May 30, 2016

SportsFilter: The Monday Huddle:

A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.

posted by huddle to general at 07:00 AM - 9 comments

I'm working on some code for a Copa America Centenario contest.

We could do a confidence pool, but I think I'd prefer something along these lines:

Round 1: Pick the teams that will advance out of group.

Rounds 2+: Pick the winners of each knock-out game.

Thoughts?

posted by rcade at 02:52 PM on May 30, 2016

That sounds fine.

posted by bender at 07:00 PM on May 30, 2016

Euros?

posted by owlhouse at 09:35 PM on May 30, 2016

Thoughts? posted by rcade

I would be glad to participate and am glad the new user registration was fixed :)

posted by FLsportsman at 11:23 PM on May 30, 2016

I have not spent a lot of mental energy on soccer tournament contests, but the way you explain is what I usually do with my teams.

posted by prof at 10:03 AM on May 31, 2016

Let's test-drive this format for both Copa America and Euros!

posted by billsaysthis at 10:04 AM on May 31, 2016

Euros?

That will happen too, under the same rules as the Copa.

posted by rcade at 10:43 AM on May 31, 2016

A suggestion to the scoring system:

You should get points for guessing the two teams that advance out of each group, but you should get bonus points if you select the exact order that they finish (1st/2nd).

If Argentina finishes in first in Group A and Chile second:

Picking Argentina and Chile from Group A gets you 4 points (2 for each team), you should get an extra 4 points for getting Argentina 1st and Chile 2nd, but no extra points if you picked them in reverse order. If you picked Panama 1st and Chile 2nd, then you get 4 total points (Chile for advancing, and Chile for finishing 2nd, and no points for Panama).

Also, with so few teams in the tournament, maybe you can add an extra point for predicting the total goals scored in each Group (+/- 1 goal), for an extra 4 bonus points available.

(Oh, maybe make selecting teams worth 5 points, order worth 2 points, and bonuses worth 1 each. I think you should get more points for being "smart" than being "lucky".)

posted by grum@work at 12:00 PM on May 31, 2016

Other bonus ideas:

Predicting which teams have a perfect group stage (3-0-0): You list the teams that you think can do it. If the team you list does it, you get a point. If the team you list DOESN'T do it, you lose a point. So if you list three teams, and only one of them does it, you LOSE a point (1 for getting it right, -2 for getting them wrong).

Team which scores the most goals in group stage.

Team which has the most goals scored against them in group stage.

Team with the most yellow/red/combined cards in group stage.

posted by grum@work at 12:05 PM on May 31, 2016

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