The Predictions Game

Hey, folks. Veronica asked for a prediction competition and I have seen people make predictions before, so I decided to give it a try. I like the idea of having rankings on my blog for users like they have rankings in tennis. Then we can crown a winner after each tournament and display the rankings on my blog. It would also be a good way to counter bias because if people want to win the competition they will have to predict with their heads, not their hearts. Come to think of it, this could be really interesting!

• Rules

I will put the rules of the separate page I made for predictions as well.

1. I will choose a match(or sometimes more depending on the matches) from each round which I think is interesting and take predictions for the match(es).
2. You can predict the winner, the number of sets played, and the score. The more of these three categories you predict the better will be your chance of winning because if more than one person got the winner right I will next look at who predicted the number of sets played correctly. And if more than one person got both of those right too I will finally look at the score for who came the closest.
3. Points will be rewarded as follows: 1st place = 10 points, 2nd place = 7 points, 3rd place = 4 points. If you get the winner, the number of sets, and the score all right then you will get 50 bonus points. I make it that many because if you are that good then you deserve to win the tournament.
4. Whoever is ranked #1 at the end of the tournament wins and will remain in the #1 spot until the next tournament, at which point we start a new tournament and everyone starts from 0 points again.
5. The rankings will be displayed on the front page of my blog so that everyone will know who are the best tennis predictors in the tennis world.
6. I will not take part in the competition as people could believe I rig the rankings in my own favor(knowing the point system you will be able to calculate the points yourself but I think it is better if I sit out anyway) and I don’t like the predicting game that much anyway.

• How to Play

After every post during a tournament, I will select the match(es) for which you can make a prediction(s) and post a link to the predictions page(which you can also find under the ‘Content’ tab on the top bar of my blog). There you can make your prediction in a comment. Once the match(es) that I selected begins predictions will close and I will accept no more. Once the match is over I will calculate the results and adjust the rankings. The rankings will always be displayed on my blog and once the tournament is over I will announce the winner.

• The First Match I Will Take Predictions For

The defending champion plays first on Monday as per tradition, and as you probably could have guessed the match I have selected is Djokovic vs Kohlschreiber. Djokovic will be playing his first competitive match in three weeks while Kohlschreiber played Stuttgart and Halle. In Stuttgart, he lost to Monfils in the quarterfinals and in Halle he lost in the first round to Federer in a final set tie-break. The head-to-head is 6-1 in Djokovic’s favor with Kohlschreiber winning the 2009 French Open meeting.

All the meetings have been competitive and they have never played on grass before which is Kohlschreiber’s best surface.

To make a prediction leave a comment here.

The is in your court.