World Cup Tipping Competition
 

Since Brumby didn't fall for my attempts to galvanise him into action on this front, I guess I'll do it.

As there's so many mismatches involved in the group, I think merely picking winners is too simple so I'm going to introduce the margin of victory in.

For getting a correct prediction you get an automatic 5 points, with up to 10 more points available for margin, on a sliding scale (so if you're spot on you get 10 points, but if you're 3 points out you get 7 points etc.)

For example for NZ vs Tonga if I predict NZ to win by 45 points and they win by 47 points, I get 5 for the prediction and 8 for the margin.

If you predict a margin of less than 10 points, then you can actually score points even if you get the predition wrong. For example if you predict say England to beat Argentina by 6 points and Argentina win by 3 points, you get 1.

Deadline for each pick is when the game kicks off, but will be putting the fixtures up in blocks of 8 games (a new thread for each block)

So the first games are (all times are NZ times):

New Zealand v Tonga by 29
Scotland v Romania by 20
Fiji v Namibia by 17
France v Japan by 36
Argentina v England by 8
Australia v Italy by 24
Ireland v USA by 37
South Africa v Wales by 19

New Zealand v Tonga by 45
Scotland v Romania by 37
Fiji v Namibia by 52
France v Japan by 55
Argentina v England by 10
Australia v Italy by 24
Ireland v USA by 33
South Africa v Wales by 18

]New Zealand[/B] v Tonga by 40
Scotland v Romania by 30
Fiji v Namibia by 40
France v Japan by 25
Argentina v England by 10
Australia v Italy by 15
Ireland v USA by 20
South Africa v Wales by 15

New Zealand v Tonga by 51
Scotland v Romania by 20
Fiji v Namibia by 51
France v Japan by 51
Argentina v England by 11
Australia v Italy by 21
Ireland v USA by 31
South Africa v Wales by 21

New Zealand by 70
Scotland by 30
Fiji by 30
France by 50
England by 10
Australia by 30
Ireland by 40
South Africa by 10

Sept 9 20.30 A New Zealand v Tonga NZ by 40
Sat Sept 10 13.00 B Scotland v Romania Scotland by 17
Sat Sept 10 15.30 D Fiji v Namibia Fiji by 21
Sat Sept 10 18.00 A France v Japan France by 16
Sat Sept 10 20.30 B Argentina v England Eng by 18
Sun Sept 11 15.30 C Australia v Italy Aus by 17
Sun Sept 11 18.00 C Ireland v USA Ireland by 10
Sun Sept 11 20.30 D South Africa v Wales SA by 21

Has anyone applied the wisdom of crowds to one of these prediction threads?

In a roundabout sort of way, isn't that what bookmakers do?

I don't think it would work here, as people here are going for a few deliberately outlandish predictions in the hope of being the only one who's right.

New Zealand v Tonga by 56
Scotland v Romania by 24
Fiji v Namibia by 40
France v Japan by 47
Argentina v England by 14
Australia v Italy by 30
Ireland v USA by 30
South Africa v Wales by 24

New Zealand v Tonga by 50
Scotland v Romania by 35
Fiji v Namibia by 50
France v Japan by 28
Argentina v England by 14
Australia v Italy by 28
Ireland v USA by 42
South Africa v Wales by 21

New Zealand v Tonga by 52
Scotland v Romania by 18
Fiji v Namibia by 42
France v Japan by 30
Argentina v England by 14
Australia v Italy by 28
Ireland v USA by 28
South Africa v Wales by 14

New Zealand v Tonga by 60
Scotland v Romania by 38
Fiji v Namibia by 34
France v Japan by 42
Argentina v England by 17
Australia v Italy by 47
Ireland v USA by 48
South Africa v Wales by 11

New Zealand v Tonga by 29
Scotland v Romania by 15
Fiji v Namibia by 15
France v Japan by 20
Argentina v England by 9
Australia v Italy by 20
Ireland v USA by 25
South Africa v Wales by 5

New Zealand v Tonga by 33
Scotland v Romania by 22
Fiji v Namibia by 44
France v Japan by 28
Argentina v England by 12
Australia v Italy by 30
Ireland v USA by 14
South Africa v Wales by 18