Game 39 - Final Report

Germany - Argentina

Going into this the final match of the Tipster, the top of the table looked like this:
199  - Paul
198  - Ben
186 - Alex K

The Final of the Tipster Cup was between Franz and Ben.

Many people tipped the 1st goal to be scored just before half-time, with tips for the 41st, 42nd, 43rd, 44th and 45th minute, as well as two tips for the 15th and two for the 25th. In the end, Matt's tip for the 55th minute was closest, a mere 58 minutes away from the actual time. This was the 'worst' winning tip for the Time in this year's Tipster, :-) but still gains him 3 points.
Nobody tipped Götze as first goal-scorer, so no points there.

Fourteen people tipped a German victory; Matt tipped a draw; and three people tipped Argentina to win.
Although nobody got a perfect Score in this match, two people tipped a 1-goal victory for Germany: well done Paul and Franz, 7 points for each of you, which brings you both victory!

Congratulations to Paul for winning the Tipster League!
And Franz wins the Tipster Cup. Well Done!

Paul tipped the correct winner in 31 of the 39 Tipster matches.
2nd place in both tournaments was claimed by Ben, while Alex K came 3rd in the League.
Søren beat Craig to 3rd place in the Cup and looks as cheerful as Messi receiving his Golden Whatever last night. ;-)

Tipster Cup Final:
Franz 7
Ben 5

Tipster Cup 3rd place play-off:
Søren 5
Craig 0

The Winner's Curse continues, with 2012 Champion Alex J scoring just 98 points:
- Franz won the 2006 Tipster, but finished 5th in 2008
- Ben won the 2008 Tipster, but finished 7th in 2010
- Mark won the 2010 Tipster, but finished 12th in 2012
- Alex J won the 2012 Tipster, but finished 19th in 2014

Excluding the Italian default, I'm pleased to announce that the prize pot is 100% full. I'll contact the winners directly to arrange transferring the prize money.

Tips, and the Final Table Standings, are in the posts below, as well as Part II of the Statistics.


That concludes the 2014 Tipster - I hope you've enjoyed it. If I run a Tipster for Euro 2016, I will be in touch.....

Thanks for playing!

Final Tipster League Table

Here are the final standings of the 2014 Tipster:

Rank	Name	Points		Rank	Name	Points		Rank	Name	Points
1	Paul	206		8	André	146		15	Ralph	127
2	Ben	203		9	Craig	144		16	Ernst	121
3	Alex K	191		10	Jens	143		17	Joe	120
4	Matt	181		11	Søren	140		18	Stephan	106
5	Franz	161		12	Simon	137		19	Alex J	98
6	Jim	160		13	Alex U	136		20	Greg	38
7	Joris	149		14	Mark	134

Game 39 Tips (Final)

Germany - Argentina					Points
Name	Score	Scorer	Time		Points	Running Total
Alex J	x:x	x	999		0	98
Alex K	3:0	Thomas Müller	13		5	191
Alex U	1:2	Lionel Messi	15		0	136
André	1:2	Gonzalo Higuaín	43		0	146
Ben	2:0	Thomas Müller	45		5	203
Craig	2:3	Lionel Messi	44		0	144
Ernst	3:0	Thomas Müller	15		5	121
Franz	2:1	Thomas Müller	53		7	161
Greg	x:x	x	999		0	38
Jens	4:0	Ben Nelson	23		5	143
Jim	3:1	Thomas Müller	20		5	160
Joe	2:0	André Schürrle	36		5	120
Joris	3:0	Miroslav Klose	25		5	149
Mark	3:1	Thomas Müller	20		5	134
Matt	0:0	Sami Khedira	55		3	181
Paul	2:1	Thomas Müller	42		7	206
Ralph	4:2	Miroslav Klose	27		5	127
Simon	3:1	Thomas Müller	25		5	137
Søren	2:0	Thomas Müller	41		5	140
Stephan	4:0	Thomas Müller	8		5	106

Statipstics - part II

Best Points per Game:
Alex J scored the 2nd most points per game that he tipped, averaging 5.76 (Greg achieved 6.33 in his 6 matches).
Alex K, Ben and Paul all averaged more than 5 points per game and tipped pretty much every single game too; Franz averaged 4.97 from his 31 games.
The median score was 4.23 points per game tipped.

First Scorer:
In 22 of the 37 matches, none of us managed to tip the correct 1st Scorer. Three of those games ended 0-0, but that's still 19 matches where all 20 of us failed.
8 people correctly tipped Dzeko to score first in the Bosnia & Herzegovina - Iran game, and 7 tipped Messi to score first in the Nigeria - Argentina game.
Ben and Paul both tipped the correct Scorer in 5 matches; Joris and Stephan have not yet successfully tipped the Scorer, but hopefully they will have more luck in the last match of the Tipster.

Closest time, aka 'luck':
Both Mark and Stephan tipped the closest time in 5 matches. It's interesting that Stephan had such contrasting luck with the Time of the goal and the Scorer of the goal.
Andre and Joris were unlucky in every single game: unlike Stephan, Joris was unlucky with the Time, and also unlucky with the Scorer.

Franz was the least accurate at tipping the closest time: on average, he was wrong by 39.6 minutes. This didn't stop him being closest in the Belgium - USA game though, just 6 minutes away.

Excluding Greg's 6 matches, Joris actually had the closest average throughout the Tipster, wrong by just 24.6 minutes; despite this, he was never the closest, which probably makes him the unluckiest person in this Tipster.
Mark, who was closest in 5 matches and tipped the exact time twice, had an average discrepancy of 28.7 minutes from the actual time; Stephan's average discrepancy was 27.4 minutes. They each gained 15 points from their tips for the Time, while Joris, with a better average, gained zero points.

The exact time was tipped in 6 matches, whereas the worst winning time was wrong by 47 minutes: Ben's standard tip of 45 minutes was closest to the 92nd minute goal in the Germany - Algeria match.

Goals, Goals, Goals:
The most goals were tipped in the Brazil - Mexico match, with a total of 63 goals predicted.... and that match finished 0-0. :-)
The fewest goals tipped were for the Bosnia & Herzegovina- Iran game, with just 24 goals predicted.
54 goals were tipped for Germany in their game against Algeria, more than any other team; this fixture also had the highest predicted winning margin, as only 7 goals were tipped for Algeria in that game.
The fewest goals tipped for any team were for Bosnia & Herzegovina in their game against Argentina: just 6 goals were predicted for the Balkan team.

Submitting Tips:
Thanks to all the people who managed to spell their own names incorrectly. That always makes me smile. ;-)
And a special mention for all the novelty names used by people when signing their tips: Duke, Deaconinho, Admiral  Lord Viscount... and a few others. :-)

Game 38 Report

Brazil - Netherlands

Ten people tipped a Brazilian victory; Matt tipped a (tactical?) draw; and seven people tipped a win for the Dutch.
Everybody tipped both teams to score at least one goal, so there were no perfect scores.
There were also no correct margins.

Jens was the only person to tip van Persie to score the first goal, so 3 points for him. Ernst tipped the closest time, which is the 1st time he's achieved this in the 2014 Tipster, and gains 3 points too.

At the end of the penultimate match, Paul moves into the lead with 199 points, while Ben remains on 198. With 186 points, Alex K still has a chance of winning the league, but Matt bows out of the title race.

The points table is below.

There's just one game left to go...

Points table

Three people (Paul, Ben, Alex K) have a chance of winning the League; Franz has a chance of winning the Cup.

Everybody else is playing for pride. :-)

Rank	Name	Points		Rank	Name	Points		Rank	Name	Points
1	Paul	199		8	Craig	144		15	Ralph	122
2	Ben	198		9	Joris	144		16	Ernst	116
3	Alex K	186		10	Jens	138		17	Joe	115
4	Matt	178		11	Alex U	136		18	Stephan	101
5	Jim	155		12	Søren	135		19	Alex J	98
6	Franz	154		13	Simon	132		20	Greg	38
7	André	146		14	Mark	129

Statipstics - part I

All of the stats below cover the 37 games played before the weekend.

People:
6 people tipped every single game (and on time!): well done Jens, Mark, Matt, Paul, Soren and Ben.
16 people tipped 80% or more of the games, so thank you to everybody who put in the effort. :-)
The least consistent tipper was Greg, who managed to tip just 6 matches. He actually has the highest points-per-game ratio, but with so few matches I'm pleading a lack of statistical significance as an excuse to ignore his stats. ;-)
Alex J was the 2nd least consistent tipper, missing 20 of the 37 matches.

Points:
The best game for scoring points was Netherlands - Mexico, giving a total of 134 points. With 6 people tipping perfect scores, and 10 other people tipping the correct winner, the only person who didn't gain any points from that match was Greg - who didn't submit a tip. Counting only people who sent tips, on average 7.44 points were scored per person in that game.

The worst game for points also involved Mexico.
Their game against Brazil yielded just 7 points in total, with Ralph gaining all of them for his 1-1 tip.

Perfect Scores:
Brazil - Colombia saw the most perfect scores (7), while there were 6 perfect scores in three other matches.
Several people achieved 5 perfect scores during the Tipster, but only Ben achieved 6. Jens had the fewest - just one.

Winners:
As a group, we were most successful at tipping the winners of 3 matches: 19 people tipped the correct winner of:
- Brazil - Croatia (19 people, only Ralph was wrong)
- Netherlands - Mexico (19 people, Greg didn't tip)
- Germany - Algeria (19 people, Greg didn't tip)

Paul was best at tipping the correct winner, getting it right in 29 matches, meaning his success rate was 78% for the matches he tipped. Alex J actually had a success rate of 76%, but he only tipped 17 matches, which makes one wonder how well he could have done if he'd actually tipped every game (especially considering that he won the 2012 Tipster). Andre also achieved a 76% success rate, but more impressively he did it while tipping 33 of 37 matches.

Footnote: Paul also tipped the correct winner of Brazil - Netherlands, giving him a success rate of 79%.