Wildcard Cutoffs redux

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countyguy
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by countyguy »

Jerry Frankel in 1985, Tom Cubbage in 1989, Jim Scott in 1991, Rachael Schwartz in 1994, Ryan Holznagel in 1995, Dan Melia in 1998, Robin Carroll in 2000, Mark Dawson in 2003, Russ Schumacher in 2004, Michael Falk in 2006, and Celeste DiNucci in 2007. This is 11/24, or 45.83%, or greater than expected if a random semifinalist won. That is unexpected, and things like that show the randomness of the game we love so well.
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Robert K S
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by Robert K S »

I was about to say that the only thing more surprising to me than Melia losing his quarterfinal is that Craig Barker lost in the same game. But actually it makes good sense--they probably cancelled each other out, preventing each other from locking the game up. They were both leading over Peter Scott going into Final, but couldn't come up with the correct response for the Final clue in WORLD LEADERS: "In a September 18, 1978 speech, he said, 'Blessed are the peacemakers'". (They both guessed the pope. Is he considered a "world leader"?) Melia wagered only $1,000 to advance with $8,100. Peter went on to fare poorly against Bob Harris and Lyn Payne.
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Volante
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by Volante »

countyguy wrote:Jerry Frankel in 1985, Tom Cubbage in 1989, Jim Scott in 1991, Rachael Schwartz in 1994, Ryan Holznagel in 1995, Dan Melia in 1998, Robin Carroll in 2000, Mark Dawson in 2003, Russ Schumacher in 2004, Michael Falk in 2006, and Celeste DiNucci in 2007. This is 11/24, or 45.83%, or greater than expected if a random semifinalist won. That is unexpected, and things like that show the randomness of the game we love so well.
But if you draw a semifinalist at random, you've got a 44% chance at getting a wildcard player.

You say 45.83% is greater than expected...what's your expected value calculation then?
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by Bamaman »

Many people "forfeit" a QF match by not betting to cover. If you have $18,000 and second has $15,000, you'd be a fool to bet $12,001.
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by countyguy »

Volante wrote:
countyguy wrote:Jerry Frankel in 1985, Tom Cubbage in 1989, Jim Scott in 1991, Rachael Schwartz in 1994, Ryan Holznagel in 1995, Dan Melia in 1998, Robin Carroll in 2000, Mark Dawson in 2003, Russ Schumacher in 2004, Michael Falk in 2006, and Celeste DiNucci in 2007. This is 11/24, or 45.83%, or greater than expected if a random semifinalist won. That is unexpected, and things like that show the randomness of the game we love so well.
But if you draw a semifinalist at random, you've got a 44% chance at getting a wildcard player.

You say 45.83% is greater than expected...what's your expected value calculation then?
44.44%. 45.83%>44.44%.
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floridagator
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by floridagator »

countyguy wrote:This is 11/24, or 45.83%, or greater than expected if a random semifinalist won. That is unexpected, and things like that show the randomness of the game we love so well.
I disagree about that being greater than expected. Using your method of using the tournament as the unit of analysis (N=24), 11/24 is not significantly larger than using the proportion of wild card winners in the tournament pool 4/9 = .4444. x^2 = 0.33, p=0.566 (not significant).

If we inflate the N by using the semi-final contestant as the unit of analysis (24 tournaments * 9 semi-finalists) we get 216 contestants, of whom 120 were automatic semi-finalists and 96 were wild card winners. However, 11/96 = .1145 is still not statistically significant from 13/120 = .1083. x^2 = 0.02, p=0.888 (not significant).
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by countyguy »

Even if it is not statistically significant, it still exceeds the expected value. It is interesting in that it shows that the winner is fairly random. It does not mean that wildcard are more likely to win. If it was biased toward winners, it would most likely be less than that.
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Volante
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by Volante »

countyguy wrote:Even if it is not statistically significant, it still exceeds the expected value. It is interesting in that it shows that the winner is fairly random. It does not mean that wildcard are more likely to win. If it was biased toward winners, it would most likely be less than that.
Of course it's biased towards winners! Every ToC contestant is a winner!

But simply exceeding the expected value doesn't mean anything. You don't have a fixed coin if after 24 flips you have 13 heads instead of 12.

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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by econgator »

Robert K S wrote:(They both guessed the pope. Is he considered a "world leader"?)
He is the head of Vatican City, so, yep, he is.
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by Bamaman »

I have added the information about FJ for the TOCs, Teachers Teachers Tournaments and Super TOCs. I'll try to add the other tournies tomorrow.
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by nightreign »

Bamaman wrote:
2012B Teachers Tournament (Season 29)-Held in November-Won by Colby Burnett:
$11,601 (Whitney Collins)-FJ right, players 3/3
$10,000 (Diana North)-FJ wron, players 2/3
^I see what you did there!
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by Vermonter »

Looks like QF#4 is consistently the strongest.

There are 64 tournaments for which data for all 5 QFs exist in J! Archive.

All tournaments
QF#1 – 98/189 (51.85%)
QF#2 – 109/191 (57.07%)
QF#3 – 109/189 (57.67%)
QF#4 – 113/188 (60.11%)
QF#5 – 104/190 (54.74%)
Grand Total – 533/947 (56.28%)

S21 to present (34 tournaments):
QF#1 – 54/101 (53.47%)
QF#2 – 62/101 (61.39%)
QF#3 – 57/100 (57.00%)
QF#4 – 69/100 (69.00%)
QF#5 – 56/100 (56.00%)
Grand Total – 298/502 (59.36%)

S26 to present (19 tournaments):
QF#1 – 33/56 (58.93%)
QF#2 – 30/56 (53.57%)
QF#3 – 32/57 (56.14%)
QF#4 – 39/56 (69.64%)
QF#5 – 38/57 (66.67%)
Grand Total – 172/282 (60.99%)
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by dhall60 »

In how many TOC's, has a wild card won the championship? The only one I can think of is Colby...
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Robert K S
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by Robert K S »

There's a full list by countyguy a few posts up in the thread.
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by seaborgium »

dhall60 wrote:In how many TOC's, has a wild card won the championship? The only one I can think of is Colby...
Colby wasn't a wild card.
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by Bamaman »

Bumping this thread with the Teachers Tourney starting this week.
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by Bamaman »

With the completion of the archiving of the 1990 College Tournament, I have updated the statistics.
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by opusthepenguin »

Bamaman wrote:With the completion of the archiving of the 1990 College Tournament, I have updated the statistics.
Nice job. Thanks for doing this.
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by Jeff-thecdboy »

Here are some more I found:

1992 Teen Tournament (Season 8)-Held in Feb/Mar-Won by April McManus
$8,850 (Jill Young)-FJ right, players 3/3
$8,300 (Muffy Morris)-FJ right, players 3/3, had $7,300 pre-FJ
$8,300 (Jason Colby)-FJ right, players 2/3, had $4,200 pre-FJ

1993 Teen Tournament (Season 9)-Held in Feb-Won by Fraser Woodford
$10,000 (Mit Robertson)-FJ right, players 3/3
$9,000 (Scott Steiger)-FJ wrong, players 2/3, had $9,500 pre-FJ
$9,000 (Colin Rafferty)-FJ right, players 3/3, had $7,100 pre-FJ

1994 Teen Tournament (Season 10)-Held in Feb-Won by Matt Morris
$6,100 (E.J. Sieracki)-FJ wrong, players 2/3
$5,000 (Rebecca Sinderbrand)-FJ right, players 2/3
Note: E.J. and Rebecca were both in quarterfinal #5.

1994 College Tournament (Season 10)-Held in May-Won by Jeff Stewart
$10,300 (Keri Ellis)-FJ right, players 3/3
$8,798 (Matthew Stone)-FJ right, players 3/3
Note: Keri and Matthew were both in quarterfinal #5 with Jeff Stewart.

1995 College Tournament (Season 11)-Held in May-Won by Ben Lyon
$4,600 (JL McHenry)-FJ right, players 1/3
$3,000 (Josh Elman)-FJ right, players 1/3
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Re: Wildcard Cutoffs redux

Post by Bamaman »

Thank you. I'll update the records later this week. Where did you get this information?
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