An Introduction…
The World Baseball Classic is an international baseball tournament sanctioned by the World Baseball Softball Confederation and conducted in partnership with Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association. It invites 20 qualified international teams to compete for a world championship. The tournament takes place every few years or so.
Tournament Format, and how the Prediction Challenge game is played
The Pool Play round consists of four Pools of five teams each, with the top two teams from each Pool qualifying for the knockout rounds. Each team plays each other once in the Preliminary Round, for a total of four games.
Your job to begin the game, in the Pool Play Round, is to pick the finishing order of each Pool. Your score will be based on how close you are to predicting the correct order in each Pool and also whether you chose the correct teams to qualify for the next round.
In the subsequent single-game knockout rounds, your task will be to pick the winning team and the number of runs that will be scored by each team in each matchup.
Scoring:
The Prediction Challenge game is scored out of 400 points:
100 Pool Play
100 Quarterfinals
100 Semifinals
100 Championship Game
The points will be awarded as follows.
Pool Play (100 Points)
Each team plays four games in their group, one against each team.
Object: Predict the correct order of finish in each Pool and the eight teams that will qualify for the Quarterfinals round
20 points for getting a Pool in the correct order, less 3 points for each position incorrect (max 80, min 0)
10 bonus points for getting the most qualifiers (top 2 in each Pool) correct (max 10)
10 bonus points for getting the most Pools exactly correct (max 10)
Quarterfinals (100 points)
Teams finishing first in their Pool will face Pool runners-up in single-elimination games.
Object: Predict the four game winners and the scores
10 points for each correct winner (max 40)
10 points for each correct score, less 2 points for each run incorrect (max 40, min 0)
10 bonus points for getting most winners correct (max 10)
10 bonus points for getting most scores correct (max 10)
Semifinals (100 points)
The Quarterfinals winners meet to play each other
Object: Predict the two game winners and the scores
20 points for each correct winner (max 40)
20 points for each correct score, less 4 points for each run incorrect (max 40, min 0)
10 bonus points for getting most winners correct (max 10)
10 bonus points for getting most scores correct (max 10)
Championship
The two Semifinals winners play one game
Object: Predict the World Baseball Classic champion and the Championship game score
50 points for getting the winner right
50 points for predicting the score correctly, less 10 points for each incorrect run. (min 0, max 50)
Tiebreakers
If players are tied at the end of the game on points, the tie will be broken based on the following:
1) Most points in the Championship round
3) Most points in the Semifinals round
4) Most points in the Quarterfinals round
Prediction Challenges! 