After group stage of the World Cup, we have a lot of data we can evaluate and find out how good Steemit's collective guess was. The median number of points is 24 - half of users is under it and half is over - while average guess constructed by choosing most likely results according to the users gained 29 points and the best guess had 3 more points.
If you choose your results according to Steemit's average, you 94,75 % of users are behind you which is well above 50 % you should get randomly.
Distribution of points after group stage.
Number of users ahead of Steemit's average changing after each match.
The worst result for Steemit's average was Poland's loss against Colombia which 39 % expected to win, 27 % to lose and 34 % tie which was also our recommendation.
The best result for Steemit's average which helped it move ahead of lot of others was Australia's loss against Peru that was expected by only 42 %, while 34 % expected them to win and 25 % tie.
How to pick my teams to win?
The next stage requires you to choose also a score after regular time rather than only a winner and by guessing score right, you get 3 points and 1 point for guessing right a winner. This means that by guessing score a tie e.g. 2:2, you will get either 3 points or none meanwhile guessing 2:1 will also guarantee you at least 1 point for scores 1:0, 2:0, 3:1 and so on. You should not choose tie so that you increase your chances. The next step to choose a score is to look at Steemit's data. Let's assume that we have results 2:1, 1:0 and 0:8. We could compute average and get 1:3 but much better is to choose median so you get 1:0 (median is the number in the middle when you sort numbers from lowest to highest). If median leads to tie e.g. 2:2 we will look at the second most common score.
Exp score = expected score calculated as median on Steemit.
| Score | Exp score | Team | vs | Team | Exp score | Best guess | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4:3 | 2 | France | vs | Argentina | 1 | 2:1 | 1 |
| 2:1 | 1 | Uruguay | vs | Portugal | 1* | 1:2 | 0 |
| 1(3):1(4) | 2 | Spain | vs | Russia | 1 | 2:1 | 0 |
| 1(3):1(2) | 2 | Croatia | vs | Denmark | 1 | 2:1 | 1 |
| 2:0 | 2 | Brazil | vs | Mexico | 1 | 2:1 | 1 |
| 3:2 | 2 | Belgium | vs | Japan | 0 | 2:0 | 1 |
| 1:0 | 1 | Sweden | vs | Switzerland | 1* | 1:0 | 3 |
| 1(3):1(4) | 1 | Colombia | vs | England | 2 | 1:2 | 1 |
*The best guess differs from median so that we avoid ties.
| Team's score | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| France | 63 | 438 | 463 | 75 | 2 | 1 | |
| Uruguay | 175 | 535 | 280 | 50 | 0 | 2 | |
| Spain | 35 | 200 | 502 | 293 | 12 | ||
| Croatia | 53 | 276 | 537 | 166 | 8 | 2 | |
| Brazil | 35 | 203 | 572 | 220 | 10 | 1 | 1 |
| Belgium | 18 | 140 | 431 | 392 | 57 | 4 | |
| Sweden | 202 | 562 | 241 | 33 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Colombia | 236 | 587 | 189 | 21 | 6 | 3 |
| Team's score | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Argentina | 160 | 558 | 285 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Portugal | 151 | 434 | 381 | 72 | 3 | 0 | 1 |
| Russia | 421 | 483 | 121 | 16 | 1 | ||
| Denmark | 560 | 402 | 75 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| Mexico | 332 | 553 | 137 | 15 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| Japan | 591 | 368 | 68 | 12 | 2 | 1 | |
| Switzerland | 288 | 507 | 222 | 21 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| England | 66 | 309 | 507 | 148 | 12 |
Conclusion
Choosing according to Steemit's average increased you chance to 94,75 % in group stage so it is a good idea to keep guessing according to the data.
Most people expect the group winner to also win their match except Uruguay vs Portugal and Colombia vs England and most common result is 2:1.
Tools and Scripts
Data from Steemit were downloaded through great library Ditch. The json parsed data can be found in the repository below.