MLS WPL Playoffs!!!! [R implied] O.k., Those of you who want another crack at silverware, here’s a format for the playoffs: We’ll have 4 groups of 4 (one of 5), each predicting the outcome of ONE of the semifinals series. The top 2 in each group at the end advance to a semi final group of 4, with the group winner following the winner of that quarterfinal series, and the #2 jumping to the other semi final groups. Also, if you predict the series goes to pks (ahem, dred), you must pick a winner of the series. Am I just being mean? yeah. What will dred do if LA isn't in the final? I fear one of those exploding short circuits they used to do on the old Star Trek! Points are determined as usual, although we’ll need tie breakers: Tie Breaker 1: Net goal differential. If two players are tied, the one that got the closest to the actual differences goes ahead. For example, if the first game ends with a GD of +1 (say chicago 1 DCU 0), but a player predicted a draw (GD of 0), the difference in GDs is –1, if the second game ends CHI 2 DCU 0 and the player predicted a +1 GD chicago win, the player would sit at –2. However, if the player predicted a 3-0 (i.e. predicted one MORE GD than actual), then the player would sit at a net GD of 0, (one too low the first time, one too high the second). Tie Breaker 2: If the absolute values of the net Goal differentials are the same, the player over predicting goals by the winning team goes through. Tie breaker 3: total goals scored by the winning team (or the losing team, you’ll get the same result if their net goal differentials are the same. Tie break 4: random draw SEND ME YOUR PICKS BY PM! When I have all the picks for a group, I’ll post them. I am of course open to suggestions and debate.
Groups Group A predicts CHI-DCU Dred (#1) IASocFan(#8, lowest of #5-#8) MadSirAlexx(#12, lowest of 9-12) Firefan2001 (#16 tied, lowest of 13-16) Goatnutsgoal (#16 tied) Group B predicts SJE – LAG Babytiger2001 (#2) Out_of_Touch (#7 (2nd lowest 5-8, etc.) Flashman (#11) Revolt (#15) Group C predicts NER – MET Jlo (3) Tab5g (6) Fanaddict (10) BenC1357 (14) Group D predicts KCW – COL Scaryice (4) Scribe(5) Kevbrunton (9) Guinho (13)
Alternatively, we could predict all the matches, but compete within groups. contestants, PM me your preference and I'll go on a strict votes received by Wednesday night at midnight CST. G.
Given my leaving out Fanaddict's picks, I'll have to revise the groups (sigh) as follows: Group A predicts CHI-DCU Dred (#1) Out_of_Touch(#8, lowest of #5-#8) MadSirAlexx(#12, lowest of 9-12) Firefan2001 (#16 tied, lowest of 13-16) Goatnutsgoal (#16 tied) Group B predicts SJE – LAG Fanaddict (#2) Tab5g (#7) (2nd lowest 5-8, etc.) Flashman (#11) Revolt (#15) Group C predicts NER – MET Babytiger2001(3) Scribe (6) Kevbrunton (10) BenC1357 (14) Group D predicts KCW – COL Jlo (4) Scaryice (5) IASocFan (9) Guinho (13) Fortunately, this doesn't affect the picks I've already received.
I don't think you covered this, but are people predicting BOTH games right now? I'd prefer predict the first game this week, then the second game this week. What if pick Metros to win both games, but in the first game half the Metros team gets hurt or sent off? Then I'm screwed, by no fault of my own. Is it fine to send in just one pick a week? I've got no preference on the format, just tell me what it is.
O.k., now that I've redone the table, here are the groups: Please put in picks for all four weekend games (or all eight in the series if you like), and then we can worry about how to score them toward the end of the week. I myself am leaning toward counting all eight games, since there won't be much differentiation on only two matches. However, I said I'd let people vote until tomorrow, so I should stand by that. Group A Dred (#1) Out of Touch(#8, lowest of #5-#8) MadSirAlexx(#12, lowest of 9-12) BenC1357 (#16 ) Group B FanAddict (#2) tab5g (#7 (2nd lowest 5-8, etc.) Guinho (#11) sljohn (#15) Group C babytiger2001 (3) Scribe (6) kevbrunton (10) Revolt (14) Group D jlo (4) Scaryice(5) IASocFan(9) FlashMan(13, arbitrarily)
We have a format Well, the early votes were enough to carry the day, since so far it's unanimous that we should all pick scores for all the matches. I agree this is the most sensible. The deadline for any given match is kickoff of that match, so feel free to pm me any changes to your picks up until then. I myself am only doing picks for the first set. Good luck! G.
Great job Guinho! Especially with the recount that bumped me into the Top 16. Do you have a preferred format for the playoff picks?
One more revision, and I'll be dropped into "The Group of Death"!! Guinho, I trust you got my picks? I'd prefer to pick the games a weekend at a time.
tigger: Are you referring to group D? It sure looks like a group of death to me. My death. By the way, I told you to look over your shoulder, didn't I? And sure enough, you got caught. (We can ignore the fact that it wasn't me who caught you.)
Guinho, I don't want to whine, but I will anyway. Your groups are manifestly unfair to me. I get the strongest people from each sub-group. The groups should be set up like tournament brackets, i.e., Group A 1-16 8-9 Group B 2-15 7-10 Group C 3-14 6-11 Group D 4-13 5-12 This way, each group has a "power ranking" of 34 (sum of all positions). Under your system, my group has a "power ranking" of 31, while dred's has a much weaker 37. dred just won the league. He doesn't need to have the playoff table slanted in his favor. Of course, you could decide that dred is entitled to this benefit as a reward for winning the league (like home-field advantage), in which case you may freely disregard my petulant display.
Just a thought, but would it be best to pick the series score instead of each leg? It's sort of like one extended, week-long game. Otherwise there will be some wierd effects on game two. (eg, some scores will be impossible) Doesn't matter too much to me, but I thought it worth mentioning.
Each first round series is indeed one week-long game, but it is made up of two regulation games. And I feel it is best to pick the results of the 90-minute matches at each venue. But if it is changed to just predicting the series score, I would be fine with that. Yes, weird things could happen in the 2nd leg (in terms of some scores not possible due to series draws), but that's the playoffs. Weird things happen. I am also in favor of the the 1-8-9-16, 2-7-10-15, 3-6-11-14, and 4-5-12-13 groupings.
With the almighty Guinho, nothing seems to be too much trouble. Maybe except this. And as far as the pairings go, it doesn't matter to me, 'cause I'm going to win. PS. And I've already made my first round picks, but if you want to just pick the total result of the two games, that'd be fine by me too.
I'm sorry, I don't understand this. How would some scores be rendered impossible? If the series is tied after extra time, we have penalty kicks, right? They aren't going to keep playing forever until somebody scores.
I was assuming that winning with PKs would count as an extra goal. If not, then fine. If PK's don't count as an extra goal however, then people could, for instance, pick the home team to win 1-0 each time and thereby entirely avoid picking a series winner. It seems to me getting the series winner right is more important than getting individual games right.
Nah, dred... you'll do all right. I expect to meet you in the final, or surely sometime before that. And otherwise, if you finished top, why aren't you fronting Group A? Wish it was you that caught me. I don't know why I finished 3rd. After all, I held onto 2nd place for more weeks than anyone else, including Fanaddict, who actually drew level with me. Oh, well, no worries. I can still win something.
USING TOURNAMENT BRACKETS Well, actually, this would be fine, too. The joy of doing nothing ahead of time is that it gives you flexibility! For now, I'm just collecting scores, so we can change the groups however we like. If all seem to like the jlo approach, then we can certainly go with the tournament brackets. I had, of course, initially designed the groups to specifically punish jlo for not overtaking tigs! I'll take these few posts as a sign of consensus and use the tournament groups. WHOLE SERIES SCORES VS INDIVIDUAL GAMES As far as the whole series vs individual games scoring is concerned, I think I'd like to keep it as individual games for two reasons: 1) I have picks from 13 of the 16 playoff participants, so that'd be a lot of revising for people to do. 2) with 8 predictions rather than 4, there's more scope for separation within the groups. This was sort of the idea behind switching from prediciting all 4 series, rather than just 1. With only two predictions, it was too likely we'd get groups with all 4 tied on 2 points, or something like that. USING PKS as tiebreakers Also, I wasn't planning on having PKs count as an extra goal, so getting the actual score (including overtime) correct is what would count. I think we could use getting the overall winner correct as a tiebreaker, though (which would reflect calling the PKs correctly, if that makes sense). An idea for having specific games count for more One other idea I had was to tie specific groups to specific quarterfinals by making a specific series count double for that group as follows: Group A: Chi-DCU would count double (as the SS winner series) Group B: SJE - LAG would count double (as the #2 finisher group. Group C: NER-NYM would count double (as the #3 finisher (NER) series) Group D: KCW - COL would count double (as the #4 finisher series). In the spirit of participatory democracy, what do you think?
dred's right, getting the series winner correct should count for a bunch. How many bonus points do we want to give for this? I'm thinking of counting it as an extra game (i.e. 2 point bonus). G.