World Cup Thread - Page 4

it's just variance-off game included in this variance. brazil had the best betting odds to win so they were clearly a favourite and it was a bad beat. The stats show brazil had higher posession, higher shots on goal, and yes it is bad luck if you miss a lot of shots. neymar still one of the best players in the world even if he didn't play well in a few games.

Spitfire,

Part of that win was Roberto Martinez tactics. Moving De Bruyne forward was brilliant and the defensive spacing was superb. I don't necessarily think that was built into the odds but honestly it probably was about right. The Belgian counterattack looked VERY dangerous. I still say Brazil looked like the more dangerous team in that game. To say that Neymar didn't matter is absurd. He was a threat every time he touched the ball. Even just the crispness and speed of his passing opened up space and kept the attack on. I think the betting odds had that matchup pinned down pretty well. Brazil wins that matchup about 60% of the time. Hence, Brazil losing can be considered a bad beat.

Brazil really missed casemiro on stoppping those counter attacks... but to spitfire look at stats brazil shot ~30 times of which around 10 had a good chance of scoring which is kinda surreal in a game like this. Belgium shot 8 times w 3 towards the goal. Brazil got in desperation mode with the 0-2 and made a lot of mistakes they shouldnt have but still dealt with it quite good and made a good amount of spots to score. Neymar you have to realize came back from a broken toe for this world cup he was about 3 months without play- its pretty amazing what he did considering that.

croatia will win this from now

most sympathic team

You guys realize that even by poker standards a bad beat is considered <5% chance to lose right? Of course that Brazil were the favorites, and would be if they match up again today, that doesn't mean shit though. What happened on the field is something completely different from bookies odds, but on both fronts you guys are just saying random stuff which are simply untrue.

Indeed Neymar came from an injury, thats why the most adequate decision would've been to put him on the bench and let him play 30-40minutes a match if necessary until proven that he is prepared to start and play the whole match. Neymar instantly lost the ball 90%> of the time he took it and he keeps doing the same shitty thing every game, trying to dribble with the ball instead of insantly passing it to the MASSIVE open zones, Brazillian squad was positioning itself very fucking well, except almost all opportunities were missed cause it was either Coutinho being tackled or Neymar losing the ball the most retarded way instead of passing it.

Also read the definition of a bad beat, 60-40 being a bad bead lmao get it together. I'd say 60-40 is about right when it comes to Brazil - Belgium though (if "X" isn't an option)

Not managing to score 4 times in a row from clear positions is a bad beat indeed.

That said I am not saying Brazil should have won this. Belgium showed much class and tactically played better. They were those who allowed Brazil to find these clear shots in the second half and if they were to lose this match it would have been their fault they completely gave up the initiative and the momentum.

At this point I am more looking at the final than the semis (I expect the favorites to win it after 90 minutes), but who knows, maybe there are still surprises left in this WC, which was full of them already.

On July 02 2018 15:53 Spitfiree wrote: I said that Croatia will reach the finals as their bottom half of the bracket is absurdly bad

Easy

France wins the 2nd one sadly, doubt Croatia will be able to do much about it

I'm super happy about the Croatians. They used the chance of the more easier bracket and Spain going out, and here they are - at the final.

We basically have Goliath vs David in the final match. I think the only real chance Croatia have is France scoring a goal and deciding to play it defensively, then Croatia scoring in the last minutes and keeping it even to penalties.

Belgium vs England will be good show too. We have to see them playing serious now.

Pretty dissapointed by the English team, they had a decent first half but afterwards didnt do javkshit while the croatians grew better and better. I really wish the croatians win this now. France is better but I like the croatians more as a team that grows as the game progresses rather than diminishes like the French. Also enjoyed Eng vs Cro more than Bel vs Fra. I think Belgium wins the 3rd as they want it more and work better together. For croatia to win Modric and Rakitic both will have to appear at some point. Hopefully Mboopy isnt in op mode.

^yah i thought it was so weird england dominated 1st half than goes downhill so bad... croatia although not in france level has some players with sick experience which can help.

haha, so much results orientation and gambling fallacies in this thread

i'm gona predict france wins the final about 60-65% of the time, based on looking at betting sites that know more than me.

France are a lot more fresher physically. They basically saved all their tricks for this final match (we saw what they are really capable of only vs Argentina in 55~70 minute). What fails them here is luck and stupidity from nerves aka red cards, which should make the difference 10% of the time. 15% Croatia plays their best game, reaches penalties and wins it. France take it 75% of the time. This is how I see it personally. I hope I am wrong though and Croatia drops the biggest surprise on all World Cups ever.

On July 12 2018 17:54 Expiate wrote: France are a lot more fresher physically. They basically saved all their tricks for this final match (we saw what they are really capable of only vs Argentina in 55~70 minute). What fails them here is luck and stupidity from nerves aka red cards, which should make the difference 10% of the time. 15% Croatia plays their best game, reaches penalties and wins it. France take it 75% of the time. This is how I see it personally. I hope I am wrong though and Croatia drops the biggest surprise on all World Cups ever.

I think you give France too much credit. Without looking at Cro lets see how France has done so far objectively:

- Barely winning 2-1 vs Australia (one of the weakest teams in my opinion in this WC)
- Win 1-0 vs Peru that, while showing superiority, could very well have ended in a draw since France seems to play worse as time goes on in a match.
- 1-1 vs Denmark who are not a strong team at all, I'd say average.
- Again barely winning against the worst Argentinian team in a while (this team got super lucky vs Peru by drawing in their own HOME vs us for their World Cup qualifier)
- Best result so far winning 2-0 vs a very dimished Uruguay without their best player by far Cavani and a blooper from their goalkeeper Muslera.

So all in all while France seems very impressive and their player are spectacular, I don't think Croatia's chances are so bad. Havent analized Croatias games and I don't like them all the time, but if they can manage the French team in the first half I think they have a very decent chance.

On July 12 2018 14:40 Stroggoz wrote: haha, so much results orientation and gambling fallacies in this thread i'm gona predict france wins the final about 60-65% of the time, based on looking at betting sites that know more than me.

QFT

It always amazes me how poker players are so stupid when it comes to sportsbetting, one would figure that professional gamblers would know better.

@locoo: I give France much credit, because I expect to see a game which will grant them the win by 2 goals minimum - something they never went for until now, because winning with marginal lead is the right strategy in order to preserve strength. But this won't be needed any more. It is their last match and they will play all their aces in it.

locoo what

Dont look at group stages, France wasn't really playing there, also game vs Denmark was 0-0 and literally the most boring match I've ever seen in my entire life. If there was the legal possibility to take a draw without playing they would've signed that deal so fast its unreal... I really dont get ppl that bet for favourites in groups in WC ... the easiest way to lose money. They always think its a given that they go out of the group and thats how Germany got KOd and Argentina was very close to it as well as Portugal ( I still feel bad for that Iranian dude not scoring in the 94th minute, he s probably having nightmares). Big ass favourites getting KOd in the group stages is something quite standard in the group stages. Germany isn't the first WC winner to get KOd the next tournament, it's a rather common event e.g. Spain in 2014. Anyway my point is ... favourites in group stages are careless and usually play randomly... that being said France:

They played pretty poorly vs Peru and Australia considering their capabilities, but that's due to underestimating them and they still won both matches..

They completely destroyed Argentina (unfortunately no WC for Messi) and the score is kind of misleading.

Uruguay was much closer, but Uruguay was easily a top5 team on this WC.

Belgium had no luck, but France did deserve to win it. It was still close, but it would've been justified if the game had gone for the extra 30.

As much as I like Croatia and will be rooting for them for the final, they haven't had nearly as big of a challenge as France. If it were Belgium/Brazil/Uruguay/Argentina instead of England, the final would be much different. England just played their cards right when exiting the group, got lucky Germany got knocked out and they didn't really amaze with their game. There is no way they deserve a SF in reality... Again super happy for Croatia and imo their Final was semi-easy to predict given the bracket, but tbh skillwise they're prob around top5-8ish

France looks like the only team playing as a high level local club e.g. Barca, Real. Mbappe, Griezmann, and Pavard have a sick sync and it feels like Umtiti and Varan are unbreakable (which is kind of a surprise considering both sucked ass in their clubs during the season). Definitely, the best team on the competition and they should easily be taking the cup at least 9.5 out of 10 times. And then we got the other factors like Croatia having played 3x120 the past 7 days after their top3 players - Rakitic, Modric & Vrsaljko have played like 60game long season, that should be very, very exhausting. I mean if you looked how Modric played vs England, you'd know what I mean, he was among the worst players for Croatia and that guy is a freaking beast. Fortunately, Vrsaljko went into god mode there and was running all across the field for every ball like a madman.

so your putting 20:1 on france winning? im guessing you'll be betting a huge amount of money on this game then

rofl

I wrote a long post on sports betting but then I decided to just throw it into the fire.

My brain is a bit scrambled from work and I don't even know if I would be able to even calculate it these days without looking up how to do it but 95% edge vs 60% edge would be a helluva lot of units. Especially when one considers the outlier of such an opportunity. It might be a spot for getting as much down as you can that wouldn't change your life so much or basically not be too displeasing besides being a little shell shocked and sad. It's hard to predict such wagers. The good of the big win versus the bad of the big loss. Just as long as it's thought out relatively well. I thought about winning $2million at 25/50 in a year more than I thought about grinding out 2/4 again. Or, even life tilted to the point where I didn't want to play anymore. Wagers about life are very interesting. That's basically what any wager is. We can do all the math about how to grow our bankrolls and how to avoid risk of ruin and then there is the fun part of strategy and sharpness and making the wagers but it's really the wagers about life that are most important.

Haralabos Voulgaris made a wager when he was in grad school for Philsophy living in his brother's basement. He bet $100k (his entire bankroll) that the Lakers would win the championship at 8 to 1 odds. He said that if he won he could drop out of grad school, move, and become a professional gambler increasing his limits (keep in mind in sportsbetting his edge remains the same as limits increase) and if he lost oh well he'll just make back the money at a skycap job, rebuild his bankroll, and continue going to grad school and living in his brothers basement. He later has said that it was stupid to do that on a future but it really seems like a sound wager to me. He ended up winning that bet and the rest is history. Que sera sera.

I never took that $2million out of those 25/50 plo games. I am a story of what happens when it goes the other way. I put myself out of the games. Maybe I wanted to be out of the games.

Fuck it I'm writing a blog. Fuck.

Well....

TLDR:

The sportsbooks and a good vig free calculator will predict games better than anyone on this site (as far as I know)

To Expiate and Spitfiree, I dont buy the whole “group matches dont matter”. Its the fucking world cup , you dont take chances vs lesser teams and you definetly dont understimate them, that is a rookie mistake which Deschamps is not. The only one I concede is vs Denmark vs it really didn’t matter. Also I forgot the match vs Belgium where again they were outplayed at the second half but Belgium just could not score. In any case Im not sure about it but we will see on sunday how it plays out. I will be a great match that’s for sure.

On July 13 2018 00:41 Stroggoz wrote: so your putting 20:1 on france winning? im guessing you'll be betting a huge amount of money on this game then

I probably make 1 bet per 2 years (last time I bet huge was Floyd vs McGregor and I think this is a MUCH bigger steal). Betting makes me lose the joy from watching sports, but yeah I'd say the 1.9 coef for France winning in 90minutes is bonkers and if you're into that shit it would be mad not to take it.


If I were still playing poker I'd probably just set aside a portion of my bank and go all in with it, but I really cant be bothered even if it sounds as a lame excuse.