Click here to get the full scoreboards of the Eurovision 2011 first semi-final, second semi-final and final.
The two semi-finals contain almost as many shocks as the final. The first one was won by Greece, with our 10-1 each-way tip Finland just managing third place. The second one was won by Sweden, with Denmark second and Bosnia only fifth.
I will do a full post-mortem early next week, but tonight’s results, some very surprising, some less so, are a reminder that you never know what to expect with Eurovision.
Yet to tot up my accounts properly, I ended up with another excellent profit, which by rough calculations is a little bit more than last year’s, in large part thanks once again to the Top 10 final market, with big wins on Greece and ‘laying’ Hungary.
This is another reminder that remaining ultra-selective about one’s bets, sticking to those things you feel sure about, and looking beyond the outright win market, are really important.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the evening and got lucky. What were your biggest wins or losses? What lessons did you learn for next year? Let us know in the comments box below.
See you in Baku next year!
Hi Dan,
Wow, great night. Flagged up Azerbaijan to win and another excellent win on Greece in the semi – also flagged up, along with Slovenia to be placed in the semi. Just some of the highlights. Overall, a terrific profit. Well done calling Hungary. Stunned by Jedward’s result. I still find it laughable the UK give 12pts to Ireland – yet Ireland didn’t return the favour and Malta shunned Blue as well.
Hi Dan,
An excellent night here too.
Azer my main bet in the win market of the front runners. Some speculative punts on some real outsiders which proved nice trades. Austria in particular and a very nice win on Georgia for top 10 as well as a small but profitable lay of France for top 10.
WD on the Hungary call. I must admit I thought it would do better and it cost me a little backing it when it drifted out for top 10.
Greece winning semi 1 the icing on the cake.
on @ 30/1 and 20/1 ew.
Hated the song and thought it was a total abomination but it had impact, an excellent vocal from the guy, was well staged, had the plum draw and plenty of mates in that semi.
The biggest lesson learnt is possibly the importance of staging.
Without excellent staging I suspect Ireland wouldn’t have even made the final, let alone finished top 10 when they got there.
At the other end of the scale, Hungary was terribly staged. She looked dreadfully dated and with her inability to sing and move at the same time it became a very static presentation.
I still think people over rate the importance of vocals. The winner and 2nd were far from perfect in that respect.
Good staging and a good song and you can get away with a multitude of sins when it comes to the vocals.
The other lesson is obviously the draw.
With Eric or the Danes on late they’d clearly have got closer to Azer or even won.
Hi Daniel;
Thanks again for sharing your insight! I’m satisfied with my results! Hope all of you are happy too! If not, you”ll have another shot next year! All the best!!!
Greetings,
Chris
can someone please explain the Bet365 hanicap market to me. I had put a fair money on Greece coming in at +175 but seem to have lost the bet.
Ta,
Steve
Hi Steve, it was a case of close but no cigar, I’m afraid. I think Italy and/or Ukraine were far enough head to overtake Greece in the overall handicap points score.
I put £2 on Azerbaijan to win at 10/1 – very happy with my little profit. Totally shocked France didn’t do better, but pleased that the top 4 were all songs I liked and recommended people to keep an eye on.
Thanks Daniel and everybody else for a great week. I dabbled with my own bets as well as those inspired by Daniel and ended up quite a bit richer mainly thanks to the Greeks! A lot of lessons learned particularly on focusing on specific markets like the top 10 and match bets rather than outright.
Interested in people’s views on the success of Italy – was it just a ‘welcome back we need your support’ series of votes. I also felt the manipulation of the jury voting order gave it a little bit of an artificial feel – though the fact that the order had been leaked meant I got on Azerbaijan to win outright at evens 2/3 of the way through when in reality they were actually long odds on shots.
Well done Daniel!!
Hi Justin, there may have been an element of welcoming back Italy, and I reckon Raphael won the jury vote. It was a lovely, natural performance though, in stark contrast to the nervous French one before it.
There were huge opportunities from the voting order leak. As indicated on here, there was a realisation of an ex-USSR bias at the end of the order, just before the show started. It saw me grab some 7s Azerbaijan at that point and I was laying Sweden in the last half of the voting because the Scandis had all announced their points from positions 7-17 in the voting order.
Congratulations Justin, on a successful week.
Daniel – thank you for keeping me and others on the edge of our seats these past weeks.
I ended up green on the win market – my lay of France from 2 months ago came home comfortably, but I’d been looking at the odds tumbling over the fortnight in terror. But my reasoning why it couldn’t win was sound.
Less successful in the semis/top 10s meaning a tiny loss overall. Didn’t see either Sweden or Greece winning their semi, and had plenty on Russia top 10, which cancelled out the win market.
Thank you again, and well done to those of you who made big bucks.
I made a few hundred pounds, which is great considering this is the first year I’ve taken my betting seriously. My wins were Georgia and Moldova through the semis, Greece top 10 and Azerbaijan each way. So thanks Daniel! I lost £30 on the United Kingdom though, got caught up in the hype surrounding Blue a little!
Hi all. Daniel thanks a lot for your tips. Wins on semis especially Greece winning semi 1, Moldova classifying and also Greece top 10 and laying Hungary and Estonia in top 5. Losses on Austria finishing top 10 but overall a few hundreds of euros won thanks to you. CU soon.
Hi Daniel:
Thanks again for your posts and insight!!!
Surprises for me were Italy in second place and Lithuania making it to 19th spot. I saw Estonia as weak and am not at all surprised that they ended up second last.
Azerbaijan as the winner was pretty clear to me also because nobody else in the field really stuck out. I also saw Ukraine doing well and put quite a bit of money for them to end up in the top 10.
I really appreciate the links you provided. Is there a website that provides a rundown of how countries voted in the past and compiles a sort of “friend index”? I’ve just been working with my own Excel tables.
Thanks again and who knows – we may just hook up in Baku…
Greetings,
Chris
Hi Chris, the best place for Eurovision statistics with a ‘friends index’ for each country can be found at http://www.kolumbus.fi/jarpen
Click on the ‘Analysis’ box at the top. Like all statistics, they need to be taken in context and not literally, but it is a site that I swear by.
Lost money on Estonia which I bet on several weeks ago, but thankfully placed 2 good separate bets on Azerbaijan this week at 9-1 and 14-1 e/w. The best bet though was the 11-10 offer last week on Denmark to finish in top ten. A steal!
Puzzled by Italy and Ukraine success. ALSO, Greece beat Azerbaijan by some distance in the semi yet was a long way behind on the night. I know all 40 odd countries vote in the final, but it is still rather odd this discrepancy.
Will the Netherlands or Belgium ever get to the final again? Bring back Luxembourg…the Low Countries are suffering!
Why did they open the phone lines before the first act had performed? Half of the final 10 were early performances, so they gained from early voting. The usual rules of play didn’t apply. I just broke even.
Hi hazelwoods, it’s the second year they’ve used this system – see Dan’s top tip post on it from last year. Presumably the reason is to avoid overloading the phone lines after the show and/or to encourage more votes in total.
While it is clearly a nonsense to invite people to vote before they’ve seen all the performances, it doesn’t seem to have much effect on the advantage of a late draw. I think most would agree that Sweden, Bosnia and Denmark placed well in spite of, not because of, the early draw – it just so happened that most of the strong songs were drawn early in the final. See e.g. the first semi final where the same system was in use and none of the first five qualified.
Great calls Daniel (except Austria)!
Yesterday morning I thought which of the outsiders will reach top10 and who came to my mind were Greece, Ukraine, Serbia and Georgia (last 3 mainly because of the draw). I took only Greece when I saw your confidence in it – thanks, it was a great bet.
Other biggest win for me was Hungary – I layed it already long before the rehearsals (according to my budget :). With more patience I could get much better odds but I’m still happy.
Biggest loss for me was Russia top10, guess Sweden took all of his potential votes.
Pleasure following your thought processes over the past few weeks, both on here and in real life – glad we’ve both come out of it with a smile on our faces given some of the shocks along the way! Didn’t make it into the press centre on Saturday in the end, as you’ll have noted – see you over a free coffee in Baku, perhaps. 😉
The biggest feathers in my cap this year were laying Norway/Estonia for top 4/10 during the early-season hype, nabbing top 10 for Ukraine and Georgia early doors, then taking Greece/Finland for top 3 in the first semi and Slovenia for top 3 in the second semi during the fortnight itself. Jumping on Israel as a DNQ as soon as the final remix came out also proved a decent shout.
This was offset by backing Armenia to qualify and believing Hungary would fail to do so – both costly errors – and, most notably of all, refusing to believe in Jedward’s appeal (a) in the Irish final, (b) in the ESC semi-final, and (c) in the ESC final. So much for sticking to your instincts…
All in all, then, happy to come away with a 30% profit on the year, some happy if blurry memories of Düsseldorf, and a liver in dire need of a transplant. Good times!
Hi Martin, picking your brains and listening to your wise analysis was a precious dose of reality in the over-excitable fervour of the press centre. I have you to thank for a few spontaneous bets that came off during the fortnight (get in there, Lithuania). Thank you.
I’ll see you in Baku, if not before.
when are the split results supposed to come out? i think it’s obvious Azerbaijan won the jury vote by the look of the voting order, but it would be interesting to see where and how all the pre-show favourites failed.
annie, i am awaiting for the split eagerly too! sometime in june maybe? i have a feeling it will be less structured and more surprising than the 2 previous years. i think italy must have won the jury. i am very very curious to see the split for france. even if it was bottom 5 with the televote (wow!), for it to end up 15th it means that it was not too high with the juries either. Shock upon shock hehehe!
Hi Annie, great question. There’s no time when they’re ‘supposed’ to come out. It all depends on organisers, the EBU. Last year it was about a month after the contest.
Whilst they released each individual country’s jury and televote scores in 2009, last year all they gave was the total televote and jury points received overall from all 43 countries.
I actually would be surprised if anything other than Italy won the jury vote. The voting order took into account a prediction of how televote scores would pan out next to the already known jury scores, hence plenty of Azerbaijan’s natural allies among the last to announce.
I may be biased since the author is my better half, but this blog post sums up perfectly the kind of press centre bubble that Daniel talks about:
http://escnation.com/blog/node/171
It’s counter-intuitive to think that experiencing the Eurovision build-up as close to the action as possible can almost make you *less* well-informed than if you were doing so from a distance, but it does feel a bit like that sometimes!
ur better half is spot on 🙂
Hi daniel
Just want to know if everyone in the top 10 will qualify for next years fianal
Hi Kevin, they got rid of this system when they introduced two semi-finals, from 2008 onwards. The only guaranteed qualifiers for the 2012 final are this year’s Big 5 (UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy) plus the hosts Azerbaijan.
If the Big 5 all turn up (we are waiting to see if Italy will continue to participate), then there will most likely be ten qualifiers each from the two semi-finals, giving us 26 finalists.