Announcing the 2006 World Cup Tipping Competition (Still FREE!!) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ INTRODUCTION : So you think you know a thing or two about World Football? Maybe you just happen to be a betting person. Either way here is a chance to prove yourself and gain the respect of your peers. I have run this competition for the 1994, 1998 and 2002 World Cups and it was fun and I'm doing it again. If you would like to know how the competition panned out in the past and how it works please check out the links above. The 4-year mantle of World Cup Tipping master could be yours. Interested? Well read on. WHO IS THE COMPETITION FOR : Anyone who wants to enter. Give it a try. WHAT YOU MUST DO : Send me a completed entry form where you try to predict the scores of the 48 first round games and rank the teams in their final finishing positions. You can spend as much or as little time filling it out as you like, it's up to you, just fill in the form as required and send it to me at algor@zeta.org.au. I am taking entries from now on. Oh and the deadline is kickoff of the opening match on June 9. So if I get your entry after I've seen even one minute of action your entry is ignored. So please try to make sure you send your entry in with at least 2 days or so to spare. That way if there are any problems with your entry there's still a little time to sort it out. STRUCTURE : You need to supply your name (you can use a nickname) and your E-mail (your real one...and I'm not collecting them for spammers). The reason is that I will need to send you back either a confirmation of your entry or a report on why the entry failed and I will mail every entrant the final result. The competition is structured so that you will be asked to first tip the score of each of the 48 group matches, supplying the scoreline as you believe it will read at the conclusion of each match. You can take into consideration things like the teams past performances against each other (if there were any), qualifying form, team members, predicted current standings in the group, likelyhood of sendoffs and awarding of penalty kicks. Of course you can ignore all that and go with your heart. Then you will be required to enter a number next to each team listed corresponding to how you think they will be ranked after the tournament according to FIFA rules. You must use every number between 1 and 32 inclusive once and only once in rating the teams. You might wish to take into account how the tournament pans out according to your predictions in the first round, or you might want to make the two sections independent. It all depends on how confident you are of being right. The FIFA ranking scheme is based on the following order of importance 1) How far a team progresses in the tournament 2) The points scored based on a 3-1-0 scheme and matches decided on penalty kicks counted as draws. 3) The goal difference 4) Goals scored 5) Alphabetical order (That might not be FIFA's but it is mine) Last of all you will need to enter your choice of the golden boot team of the tournament. By that I mean the team which, in your opinion, will score the most goals in the tournament. You will need to use the number I have assigned to the team, rather than its name. The entry form should make it clear for you. AWARD SCHEME : Not that this will affect your predictions ;) but in the interest of fairness this is how points will be allocated. First Round matches ------------------- 5 points - correctly predicting the exact score 4 points - predicting the correct outcome with the correct margin 4 points - predicting the correct outcome with one correct team score 3 points - predicting the correct outcome 1 point - correctly predicting the score for one of the two teams. For example you predict a score of 1-2 for a given match. actual score points given 1-2 5 2-3 4 0-2 4 2-4 3 3-2 1 0-0 0 In addition you are given points in the first round for predicting the correct group finishing positions, which are implicit in your pick the score predictions. So if your predictions indicate the Dutch will finish 2nd in their group, and they do, then you get 5 points. You can still get 2 points if you fail to predict the correct position, but still tip them to advance into the round of 16. For example your predictions actual result F-A Pts F-A Pts Germany 6-0 7 Germany 10-0 9 Ireland 2-2 6 Saudi Arabia 7-3 6 Cameroon 2-1 4 Cameroon 2-7 3 Saudi Arabia 0-7 0 Ireland 3-12 0 So you would get 5 points for each of Germany and Cameroon, and none for Ireland or Saudi Arabia. Had the table read Ireland, Germany, Cameroon, Saudi Arabia as the actual result you would get 5 points for each of Cameroon and Saudi Arabia, as well as 2 points for each of Germany and Ireland. You get the 2 points for these teams because eventhough they did not fill the slots as you predicted, they did progress to the next round, and you _did_ predict that. Final Round Placings -------------------- 10 points for predicting the exact finishing position of a team 7 points for being 1 place off the finishing position of a team 6 points for being 2 places off the finishing position of a team 5 points for being 3 places off the finishing position of a team 4 points for being 4 places off the finishing position of a team 3 points for being 5 places off the finishing position of a team 2 points for being 6 places off the finishing position of a team 1 point for being 7 places off the finishing position of a team 0 points for any margin greater than 7 places between predicted finishing position of a team and the actual finishing position. So if you had chosen Brazil to finish 3rd and they actually finished 5th you'd get 6 points. Furthermore you will get an _extra_ 10 points for picking the correct champions, and 8 for predicting the runners up. In the same vein you will get 5 points for correctly choosing a team to reach the quarter finals (but no further) and the semi finals (for all four teams). For example if you pick your top eight like this.... Italy, Brazil, Germany, Croatia, Argentina, Spain, Belgium, Mexico and they really end up as.... Italy, Germany, Nigeria, Croatia, Belgium, South Korea, Mexico, Spain you would get bonus points as follows. 10 for getting Italy as the champions + 5 points for Italy reaching the semis + 5 points for Germany reaching the semis + 5 for Croatia reaching the semis + 5 for Spain reaching the quarters + 5 for Belgium reaching the quarters + 5 for Mexico reaching the quarters. You can also get points for predicting success by a darkhorse. A darkhorse is deemed to be any of the 8 teams most likely to come last in their group according to everyones first round tips. So you don't know who they are before you make your choices, but you can probably guess. You can get points for a darkhorse in the following manner. 5 points for predicting entry into round of 16 10 points for entry into quarter finals 15 points for entry into semis 20 points for runners up 25 points for champions If the darkhorse team goes further than you predicted you will still get your points, but of course if you had known better you could have got more points :). Last but not least you get 10 points for predicting the golden boot team. If there is more than one team who gets the most number of goals you will still get 10 points if the team you nominated is one of them. The Maximum number of points available is 903. If you get even half of that you have almost certainly won, but of course it all depends on the other entrants. PRIZE : The honour which you put at stake when you enter, not to mention the respect and adulation of your peers. STATISTICS : Well what better than to see how everyone else has tipped the World Cup? Naturally I will not give you a copy of everyones entry rather a list of statistical data with the following format. Infact I should mention that while I have no intention to hand your entries out to anybody else I also do not intend to delete them. I will keep them for posterity..if you have a problem with this then, well, it's too bad really. Stats for each of the 48 first round games with most popular scoreline and the popularity of either team winning or a draw. Then for each group I will have a list how popular each team is to finish either 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th in their group. The 8 darkhorse teams will also be published in this file. For the final placings a table will be produced indicating how far each team is considered likely to proceed, and how many people nominated them to be the tournaments golden boot. From this data a 'Collective Consciousness' entry will be created and be entered as a player in the competition. An experiment on my part to see whether the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. Along similar lines a 'Popular Opinion' entry will also be created by using the mode, rather than the mean, of all the entries. FINAL LADDER : This is how the top of the final ladder will look like. Below it will be a list of all the players and the scores they got in these categories. I will try to make time to post a progressive table every so often on the Website at http://www.zeta.org.au/~algor/WC2006 so you can track your progress, but I cannot promise how soon after the games this will happen but I aim to do it every day. Points derived from your scoreline predictions : ES = number of games tipped exactly right (worth 5 points each) CR = number of games tipped with a correct outcome (3 points) CM = number of games where the margin was correctly predicted (+1 point) TS = number of games where the score of only one team was correctly predicted (also worth +1 point) Points indirectly derived from your scoreline predictions : CS = The number of teams which end up in the same group position (1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th) as your scoreline predictions indicate they will. (5 points) CP = Number of teams which do not fulfil the CS criterion but whose progression (or failure to progress) was correctly predicted by you. (2 points) Points derived from your final position tips : FPo = Total points gained according to the scoring scheme outlined above. CT = Points gained for correct Champion (10 pts) and runner up (8 pts). CL = How many teams you correctly picked the the ranges 1-4 and 5-8. (Worth 5 points each) Bonuses : DH = Points gained for any Darkhorse predictions as outlined above. GB = This will be either 0 or 10 depending on your success in predicting the top scoring team in the World Cup. TOT = Your final score. The one which determines your final standing. (As an aside the scores are ranked according to your Total score first and if that does not resolve it the CT, ES and FPo columns are used in that order. If that still does not resolve the issue I have left it to the vagaries of the UNIX (TM) 'sort' command to decide. If there is a tie for the winner on the above criteria joint winners will be declared.) Tip the Group Final score stage posn. placings Bonus Sum ----------- ----- --------- ----- --- POS Name ES CR CM TS CS CP FPo CT CL DH GB TOT 76 Thomas Esamie 3 11 3 22 14 6 87 0 2 20 10 282 QUERIES : All queries regarding the competition rules, award schemes ... etc should be directed to me, Thomas Esamie, on algor@zeta.org.au. Before you try I can assure you much time was spent creating this competition and there is NO WAY to change the rules, none whatsoever. CREDITS : I also have to, again, extend my thanks to the people who helped me to run this originally in 1994 so..... My sincere thanks to Christopher Allen, Andrew Busa, Simon Gleave, Stephen Halchuk, Kent Hedlundh, Ariel Mazzarelli, Tsiel Ohayon, Steven Rix, Steve Soloman, Karel Stokkermans and Gustaaf van Moorsel. These people helped straighten my muddled thoughts, kindly wasted their time in helping me formulate and test the parameters of the game, and promised to keep the participation above 10 people.....I just hope they come back.