Eurobasket 2009 Predictions Game

[Victorious]

I missed the games of today. I'm still in time for the game Croatia - France.

I predict: France win by 9

[Panco]

Damn, I guess all of today's games wrong..

[wyopeq]

Damn, I guess all of today's games wrong..

nıceeee
I guessed Macedons correctly

[Billy Bounce]

Come on , guys , you can't be serious : six late submission in one setting

Apart of me not really enjoying adding the preds manually (to say the least ), you got the advantage of knowing nearly the exact odds without giving a chance to other players to respond

Please set an alarm clock, place a thousand of stick notes in your office, make a tattoo on your forehead, but submit your preds in time

And, Victorious ... buddy i know it's a tough round , but are you sure you want to add Croatia-France only , skipping 3 other games ?

[Billy Bounce]

Game Round 5 ( till today )
1 robbe 17.30
2 re5pectas 10.42
3 Levenspiel 6.875
4 adebisi 6.30
5 Mindozas 4.30

Overall Scores
1 Levenspiel 56.41
2 Panco 52.86
3 robbe 44.11
4 wyopeq 42.55
5 Mindozas 40.22

[Billy Bounce]

Kudos to robbe for guessing all 3 games correct

[robbe]

Kudos to robbe for guessing all 3 games correct

What do you mean, "guessing"?

[ArkadiosV2]

What do you mean, "guessing"?

robbe does guess. robbe knows.

[Sin Borisko]

Spain-Lithuania +21
Slovenia-Poland +7
Serbia-Turkey +12

[kux]

Spain-Lithuania +16
Slovenia-Poland + 18
Serbia-Turkey + 2

[Billy Bounce]

Game Round 5
1 adebisi 23.53
2 re5pectas 15.28
3 Gytaz 14.11
4 Mindozas 11.53
5 robbe 11.30

Overall Scores
1 Panco 60.10
2 Levenspiel 58.26
3 wyopeq 53.79
4 adebisi 52.07
5 Mindozas 47.45

The Lithuanian Lobby strikes back : the round top4 is Lithuanian and Panco regained his leadership

[Billy Bounce]

There is sth I don't understand here. The odds r variable, right? I mean, they change each time someone adds his predictions. So with what odds do each one's predictions count? The ones that existed when he submitted the predictions or the final ones?
In the first case each one of us has a different set of odds 4 his predictions, therefore a different motivation 2 bet on surprise results and different reward 4 predicting one. In the second case we really don't know the odds we r betting on until the last person submits predictions(or at least until the majority gives a prediction).
So shouldn't the odds b fixed from the beginning?

Like Mindozas said, it's a good point.

At the present time the odds are indeed variable, each prediction effects the odds and the final scores are calculated using the odds after everybody submitted their preds.

It's not a perfect system, I aware of it, but re-citing Churchill "it's the worst system except for all those others that have been tried"

Ok, have to run. I'll explain myself later.

[Billy Bounce]

Ok, here are the alternatives you purposed:

1) to count the odds at the time of predictions submission
2) to use the fixed odds from the beginning of predictions submission

The first system is simple not fair in my view, it gives rather big advantage to those who submit earlier.

Think of the classic underdog - favorite match , e.g. Poland - Spain . Now the odds are 6.75 - 1.17 , but if you will be the first to submit your preds ( when the odds are even 2.00 - 2.00 ) then you'll get 2 points for a rather safe prediction. Not to mention the possibility to fake the first vote for underdog and then taking the fat 3 points for a Spanish win.

Yea, I know that he present system kinda favors the late submissions, in a sense that the odds you see will be nearly the same as the final odds. On the other hand, fake votes won't influence the present system too much (under the assumption that most votes are fair ) because fake preds are statistically negligible.

The second system of fixed odds will raise the straight question of where to get those odds ?
The options are : to elect someone from neutral country ( Swiss ? ) who is well aware of all injuries and possible match-ups to decide the odds or to take the odds from some betting agencies

The first option looks like a bad idea. Besides the difficulties of finding such a man and getting his agreement to work hard every round ... think of the situation when some key-player got injured after the odds are fixed and most of the votes are submitted. What to do, to change the odds ?

The second option is even worse. First of all, I don't like the idea that some smart asses with questionable basketball knowledge would influence our scores. The second problem is to decide which of thousands betting agencies to pick as a reference. The third one is that our game is essentially non-commercial , go figure maybe betting agency will sue our (interbasket) asses for using their stuff.

Damn, I wanted to make it short, but somehow wrote quite a message , hope you're bored enough to read it till now

[Mindozas]

Ok, here are the alternatives you purposed:

1) to count the odds at the time of predictions submission
2) to use the fixed odds from the beginning of predictions submission

The first system is simple not fair in my view, it gives rather big advantage to those who submit earlier.

Think of the classic underdog - favorite match , e.g. Poland - Spain . Now the odds are 6.75 - 1.17 , but if you will be the first to submit your preds ( when the odds are even 2.00 - 2.00 ) then you'll get 2 points for a rather safe prediction. Not to mention the possibility to fake the first vote for underdog and then taking the fat 3 points for a Spanish win.

Yea, I know that he present system kinda favors the late submissions, in a sense that the odds you see will be nearly the same as the final odds. On the other hand, fake votes won't influence the present system too much (under the assumption that most votes are fair ) because fake preds are statistically negligible.

The second system of fixed odds will raise the straight question of where to get those odds ?
The options are : to elect someone from neutral country ( Swiss ? ) who is well aware of all injuries and possible match-ups to decide the odds or to take the odds from some betting agencies

The first option looks like a bad idea. Besides the difficulties of finding such a man and getting his agreement to work hard every round ... think of the situation when some key-player got injured after the odds are fixed and most of the votes are submitted. What to do, to change the odds ?

The second option is even worse. First of all, I don't like the idea that some smart asses with questionable basketball knowledge would influence our scores. The second problem is to decide which of thousands betting agencies to pick as a reference. The third one is that our game is essentially non-commercial , go figure maybe betting agency will sue our (interbasket) asses for using their stuff.

Damn, I wanted to make it short, but somehow wrote quite a message , hope you're bored enough to read it till now

1 option is good.

You can take average odds from such sites like www.betbrain.com , where almost all biggest bookies are listed and include it into predictions. F.e. av. for Russia-FYROM odds now 1.24-3.83 .Then there will be more or less realistic odds and not those 2.00-2.00. And before our predictions we could see them and reflect them.
Also I think maybe it would be better if we couldn't change our prediction. Once you submitted it - it's over. It's like in real life, you can't take your money back if you made a bet. It would be better, cause if you make a pick on one team for odds like 1.30, you couldn't resubmitt them if the odds will go up. Also then people might be more carefull, wait for teams' news and won't predict too early or in the other hand, those who likes to risk or to grab better odds before they felt could make it asap.
It would be more realistical, but of course it's still subject to discuss.

[Billy Bounce]

1 option is good.

You can take average odds from such sites like www.betbrain.com , where almost all biggest bookies are listed and include it into predictions. F.e. av. for Russia-FYROM odds now 1.24-3.83 .Then there will be more or less realistic odds and not those 2.00-2.00. And before our predictions we could see them and reflect them.
Also I think maybe it would be better if we couldn't change our prediction. Once you submitted it - it's over. It's like in real life, you can't take your money back if you made a bet. It would be better, cause if you make a pick on one team for odds like 1.30, you couldn't resubmit them if the odds will go up. Also then people might be more careful, wait for teams' news and won't predict too early or in the other hand, those who likes to risk or to grab better odds before they felt could make it asap.
It would be more realistic, but of course it's still subject to discuss.

Do you mean option 2 : fixed odds ?

To say the truth, betbrain's odds don't differ too much from our game final odds.

For example:
Russia-FYROM 1.27-4.55 (betbrain, home-away) 1.26-4.83 (our game, final)

No surprises here, cause the people are basically the same and 30 users statistics resembles the many-thousand one. If you among the first to submit your preds, take into account that the final odds will be pretty similar to betbrain's ones.

On account of "once you submitted it - it's over" , it could lead to some problems. Think of the situation when you submit your preds, but immediate afterward you reveal that one of the teams' key-player is injured . I think that in this situation it should be allowed to change prediction .