapas&Futbol 8
    BSBrainTrust 11
     
    McSkillz and blissett repped this.
  9. blissett

    blissett Member+

    Aug 20, 2011
    Italy
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    Looks like I was right in predicting a X-0 score for the NC game, after all: I just missed by 5 goals! :p I threw away 1 point out of possible 3, but I don't think I would have predicted a measly 1-0 anyway, so basically my reasonment of just gambling about the amount of the X in a X-0 score was correct and I've got 2 points out of it, that's the most everyone got (I don't think anyone correctly nailed the 1-0 to get the full three points).

    Of course, without Campbell in goal for Houston it could have maybe been a 6-0 indeed, but NC won through a somehow questionable PK (that Campbell was even close to save too!), so I won't complain. :p

    I am aware that it's a much more taxing simulation than the one @McSkillz asked to you, @cpthomas, but I would be curious to know if our chart would change very much (both in positioning and distances between competitors) if the "team score" rule didn't exist. I guess that, if we're supposed to change anything next year, we need some data to better know what to choose.
     
  10. blissett

    blissett Member+

    Aug 20, 2011
    Italy
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    I'll add that the only one who predicted a 6-0 (me) got the best score of them all with 2 points. However you look at it, it's difficult to claim that with my 6-0 score was closer to the real thing than people who predicted a 3-1. Yes, I correctly predicted that Houston wasn't going to score to Courage, but it sounds anyway weird that my 6-0 prediction was the best awarded one from this Tuesday.
     
  11. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    To be entirely fair, the league's standings do consider W/D/L result to be more important than GD in terms of overall standings, so if we want to work on a similar principle, then it makes sense 6-0 is a "more correct" prediction than 2-2 when it comes to a 1-0 result.

    This has got me thinking about a new radical idea though: instead of just tweaking the current system, we could completely blow it up and start from scratch. I still think knowing how many goals team A scores against team B is worth predicting, regardless of how many B scores against A, but we can start to capture the prediction of "competitiveness" if we abandon the binary 1/0 "team score" rule and instead make it (and the GD rule) a sliding scale:
    5pts for team A's exact score - followed by 3pts for 1 off, 2pts for 2 off, 1pt for 3 off
    5pts for team B's exact score - same scale
    3pts for the correct game GD - followed by 1pt for the GD being 1 off (plus a potential "blowout bonus point" for predicting at least 3 when the real result is at least 3)
    3pts for the correct W/D/L
    = 16pts available per game

    In this case, a 6-0 prediction on a 1-0 result gives 0+5+0+3=8pts while the 2-2 prediction for the same 1-0 results give 3+3+1+0=7pts.
    The blowout W prediction is still worth 1pt more than the close-game D prediction, but the relative worth of the two predictions is a lot more similar at 8pts/7pts than 1pt/0pts.
    It's a lot more complicated than what we currently have, and the prediction contest was never meant to be super-complicated - since its inception, everyone kinda accepted that a simple ruleset would miss some nuance - but it we want to turn it into something the fantasy sports leagues that are more involved, it's certainly an option.
     
    cpthomas repped this.
  12. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    That kind of system would work for me.
     
  13. Tapas&Fútbol

    Tapas&Fútbol Member

    Real Betis
    Spain
    Apr 11, 2019
    Seville (Spain)
    Week 22 (midweek)
    Courage 2-1 Dash *
    Reign 2-2 Royals

    * Post #462.
     
  14. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Thanks for the asterisk. I missed it. You're the second scorer of 2 points for that game.

    Although maybe that game, too, needs an *. If you read between the lines on Crystal Dunn's tweet, she seems to agree it was a bogus call -- although making clear she did not dive, with which I completely agree.

    *Ref decided to give the game to the Courage.
     
    Tapas&Fútbol repped this.
  15. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Teaser:

    If teams were to finish in their current order (before tonight's game) of points scored per game played, lunatica would be the winner of the Final Ladder portion of the prediction contest.:geek::thumbsup:
     
    Tapas&Fútbol and blissett repped this.
  16. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Tonight's game postponed due to weather-related field conditions. Predictors will get to make new predictions for the re-scheduled game.
     
    blissett and McSkillz repped this.
  17. BlueCrimson

    BlueCrimson Member+

    North Carolina Courage
    United States
    Nov 21, 2012
    Cincinnati, Ohio
    Club:
    Sydney FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Chicago 2, Washington 1
    Utah 1, North Carolina 2
    Reign 2, SkyBlue 1
    Weeds 6, Houston 0 (I'm hoping the scoreline will be much more lopsided in the Weeds' favor, but I'm predicting 6-0)
     
    blissett repped this.
  18. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    CHI 2-1 DC
    UTA 1-0 NC
    SEA 1-1 NJ
    POR 2-2 HOU (I know it looks odd, but both teams will be out for a result after their respective losses to NC. POR has the better team but HOU has more reason to be looking for a result and also has more reason to feel like they deserve better)
     
    blissett repped this.
  19. blissett

    blissett Member+

    Aug 20, 2011
    Italy
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    CHI 3 WAS 1
    UTA 1 NC 1
    SEA 1 NJ 0
    POR 2 HOU 0

    NC recent scores have prompted a chase for the 6-0 perfectly nailed prediction, the Holy Grail to any predictor! :giggle: Best wishes to you to grab for it, @BlueCrimson! :thumbsup:
     
  20. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The robot says:

    Red Stars 2 v Spirit 1
    Royals 1 v Courage 2
    Reign 2 v Sky Blue 1
    Thorns 2 v Dash 1

    The robot isn't feeling very creative this week. Of course, it never feels creative.
     
    blissett repped this.
  21. McSkillz

    McSkillz Member+

    ANGEL CITY FC, UCLA BRUINS
    United States
    Nov 22, 2014
    Los Angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    CHI 2-1 DC
    UTA 1-2 NC
    SEA 2-1 NJ
    POR 2-1HOU

    For the first time, I'm just going to be lazy and copy the robot. It must know more than me if I keep losing to it.
     
    cpthomas repped this.
  22. 59Amerinorsk

    59Amerinorsk Member

    Chicago Red Stars
    Norway
    Mar 31, 2017
    CHI 3-1 WAS
    UTA 2-2 NC
    TAXI 2-2 NJNY
    POR 2-2 HOU

    :po_O;):confused::cool:
     
    lunatica and blissett repped this.
  23. lunatica

    lunatica Member+

    Nov 20, 2013
    CHI 3-1 DC
    UTA 1-2 NC
    SEA 2-1 NJ
    POR 2-0 HOU
     
  24. Tapas&Fútbol

    Tapas&Fútbol Member

    Real Betis
    Spain
    Apr 11, 2019
    Seville (Spain)
    Week 22 (weekend)
    Red Stars 2-1 Spirit
    Royals 2-2 Courage
    Reign 1-0 Sky Blue
    Thorns 3-2 Dash
     
  25. CoachJon

    CoachJon Member+

    Feb 1, 2006
    Rochester, NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It is 8:30 ish ET, too late for CHI WAS

    CHI WAS; no pick
    UTA 1-2 NC
    SEA 2-1 NJ
    POR 2-1 HOU
     

Share This Page