We’ve cut it a little fine, with less than 36 hours until the Bells waiting period, but all of the wildcards/replacements have been announced and an updated forecast is in the bag; it’s time to ring this fantasy Bell…

Conditions

Analysing the conditions means having one eye on the forecast; will surfers be heaving Olympic pools’ worth of salty brine off the top of Bells bombs? Are more they more likely to be cursing the shore-dump at Johanna? Know this and you will be well-versed in selecting an appropriate Bells team for the conditions.

The other way to analyse the conditions is to look at each surfer’s success in this event in previous years; if they know how to win here, they obviously suit the conditions.

The forecast is predicting several short, mid and even long range SW swells over the waiting period. There is a good chance that we will see plenty of shoulder-to-head high days at Bells or Winki, with a few slightly overhead days in the mix. It will allow organisers the luxury of picking the best wind/tide options and hopefully we will see some good, solid waves. Just don’t expect maxing 8-10’ Bells with howling offshore winds.

Here are our nominations for strong ‘conditions’ surfers for this event:

Mick Fanning

Look at the table below: In the past 5 Bells events, Mick has 4 finals and a quarters finish. That’s incredible in our eyes. Mick told us that this is his final event before a break from the tour, and we’re picking him to make amends for his poor Gold Coast showing. Mick has the best event average total points from the past 2 years, the 2^nd highest AHS for Bells, and the highest AHS for right-handers. Mick picks himself.

Adriano de Souza

Adriano is no slouch at Bells either, with a 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 5^th, and 9^th in the past five contests. He also boasts our highest projected score for the contest, which is off the back of the 2^nd highest event average total points, a top 5 AHS for Bells and a great winning percentage over the past 2 years. Adriano is a solid pick at this event.

Warning

Matt Wilkinson

Do you notice a name missing from the table? We loved Wilko’s blasting backhand attack at Snapper, and we would love to see him do well here, but a word of warning: in the past 3 Bells events, Wilko hasn’t made it past the 3^rd round. He has gone 13^th, 13^th, 25^th re(tro)spectively. Your call.

Bells Beach Results History

Form

While form is difficult to gauge after the upset-fest that was the QuikPro, it is always worthwhile to note the surfers with their stock heading upwards. QS events, momentum and even free-surfing can all play a small role in helping you narrow the field (although, as Mike Jordan points out, highly edited footage should be viewed cautiously).

Matt Wilkinson

We suggested him on form last contest, and we’d be stupid to do otherwise. Matt’s result certainly speaks for itself, but it’s his heightened focus that has us truly interested. Micro is helping Wilko to refine his contest game and we think it makes for a great form prospect.

Gabriel Medina

Wait, what? But he bombed early in the first contest. Yes, we know. He also had the highest AHS for the contest, lost very narrowly AND still has the best form of the back end of the 2015 season. Gabe still looks better-than-good for us – and we write the articles.

Stuart Kennedy

Stuart was ripping Snapper apart. We all saw it. Those Tomo boards have seen more column inches than Slater’s banana disaster (and that’s saying a lot because every fan-boy with a keyboard has been punching away posts about how terrible Slater looked on that ‘experiment’ – ourselves included). Stu Kennedy made everyone sit up and take notice and there is no denying that he is white-hot right now.

Kolohe Andino

Chloe doesn’t have the greatest stats as far as his Bells history is concerned. He had pretty average projections for the QuikPro too. Why did he do so well? He is in a run of good form that started in Europe last year. C’est bon.

Warning

Jordy Smith

Jordy could have quite easily fit into our ‘conditions’ criteria as he has a formidable record here (he has the best Event AHS over the past 2 years), but Jordy just didn’t show up. While rookies were throwing tails and burying rails, Jordy and some of the older guys were looking slow. We have no confidence in Jordy post-injury until he fires up and shows us he wants to win again.

Miguel Pupo

Miguel is now the proud owner of 4 consecutive 25ths, spanning 2015/16. He had a shocker at Snapper and we can’t recommend him across any criteria at the moment, especially form.

Heat Draw

Much less important when compared to conditions and form, the draw should still be a partial consideration. Having 3 surfers in a R1 heat, or even 2 surfers facing off in R2, is bad form. We are still waiting (at time of writing) for mason Ho, Tim Bisso and Tim Stevenson to be added to the draw (our guess is that Mason will be in H4), so it’s not a complete list. It should also be noted that, because of the slightly complex WSL system of seeding, the fantasy tiers do not match the surfer’s seeding rank (hence the H9 clash between Wilko and Chloe).

Here are our stand-outs (best chance of a R1 win) for each tier, which can be read also as Top/Middle/Lower priced surfers for Fantasy Surfer:

WSL Tier A:

Adriano de Souza / Joel Parkinson

WSL Tier B

Mick Fanning / Kelly Slater / Gabriel Medina / Nat Young

WSL Tier C

Jordy Smith / Adam Melling

Sleeper Picks

We like to offer a few suggestions that may not be on everyone’s radar. Any success that involves deviating from the popular vote will provide a huge advantage for players willing to take the risk. Since the % owned feature has been removed from the WSL game until lock-out (like FS), we are simply predicting who is truly low in the popularity stakes.

Top

Kolohe will be overlooked by many in favour of ADS, Wilko, Parko and possibly even Stu, but we think his surfing really suits the Bells conditions and he could maybe just prove to be a savvy selection that others miss.

Mid

The mids are crazy right now. There are a lot of people losing faith in Slater, but we know he’ll still be very popular. We think that between Kerr and Julian, there’s going to be at least one surfer going deep into the contest with a low ownership %. Pick the right one and you’ll be sitting pretty.

Low

Jordy will be the massive pick here, but we like Kai Otton as a sleeper. Davey Cathels’ surfing is just perfect for this break, so we feel as though he could be a reasonable dark horse.

Teams

WSL surf-stats team

The seedings wreaked havoc on some of our plans, but we’re happy with this team. It balances calculated risk (Kerr, Young), projection-supported data (ADS, Mick, Joel), personal opinion (Davey) and obstinate denial of projections for lack of trust (no Jordy). We suffered somewhat at Snapper; hopefully this is the team to put us back in the mix.

WSL numbers team

We were surprised by how established this team seems. You need to go all the way back to Andy in 2004 to find a title not represented by this squad. Plus you have some consistent challengers in Taj and Jordy. Good old Mason stops things from getting too serious though…

Fantasy Surfer surf-stats team

The FS values don’t jump around quite so much as the WSL rankings, so we were able to balance the cheap (Seabass, Melling, Stu) with the big boys. This isn’t a massively high-risk team, but there’s a certain balance to it that we like.

Fantasy Surfer numbers team

Ok, Ok, we can see that these teams are pretty similar. Mason gets a spot in the starting team, while Melling is relegated to the bench. We always select the surf-stats team BEFORE running the algorithm for our numbers team so that we can select without bias, but it looks like we were in agreement with the models anyway.

We fear that this Bells contest is going to result in a lot of similar FS teams, so maybe you can be the one to pick the sleepers…

The Outliers

When performing data analysis, you usually assume that your values cluster around some central data point, but sometimes a few of the values fall too far from the central point. These values are called outliers (they lay outside the expected range). Outliers can skew your statistical analyses, leading you to false or misleading conclusions about your data.

For each event in 2016, we will produce a list of ‘outliers’ that represent some kind of anomaly within our selection analyses. Maybe there are factors that a spreadsheet can’t detect, maybe all of the numbers point a god-awful result at this event, or maybe their recent form simply contradicts their previous averages.

Here are our outliers for Bells 2016:

Kelly Slater

Kelly’s selection relies entirely on two things; what he rides and the quality of the waves. If Kelly pulls up to the Bells cliffs, eyes off some 3’ lines and pulls out his banana board, look elsewhere. If he’s on a Sci-Phi and it’s 6’ offshore, consider him seriously.

Matt Banting

Matt looked like a surfer going through the motions at Snapper. While we doubt he will be on many teams, we have definitely placed Banting out of the picture until we see some spark post-injury (a la Jordy).

Michel Bourez

Our models just don’t like Michel at this event. Personally, we wouldn’t be surprised to see him storm home at Bells, but don’t say you weren’t warned if he doesn’t.

Dusty Payne

Dusty is a little to easy to overlook when you compare his numbers to either the other tier C options (WSL) or the $1.5M options (FS). Either way, he seems like a tough sell.

Surf-stats Clubhouses

Now that you know the team break-downs, it’s time for you to create a team that will hold our selections to account. Sign up to our WSL Surf-Stats group (password – SS) or the Fantasy Surfer Surf-Stats clubhouse (password – SS) and challenge yourself against us and our readers. We will give a shout-out to each winner and analyse their team.

As always, feel free to comment or leave your team selections below.

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook for updates and news.