Game 51 - Final Report

Portugal - France
Going into this Final match of the Tipster, the top of the table looked like this:
245 - Ines
196 - Andy
191 - Joris

The Final of the Tipster Cup was between Andy and Anne.

The match report itself is brief: everybody tipped France to win; everybody was wrong. The only person to gain any points was Tino, who tipped the closest time - out by 31 minutes, but closer than anybody else.

Usually, the finale of the Tipster is very close. In previous years, winners have been decided by one goal in the Final.
For the 2014 Tipster, Paul tipped Germany to beat Argentina 2-1, while Ben tipped the Germans to win 2-0... a correct Score for Ben would have won him the Tipster, but Paul's correct Margin was enough to crown him winner of the 2014 Tipster.
This year was slightly different: despite languishing in 10th place after Game 5, Ines climbed to 1st place by Game 16, and held onto the top spot for the remaining 35 games.

Congratulations to Ines for winning the Tipster League!
She won by a far greater margin than any previous Tipster winner: 49 points ahead of her nearest rival.
The Tipster Cup ended in a draw, so well done Andy and Anne for their Cup success.

The Winner's Curse continues, with 2014 Champion Paul scoring just 167 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 won the 2012 Tipster, but finished 19th in 2014
- Paul won the 2014 Tipster, but finished 9th in 2016.

Excluding the vanishing act by Richie and Mark, the prize pot is 88% full, and I haven't given up on the remaining 12%. I'll contact the winners directly to arrange transferring the prize money.
Additionally, I'd like to say a special thank you to Ralph, who generously donated twice (and no, not by mistake) to help fill the prize pot. :-)

Tips for the last game, and the Final Table Standings, are in the posts below, as well as Part II of the Statipstics.

That concludes the 2016 Tipster - I hope you've enjoyed it, despite the delays and hiccups. If I run a Tipster for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, I will be in touch.....

Thanks for playing!

Final Tipster Scoreboard

Rank	Name	Points		Rank	Name	Points		Rank	Name	Points
1	Ines	245		8	Anne	168		15	Craig	124
2	Andy	196		9	Paul	167		16	Simon	74
3	Joris	191		10	Robert	160		17
4	Jim	183		11	André	156		18
5	Tino	176		12	Ralph	146		19
6	Soeren	174		13	Alex	145		20
7	Ben	171		14	Axel	134		21

Game 51 Tips: Portugal - France

Portugal - France					Points
Name	Score	Scorer	Time		Points	Running Total
Alex	x:x	x	999		0	145
André	x:x	x	999		0	156
Andy	1:2	Antoine Griezmann	42		0	196
Anne	1:2	Olivier Giroud	43		0	168
Axel	1:2	Olivier Giroud	43		0	134
Ben	0:2	Antoine Griezmann	45		0	171
Craig	1:2	Dimitri Payet	51		0	124
Ines	1:2	Antoine Griezmann	21		0	245
Jim	0:2	Antoine Griezmann	32		0	183
Joris	1:2	Antoine Griezmann	35		0	191
Mark	x:x	x	999		0	0
Paul	x:x	x	999		0	167
Ralph	x:x	x	999		0	146
Richie	x:x	x	999		0	16
Robert	0:2	Antoine Griezmann	50		0	160
Simon	x:x	x	999		0	74
Soeren	1:2	Nani	24		0	174
Tino	0:1	Blaise Matuidi	78		3	176

Statipstics - part ii

Times
Joris failed to tip the closest Time throughout the Tipster, despite tipping every single game. Lucky in love, unlucky in Cards. And Tipsters. And country of birth. And... actually, quite a few things.
Robert was the best at tipping the closest Time (winning in 7 matches), but never tipped the exact Time.
Ines achieved 3 exact Times.

On average throughout the Tipster, Simon was the closest to the correct Time: just 23.8 minutes wrong on average.
Despite this, he only tipped the actual closest Time in 2 matches.
In contrast, Tino was on average the furthest from the correct Time: 34.8 minutes wrong on average.
Despite this, he managed to tip the closest Time in 5 matches.
That shows how irrelevant averages can be.

Scores and Margins
Ines achieved 10 perfect scores.
Alex and Andre did this 8 times.
Axel only achieved this once (Switzerland - Poland)

Ines achieved 8 correct Margins, Tino achieved 7.
Andre tipped the correct result 18 times (5 points each). A goal here, a goal there, and Andre could have finished in the top three.

Everybody tipped the correct first Scorer at least once. Ben and Joris both tipped the correct Scorer 8 times.

Points per Tip
Ines average 4.80 points per tip, which was fewer than Alex, with 4.83. If Alex had tipped all 51 matches and maintained that average, his (theoretical) total would have been 247 points; Ines won the tipster with 245 points.
Instead, Alex finished in 13th place with 145 points, which shows that theory isn't as much use as actually tipping and scoring points.
On the other hand, one person did tip every game, yet averaged just 2.63 points per tip. I won't mention that person's name. ;-)

Being Right...
Simon chose the right winner 8 times from the 27 he tipped, a success rate of 30%. In other words, he was wrong in 19 matches, or 70% of his total.
Joris was right 26 times; Soren 25 times; Andy and Paul 24; Andre, Jim and Tino 23 times.
Unsurprisingly, champion Ines was right (either correct Score, correct Margin, or correct result) the most times, in 31 out of 51 matches.

And on the topic of being right... Simon used the correct password for 4 of his Tips. :-)

Tipster Cup Final

Tipster Cup

The Final of the Tipster Cup took place between:
Andy v Anne

It was a very close match.

Andy tipped France to win 2-1, with Griezmann scoring in the 42nd minute.
Anne tipped France to win 2-1, with Giroud scoring in the 43rd minute
(Coincidentally, Axel's tip was identical to Anne's).

In the end, Portugal won, and both Andy and Anne finished with zero points: a 0-0 draw.

Usually in the Cup, a draw means I look to the previous round to determine the winner: Anne scored 13 points in the Semi-Finals, while Andy scored 10.
However, for the Final, a draw is a draw, and the Tipster Cup prize money will be shared equally between Andy and Anne.

Game 50 Report

Germany - France
Some people are more upset about Brexit than others. After taking penalties like England last weekend, Germany decided to defend like England as well last night.
Of the seven Germans in this Tipster, three tipped against their home country, but only Andy earned 10 points for tipping 2-0 French victory. Five other people tipped a win for France, and collect 5 points each.
Ben and Tino tipped top-scorer Griezmann to score the first goal, while Ben also tipped the exact time.

Statipstics - part i

Here are some Tipster statistics ("statipstics") for the curious or bored...

Tips
Andre, Axel, Ben, Joris and Soren tipped every single game.
Excluding Pol-Por, Paul and Robert also tipped every game, while Tino joined lated, but then tipped every game.
That's an impressive effort for 51 matches over 4 weeks, so well done to those eight people.

Of the 51 matches, 12 were tipped by all 17 participants.
The least frequent tipper was Simon (missed 24/51 matches).

Games
France - Albania yielded the most points: 140 in total.
Eight people tipped the correct Score in this game.

We failed to tip the correct Score in 20 out of 51 matches (I told you it's a game of luck!)
The fewest points came from Germany - Poland: 0 points.
Next worse was Czech Republic - Turkey with 11 points.

16 people tipped the correct outcome (either correct Score, correct Margin or correct Result) in Poland - N. Ireland, France - Albania, and N. Ireland - Germany.

The game with the most number of correct results was when 14 people tipped Germany to beat Northern Ireland.

Scorers and Times
Eight people correctly tipped Bale to score the first goal for Wales against Slovakia.
Three people tipped the joint-closest time in Czech Republic - Croatia.

Goals
46 goals were tipped in 2 matches: England - Russia (31 for England, 15 for Russia) and Croatia - Portugal (26 for Croatia and 20 for Portugal).
The fewest goals were tipped for Iceland - Hungary (8 and 11, respectively).
Nobody tipped Iceland to score a goal against Portugal (with 35 goals tipped for the Portuguese), but the biggest delta was N. Ireland - Germany, with 1 goal tipped for the Irish and 39 tipped for the Germans.

Cock-ups
This was the most error-strewn Tipster in a decade of running Tipsters. :-(
I made at least 3 significant mistakes, and those were just the ones I noticed.

But I wasn't alone... many people managed to spell their own name wrong at least once. ;-)
Multiple people made mistakes with their password. Simon got his password wrong so many times that I actually changed my file to accept his wrong password as the right one. :-)

And of course, Ronaldo completely missed the ball on many occasions. :-)

Day 22 Scoreboard

Here's the Scoreboard as we approach the final game of the Tipster.

Rank	Name	Points		Rank	Name	Points		Rank	Name	Points
1	Ines	245		8	Anne	168		15	Craig	124
2	Andy	196		9	Paul	167		16
3	Joris	191		10	Robert	160		17
4	Jim	183		11	André	156		18
5	Soeren	174		12	Ralph	146		19
6	Tino	173		13				20
7	Ben	171		14	Axel	134		21

Tipster Cup Semi-Finals

Tipster Cup

The Semi-Finals of the Tipster Cup end with the following scores:

Tino 8 - Andy 10
Anne 13 - Jim 5

So it's an all-Germany Final on Sunday, with
Andy v Anne

Game 50 Tips: Germany - France

Germany - France					Points
Name	Score	Scorer	Time		Points	Running Total
Alex
André	1:2	Dimitri Payet	23		5	156
Andy	0:2	Olivier Giroud	75		10	196
Anne	2:1	Julian Draxler	23		0	168
Axel	1:0	Thomas Müller	66		0	134
Ben	1:2	Antoine Griezmann	45		11	171
Craig	1:2	Dimitri Payet	50		5	124
Ines	1:2	Olivier Giroud	39		5	245
Jim	2:1	Julian Draxler	42		0	183
Joris	2:0	Thomas Müller	35		0	191
Mark
Paul	1:0	Thomas Müller	70		0	167
Ralph	3:0	Thomas Müller	15		0	146
Richie
Robert	1:0	Thomas Müller	60		0	160
Simon
Soeren	2:1	Mesut Özil	34		0	174
Tino	0:1	Antoine Griezmann	112		8	173

Game 49 Report

Portugal - Wales
Congratulations to Anne, the only person to tip a 2-0 victory for Portugal and earn 10 points. Five other people tipped a win for the Portuguese to gain 5 points each.
Anne and Ben both tipped Ronaldo to score first, giving Anne 13 points from this game. Paul tipped the exact time, gaining 3 points.

Game 49 Tips: Portugal - Wales

Portugal - Wales					Points
Name	Score	Scorer	Time		Points	Running Total
Alex
André	2:1	Nani	26		5	151
Andy	0:1	Gareth Bale	39		0	186
Anne	2:0	Cristiano Ronaldo	18		13	168
Axel	1:1	Gareth Bale	54		0	134
Ben	1:2	Cristiano Ronaldo	45		3	160
Craig	1:2	Gareth Bale	51		0	119
Ines	1:2	Gareth Bale	27		0	240
Jim	3:2	Éder	15		5	183
Joris	2:1	Gareth Bale	35		5	191
Mark
Paul	1:2	Gareth Bale	50		3	167
Ralph	1:0	Nani	81		5	146
Richie
Robert	0:0	Gareth Bale	1		0	160
Simon
Soeren	2:1	Nani	27		5	174
Tino	1:1	Gareth Bale	78		0	165

Day 20 Scoreboard

With just 3 matches remaining, the Scoreboard looks like this.

Rank	Name	Points		Rank	Name	Points		Rank	Name	Points
1	Ines	240		8	Robert	160		15	Craig	119
2	Andy	186		9	Ben	157		16
3	Joris	186		10	Anne	155		17
4	Jim	178		11	André	146		18
5	Soeren	169		12				19
6	Tino	165		13	Ralph	141		20
7	Paul	164		14	Axel	134		21

Tipster Cup Quarter Finals

Tipster Cup

The Quarter Finals of the Tipster Cup end with the following scores:

Ines* 13 - Tino 15
Ben* 8 - Andy 12
Anne 19 - Joris 13
Jim 11 - Andre* 5

* indicates people whose scores were adjusted due to the Pol-Por match.

Applying the 'equalisation' to those games...
Ines actually scored 26 points during the Quarter Finals, but Tino could not tip in that match - so her score is reduced by the 13 points she gained from the Pol-Por match, giving her a total of 13 points instead of 26.
Ben actually scored 11 points during the QF. He gained 3 points from Pol-Pol, so his score is reduced by 3, bringing his total down from 11 to 8 points. Even without that reduction, Andy still beat him.
Anne and Joris both tipped the Pol-Por match, so no adjustment is needed there.
Andre didn't score any points from the Pol-Por game; Jim beat him anyway.


I've been asked for an image of the Tipster Cup tournament, something more useful than the image of a cup of tea. This screenshot should help you see the format.

So, the Semi-Finals see:
Tino v Andy
Anne v Jim

Three Germans, one American. ;-)

Game 48 Report

France - Iceland
Strangely, nobody tipped 5-2 for France. Four people, however, did tip a 3-goal French victory, and gain 7 points each: Andy, Craig, Paul and Tino. Seven other people collected 5 points.
Five people tipped Giroud to score. I was one of them, which surprised me, because I had actually meant to tip Griezmann. Tino tipped the closest time, just 1 minute away, to score 3 points.

Game 48 Tips: France - Iceland

France - Iceland					Points
Name	Score	Scorer	Time		Points	Running Total
Alex
André	2:0	Antoine Griezmann	29		5	146
Andy	3:0	Antoine Griezmann	20		7	186
Anne	2:1	Olivier Giroud	34		8	155
Axel	1:1	Dimitri Payet	23		0	134
Ben	2:0	Olivier Giroud	45		8	157
Craig	3:0	Dimitri Payet	35		7	119
Ines	2:1	Olivier Giroud	41		8	240
Jim	1:1	Olivier Giroud	51		3	178
Joris	2:0	Olivier Giroud	40		8	186
Mark
Paul	3:0	Paul Pogba	30		7	164
Ralph	x:x	x	999		0	141
Richie
Robert	3:2	Birkir Bjarnason	20		5	160
Simon
Soeren	3:1	Antoine Griezmann	23		5	169
Tino	3:0	Antoine Griezmann	13		10	165

Game 47 Report

Germany - Italy
Nine people tipped Germany to win this match (five Germans tipped victory; two tipped defeat) and gain 5 points each. Nobody tipped Özil to score the opening goal of the game. Craig tipped the exact time for 3 points.
This report was almost as exciting as the match itself.

Game 47 Tips: Germany - Italy

Germany - Italy					Points
Name	Score	Scorer	Time		Points	Running Total
Alex
André	0:2	Graziano Pellè	25		0	141
Andy	0:2	Graziano Pellè	8		0	179
Anne	2:1	Thomas Müller	17		5	147
Axel	3:1	Toni Kroos	12		5	134
Ben	0:1	Graziano Pellè	45		0	149
Craig	0:1	Graziano Pellè	65		3	112
Ines	2:1	Thomas Müller	29		5	232
Jim	2:1	Toni Kroos	30		5	175
Joris	2:1	Bastian Schweinsteiger	35		5	178
Mark
Paul	2:1	Mario Gómez	55		5	157
Ralph	x:x	x	999		0	141
Richie
Robert	2:0	Thomas Müller	50		5	155
Simon
Soeren	2:0	Mario Gómez	34		5	164
Tino	2:1	Thomas Müller	34		5	155

Game 46 Report

Wales - Belgium
The Dragons against the Devils started well for the ten people who tipped Belgium to win.
In the end, however, Andy, Craig and Ralph each collected 5 points for tipping a Welsh victory, leaving everybody else empty-handed, except Jim who tipped the closest time.

Game 46 Tips: Wales - Belgium

Wales - Belgium					Points
Name	Score	Scorer	Time		Points	Running Total
Alex
André	0:2	Romelu Lukaku	29		0	141
Andy	1:0	Gareth Bale	51		5	179
Anne	1:2	Romelu Lukaku	28		0	142
Axel	2:2	Aaron Ramsey	23		0	129
Ben	1:2	Gareth Bale	45		0	149
Craig	1:0	Gareth Bale	80		5	109
Ines	0:2	Kevin De Bruyne	37		0	227
Jim	1:2	Divock Origi	17		3	170
Joris	0:2	Romelu Lukaku	35		0	173
Mark
Paul	0:2	Romelu Lukaku	35		0	152
Ralph	1:0	Kevin De Bruyne	25		5	141
Richie
Robert	0:2	Eden Hazard	35		0	150
Simon
Soeren	0:1	Eden Hazard	23		0	159
Tino	0:2	Kevin De Bruyne	34		0	150

Game 45 Report

Poland - Portugal
Of the people who were able to submit their tips on time, only one person tipped a 1-1 draw: well done Ines, 10 points for you.
Five people tipped Lewandowski to score the opening goal, giving them 3 points each. The closest time was tipped by Anne, 23 minutes out.
Remember that all points from this match are provisional, and will be 'equalised' where necessary.

Game 45 Tips: Poland - Portugal

Poland - Portugal					Points
Name	Score	Scorer	Time		Points	Running Total
Alex
André	2:1	Arkadiusz Milik	32		0	141
Andy	x:x	x	999		0	174
Anne	2:1	Robert Lewandowski	25		6	142
Axel	0:1	Nani	72		5	129
Ben	1:0	Robert Lewandowski	45		3	149
Craig	x:x	x	999		0	104
Ines	1:1	Robert Lewandowski	45		13	227
Jim	x:x	x	999		0	167
Joris	2:1	Nani	35		0	173
Mark
Paul	x:x	x	999		0	152
Ralph	1:0	Robert Lewandowski	34		3	136
Richie
Robert	x:x	x	999		0	150
Simon
Soeren	1:2	Robert Lewandowski	33		8	159
Tino	x:x	x	999		0	150

Tipster Cup: Round One

Tipster Cup
Round One is now complete, and the scores from these 8 matches are below, with the winner highlighted:

Ines 39 - Robert 36
Tino 27 - Alex **
Soren 28 - Ben 33
Andy 35 - Axel 30
Simon ** - Anne 23
Joris 30 - Ralph 25
Paul 36 - Jim 45
Andre 25 - Craig 15

** = no donation received, therefore zero points scored in the Tipster Cup.

The winners from Round One proceed to the Quarter Finals of the Tipster Cup, which correlate to the Quarter Finals of Euro 2016.
The draw is:

Ines v Tino
Ben v Andy
Anne v Joris
Jim v Andre

Day 16 Scoreboard

The Quarter Finals of Euro 2016 end with Ines holding a commanding lead at the top of the table: 214 points, 40 ahead of her nearest rival. Andy squeezes past Joris by one point to claim 2nd place with 174 points.

Rank	Name	Points		Rank	Name	Points		Rank	Name	Points
1	Ines	214		8	Robert	150		15	Craig	104
2	Andy	174		9	Ben	146		16	Brexit
3	Joris	173		10				17	Bruggerit
4	Jim	167		11	André	141		18	Brollocks
5	Paul	152		12	Anne	136		19	Bruckit
6	Soeren	151		13	Ralph	133		20	Brassburgers
7	Tino	150		14	Axel	124		21	Breasts

Game 44 Report

England - Iceland
Most people tipped England to win this game, so well done Jim: the only person to tip a 2-1 victory for Iceland, giving him 10 points. Andy and Ines also tipped Iceland to win by one goal, earning them 7 points each.
Four people tipped Rooney to score the first goal of the game. Jim tipped the 16th minute for that goal, out by 12 minutes, but closer than anybody else, meaning he gains 13 points from this match.

Game 44 Tips: England - Iceland

England - Iceland					Points
Name	Score	Scorer	Time		Points	Running Total
Alex
André	2:0	Jamie Vardy	23		0	141
Andy	0:1	Gylfi Sigurðsson	88		7	174
Anne	2:0	Wayne Rooney	28		3	136
Axel	2:1	Jamie Vardy	29		0	124
Ben	2:1	Wayne Rooney	45		3	146
Craig	3:0	Harry Kane	35		0	104
Ines	0:1	Kolbeinn Sigþórsson	44		7	214
Jim	1:2	Kolbeinn Sigþórsson	16		13	167
Joris	3:1	Wayne Rooney	35		3	173
Mark
Paul	2:0	Wayne Rooney	55		3	152
Ralph	3:0	Jamie Vardy	22		0	133
Richie
Robert	2:0	Jamie Vardy	50		0	150
Simon
Soeren	2:0	Harry Kane	29		0	151
Tino	2:0	Jamie Vardy	34		0	150

Game 43 Report

Italy - Spain
Three people tipped the Italians to win. Congratulations to Andy, who tipped the correct Score: 10 points for you. Anne and Ben both gain 5 points for the correct winner.
Chiellini was nobody's tip for first Scorer, but Soren tipped the exact Time to gain 3 points.

Game 43 Tips: Italy - Spain

Italy - Spain					Points
Name	Score	Scorer	Time		Points	Running Total
Alex
André	0:2	Álvaro Morata	25		0	141
Andy	2:0	Graziano Pellè	54		10	167
Anne	2:1	Éder	38		5	133
Axel	1:1	Graziano Pellè	55		0	124
Ben	1:0	Graziano Pellè	45		5	143
Craig	1:1	Antonio Candreva	50		0	104
Ines	1:2	Álvaro Morata	31		0	207
Jim	1:2	Cesc Fàbregas	22		0	154
Joris	1:2	Álvaro Morata	35		0	170
Mark
Paul	0:1	Álvaro Morata	70		0	149
Ralph	0:2	Andrés Iniesta	44		0	133
Richie
Robert	0:1	Andrés Iniesta	69		0	150
Simon
Soeren	1:2	Andrés Iniesta	33		3	151
Tino	0:1	Álvaro Morata	78		0	150