Why those Danes think so differently from me?
They stupid? or I'm stupid? Must be one of two.

I though Danes will have big chance against Korea while slim chance against China. In fan's calculation here, Danes will have 57% win percentage over Korea, but only 25% against China.

If both Danes and I are not that stupid, they must have decided to use Sudirman Cup as a real practice for World Championships. You know, Danes do not that care about national pride, instead only themself.

Now, I think they don't want to lose any chance to fight with China. It is good for preparing the world Championships.

I hate those Danes, who fool us around!!!

they probably want to get it over with earlier than later. they do have a chance against China, and higher chances against the other two countries.

and if they field the weaker players in the group matches, then Gade and Martin will be fresh in the semis, while the Chinese players will be somewhat more tired.

if i were China, i will field:

Chen vs. Gade
Gong vs. Martin
Z/Z vs. Eriksen/Larsen
Huang/Gao vs. whoever
Liu/Gao vs. Sogaard/Olsen

fielding Liu instead of Zhang for the surprise, and also Zhang will be pretty damn tired after the MD.

if our beloved IBF arranges the LD just behind the MXD.....

I don't understand how anyone can predict that a match has a 57% chance of being won by one team or another. Why not 53% or 59% or 56.5678%? Relying on such a prediction is in my mind about as logical and accurate as asking a soothsayer to gaze into her crystal ball. Are those figures based upon win-loss records for Danish vs. Chinese players over the last year or two? That might be a reasonable basis for such an estimate.

Why would you say that the Danes have no national pride? If anything, it sounds like they have scheduled their matches, not for their own personal glory, but for assuring that the team remains strong until the later matches, which count more. Also, wouldn't the scheduling of the players for a particular match be a decision primarily made by the coach, rather than by the individual players themselves?

Agree with your first point, Brett. It's all so erm... arbitrary?

i think hm... (high modulus? stiff?) erm.. stiff did an educated guess as a first basis. and then he use simple probability expection calculation to deduce the chances. they are "derived educated guesses". which is the reason why they are so unrounded numbers..

the variance of the probabilities is so large, such derivation can only be a reference or just an interesting math exercise.

Catch no ball. I'm an arts person.

neber mind lah.

Well, you'd better give out your own calculations if you can,
It is not helpful for just showing your illiteracy of numbers.

why hm...?

I'm wondering myself :D

James Joyce, the greatest writer, used hm... to express deep thought in Ulysses, the greatest novel.

People use hm... to mean "what?" or "huh?"

Independent thinker uses hm... as an expression of thoughfu doubt.

Lovers use hm...(hectometer) to represent the length of their love.

Badminton shuttlers use hm... to ask for "Harmonic Motion";

I use hm... just for a soft mrumur to myself.

I hope his will not violate your constitutions here.

Sincerely,

hm (His Majesty)

Hm,

I'm not knowledgeable enough about international teams and players to venture any sort of guess. I was simply wondering how anyone could arive at such specific numbers for an estimate involving so many variables that it truly would be at best a guess reasonable to + or - 10 or 20% or so.

As a partial explanation, I'll tell a story from my youth. I did not get along with my 5th grade teacher and did not respect her intellectually very much. We had a discussion in class one day about which student was supposed to do some task (cleaning blackboards maybe) around the class room on which day, pursuant to a schedule she had set up a month earlier. The teacher stated that I was supposed to do it in a few days, and, since she was wrong, I told her rather smugly "According to my calculations, I won't have to do it until Thursday..." The whole rest of the year my classmates nicknamed me "Calculations." My friends were always on my back about it, stating things like "ACCORDING TO MY CALCULATIONS, there will be a 79.6% chance that it will be cloudy outside during recess," or "ACCORDING TO MY CALCULATIONS, there is only an 18.34% chance that I have a pencil in my desk today," etc.... I was horribly wounded emotionally and have been overly sensitive to percentages ever since... ;)

wow, thanks for your story, now I see where your problem comes from.

If you had even done any scientific research, you will know it based on models, models based on assumptions. This is why there is an intrinsic attribute about science, that is it must be proved wrong! (yes, not correct!)

After your assumption, then do your calculation which could result in a float point number. You cannot change the result arbitray, you can only change your assumption. That's science. Why people laughed at you, because your calculation was probably based on false assumption. At that moment, you'd better say, "Let me assume the teacher was wrong", instead of saying "ACCORDING TO MY CALCULATION"...

As I said, you cannot read and understand the meanning of percentage numbers, so you feel unconfomtable. Next time, once you see these word, just click the "next" button to skip.

Adel, that's the reason when you read long time before all england open that Jennifer predicted Chen Hong and Zhou Mi would win AE. You posted an article claimed that was a ridiculous prediction and flagrant pro-China.

Actually, both Chen Hong and Zhou Mi got into the finals at AE. Have you got a better prediction than that?

You got learn more math instead of too much pro-INA sentiment.

Well hm, it seems to me that there are so many human variables involved that attempting to make a precise numerical prediction according to scientific and mathmatical formulas and theories seems kind of pointless. We are talking about human beings here, not constant values such as strength or malleability levels of metals. If your basic premise is flawed, it does not matter how many formulas, permutations, etc... you run your data through, you will still end up with a flawed prediction. It's kind of like taking the equation (0x2)(2 +[3x4]/17)(14-29/34) - no matter how many additional series of numbers you multiply by that equation, you still end up with 0 for an answer. No amount of math or statistics can take into account how a particular player feels, from both a mental and physical standpoint, when he or she goes onto the court on any given day. It's not really so much a question of math as it is one of logic. I guess we will just agree to disagree on this issue.

I don't think you completely understood my story. I was not really giving you a genuine explanation about a childhood incident that has effected me to the present - in my self-deprecating but true story, I was attempting to make a humorous and mostly fictional explanation for finding fault with using such specific percentages. Actually, I was correct in my so-called "calculation," which merely consisted of counting a few weeks ahead on a calendar, and my teacher simply made a mistake. The other kids gave me grief about the situation not because of my analysis or math, but because I was acting pretty arrogantly and pompously for a little kid of eleven years old, announcing "According to my calculations" like I was a nobel laureate. Luckily, I've grown up and I'm all reserved and modest these days. ;)

First paragraph first, At primitive age, most people thought that all nature were just unpredictable, then a handful pioneers established science and mathematics to approach it, hundreds of years ago, most people there is no way to understand human behavior, now scientists have mathematics models for them too. As for the prediction of matches, which is just another science based on mathematics, such as probability theory. Well, Brett, you have two choices, one is to totally deny it, or go back home and learn it. Inventing another theory like "multiplied by 0" only indicates your some education really blocks your vision. By the way, multiply 0 does not have to be 0, say infinity. There is a concept called singularity. By multiplied by 0, we can remove the singularity, therefore end up with a value neither 0 nor infinity.

For the second paragraphy, I didn't misunderstand you. You are good at inventing theories. For example, this time, you are entitled of "Dr. Zero". As I said, the reason why you were Mr. According_to_my_calculation is that your calculation can give you nothing but being laughed at. If you had said "According to your (the teacher) calculation, Sun will rise from the west", then your teacher would have been laughed at.

First paragraph first, At primitive age, most people thought that all nature were just unpredictable, then a handful pioneers established science and mathematics to approach it, hundreds of years ago, most people there is no way to understand human behavior, now scientists have mathematics models for them too. As for the prediction of matches, which is just another science based on mathematics, such as probability theory. Well, Brett, you have two choices, one is to totally deny it, or go back home and learn it. Inventing another theory like "multiplied by 0" only indicates your some education really blocks your vision. By the way, multiply 0 does not have to be 0, say infinity. There is a concept called singularity. By multiplied by 0, we can remove the singularity, therefore end up with a value neither 0 nor infinity.

For the second paragraphy, I didn't misunderstand you. You are good at inventing theories. For example, this time, you are entitled of "Dr. Zero". As I said, the reason why you were Mr. According_to_my_calculation is that your calculation can give you nothing but being laughed at. If you had said "According to your (the teacher) calculation, Sun will rise from the west", then your teacher would have been laughed at.

those numerical chances are easier for the bookies :)

This is amazing. I've quit that forum already and you guys can still remember that "flagrant" error I committed.

I admit my maths isn't good. But pro-Indonesian sentiments were not my reason for reacting the way I did. I agree totally that Indonesia hardly stands a chance in the LS or even in the MS these days (unless Taufik makes an amazing comeback ot Hendrawan takes a miracle pill to regain his youth). Perhaps the ONLY event that they stand a chance of winning in is the MD.

Basically, I wrote what I did because I was irritated at the way Jennifer was simply writing people off. I don't know what that's called? Realism? Tell me I'm stupid, but like Brett, I cannot for the world understand how anybody can simply reduce the outcome of a match to mathematical figures alone.

Ardy Wiranata's father once mentioned in an Asiaweek article (wrt Indonesia's Olympic chances), "We hope and pray, but this is sports, NOT mathematics".

So I'm pro-Indonesia. Naturally. I've been supporting that team for seven years. But one thing I know, I make a conscious effort not to bash other teams/players. With the exception of saying things like "Go Indonesia" and expressing my disappointment at their disappointing performances, I don't single people out for attacks that read, "She looks like a psychopath when she plays".

I believe that China will win the Sudirman Cup this time round without a fight. But that isn't going to stop me from supporting the teams I support, namely Korea and Indonesia, and hope that they will be capable of pulling off an upset (which common sense tells me is unlikely). Is that going too far? If so, forgive me for living.

Btw, my predictions for All-England LS and MS champions were Gong Zhichao (got that one right) and undecided for MS (but was reducing it to either Xia or Ji, NOT Taufik). So much for my pro-Indonesian sentiments.

All right Fan/hm - what's the deal with your dual identities? Are you pretending to be some sort of secret agent, the James Bond of badminton? Smashed, not stirred, my good fellow. ;)

Since I seem to be unable to resist telling off-topic stories and drawing non-badminton analogies, I'll tell you another one that reminds me of our differences. I'm a big fan of blues music and a few months ago I caught a show featuring the Matthew Skoller Band, a good, fairly young blues group from Chicago . Skoller had a new guitarist named Yoshi who had recently moved to Chicago from Japan to become part of the real blues scene there in the blues capital of the world. Yoshi was an amazing guitar technician, playing every single note perfectly and timely, going the whole concert without playing an off-key note; additionally he had cool, hip clothes and a classic, large bodied Gibson blues guitar, looking the part of a real blues player. He was also hands down the very fastest guitar player I have ever seen (and I've seen over 200 live concerts most featuring guitar-oriented music) playing every note perfectly so fast his hands were just a blur. So was he a good blues guitarist? Not even close. There was no emotion to his music at all, his notes didn't hang, cry or moan, which is a cornerstone of blues music. The guy didn't understand at all what blues was about. He was so concerned with obtaining technical perfection (really just the physical application of mathematical patterns to an instrument to form music) that he did not comprehend that good music requires a significant human element.

You my friend avec deux noms de guerre, are very similar in that you hide behind your formulas, equations, numbers and statistics. You need to stop and smell the roses, not give a biochemical analysis of what substances from the flower trigger the human olfactory glands. A number of people have mentioned that the new 5x7 point formula takes away a very satisfying element of the game - the major comeback that comes when a player down 1-10 can dig deep within him/herself and produce the courage and focus to beat the numerical odds and win the game. How do your theories, statistics and formulas account for that sort of athletic heroism? If you want to devote yourself to some all-encompassing pursuit of enumeration and quantification, by all means feel free to do so, but be logical enough to admit that life is not just one big formula. Next time you win a badminton match against a normally superior opponent, I hope you celebrate with a high-five to your partner, a fine beer or a hug with a significant other, rather than scurry to your immaculately organized gym bag to pull out your notebook and write "speed: 9.7285/10; control: 8.8436/10; standing heartrate: 53; glycogen levels: ......"

I have to laugh about some of your other comments. I can honestly say that before I started participating in this forum, no reasonably intelligent person (including those who know me well) has ever genuinely questioned the adequacy of either my intelligence or my education. Yet in the span of a few months on this site, I have had quite a number of people state or imply that I am stupid, unintelligent, uneducated, incapable of grasping complex thoughts, etc.... Does anyone have an explanation for these opinions? I'm not bothered by this, just quite curious, as I never seem to get a sensible explanation behind the criticisms.

Anyway, I have waxed philosophically on this topic for perhaps a bit too long. Must be badminton withdrawal - I haven't played in a week and probably won't have another serious game until September. :( I'm going to put on a Stevie Ray Vaughn cd and think about badminton and my summer vacation in New England - Fan/hm, go back to your desk and enjoy your HP programable.

hehe, i play my piano like dat too.

Heh, so do I. That's why I failed both Grades 7 and 8. The examiner wrote that I had no appreciation of the pieces. Hell, why am I publicising my disgraceful past?

Are you in Penang now, May?

no, leaving tomorrow morning. wut's ur e-mail addy??? e-mail me @ lilnerd@hotmail.com

Hey hm/Fan,

It seems that there have been a lot of team strategizing (intentionally losing, scheduling weaker players and odd doubles combinations, etc...) plus a number of players not playing up to their normal levels at the Sudirman Cup. Did your formulas consider these factors? If so, how? Aside from picking China (which would have been a safe pick for anyone, even a person like myself with relatively little knowledge of international badminton players), how did your predictions come out? Any better than someone just saying "I'll go out on a limb and say that Player A has about a 50% chance of beating Player B. I'd guess that C has an 80% of beating D"?

What are your win/loss ratios for your predictions? You can round up or down to the closest full number - I'll give you the 0.5. We don't need to deal with the decimals to the fifth place.

You hate us ? - why ??? - not sure I get this.
In 99 we came ever so close to beating China in the
final so why not try again ( and again and again .... :) ).

Please cheer up - hate is not good for your blood pressure *LOL*