It seems like many of us here has managed 8/10 from last Tuesday's show and
we seem to be unanimous in thinking tonight is even a greater task to handle.
Having spent so much time in Eurovision central I have had many changes of
opinion and if trying to form realistic opinions on the dress rehearsal wasn't strenuous enough, this definitely beats it!
This semi-final is quite a mind-puzzler. My main issue is that even though
Romania is seen as a known qualifier, it has happened before that perennial
qualifiers fell. This happened to two nations in the year 2011 when both Turkey
and Armenia failed to qualify in Düsseldorf. No one had thought this possible
but there it was! Could this be the year Romania gets punished for sending a
mediocre-at-best performance which seems to be stuck together by every gimmick you could think of and
just shoved on a stage with a deer-in-headlights looking lead? On the other hand, do I
take the risk and miss out on them qualifying even though my head says it must?
So, since this must be done and time is of the essence, here is my haphazard guess and how I believe Europe will be persuaded tonight:
Malta
Israel
Norway
Poland
Austria
Lithuania - they have UK, Ireland, Poland and Georgia in their semi, they must make it.
Finland
Belarus
Greece
Slovenia
And there you have it, doomed them again I have! Such a hard semi to predict. I have thought of every-possible country qualifying and also of them not. Norway was my last entry since I see this as possibly failing but then again I think it will be saved. Televoting lovelies like Poland and Lithuania should find their flag shown at the end of the show. I still am doubtful of Romania but need to stick to my instinct and even though I most probably am wrong, I don't know which of the 10 up there to remove in order to accommodate it. Switzerland is also a candidate, maybe it and Belarus or it and Norway will switch places... Now enough! Stop typing and start getting ready!
Bringing you all the news and gossip from the rehearsals in Basel
Thursday, 8 May 2014
Well, it's semi 2 day people.
Posted by
Anonymous
I did see the dressed rehearsal from the press centre yesterday so I haven't been out to Eurovision island at all today. Been moving instead. Out of the lovely apartment and into Grand Hotel Copenhagen (wich, to be honest isn't that Grand) and I am staying put here for the rest of the week. Well, almost for the rest of the week. Some excursions out to the arena will happen, I'm sure. Just done with moving for the week.
After the rehearsal yesterday (we actually just stayed for the songs and left in a hurry just after to avoid the stampeed of craziness that comence immediatelly after the show) we got on a bus (9A, 9A, 9A) back to the city where we ended up at the Pan-European party. Several of the European acts joined forces to give Euroclub some extra oomph. When we walked in the door Germany was playing something reeeeaaalllllyyyy slow and at the end of the song Elaiza stood up and roared: are you ready to paaaaarrrrtttyyyyy?? Needless to say after that slow stopper, not many roared back. Aram was up next but since the stagechange took forever I went for a beer and a smoke and when I finally got back inside it was in the middle of Not Alone and he sure as hell wasn't! Floor was packed so I decided to watch from the balcony instead.
For tonights entertainment we are going to the semi and again I may scream so much my voice will be f****d tomorrow morning when I am due to report back via phone to my radiostation. Oh joy!
If all goes well tonight (and I sure hope it does) we will probably not be at Euroclub early or even at all, depending on if and when my booboo claws his way free of reporters.
But for now, I am so gonna lay down on my lovely hotelbed and just relax for a bit.
Laterzzzz
After the rehearsal yesterday (we actually just stayed for the songs and left in a hurry just after to avoid the stampeed of craziness that comence immediatelly after the show) we got on a bus (9A, 9A, 9A) back to the city where we ended up at the Pan-European party. Several of the European acts joined forces to give Euroclub some extra oomph. When we walked in the door Germany was playing something reeeeaaalllllyyyy slow and at the end of the song Elaiza stood up and roared: are you ready to paaaaarrrrtttyyyyy?? Needless to say after that slow stopper, not many roared back. Aram was up next but since the stagechange took forever I went for a beer and a smoke and when I finally got back inside it was in the middle of Not Alone and he sure as hell wasn't! Floor was packed so I decided to watch from the balcony instead.
For tonights entertainment we are going to the semi and again I may scream so much my voice will be f****d tomorrow morning when I am due to report back via phone to my radiostation. Oh joy!
If all goes well tonight (and I sure hope it does) we will probably not be at Euroclub early or even at all, depending on if and when my booboo claws his way free of reporters.
But for now, I am so gonna lay down on my lovely hotelbed and just relax for a bit.
Laterzzzz
"Six hours to bet!" - A betting overview of Semi 2
Posted by
Martin F.
Welcome to the Gran Canaria mobile press centre and ESC Nation's betting overview for the second semi-final of ESC 2014! As ever, the odds in this article are based on the Oddschecker summary and can (and probably will) change radically as the day progresses.
So what did we learn on Tuesday night from a gambler's point of view? Probably not too much, really. We were reminded that favoured songs can fall at the first hurdle - the local "reality TV-lite" story behind the Belgian entry didn't transfer to the international stage, and the usually reliable voting performance of Moldova failed to repeat itself even in a small field. Meanwhile, two of the bookies' outsiders - Iceland and, even more sensationally, San Marino - will be making a repeat appearance on Saturday night, and have made a handful of people a little richer in the process!
The second heat is, of course, even smaller; only five of the competing entries will be heading home again tonight. Despite this, the to qualify market is confident that there are two big outsiders: you can get odds of 4.00 for Tijana from Macedonia to reach the final, while a price of 6.00 is available for "Three Minutes To Earth" from Georgia. In concrete terms, this means that if you place a bet of €10.00 on Georgia to qualify and your bet is successful, you will receive €60.00 in return.
But let's be honest, only an idiot would consider that to be a likely outcome.
The borderline cases are where the real interest is here. With two supposed no-hopers in the line-up, you might not actually need many points to qualify. As such, there could be value in backing regular qualifiers Lithuania (2.1) with their basis of reliable friendly points, or even Belarus, which can be grabbed for a surprisingly generous best price of 2.00.
Of course, you could play ultra-safe and pile the pounds on Greece (1.05), Romania (1.06) or Norway (1.05), who seem to be all but guaranteed qualifiers according to the markets. Bear in mind, though, that you would need to place a successful bet of €100.00 on Greece just to return a profit of €5.00 - barely enough for an ouzo or two.
Being such a small semi-final means the rewards for bets on non-qualification are even greater. For example, Carl Espen from Norway has impressed few people during rehearsals, and best odds of 13.00 are available if you think this early-season favourite will stumble. Other tempting prices can be found for the potentially divisive Conchita Wurst from Austria (8.00), the dangerously middle-of-the-road Ireland (2.75) and the boobtastic but unmelodic entry from Poland (also 2.75). And surely Slovenia, even with a favourable late position in the running order, must be worth a sniff at 1.91 to fail to qualify.
The winner and top 3 markets for this semi are particularly interesting because some of the more favoured songs, e.g. Israel and Norway, have potentially unfavourable early positions in the running order. Don't forget that a semi-final podium finish doesn't necessarily mean a thing when it comes to the final: the example I tend to use is 2011, when Paradise Oskar from Finland and Maja Keuc from Slovenia landed in the top 3 of their respective semi-finals, only to do relatively little on the Saturday night scoreboard.
With that in mind, you can get inviting odds of 2.5 for Israel's Mei Finegold to finish in the top 3 tonight, or 2.65 for the crowd-pleasing Maltese entry. Alternatively, you can bet on the semi winner: even with juries in play, a best available price of 5.00 for Greece seems quite tempting, as does 5.5 for Romania. Or perhaps the fanboys will have it right after all and Israel will take the semi 2 trophy even from an early spot in the draw: 13.00 says that this will be the case.
At the other end of the scale, poor Tijana from Macedonia props up the field: an unlikely victory for the ex-Yugoslav nation in tonight's semi-final comes at odds of 151! She isn't the favourite to finish last in the semi, though: only Betfair offers odds on that particular market, with Georgia considered the most likely candidate at 2.29.
I wanted to finish this blog post with a look at some head-to-heads, but Bwin doesn't have any for tonight's semi. How rude! They have plenty for the final, though, and we'll be taking a closer look at those in Saturday's final betting post. But let's take one step at a time...
So for now, that completes our brief analysis of some of the bets available to you for tonight's show - you can see more at the aforementioned Oddschecker link. Wherever you place your money, may the odds be ever in your favour - and have a great time!
So what did we learn on Tuesday night from a gambler's point of view? Probably not too much, really. We were reminded that favoured songs can fall at the first hurdle - the local "reality TV-lite" story behind the Belgian entry didn't transfer to the international stage, and the usually reliable voting performance of Moldova failed to repeat itself even in a small field. Meanwhile, two of the bookies' outsiders - Iceland and, even more sensationally, San Marino - will be making a repeat appearance on Saturday night, and have made a handful of people a little richer in the process!
The second heat is, of course, even smaller; only five of the competing entries will be heading home again tonight. Despite this, the to qualify market is confident that there are two big outsiders: you can get odds of 4.00 for Tijana from Macedonia to reach the final, while a price of 6.00 is available for "Three Minutes To Earth" from Georgia. In concrete terms, this means that if you place a bet of €10.00 on Georgia to qualify and your bet is successful, you will receive €60.00 in return.
But let's be honest, only an idiot would consider that to be a likely outcome.
The borderline cases are where the real interest is here. With two supposed no-hopers in the line-up, you might not actually need many points to qualify. As such, there could be value in backing regular qualifiers Lithuania (2.1) with their basis of reliable friendly points, or even Belarus, which can be grabbed for a surprisingly generous best price of 2.00.
Of course, you could play ultra-safe and pile the pounds on Greece (1.05), Romania (1.06) or Norway (1.05), who seem to be all but guaranteed qualifiers according to the markets. Bear in mind, though, that you would need to place a successful bet of €100.00 on Greece just to return a profit of €5.00 - barely enough for an ouzo or two.
Being such a small semi-final means the rewards for bets on non-qualification are even greater. For example, Carl Espen from Norway has impressed few people during rehearsals, and best odds of 13.00 are available if you think this early-season favourite will stumble. Other tempting prices can be found for the potentially divisive Conchita Wurst from Austria (8.00), the dangerously middle-of-the-road Ireland (2.75) and the boobtastic but unmelodic entry from Poland (also 2.75). And surely Slovenia, even with a favourable late position in the running order, must be worth a sniff at 1.91 to fail to qualify.
The winner and top 3 markets for this semi are particularly interesting because some of the more favoured songs, e.g. Israel and Norway, have potentially unfavourable early positions in the running order. Don't forget that a semi-final podium finish doesn't necessarily mean a thing when it comes to the final: the example I tend to use is 2011, when Paradise Oskar from Finland and Maja Keuc from Slovenia landed in the top 3 of their respective semi-finals, only to do relatively little on the Saturday night scoreboard.
With that in mind, you can get inviting odds of 2.5 for Israel's Mei Finegold to finish in the top 3 tonight, or 2.65 for the crowd-pleasing Maltese entry. Alternatively, you can bet on the semi winner: even with juries in play, a best available price of 5.00 for Greece seems quite tempting, as does 5.5 for Romania. Or perhaps the fanboys will have it right after all and Israel will take the semi 2 trophy even from an early spot in the draw: 13.00 says that this will be the case.
At the other end of the scale, poor Tijana from Macedonia props up the field: an unlikely victory for the ex-Yugoslav nation in tonight's semi-final comes at odds of 151! She isn't the favourite to finish last in the semi, though: only Betfair offers odds on that particular market, with Georgia considered the most likely candidate at 2.29.
I wanted to finish this blog post with a look at some head-to-heads, but Bwin doesn't have any for tonight's semi. How rude! They have plenty for the final, though, and we'll be taking a closer look at those in Saturday's final betting post. But let's take one step at a time...
So for now, that completes our brief analysis of some of the bets available to you for tonight's show - you can see more at the aforementioned Oddschecker link. Wherever you place your money, may the odds be ever in your favour - and have a great time!
Predicticación, part DOS
Posted by
Sild
It's time to predict again! My Tuesday morning blog resulted in eight correct qualifiers, and even though I changed my mind on some while watching (putting Iceland and Portugal through, shoving out Ukraine and Moldova), I still was stuck on eight. Maybe that's the max I can physically do? :-o
Statistically, tonight's semi should be easier to predict, being the smallest Eurovision event for 44 years (apart from The Dida Drăgan Show in Ljubljana in 1993), but I'm far less confident about my guesses here than I was two days ago... About 9 of the entries feel like they should end about 8th to 11th, somehow. And that's clearly not going to happen, is it? As if finding ten qualifiers wasn't hard enough, I can't for the life of me find anything that could actually win this semi - or end top 3, for that matter... In lack of something better, I'll just go with someone we know are capable of winning Eurovision semis, the Greeks, with a close to random guess about the rest of the result:
Greece
Romania
Israel
Malta
Austria
Norway
Finland
Slovenia
Ireland
Poland
Belarus
Switzerland
Lithuania
Georgia
Macedonia
Statistically, tonight's semi should be easier to predict, being the smallest Eurovision event for 44 years (apart from The Dida Drăgan Show in Ljubljana in 1993), but I'm far less confident about my guesses here than I was two days ago... About 9 of the entries feel like they should end about 8th to 11th, somehow. And that's clearly not going to happen, is it? As if finding ten qualifiers wasn't hard enough, I can't for the life of me find anything that could actually win this semi - or end top 3, for that matter... In lack of something better, I'll just go with someone we know are capable of winning Eurovision semis, the Greeks, with a close to random guess about the rest of the result:
Greece
Romania
Israel
Malta
Austria
Norway
Finland
Slovenia
Ireland
Poland
Semi-final 2 predictions
Posted by
SamB
It's harder to predict when you're not seeing any rehearsal videos, and have to go on impressions from fellow bloggers. As it was, I scored 8/10 on Tuesday - and a different 8/10 after watching the show!
Semi 2 is a little easier, not least because the fewest you can possibly get right is five, but also because there's a couple of real no-hopers and a couple of obvious perennial qualifiers. Romania and Greece are obviously sailing through, and Macedonia and Georgia are perhaps equally hopeless at the bottom.
Until this week, I'd always had Poland as a certain non-qualifier. It's getting almost universally positive reviews from bloggers, but my instinct is still that the song doesn't have strong appeal to a wide range of Thursday night televoter - particularly with the first half of the song in Polish.
At the other end of the scale, I'd put in Malta, Austria and Finland as likely qualifiers, which leaves a huge swathe in the middle. Norway really should, but I'm worried for it. Israel the same - both are good, but have the potential to not quite 'catch' with the voting public. Switzerland I've always counted out, but everything seems to be going right for it in rehearsals. Belarus on the other hand is right near the bottom of some of the betting markets, but I've always assumed it's a safe qualifier...
So, hmm... let's try a prediction.
1. Romania
2. Greece
3. Malta
4. Austria
5. Finland
6. Belarus
7. Switzerland
8. Israel
9. Norway
10. Lithuania
11. Slovenia
12. Poland
13. Ireland
14. Georgia
15. Macedonia
I'm not sure of this at all! What do you think?
Semi 2 is a little easier, not least because the fewest you can possibly get right is five, but also because there's a couple of real no-hopers and a couple of obvious perennial qualifiers. Romania and Greece are obviously sailing through, and Macedonia and Georgia are perhaps equally hopeless at the bottom.
Until this week, I'd always had Poland as a certain non-qualifier. It's getting almost universally positive reviews from bloggers, but my instinct is still that the song doesn't have strong appeal to a wide range of Thursday night televoter - particularly with the first half of the song in Polish.
At the other end of the scale, I'd put in Malta, Austria and Finland as likely qualifiers, which leaves a huge swathe in the middle. Norway really should, but I'm worried for it. Israel the same - both are good, but have the potential to not quite 'catch' with the voting public. Switzerland I've always counted out, but everything seems to be going right for it in rehearsals. Belarus on the other hand is right near the bottom of some of the betting markets, but I've always assumed it's a safe qualifier...
So, hmm... let's try a prediction.
1. Romania
2. Greece
3. Malta
4. Austria
5. Finland
6. Belarus
7. Switzerland
8. Israel
9. Norway
10. Lithuania
12. Poland
13. Ireland
14. Georgia
15. Macedonia
I'm not sure of this at all! What do you think?
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