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Ryan_Cable
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Re: 2006 WC Prediction Contest
« Reply #15 on: Nov 16th, 2005, 7:07pm » |
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Sock puppets are one of the standard internet trolling techniques:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_sock_puppet
It refers to maintaining multiple user accounts designed to appear as a different people. The idea in this case would be for a player (or non-player) to start additional non-player accounts which then enter the prediction contest. This could be used to support a strategy of betting against oneself or just to multiply ones chances at getting a prize. For instance, one could be slow and steady with one account and wild and wacky with others. Entering a sock puppet in the tournament would be much harder to disguise.
To avoid getting caught requires having enough technical savvy to keep your IP from giving away that the accounts are being operated from the same physical location. Also, you would have to invest the effort of playing enough games to make the sock puppet accounts appear plausible. I don’t have any actual experience with network security, so I don’t know what sort of countermeasures Omar could take against this. Analysis of login times would at least give some indication. On the whole, I think there are many simpler ways to scam money, both on the internet and in meat space.
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99of9
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Re: 2006 WC Prediction Contest
« Reply #16 on: Nov 20th, 2005, 4:11pm » |
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I guess now we get to see who was predicting upsets!
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99of9
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Re: 2006 WC Prediction Contest
« Reply #17 on: Nov 20th, 2005, 7:09pm » |
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on Nov 16th, 2005, 5:34pm, Fritzlein wrote:| The net result of favorites not being able to predict number of moves and underdogs not being able to bet against themselves is that non-players have a slight advantage over players in predicting. This is as it should be. |
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What's more, of the top three predictors from round 1:
* One is a non-player
* One is a winning favourite
* One is a losing underdog
So it seems that any biases to do with status are less than the biases due to your ability to predict  . JDB has obviously predicted extremely accurately given that he took a loss and the consequent penalty in this round.
Oh... and none were sock puppets! (Although maybe suspicion should fall on Elmo and co. - how easy would it be for Fritz to create a fictional wife and family of inlaws )
[Humble apologies for that vicious jibe Katie... i couldn't help it. Nice predicting by the way, you've obviously recanted on your strategy of betting against Karl in every game?]
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| « Last Edit: Nov 20th, 2005, 7:14pm by 99of9 » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2006 WC Prediction Contest
« Reply #18 on: Nov 20th, 2005, 7:18pm » |
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Thanks, Omar, for being so quick in posting the prediction contest results and the pairings for round two!
I was quite surprised to see only 21 people placing bets on each game, as I had expected registration to be closer to 30. But now I see there were indeed 28 people registered and 7 didn't enter anything. This is proof in my mind that the refundable registration fee for the WC itself is a good thing.
I see my overly cautious bets dropped me to 13th even though I was right on seven of seven. Apparently JDB bet 100% on every game but his own, and this strategy paid off. If he gets knocked out of the championship next round, I'd pick him as the favorite to win the prediction contest even if there are, say, four players ahead of him, if those four predictors are all still in the championship and constrained in the betting on their own games.
I've got a great idea: Let's place bets about who is going to win the prediction contest. We could have prizes and standings and everything.
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| « Last Edit: Nov 20th, 2005, 7:25pm by Fritzlein » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2006 WC Prediction Contest
« Reply #19 on: Nov 20th, 2005, 7:28pm » |
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on Nov 20th, 2005, 7:09pm, 99of9 wrote:
(Although maybe suspicion should fall on Elmo and co. - how easy would it be for Fritz to create a fictional wife and family of inlaws ) |
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Here's a question, though. If Katie goes to the library so she can log in and watch and chat with you guys in the chat room while I play, will you believe her that she isn't sitting next to me passing on your advice? 
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| « Last Edit: Nov 20th, 2005, 7:57pm by Fritzlein » |
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99of9
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Re: 2006 WC Prediction Contest
« Reply #20 on: Nov 20th, 2005, 7:44pm » |
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on Nov 20th, 2005, 7:28pm, Fritzlein wrote:
Here's a quesiton, though. If Katie goes to the library so she can log in and watch and chat with you guys in the chat room while I play, will you believe her that she isn't sitting next to me passing on your advice? |
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Well if that happens we'll probably pepper her with so many questions about the process of freezing liquids that there won't be any time for advice anyway!
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PMertens
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Re: 2006 WC Prediction Contest
« Reply #21 on: Nov 20th, 2005, 8:05pm » |
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cosidering some of our advices has yet to be determined wether it would help or damage you :-P
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Ryan_Cable
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Re: 2006 WC Prediction Contest
« Reply #22 on: Nov 21st, 2005, 4:27am » |
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After round 1, with ~24% of the non-forfeit games finished, we have:
Name . . Points StDev
1 Ryan_Cable . 1201 1.353
2 RonWeasley . 1176 1.196
3 jdb . . 1165 1.128
4 99of9 . . 1136 0.946
5 Elmo . . 1128 0.896
6 Adanac . . 1101 0.727
7 naveed . . 1086 0.634
8 Belbo . . 1072 0.546
9 fritzlforpresident 1039 0.340
10 BlackKnight . 1038 0.333
11 Paul . . 1034 0.308
12 Aamir . . 1028 0.271
13 Fritzlein . 989 0.027
14 omar . . 946 -0.242
15 acheron . . 931 -0.336
16 MrBrain . . 889 -0.598
17 PMertens . . 814 -1.067
18 carolaina . 750 -1.467
19 grey_0x2A . 726 -1.617
20 nbarriga . . 716 -1.680
21 robinson . . 713 -1.699
Median 1034.0
Mean 984.7
StDev 159.9
Fot the winners:
Median 1030.5
Mean 996.5
StDev 166.6
For the losers:
Median 1034.0
Mean 981.3
StDev 145.4
For the specators:
Median 1033.5
Mean 972.8
StDev 194.1
All 15 active tournament players are in the prediction contest, giving 8 winners, 7 losers, and 6 spectators. It seems like those three groups are as close to each other as predicted by chance if not closer.
on Nov 20th, 2005, 7:18pm, Fritzlein wrote:| This is proof in my mind that the refundable registration fee for the WC itself is a good thing. |
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Strongly agree, having no-shows in a floating multiple elimination tournament is significantly worse than in a non-floating single elimination tournament, where there are plenty of first round byes to reach 2^n anyway. But if we just threw people out after a single forfeit, it would make the tournament pairing much harder to predict. And in our specific case, it would ruin the great 16 player structure.
on Nov 20th, 2005, 7:18pm, Fritzlein wrote:| I see my overly cautious bets dropped me to 13th even though I was right on seven of seven. |
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I didn’t predict anyone below 85%, but I was probably more cautious than you in relative terms. I was never more than 15% away from the average prediction and often within 10% of it. If the average prediction is 90%, a 100% prediction is much less bold than a 70% one. Of course, the average prediction is not available when making a prediction, but a guesstimate of it should always be in your mind.
on Nov 20th, 2005, 7:18pm, Fritzlein wrote:| Apparently JDB bet 100% on every game but his own, and this strategy paid off. If he gets knocked out of the championship next round, I'd pick him as the favorite to win the prediction contest even if there are, say, four players ahead of him, if those four predictors are all still in the championship and constrained in the betting on their own games. |
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Not if he keeps predicting everything at 100%. With me @ 1800, omar +100, and 99of9 +75 and ignoring the forfeit, there was a 0.7115 chance of at least one upset, and the expectation was for 1.096 upsets. If there had been just one upset, people who boldly gave low predictions like Fritzlein would be near the top, and those who boldly gave high predictions would be near the middle. However, most of the people who actually predicted upsets were likely to end up near the bottom regardless of the overall number of upsets.
on Nov 20th, 2005, 7:18pm, Fritzlein wrote:| I I've got a great idea: Let's place bets about who is going to win the prediction contest. We could have prizes and standings and everything. |
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Well, if you assumed that the points from the future games would be distributed with some relation to the distribution above you could assign probabilities to everyone. However, it would be very hard to separate the skill from the luck. Even guessing is difficult without knowing people’s strategic approaches. Still, I will go on record with:
1 RonWeasley
2 99of9
3 Ryan_Cable
on Nov 20th, 2005, 8:05pm, PMertens wrote:| cosidering some of our advices has yet to be determined wether it would help or damage you :-P |
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I heard that the peanut gallery supported the H blunder that finished off jdb in my game.
Two interesting statistics I would like to see after the contest is over are the number of predictions each person had for the right player and the split in each person’s points between those from win prediction and those from move prediction. I don’t think that this would violate the promise that Individual predictions are kept confidential, but the overall prediction statistics are displayed to everyone.
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99of9
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Re: 2006 WC Prediction Contest
« Reply #23 on: Nov 21st, 2005, 6:36am » |
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on Nov 21st, 2005, 4:27am, Ryan_Cable wrote:| I heard that the peanut gallery supported the H blunder that finished off jdb in my game. |
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Just Omar, oops. We corrected him before you made your move. Then again, at another time I wanted you to make a move that was impossible!
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2006 WC Prediction Contest
« Reply #24 on: Nov 21st, 2005, 10:05am » |
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Nice statistical analysis, Ryan! That sure seems to bust my idea that non-players have a significant advantage over players. I was quite confident that non-players have an advantage of about 20 points per game, which should show up as about 140 points over the seven games so far. It's funny, though, that I can't give up my intuition even in the face of mathematical evidence to the contrary.
Thanks for pointing out that my "conservative" guesses were probably as radical, relative to the field, as guessing 100% on every game. In that light, it wasn't so much that didn't gamble enough as that I gambled and lost.
I think that one's relation to the field is not the only relevant factor, though. One's relation to the true percentages is also very important, as 99of9 is trying to prove. I bet on all the favorites, but cumulatively predicted an average of 1.65 upsets in the first eight games. If the true average number of upsets was going to be 1.096, then I cost myself points, on average, relative to an accurate predictor, and I can only justify it in terms of being willing to accept a lower average in exchange for a higher variance.
I agree with your intuition that people who actually predicted upsets were giving away too many points, on average, to justify their huge increase in variance, but that's only because the tournament has so many games this year. As the number of remaining games dwindles, wild predictions get more appropriate.
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| « Last Edit: Nov 21st, 2005, 10:07am by Fritzlein » |
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RonWeasley
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Re: 2006 WC Prediction Contest
« Reply #25 on: Nov 21st, 2005, 11:34am » |
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It's a bit early to draw conclusions. This first round had the most easily predicted games. The pairings are much closer in the rest of the tourney. We should see lower absolute scoring and more variance. The total number of games is interesting because it's in the region where the central limit theorem takes effect and a percentage strategy does as well as an upset stategy.
Ryan, you put so much pressure on me. You know how I fall apart under pressure! But I'm off to a good start and I hope my non-player advantage pays off. The player who wins all his games gets this advantage too. An earned benefit.
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2006 WC Prediction Contest
« Reply #26 on: Nov 22nd, 2005, 10:09am » |
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Now I am feeling that JDB was right about betting 100% on the early rounds, because being behind puts the pressure on. I already feel that I have to go ballistic in the second round of the tournament.
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2006 WC Prediction Contest
« Reply #27 on: Nov 22nd, 2005, 3:05pm » |
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Heads up everyone: When Omar corrected the colors on the game Grey_0x2A vs. Megamau, it wiped out my prediction for that game. If you entered your predictions early this week, you had better check them again before game time.
On the other hand, it is likely Megamau will forfeit the game, in which case the predictions don't matter. Futhermore, it is the last game of the week, so everyone will probably notice the problem when they check to see how they are doing mid-round. And finally, the people who don't look at their predictions mid-round probably aren't going to be reading the forum either, so this message is 99.73% useless, but I've written it, so I'm going to post it anyway. 
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99of9
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Re: 2006 WC Prediction Contest
« Reply #28 on: Nov 22nd, 2005, 4:06pm » |
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Thanks for that tip off Fritz
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Ryan_Cable
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Re: 2006 WC Prediction Contest
« Reply #29 on: Nov 24th, 2005, 10:18pm » |
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on Nov 21st, 2005, 10:05am, Fritzlein wrote:| That sure seems to bust my idea that non-players have a significant advantage over players. I was quite confident that non-players have an advantage of about 20 points per game, which should show up as about 140 points over the seven games so far. It's funny, though, that I can't give up my intuition even in the face of mathematical evidence to the contrary. |
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Just to be clear, if each player in a game loses ~20 move points relative to people not in the game, ~280 points total are lost by all players relative to the spectators, but that still shows in the averages as just a ~19 point disadvantage. (I think the real move penalty is more like ~18 for winners and ~32 for losers.) However, if each underdog looser bets 55% on himself, while everyone else predicts 85% for the winner, each underdog looses 112 relative points, which should put the looser average ~132 points below the spectators and ~110 points below the winners. The winner average should only be ~19 points below the spectators.
All of the players have constraints on their win predictions that the spectators don’t have, and rational actors can’t benefit from having their decision space reduced. The two players in the game can collectively get 100 move points, and they get even less if the game goes beyond 70 moves. To get less than 50 move points, people not in the game must miss the move number by >50% low or >100% high, which requires either bold move predictions or near record move numbers. However, the players still get move points in their games even if they lose, which could be a ~10 point advantage in a tossup game. All together, spectators should be advantaged relative to players.
While I think this is important to individual players, especially ones who are underdog losers, it is masked in the group averages by several effects. The groups of round one winners, losers, and spectators were far from randomly chosen. Collectively, I think the round 1 winners are likely to have advantages over the round 1 losers in several useful traits, such as Arimaa experience, prediction experience, strategic acumen, and familiarity with the players. I think the spectators are likely to fall below the losers in many of these traits.
For an example, 5 winners, 4 losers, and 3 spectators took part in the 2005 prediction contest, and 3 winners and 2 losers took part in the 2004 prediction contest. This whole discussion is plagued by small number statistics, but the distribution of prediction experience is in the claimed direction. In round 1, we already see a substantial advantage for people with previous experience:
People with 2005 experience:
Median 1033.0
Mean 1003.4
StDev 131.2
People without 2005 experience:
Median 1034.0
Mean 959.7
StDev 197.6
People with 2004 experience:
Median 1072.0
Mean 1025.8
StDev 103.7
People without 2004 experience:
Median 1031.0
Mean 971.8
StDev 174.6
Yet, strangely it is the losers who have substantially over-performed this round when corrected for the penalty of predicting for themselves. My guess is that the losers have over-performed this round by being aggressive (bold high) while others were passive (bold low) or cautious, and will suffer next round. Of course it could be that the losers just happen to be collectively the most skilled predictors, despite the odds against it. Also, I would guess that the unforced upset predictions were mostly made by spectators. And the spectators lost 100+ points (17+ points from the mean) by not predicting 1 game.
I think that skill will play a greater role in future rounds, and will lead to a greater differentiation between the groups of round 1 winners, losers, and spectators. Tracking these three round 1 groups all the way to the end will probably be marred by people loosing interest and not making predictions, but my guess is that we will see at least 0.2 StDev in means between winners over losers and between losers over spectators. Note that next round, the winners’ bracket games will have about as many underdogs as the losers’ bracket games.
on Nov 21st, 2005, 10:05am, Fritzlein wrote:| I think that one's relation to the field is not the only relevant factor, though. One's relation to the true percentages is also very important, as 99of9 is trying to prove. I bet on all the favorites, but cumulatively predicted an average of 1.65 upsets in the first eight games. If the true average number of upsets was going to be 1.096, then I cost myself points, on average, relative to an accurate predictor, and I can only justify it in terms of being willing to accept a lower average in exchange for a higher variance. |
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Good point, I have been implicitly assuming we have a wise crowd without realizing it. Including the Adanac vs. megamau game, the crowd gave an expectation for 1.367 upsets. If we weight down the upset predictions to remove the forced predictions, the crowd predicts 1.207 upsets. If we remove all the upset predictions, the crowd predicts 1.02 upsets. These numbers are pretty close to those predicted by my modified ratings, and crowd numbers could very well be more correct.
I was a little surprised by how high the crowd's upset numbers turned out to be; maybe there are not as many overly aggressive predictors heading for a comeuppance in round 2 as I thought.
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