World Cup 2022 predictions: expectations and updates
Are we winning yet?
We have come to the end of the group stage, time for a status update.
Recap
In the previous blogs we have created three different strategies:
- Predict the most common outcome overall, meaning 1–0 or 0–1 only
- Predict the most likely outcome according to a probability density function
- Predict the outcome with the highest expected value
For an overview of the voetbalpoules.nl point system, see the appendix.
Playing with a different system? Let me know and I will add it for the next update.
Let’s have a look at our current standings.
Match prediction totals:
- Strategy 1, most common: 225 points
- Strategy 2, pdf: 224 points
- Strategy 3, EV: 225
The total expected value including the “match of the day” is 225.8, meaning we ended about as close as possible! Seems our expected value estimations are really good.
In the graph above we see the cumulative sum of the expected value and the total points acquired for each strategy.
Strategy 1 and Strategy 3 overlap fully, they only predicted differently for a few matches, and neither had the outcome correct for these matches.
The only difference with the actual points: you receive 4 points for a correct prediction for the first goal maker, I calculated a 20% chance to be correct, and awarded 0.8 points for each of these.
Standing predictions
For this poule, we also have to predict the final standings for each group. We will receive 5 points for correct prediction.
We could predict the optimal standings by simulation just like we did in blog #2. But let’s do an even simpler approach: order by FIFA rank.
Example for Group B:
Then we receive another 3 points for each correct prediction for advancing to the round of 16. We could update the table by adding another 3 points for each correct prediction in the top two.
We then get the following results:
Total points after the group stage
- Strategy 1, most common: 225 + 85 + 33 = 343 points
- Strategy 2, pdf: 224 + 85 + 33 = 342 points
- Strategy 3, EV: 225 + 85 + 33 = 343 points
Comparison
Below are the total points and the ranking overall. Voetbalpoules.nl has 221.521 players in total.
Two numbers are shown in Rank and percentile to show the range of players with the same amount of points.
Are we winning?
It depends on the quality of your opponents, but you should beat around 97%.
I would say yes, we are winning.
Appendix
Points system for voetbalpoules.nl
Regular matches:
Match of the day:
Extra predictions:
