Only just got home so made my picks. I was up til about 2 am last night (12 hours ago) and still couldn't make my changes on FIFA, so ended up doing it all in a bit of a rush.

Also doing like morvillz7z, majority of my squad is from 2 teams I hope will shake off group stage nonsense and make it big.

This time, Ritsu Doan has to start vs Spain, right?

Cameroon odds were surprisingly not as bad as I would have imagined, probably as books knew Brazil would be playing a somewhat second string... but as soon as Shaqiri scored, news must have filtered through as I felt their shoulders dropped even lower... Kunde not even contesting a soft foul suggesting they're already resigned. Shame as they had a decent early chance.

Edit: Aboubakar! KO stage lessons? Bet every game against the fav!

More specials than you can shake a stick at, gentlemen! Just a bit over half an hour to take advantage of pretty much a free boost on goals types, card types, hattricks, most goals (notblox1 says Serbia at 6/1 I feel that's cool too).

Personally, I'm boring today and the VAR ruling a goal out today at 2/1 is too good to be true yet is true odds

https://sportsbet.io/sports/sportsbet-specials/matches/future

7'

@slackovic You're safe. I have a feeling we'll end up going for the tiebreaker to see who wins the group but mitch can't make it (phew haha). Too lazy to count Group C but Woodie and morvillz strike me as the ones to progress... Also, never heard of Gvardiol tbh, Fox commentator I was tuning into mistook him for Lovren a couple of times, so even I got confused. Premier League next? And yeah

@cryptofrka Strange indeed to watch KdB and Modric and say how poor they are, it's a compliment to their class that we can't even imagine them playing just above average.

@slaman29 Early congrats, I picked Ferran Torres, thought Spain would have a field day. Very wrong. Richarlison might break everyone's hearts today though for that question

The timings of early games were a bit tough to watch yeah, although it did seem like the better matches were played in the evening and I guess they tried to play Asian teams earlier (can't say as didn't really pay attention) but the KO rounds should, theoretically, give me better viewing rates. Shorter days seems like more household chores though for some reason, or maybe I'm just slower in the cold.

Packing my new squad with more Brazil, more Spain, more Argentina, and Aussie defence maybe haha. See how the budget goes.


And I feel he's gonna go right back in now for Senegal -- Southgate will revert to exact template of MD1/2. His tinkering got found out. I might give England a complete miss.

Japan!! I don't care if my pool picks lose, I got money on Japan, and they already did me a favour with Germany, am I getting double joy from them? Now almost regret I only put a freebet on it, but hey, great returns @8.4

2nd goal was not flagged offside or out, and apparently inconclusive technology to decide if it went out of play but my man Ritsu Doan is, as I was talking about in Bundesliga often, my dark horse performer of the tournament! Two subs, he went to Freiburg as a hopeful, but he's proving himself to be amazing on the world stage.

Don't care how the game ends, this is so fun!

^^ Franky, every day's closing price summed then / 365 is more "acceptable" of average yearly price, no? But ain't nobody got time for that!


Ha nice catch on newbie of the year, enter the nominations!

I remember circa the same time also festive periods were good for Bitcoin. Christmas shopping, and then Lunar New Year after that supposedly bringing out the happy Chinese... though it never made sense to me as you'd be selling Bitcoin to buy people presents more than anything.

The Hindu and Muslim calendar traders probably also going crazy for different lunar/sun cycles.

26'

Lukaku could have a had a hattrick in the minutes I watched actually, and that wasn't even long, maybe last 20 minutes + injury time? To be fair, most of the chances that sort of fell to him weren't precisely what you'd call expected but Croatia keeper will end the night with some minor heart attack from what I saw.

Nice progress for Croatia, didn't think their defence could hold but now on to Spain (?) but I'm glad Morocco won the group, fully deserved.

Might have lost my point sorry if I didn't make that clear.

The freelancer today, and its legal definition, is so loose that modern employers take advantage of this. So where I live for example, it will soon be illegal for companies to hire their workers as freelancers -- when they expect the same working hours as a normal employer. Food delivery companies were the most guilty of this but I'm saying also many crypto companies who will only hire remote like this.

So they save money because they don't pay benefits and employee tax -- but in practice are hiring full-time employees doing way more than 40 hours a week. And these guys need the job, so have no choice but to take them, while paying their own insurance and health, pensions, etc.

So was responding to the topic, but putting in relation a different sort of fight in some places. On one hand great to hear about workers rights... but what about those who aren't even recognised as employees?

Yeah, I completely forgot to see if Saka would start and left him in my fantasy so didn't really do much with England, but Dutch players came through, at least I'm 81st position now and still have Pedri, Fernandes, Richarlison to make sure I keep up (hopefully).

Purely for fun at this point, of course.

Good to hear, now to pressure people in the global South to at least start making weekends off limits heh.

Definitely good to see more work life balance (which if done right actually improves productivity) in my resident part of the world, though freelancers still getting short end of the deal, no health or vacation or insurance benefits, no hour caps etc. Think the major fight where I am now isn't about work hours or pay but about recognising many "freelance" workers are doing as much as part timers or full timers.

Now the interesting thing, because I've worked in "Crypto" for 6 years now: majority of remote staff don't even have 40-hour contracts or employment contracts (C-levels and managers do). Think outside of FTX and those suits and ties, very few projects you do see active on CT and on this forum do it like this. Not to mention the startup/tech mentality of long work hours pretty much matched regular corporate jobs.

Time for a change?

Hate to be a downer but I'd wait till the weekend to see if it can hold this level for an entire week first. Nice surprise, of course, as I thought we were headed down farther but this is the resistance line currently and it's got to close more convincingly.

Now the Fed better play nicely heh.

Wow. Was actually doing so well, 4 exact scores out of 6 games with 2 solid underdog wins to rescue myself from the bottom -- climbed 29 positions at that point, and one of the missed games was the Tunisia win that no one saw. Unfortunately, I pushed my luck too far backing a Saudi win haha.

Still, happy with progress, but not sure if now's the time to go back to favourites and get scores right, or ping some more picks against the favourites? Seems like the group stages are throwing up great upsets.


Was weird enough Poland would go through on fairplay, made Mexico go for broke, and allowed Saudi to nail the coffin for them.

Australian history, Steve needs to buy everyone beers for the next 4 years!


I thought the Ronaldo pen was soft but this was beyond soft -- not only was it unavoidable, the ball had gone, and it was just gloves on his face. We can forgive it now, but if this happens at latter stages and KO is at stake..?

I always like a good natured post, never mind if I can't really sit on the same ledge as you

I look back on the guys I've met from the forum, especially in the early years I was here (and that's not to say the more recent ones were less cool people, only I have less wonder and amazement with Bitcoin haha), and even in the few years before I actually got my first Bitcoin, these were people either having the time of their lives trying out something truly representative of the age we're living in, or just a particular kind of people I'd never have ever met I think, had it not been for our common interest.

Long live Bitcoin, but live long Bitcoiners =)

I know crypto's hot anyway but interest on Google's been declining -- as is usual in a bear market -- so Twitter's crypto interest growing is probably significant.

I don't think it's too much of a coincidence that bitcointalk people don't really user Twitter (and the other way around). However, I have noticed new users to the forum who probably already heard about Bitcoin (and crypto heh) through social media, but I'm not sure we'll see more people coming here because of CT's growing popularity (damn, I used a Twitter term). Outflows from Twitter tend to be to richer media (video, audio, long-form).

20'

I took some risks just for the heck of it in Round 3 and if mitch takes points on them while I lose, he'll overtake me. Was so sure Iran would be trying more shots and instead, even with Pulisic off, they allowed so many attempts and tried to get soft penalties too often. Anyway, yes I'm happy now but it's 8 points left to get, a lot can happen

You need to pay attention to guys like slackovic though, they're scary good


It's really why I'm opening the app so much, not that it changes anything, but I honestly can't remember the picks I put it unless I'm betting on the game on scores or goals.

Rumours are fun, they trick you into a false sense of security That said, I'm all in on Argentina again. Thanks to favourites hitting it off (sans Ecuador).

Luck was it and not solid team play? Haha. I think Morocco and Ghana if they keep playing positive the way they have, there's a fair chance of at least one of them progressing. Of course I want Darwin to do well but African football in WC has been of much higher quality than Afcon that I think they deserve 2 reps in the last 16.


Yeah, I think England will be happy they don't have to defend against Mane, and one can hope they underestimate that enough to make mistakes (and for Senegal to be proactive enough to pounce on them). Just don't really see it happening though, but I won't mind some money on Senegal