Second-Placed Cats Spoil the Symmetry (Not That They Care)

Ah well, the better side on the day and all that. Congrats to the Cats but they can count themselves very lucky indeed as a gracious coach admitted in his post-game address.

The Saints' lack of finish in front of goal cost Investors dearly this weekend, the undefended goal-after-the-siren merely making their frustration complete as it consigned their line bet to the same fate as their multitudinous head-to-head bets.

Grand Final Typology

Today's blog looks at the typology of AFL Grand Finals.

There are, it turns out, five basic types:
(1) The Coast-to-Coast Coasting victory
(2) The Come-From-Behind victory
(3) The Game-of-Two-Halves Victory
(4) The Coast-to-Coast Blowout Victory
(5) The Nervous Start Victory

This Week We're All Saints

After 341 wagers across 184 games Investors with the Recommended Portfolio have effectively offered the TAB Sportsbet bookie a double-or-quits proposition.

If the Saints win on Saturday, their profit will lift from about 7.5% of Initial Funds to about 15.1%; if the Saints lose the entire year's effort will amount to a profit of about 1.4%.

Grand Finals: Points Scoring and Margins

How would you characterise the Grand Finals that you've witnessed? As low-scoring, closely fought games; as high-scoring games with regular blow-out finishes; or as something else?

A First Look at Grand Final History

In Preliminary Finals since 2000 teams finishing in ladder position 1 are now 3-0 over teams finishing 3rd, and teams finishing in ladder position 2 are 5-0 over teams finishing 4th.

Overall in Preliminary Finals, teams finishing in 1st now have a 70% record, teams finishing 2nd an 80% record, teams finishing 3rd a 38% record, and teams finishing 4th a measly 20% record. This generally poor showing by teams from 3rd and 4th has meant that we've had at least 1 of the top 2 teams in every Grand Final since 2000.

Cold Pies Disappoint Investors

The neatness of the 2009 AFL Finals series continues, as the teams finishing 3rd and 4th on the home and away season ladder depart in the Prelims as scripted, leaving 1st to play 2nd in the GF.

What Price the Saints to Beat the Cats in the GF?

If the Grand Final were to be played this weekend, what prices would be on offer?

We can answer this question for the TAB Sportsbet bookie using his prices for this week's games, his prices for the Flag market and a little knowledge of probability.

Pies To Spring the Upset?

It's that time of year when I wonder whether or not to ignore home ground advantage.

This week's Geelong v Pies clash is, as you probably know, being played at the MCG. Geelong, as the team finishing higher on the ladder, are the AFL's notional home team. But the G is Collingwood's home ground, not Geelong's (although it must be beginning to feel like a second home for the Cats and their supporters).

MARS Ratings of the Finalists

We've had a cracking finals series so far and there's the prospect of even better to come. Two matches that stand out from what we've already witnessed are the Lions v Carlton and Collingwood v Adelaide games. A quick look at the Round 22 MARS ratings of these teams tells us just how evenly matched they were.

To Which Teams Do Investors Owe Thanks?

For the next in our series of season-in-review pieces, I thought we'd take a look at how each of the Funds and the Recommended Portfolio has fared wagering on each of the teams.

Updated Finals Summary

There's been a pleasing neatness to the results of the finals so far, depicted below.



Close inspection will reveal that Week 1 saw the teams from ladder positions 7 and 8 knocked out and Week 2 left those fans of the teams from positions 5 and 6 with other things to do for the rest of September. Which, of course, leaves the teams from ladder spots 1 through 4 to contest for a ticket to the Granny. All very much as it should be.

Another Week Goes to Script

It's taken two weeks, six games and two remarkable comebacks to give Investors a perfect finals record and recoup all of the losses they suffered in Round 22.

This weekend, the respectively comfortable and miraculous wins of the Dogs and the Pies cranked New Heritage up 9%, Prudence up 1.5%, and Line Redux up 4.5%, elevating the Recommended Portfolio by 3% and the other Portfolios by between 3% and 9%.

That leaves the Recommended Portfolio up a tick over 13% on the season, and the other Portfolios up by amounts ranging from 16% to 34%, which surely means that only a suicidal wagering flurry from New Heritage or Chi-squared could drag any of the Portfolios back into loss over the remainder of the season.

Dogs on Friday; Pies on Saturday; Rest on Sunday

Oh what a fickle bunch we Investors are forced to be. This week we'll cheer if the Dogs and the Pies are victorious; last week the cheers were on the other ... well, lips I guess.

Just three Funds are active this week, New Heritage, Prudence and Line Redux.

New Heritage has an 11.8% wager on the Dogs at $1.25 and a 5.2% wager on the Pies at $2.15. I'm sure there's a good reason why the Pies are underdogs, but I'm yet to discover it. Prudence has 5.9% on the Dogs, and Line Redux has 5% on the Dogs giving 26.5 points start.

The Life We Might Have Led

Though I doubt many of you are mourning the loss of the Funds that operated last year, I know I was curious to see how they would have performed had I allowed them to run around for another season.

Let me start with a comparison of last year's Recommended Portfolio with this year's:

A Decade of Finals

This year represents the 10th under the current system of finals, a system I think has much to recommend it. It certainly seems to - justifiably, I'd argue - favour those teams that have proven their credentials across the entire season.

The table below shows how the finals have played out over the 10 years:

A Welcome Regression

Entitlement's a dangerous feeling to harbour as a punter, as sporting events will always unfold as they wish, oblivious to how earlier outcomes might have treated your finances.

So, I'll not claim for a moment that I felt we were entitled to a series of favourable outcomes this weekend to redress the tragicomedy that was last weekend's wagering. Instead, I'll draw upon the nomenclature of the statistician and suggest that what we saw this weekend was an example of "regression to the mean", which, broadly, is the label attached to the phenomenon of witnessing a 'more normal' outcome directly after having witnessed a more extreme one.

It's a phenomenon with a proud history and one that we're all exposed to regularly.

Once More With Feeling

(Update at 3:00pm Saturday : Brisbane's giving 6.5 start to the Blues, so no bet)

Stakes at Stake

September's here at last and a few hundred players and at least a few hundred more coaches and support staff will need to find other things to do with their weekends for a while.

Our Funds though remain firmly focussed on this season and they, generally, like what's on offer from TAB Sportsbet this weekend.

When Finalists Meet

If the teams in the finals are the best teams in the competition (and the MARS ratings say otherwise, but nonetheless) then it seems to make sense to focus on the games in which they've faced off in assessing each team's relative chances. The tables below have been constructed including just those games.

Finals Week 1

Here's the detail for Week 1 of the Finals and the road thereafter.

(The base image comes from www.wikipedia.com.)

The GFC (Galling Football Crisis)

Ouch.

Perhaps that was the "Saturday we had to have".

As you know by now, I don't do excuses. So, instead, allow me to, completely impartially, present you with the details of what I'm now calling "Sobering Saturday". (Yes, there were other, less G-rated alternatives that I considered.)

Game 1: Geelong v Fremantle

The Cats dominate Freo and build steadily to lead by 55 points, 70-15, at the 5-and-a-half minute mark of the 3rd term, already covering the 47.5 points start we'd given.

They score only 24 more points in the game's remainder and concede 39, eventually winning by only 40 points, securing our head-to-head bet but surrendering our line bet in the process.

The Recommended Portfolio drops 0.9% - a mocking portent of what was to come.

Game 2: Hawthorn v Essendon

The Hawks complete two solid quarters of football and lead by 28 points late in the 2nd term before conceding the term's final goal to usher the Dons into the half-time break with just a sniff, trailing by 22 points.

Essendon pile on 21 unanswered points from the 7 minute to the 16 minute mark of the 3rd term before the Hawks briefly steady and limp into the 3-quarter-time break still up by 5 points.

But the signs are already there, and the Dons swamp the Hawks in the final term, scoring 6.7 to 3.3 to win by 17 points.

The Recommended Portfolio drops another 5.1% and a trend is established.

Game 3: Carlton v Adelaide

Carlton impress early to lead the Crows by 30-8 at the 17 minute mark of the 1st term but muster just 2 more goals in the 1st term while conceding 6 to finish the term with a 5 point lead.

They then kick just 9 more goals in the game while the Crows kick 21.

The Recommended Portfolio drops another 3.4% and we have what a stockmarket analysis might call a bear run.

Game 4: Sydney v Brisbane Lions

The Swans lead early - hmmm, there's a familiar theme - but never by much, and proceed to leak goals from the middle of the 2nd term to the early part of the 3rd, finding themselves down by 39 points at the 8 minute mark of the 3rd term.

Cruelly, over the course of the next 17 minutes they kick 5.1 to 0.0 to close within 8 points of a faltering Lions, before the Lions kick a confidence-restoring goal just before the final break.

Next, the Swans register the opening 13 points of the final term to trail by just a point. At the 15 minute mark of the term the Lions kick their first goal, to which the Swans reply some 10 minutes later to restore the deficit to 1 point. But the Lions scramble and cling on to win by 8 points.

The Recommended Portfolio drops another 4.3% and optimism excuses itself and leaves by the nearest exit.

Game 5: Port Adelaide v Kangaroos

Port are scratchy - they need to win by over 100 points to have a chance of making the finals, but you'd never guess it - but eke out a 20-point lead by the 10-and-a-half minute mark of the 3rd term.

What follows has, by now, a hint of inevitability.

Port enter stage left and concede 19 points in 5 minutes before snagging briefly on a ledge on the way down, registering a couple of late behinds to face the final term with a lead of just 3 points.

The Roos kick the opening 7 points of the final term to lead by 4, before Port scrambles three behinds to fool the audience and trail by 1. The suspense is deftly built as a handful of behinds are traded - though both teams are ostensibly in the market for goals - before Port secures a 6-pointer 30 seconds into time-on to lead by 4.

Port glances to the stage wings and whispers "prompt" and then, remembering its lines, concedes 1.2 - the goal coming from a debatable 50m penalty - while eschewing further point-scoring itself and goes on to lose by 4 points. Right on cue.

The Recommended Portfolio drops another 3.4% and the day's destruction is over.

In summary, for those with the Recommended Portfolio: the New Heritage Fund recorded 3 winning wagers from 6 bets, dropping 19.4%; Prudence snagged 2 from 3 but still dropped 3.6%; Hope lost its only bet and dropped 6.7%; Chi-squared lost 3 of 3 and plummeted 26.9%; and Line Redux landed just 1 of 4 and fell by 21.4%.

So, the Recommended Portfolio fell by 15.4%, leaving it down about 2.5% on the season. Other portfolios fell by between 15% and 20%, leaving them narrowly to moderately up on the season. The best portfolio is MIN#017's, which is up by a tick under 12%.

Anyway, on to tipping.

Astonishingly, BKB has finished out of the MAFL Tipster medals this year. Silhouette - who registered 6 from 8 this week, equal-best with Shadow - finished 1st, with an incredible 124 from 176 (71%). Second went to CTL with 120 (68%), and 3rd went to Shadow with 119 (68%).

ELO and BKB finished joint-4th on 117 (67%).

Four tipsters finished the home-and-away season in the black on level-stake, start in Round 6, Home Team only wagering: Silhouette, CTL, Shadow, and STM II. This is the fourth consecutive season in which these tipsters have finished in profit using such a strategy.

On line betting, ELO recorded a modest 4 from 8, but is still up on level-stake wagering, now by just under 7 units. Chi managed just 3 from 8 to drop further into deficit for the season.

ELO's MAPE now stands at 28.6 points per game and its Median Absolute Prediction Error at 23 points per game, leaving it narrowly behind BKB's MAPE (28.3 points) and narrowly ahead of BKB's Median APE (23.5 points). Chi languishes on both measures, with a 30.7 points per game MAPE and a 27 point Median APE, though neither of those results are of a "go to your kennel" level of incompetence.

So, on to the Finals ...

(Congratulations go to Dan on winning the Pick the Finishing Order Competition. Plaudits too go to Tim and Rohan who finished 2nd and 3rd.)

Just How Much Do the Dees Want the Priority Pick?

Stakes at Stake
(** See updates on the Hawthorn v Essendon line wager, below.)

If my knowledge of Catholicism serves me well, St Jude is (or was) the Hope of the Hopeless. How apt then that it's the Hope Fund that has chosen to lavish its final attention for the Home and Away season on last-placed Melbourne at $11, taking on the first-placed and joint flag favourites, St Kilda.

The Hope Fund is risking just 6.7% on the Dees, making this bet a relatively lucrative proposition for many Investors with fairly limited downside. Basically, it's a Heritage Fund wolf-style wager dressed up in sheepish Hope clothing.

In other news, the New Heritage Fund has 6 wagers totalling a tick under 60% of the Fund, the largest a 13.3% wager on the Cats at $1.03 taking on Fremantle at the Cats' cradle, and the riskiest a 4.8% wager on the Dogs at $2.15 sparring with the Pies for a 3rd-place finish.

Prudence, meantime, has just 3 wagers for about 15% of the Fund, its largest being 5.9%, also on Geelong, and its riskiest 4.6% on Port Adelaide at $1.33, who face the Roos.

Chi-squared also has 3 wagers, though they're a little larger on average than those of Prudence and total 27% of the Fund. The largest and riskiest is 9.8% on the Hawks at $1.80 in their spot-in-the-finals and earn-a-chance-to-defend-the-Premiership clash with the Dons.

Line Redux has, at this point, just 3 wagers too, totalling 15% of the Fund, though this is likely to change once the Hawks/Dons line market is posted on TAB Sportsbet anytime soon now. I'm expecting a wager on the Hawks, but the size of it will depend on the price offered.

(** Update at 2:45pm on Friday: Hawthorn opened on Line betting at $2.15 giving 6.5 points start. Line Redux really likes that deal and has plonked 15.9% of the Fund on the Hawks - comfortably its largest wager of the season.)

In total, the Round's wagering represents somewhere bewteen the 4th- and 6th-largest outlay for Investors this season.

(** Now 2nd to 5th.)

Ready Reckoner
This outlay provides the following risk-reward tradeoff:



For most then it's the Melbourne v St Kilda, (and now Hawthorn v Essendon), Sydney v Brisbane Lions, and Geelong v Fremantle matchups that represent the widest gap between potential profit and possible loss.

Tipping
This week's tipping features an absence of unanimous favourites (assuming the lack of something can legitimately be called a feature). In fact, no team has fewer than 3 supporters this week, though not all of the minority support comes from particularly convincing sources.

We have:

• West Coast as 10-3 favourites over the Tigers. None of the Top 5 MAFL tipsters are siding with the Tigers.
• Geelong as 8-5 favourites over Fremantle. Again, the underdog support is bereft of high-profile MAFL tipsters.
• Hawthorn as 10-3 favourites over Essendon. Essendon can count CTL and Silhoutte amongst its more comforting backers.
• Carlton as 9-4 favourites over Adelaide. Both Silhouette and Shadow are tipping the upset.
• The Lions are 10-3 favourites over Sydney. BKB is the only credentialled MAFL tipster predicting a Swans victory. ELO, though tipping with the majority, has the Lions winning by just a point, making this its Game of the Round.
• Port Adelaide are 8-6 favourites over the Roos. Shadow is the only elite tipster with a contrarian view.
• St Kilda are 10-3 favourites over Melbourne. Shadow, once again, finds itself as the lone dissenting voice amongst the tipsters that matter. Chi though is tipping the Saints by just 1 point, making this his Game of the Round.
• Collingwood are 10-3 favourites over the Dogs. ELO and Shadow are both tipping a Dogs victory.

BKB aside, the best tipping performance of any heuristic tipster over the past 12 seasons is RYL's 124 last year. Silhouette needs 6 from 8 to equal this mark, and 6.5 or more to break it.

Line Betting
On Line Betting this week, Chi and ELO differ more often than they agree:

• Chi is on Richmond, Fremantle, Hawthorn, Carlton, Sydney, Kangaroos, Melbourne and Collingwood.
• ELO is on Richmond, Geelong, Hawthorn, Adelaide, Brisbane, Kangaroos, St Kilda and Western Bulldogs.

Simulating The Last Round

I was curious, as I imagine were many of you but to a less obsessive extent, to understand how next weekend's results will affect the make up and ordering of the final 8.

So, in a fashion similar to that which I used last week, I simulated the last round of the competition, this time using the opening head-to-head TAB Sportsbet markets to set the win probabilities for each game.

The simulation results gave me estimated probabilities for each team's possible final ladder positions.

All that was left for me to do then was to write up the set of match results that would produce each particular finishing ladder position for each team. Which, I admit, sounds like a simple task. After all, it's only one round's results, so how hard could it be?

I'll simply say this: harder than it looked.

Anyway, here's the table with the detail:

(The column headed "Required Results" was the doozy to write up. I'm about 90% confident that this column is correct, but I'll be delirious to hear from you if you think you've found an error.)

A Return To Profit For Most

This weekend, apparently the Lions and the Saints thought it'd make for more entertaining football viewing if they were to spot their opponents a bit of a start, 47 points in the case of the Lions and 32 points in the case of the Saints.

Many Investors had a financial interest in both these teams - in the case of the Lions, with the additional challenge of giving 33.5 points start - and no doubt found this fox-and-hound approach somewhat alarming. While the Lions did, indeed, metaphorically catch the fox, the Saints did not, an entirely unsatisfactory turn of events when you're wagering on short-priced hounds.

Still, in the end, all Investors except MIN#017 did make profits for the weekend, ranging from 3.1% to 3.9% and including 3.3% for those with the Recommended Portfolio. MIN#017 suffered a 3.8% loss.

For the season, the Recommended Portfolio is up about 13%, MIN#001 is up 18.5%, MIN#015 is up almost 16%, and MIN#017 is up over 31%, so you'd struggle at this point to be an unhappy Investor.

Atypically, Chi-squared recorded the weekend's best return amongst the Funds, up almost 9% on a solitary successful wager on Freo. Next best was Hope, also up almost 9% on 2 successful wagers from 2 outlays. Line Redux and Prudence also made profits, Line Redux up 4% on 2 wins from 3, and Prudence up a little under 1% on 5 successful wagers from 6.

New Heritage was the only Fund to make a loss. It dropped 3.8% on 5 successful wagers from 7, the two losses attributable to Essendon and the Saints.

With 5 favourites and an equal favourite saluting the judge this weekend, tipsters generally fared well, the best of them being Shadow, Chi and HSH, each of which scored 6 from 8.

Silhouette still leads, now on 118 from 168 (70%), three ahead of CTL on 115 (69%) and one more ahead of BKB on 114 (68%).

Five tipsters remain in positive territory on level-stake, Home Team only, start at Round 6 wagering.

On Line Betting, Chi managed just 3 from 8 and ELO just 4 from 8.

And the Last Shall be First (At Least Occasionally)

So far we've learned that handicap-adjusted margins appear to be normally distributed with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of 37.7 points. That means that the unadjusted margin - from the favourite's viewpoint - will be normally distributed with a mean equal to minus the handicap and a standard deviation of 37.7 points. So, if we want to simulate the result of a single game we can generate a random Normal deviate (surely a statistical contradiction in terms) with this mean and standard deviation.

Just Say No to Surprisals

Stakes at Stake

This week, Investors are hoping for a round almost bereft of upsets, save for wishing for a minor upset on Friday night in the shape of the Dogs outbarking the Cats.

The New Heritage Fund has waited until Round 21 to record its highest level of aggregate Funds at risk for the season: about 70% at risk on 7 wagers, the largest being 13.2% on the Saints at $1.05, and the riskiest 4% on the Dogs at $2.25.

Prudence has also lashed out this week, dropping a little under one-third of the Fund on 6 wagers. Its largest is 6.1% on Carlton at $1.08 and its riskest is 2.8%, also on the Dogs. Hope has just 2 wagers for the round totalling about 8% of the Fund, the largest and riskiest being 4.6% on the Dogs, while Chi-Squared's sole wager - also, of necessity, its largest and riskiest - is 10.4% on Fremantle at $1.85.

Line Redux has 3 wagers for the week totalling 15% of the Fund. One wager is on a team receiving start (the Dogs) and the other two are on teams giving start (Adelaide and Brisbane).

Ready Reckoner

In total, for everyone except MIN#017, these wagers represent the second-largest aggregate wagering for a single round this season, trailing only the profligacy of Round 16. For MIN#007, this round's wagers are, in fact, the season's apogee (or, perhaps, the nadir, depending on your viewpoint). There's some comfort though in the fact that most of the week's wagers are on favourites.

Here's the week's Ready Reckoner:

For most Investors then, the weekend's key games are, in order, the Dogs versus the Cats, the Lions versus Port, and the Crows versus the Eagles.

Tipping

On tipping, we have:

• Geelong 9-4 favourites over the Dogs. Amongst the Top 5 MAFL tipsters only Shadow is siding with the Dogs. ELO and Chi are both tipping the Cats, though each only by 1 point, making this, for both, the Game of the Round.
• Carlton 12-1 favourites over Melbourne. Only EI I is tipping the upset.
• Adelaide 11-2 favourites over West Coast with, once again, the Top 5 tipsters unanimously on the favourite.
• Brisbane unanimous favourites over Port Adelaide.
• Hawthorn 9-4 favourites over Richmond. Again, the Top 5 tipsters are backing the favourite.
• St Kilda unanimous favourites over the Roos.
• Collingwood unanimous favourites over the Swans.
• Essendon 9-4 favourites over Fremantle. With the teams in this contest equal favourites as at noon on Wednesday, BKB sides with CTL for this game and therefore tips Essendon, again making all Top 5 tipsters unanimous for this game.

Line Betting

On Line Betting this week, Chi and ELO differ on 3 games:

• Chi is tipping the Dogs, Melbourne, Eagles, Port, Richmond, the Roos, Sydney and Essendon
• ELO is tipping the Dogs, Carlton, Eagles, Port, Richmond, St Kilda, Collingwood and Essendon

Simulating What's Left of the Season

We've just 2 rounds to go now until teams start creating the history that fans will remember - fondly or otherwise - and neither the top 4 nor the top 8 positions are all locked in. Surely the practical science of statistics can help us to determine the chances for each team that is still in the running.

To simulate the possible outcomes for the season's remaining games we need to:

* Estimate the probability of victory for each team and each game

* Use these probabilities to simulate the outcome of all remaining games

* Repeat these simulations a large number of times and aggregate the data about where teams finish in each simulation

(For anyone who's curious, in the second step I use the fact that I've determined empirically - as chronicled over on MAFL Stats - that there's a direct link between a team's probability of victory and the handicap it can expect to receive on line betting, and that handicap-adjusted margins seem to roughly follow a Normal distribution with a mean on 0 and a standard deviation of 37.7 points.)

I've completed the steps above using 3 different sets of probabilities, as set down in the table below:

The three scenarios are labelled Base Case, Stronger Favourites and Weaker Favourites, with the probabilities for the first 8 games in each scenario based on the opening head-to-head market prices on TAB Sportsbet and the remaining probabilities set to be broadly consistently with the scenario name.

So, for example, in the Base Case scenario, West Coast are slight favourites over Richmond in Round 22, as they have an assigned probability of 55% (ie 0.55). This rises to 65% in the Stronger Favourites scenario and 50% - that is, equal favouritism - in the Weaker Favourites scenario.

Okay, now to the interesting part: what outcomes do we get for each of these scenarios?

Here's the summary detail for each team of the probability of Top 4 and Top 8 finishes and the most likely ladder position under each of the scenarios:

Across the scenarios, we find that:

* The Saints and the Cats almost always finish 1st and 2nd, in that order. Looking at the actual simulation results (not shown here), in a tiny number of instances - less than 1 time in 100,000 - the Saints and the Cats swap places, but not often enough for this to be considered a serious possibility. So, the Saints' most likely finish is 1st and the Cats' is 2nd, both with probabilities close to 100%.

* Collingwood finishes in the top 4 in all but about 1-2% of the simulations, regardless of the scenario. The more detailed simulation results reveal that Collingwood finishes 3rd about 75-85% of the time, 4th 10-20% of the time, and 5th about 1-2% of the time. Their most likely finish is 3rd.

* The Western Bulldogs finish in the Top 4 about 56% of the time under the Stronger Favourites scenario and 70% of the time under the Weaker Favourites scenario. They always finish in the Top 8 under any scenario. They could finish anywhere from 3rd (with probability ranging from 15 to 25%) to 7th, though a finish this low is very unlikely. Their most likely finish is 4th, for which the probability is about 40-45%.

* Carlton finishes in the Top 4 about 17% of the time under the Weaker Favourites scenario and 32% of the time under the Stronger Favourites scenario. They too always finish in the Top 8 regardless of scenario. They could finish as high as 3rd, though this is very unlikely (probability less than 1%), or as low as 7th (with probability around 20%). Their most likely finish is 5th, for which the probability is about 35%.

* Adelaide is another team that always makes the Top 8 under any scenario. They also make the Top 4 about 10% of the time under any scenario. They could finish as high as 3rd, though this is very unlikely for them, or as low as 7th (with probability of 30-50% depending on scenario), which is their most likely finish.

* Brisbane Lions are also a simulated certainty to make the Top 8, but they've only a 2-3% chance of making the Top 4. Their best possible finish is 4th and their worst is 8th (with only about a 1% probability). Their most likely finish is 6th or 7th depending on the scenario, and the combined probability for such these two positions is about 70-80%.

* Essendon are no chance for a Top 4 spot and a 72-78% chance of a Top 8 spot, depending on the scenario. Their best possible finish is 7th and their worst is 11th. Both have associated probabilities of around 1%. Their most likely finish is 8th, for which the probability is 70-80%.

* Port Adelaide are also no chance for a Top 4 spot, but are a 13% chance of a Top 8 spot, regardless of the scenario. Their best possible finish is 8th, and their worst is 12th, though this carries only a 1% probability. Their most likely finish is 9th, for which the probability is 45-65%, depending on the scenario.

* Sydney are also no chance for a Top 4 spot and virtually no chance for a Top 8 spot. The probability of them making the 8 ranges between about 0.5% to 1.5% depending on the scenario. Their best possible finish is 8th, and their worst is 12th, with a probability of 15-30%. Their most likely finish is 11th, for which the probability is about 40%.

* Hawthorn are another team with no chance for a Top 4 spot, but the probability of them making the 8 ranges between about 8% and 14% depending on the scenario. Their best possible finish is 8th, and their worst is 12th, with a probability of 10-15%. Their most likely finish is 10th, for which the probability is about 30-35%.

No other team finished in the Top 8 in any of the simulations for any of the scenarios.

All of which means that, if you believe the probabilities I've used for the scenarios, that:

* For the Top 4, the Dogs are a good bet at $1.80, Carlton at $6, Adelaide at $10, and the Lions at $50

* For the Top 8, Essendon are a good bet at $1.50, Port at $8, Sydney at $250, and Hawthorn at $12.50

The Dees are a 90-95% chance for the Spoon, though the Roos, Richmond and Fremantle all have non-zero probability of finishing last. Fremantle is a 5-10% chance, while the Roos and the Tigers both have probabilities less than 0.5% under any scenario.

Which is probably why, on TAB Sportsbet, there is no longer a Spoon market.

I Don't Like Saturdays

Well that hurt a bit.

Of the 20 bets that those with the Recommended Portfolio had in play just 8 were successful. Three of those winning bets came from New Heritage, but its 2 losing bets were enough to push it, like every other Fund, into the red for the weekend. It finished down a little over 2% on the weekend's indulgences. Prudence had 2 more of the winning bets, but also 2 more of the losers, which saw it drop by a touch under 2% for the weekend.

Amongst the other Funds, Hope had just 1 winner from 4 bets and dropped about 7%. Chi-squared registered an identical 1 from 4 performance, but Chi's proclivity for large wagers turned this into a 22% decline for the Fund.

Finally, Line Redux managed just 1 winner from 3 bets and dropped 5.5%.

All told, those with the Recommended Portfolio dropped about 7.5% on the weekend. MIN #001 and MIN # 015 lost similar amounts, and MIN #017 lost a tick over 2%.

These results could have been considerably worse but for a profitable Sunday's wagering. It struck me that Sundays had - or so I thought - often been kind to us this year. Which, inevitably, led to some analysis and the following table:

As you can see, Sundays have indeed been very lucrative for the Recommended Portfolio. It has made money on 12 of the 17 Sundays on which it's had wagers, producing a net profit across all those Sundays of almost 30%. In contrast, Saturdays have been unprofitable 11 times out of 19, and unprofitable in total, due entirely to the 15% losses that have been experienced over the previous 2 rounds.

In fact - as the table shows - the Saturday just gone was the worst single day's wagering the Recommended Portfolio has endured this season.

On tipping, CTL and ELO had the best rounds, scoring 6 from 8. This pushed CTL into outright 2nd for the season with 110 from 160 (69%), three tips behind Silhouette on 113 (71%) and 1 tip ahead of BKB on 109 (68%). Five tipsters remain profitable on level-stake home team only wagering commencing in Round 6. (A sixth, RYL, is virtually at breakeven.)

Finally, on Line Betting, Chi scored 3 from 8 and ELO 4 from 8, leaving ELO showing a profit and Chi a loss for the season.

The Tradition Continues

Stakes at Stake
There's just no rest if you're a MAFL Investor.

For those with the Recommended Portfolio we've another 20 wagers this weekend, covering all but the Tigers v Pies game on Saturday. The most profligate Fund is the Chi-squared Fund, which has 4 wagers totalling a smidge under half the Fund, the largest and riskiest of which being 15.2% of the Fund on the Swans at $2.55 facing the Cats. Two other wagers are equally brow-raising and are sized around the 12% mark and on teams priced at $2 or a little higher. This dog shows no fear/sense (delete whichever isn't applicable).

Next most profligate is the New Heritage Fund, which has 5 wagers totalling almost one-third of the Fund, the largest being 11% on West Coast at $1.36 and the riskiest 4.8% on Hawthorn at $2.15. Hope comes next, with 4 wagers totalling around 16% of the Fund, the largest and riskiest 5.1% on Sydney at $2.55.Then follows the Line Redux Fund, with three wagers each at 5% of the Fund, 2 on underdogs and 1 on a favourite. (Two line markets are yet to be posted, but they'll both probably be the home team +6.5 points which won't be enough to entice a flutter.)

Finally, Prudence is this week's spendthrift - such things being relative - having 4 wagers totalling only 13% of the Fund, the largest 3.5% on the Eagles and the riskiest 3% on Melbourne at $2.05.

In truth, by just about any measure, the weekend's fare is not especially scary. Had last year's Heritage Fund still been active, who knows what it might have outlayed on the Tigers at home at $6.25 or the Dons at home at $6.50.

Ready Reckoner
So, to the week's Ready Reckoner:



The Melbourne v Freo, Lions v Dogs, and Sydney v Geelong clashes are then the ones that matter most to all Investors, except MIN #017, who cares only about the first two of those games.

Tipping
We have no games this week for which the tipsters are unanimous and 7 games for which there is at least 3 tipsters in the minority camp.

We have:
* Adelaide 10-3 favourites over the Hawks. Both Chi and ELO are tipping the Crows but both by sufficiently narrow margins to make this their Game of the Round. Amongst MAFL's top 5 tipsters only Shadow is tipping the Hawks.
* Collingwood 10-3 favourites over the Tigers. None of the top tipsters are on the Richmond.
* The Roos 7-6 favourites over the Eagles, though BKB, ELO and CTL are all on West Coast.
* The Lions 8-5 favourites over the Dogs, with ELO, CTL and Silhouette supporting the Dogs.
* Geelong 7-6 favourites over the Swans. Amongst the top tipsters only Shadow is tipping the Swans.
* Fremantle 9-4 favourites over the Dees, with Shadow and Silhouette tipping Melbourne.
* Carlton 10-3 favourites over Port. Only Silhouette are supporting Port from amongst the top tipsters.
* St Kilda 12-1 favourites Essendon. HSH is the only tipster hoping for a Dons victory.

Line Betting
On Line Betting:
* Chi is tipping: Hawthorn, Richmond, Kangaroos, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Port Adelaide, Essendon
* ELO is tipping: Hawthorn, Richmond, Kangaroos, Western Bulldogs, Geelong, Melbourne, Carlton, Essendon

(Update at 7:00pm on Thursday: the line markets for the Melbourne v Freo and Port v Carlton games have now been posted and, despite Melbourne receiving a little more start than I expected, we've no interest in either game, from a line betting perspective at least.)

And Then There Were Eleven ...

Well last weekend's results certainly altered the finals landscape, leaving all of the teams currently in ladder positions 1 through 11 with legitimate dreams of playing in September and all of the teams in positions 1 through 7 with hopes for a top 4 finish and the double chance.

With the aid of the latest ELO projections, let's take a look at what's left for the teams in contention.

St Kilda have probably the easiest run home of all the teams in the competition. They face 9th placed Essendon away (hence the '9', the 'Ess' and the 'A' in the entry for St Kilda for Round 20, which is coloured green because ELO predicts the Saints will win this game), 13th placed Kangaroos at home, and then last placed Melbourne away. So, give them three wins and 1st place, with only the Dons as a realistic threat to a 22 and 0 home-and-away season.

Geelong have a slightly more challenging finish, starting with faint-hope finalists Sydney away this weekend, followed by the Dogs away, and then Fremantle at home. They should win all three of these games; regardless, they finish 2nd.

Collingwood face the in-form but out-of-contention Richmond this weekend, before matching up with the Swans in a game that'll matter much more to the Swans if they've knocked off the Cats in Round 20. In the final round the Pies take on the Dogs, but by that point they will most likely have secured 3rd place.

The Western Bulldogs have an horrendous last 3 weeks of the home-and-away season comprising contests with teams no lower than 5th on the ladder. First up is an away game with the Lions, then a home game against the Cats, and, finally, another home game, this one against the Pies. ELO has them winning 2 of these 3 contests and therefore securing 4th spot on percentages, but it's easy to see them dropping another 1 or even 2 of these games and missing a top 4 spot.

Carlton have what could be described as an awkward finish to the season, including as it does two teams that are in finals contention: Port Adelaide, who they play away this week, and Adelaide, who they play at home in the final round. In the middle they have the 4-point insurance that comes from playing the Dees. ELO has the Blues winning 3 and they should at least manage 2, making them a possible top 4 finisher.

Adelaide also have an awkward finish, starting with the 'surprised to still be in it' Hawks away this weekend, followed by the Eagles at home, and rounding out with a tricky away contest against the Blues. ELO's credited them with 2 wins, though you could make a good case for 1 or for 3 wins. The Crows should comfortably make the 8 and might yet surprise and jag a top 4 spot, but I'd treat this as unlikely.

If awkwardity is quantifiable (or, indeed, even a word) then the Brisbane Lions have more of it in their run home than any other team. This weekend they face the Dogs at home, then Port again at home, and, lastly, Sydney away, who might still have a sniff at that point but probably won't. ELO's giving the Lions just 1 win from that lot, but 2 is conceivable, even 3 if the gods of oblate spheroids are smiling on them. They'll make the 8 but almost certainly not the top 4.

Hawthorn can, amazingly, lose again this week - to the Crows at home - but still sneak into the finals with back-to-back wins against Richmond away and Essendon at home to complete a 10-12 season and pip Port on percentages. One possibility is that the Hawks will face the Dons in Round 22 with a place in the finals at stake for both of them.

Port Adelaide could also slip into the 8 with just 40 points and having lost 2 of their last 3 games. They face Carlton at home this week, then the Lions away and the Roos at home. If they can win 2 of these then the Hawks will need to win all 3 of theirs to deny Port a finals berth.

Essendon will probably finish just 1 win short of the finals. They play Saints at home this week, then Freo away and then the Hawks also away. It might, as I noted above, all come down to the Round 22 clash with the Hawks.

Sydney have the faintest of finals hopes, but would need to topple the Cats at home, Collingwood away, and then the Lions at home to realise that dream. Frankly I think I'm more likely to win Lotto - and I don't even buy tickets.

For the rest of the teams it's all about draft picks and dealing with tanking speculation.

Bitten By the Dogs

Well, 22 tall and athletic Dogs wearing Red, White and Blue guernseys and pushing for a top 4 spot dug the hole on Saturday, and 1 short and stocky white dog wearing nothing but a green collar just about filled it in on Sunday evening - with a little help mostly from Hope.

At least, that was the story for most Investors this weekend. Investors with the Recommended Portfolio wound up losing 1.4% and other Investors lost amounts ranging from 0.4% to 9.3%. MIN #002 was the only Investor to record a profit, jumping 7% courtesy of the Hope Funds' impeccable 2 from 2 record.

Other Funds were less successful than Hope, though Chi-squared did also eke out a profit, rising just over 4c on 2 wins from 4 bets. New Heritage dropped over 9c also on 2 wins from 4 bets, Prudence dropped 5c on 2 wins from 5 bets, and Line Redux dropped 1c on 2 wins from 4 bets. All told the Funds won just 10 bets from 19, so dropping a percent or two is probably not such a bad result, especially when you consider that 3 of those 'winning' bets were on the drawn Essendon v Lions game.

What generally hurt the majority of Funds this weekend was the unlikelihood of many of the results. Only 3 favourites won and another only drew, leading to the season's most unpredictable set of results, as measured by surprisals.

The table below lists the average outcome surprisals per game for each of the rounds this season alongside which I've shown the returns recorded for each of the Funds.

At the foot of the table I've calculated the correlation between the average outcome surprisals and the Fund returns for each round. The negative correlations on the left show that the New Heritage and Prudence Funds have prospered when results have been most predictable and surprisals have therefore been low, and the positive correlations on the right show that the Hope, Chi-squared and Line Redux Funds have prospered when results have been least predictable and surprisals have therefore been high.

The latest round was a perfect example of this phenomenon. The average outcome surprisals per game was a season-high 1.42 bits, the Hope and Chi-squared Funds made profits, the Line Redux Fund almost broke even, and the New Heritage and Prudence Funds made losses.

(For information on team-by-team outcome and margin surprisals visit MAFL Stats.)

Unpredictability also affected the MAFL tipsters' predictive accuracy. The round's best performance was 4.5 from 8 as was recorded by Shadow, CTL and STM I. The worst was just 1.5 from 8 and was recorded by STM II.

Silhouette now leads our tipping competition on 108 from 152 (71%), ahead of Shadow, CTL and BKB, all on 104 from 152 (68%).

Shadow, Silhouette and STM II remain strongly in profit on level-stake wagering on their head-to-head tips, whether you start counting from Round 1 or from Round 6.

Though ELO managed just 3.5 from 8 on head-to-head tipping, it bagged a perfect 8 from 8 on line betting, moving it to 85 from 152 for the season (56%), a record that would have yielded +8.22 units from level-stake wagering. Chi correctly predicted only 4 from 8 on line betting.

Exceptional line betting generally results from exceptional margin prediction and this is indeed how you'd describe ELO's margin prediction performance this season. Its Mean Absolute Prediction Error is now just 28 points per game and its Median Absolute Prediction Error is 22.5 points per game.

In comparison, Chi's Mean APE is 29.7 points per game and his Median APE is 26 points per game. More relevantly, BKB, always the benchmark, has a 27.8 points per game Mean APE and a 23.5 points per game Median APE.

So, ELO is just 0.2 points per game behind BKB on Mean APE and is a full 1 point per game ahead of BKB on Median APE.

Another Roll of the Dice

Bet or Bank?

There's a famous line by somebody that "the dice have no memory", an allusion to the startlingly obvious fact that inanimate objects - spotted or otherwise - are bereft of the necessary cerebral capacity to recall what they did last, and are therefore unable to take account of their previous behaviour when they 'decide' (which they don't do either) what to do next.

As the Alzheimic dice, so the Funds.

Clearly, none of the Funds has spent any time reflecting on last week's glory and thought to itself "Might have a quiet weekend and make that Sportsbet bookie sweat a bit", nor have any of them suddenly become more concerned about the possibility of late-season tanking, which are reasonable thoughts and sentiments that I'm sure more than one Investor has entertained this week.

With this in mind I decided to review how the various Fund algorithms would have performed had we been using them over the closing rounds of previous seasons. This analysis shows that the Funds have generally performed fairly well from this point in the season onwards, rarely losing, often doing just a little better than breakeven, and occasionally piling on the percentage gains. Then again, football results have no memory either ...

Anyway, if you're at all keen to take a few weekends off from wagering - if nothing else so that you can start enjoying games again - please let me know and we can sort out a strategy for you for the remainder of the season.

Stakes at Stake

Investors in the Recommended Portfolio have 19 wagers to shepherd this weekend, covering all but the Friday-night game yet again.

New Heritage has outlayed cash on 4 teams totaling about 21% of the Fund. The largest wager is 13.3% on the Dogs who are again at an apparently backable unbackable $1.04 this weekend. This Fund's highest-priced wager is 0.7% on Melbourne at $3.15. Those with the Recommended Portfolio and MIN#015 would prefer this bet to lose, however, as they also have a head-to-head bet on the Roos and will fare better if the Dees go down. MIN#001 and MIN#017, in contrast, want the Dees to win, and MIN#002 cares not for the outcome. So, this is a contest where I can't hope to make everybody happy.

Prudence has identified 5 gold-plated opportunities totalling just 15% of the Fund. Its largest outlay is 6% on the Dogs and its riskiest is 2.3% on Fremantle at $2.35.

Hope has 2 wagers both in the 4.6% to 4.8% and the largest - 4.8% on Fremantle - is also the riskiest.

Chi-squared, exhibiting perhaps the most Alzheimic behaviour of all, has splashed out again with 4 wagers totalling 45% of the Fund, including 14.3% on Fremantle (at $2.35) and 13.8% on Essendon at $2.25, in what appears to be a quest to achieve profitability or, like some of the MAFL Small Cap Mining Stocks, to go broke trying.

Line Redux has plumped for 4 wagers, each sized 5% as is customary, 3 of them on underdogs and the other on a favourite. The Line Redux Fund has been in fine form of recent weeks, landing 15 of 22 wagers across the last 6 rounds. Unfortunately this performance back-ended a 14 from 32 start to the season, though it has been enough to nudge the Line Redux Fund into its highest level of profitability since Round 4.

(Two line markets are yet to be posted - those for the Richmond v Sydney and the Kangaroos v Melbourne clashes - but I'm not expecting we'll have a wager in either. As usual, I'll confirm this once the markets are posted.)

Ready Reckoner

Here's what all the wagering means for your Portfolio:

Once again this weekend, Investors care deeply about the fate of Port, though now the guernsey's on the other back (or something like that), since this week we want Fremantle to prevail over the Power. What's driving this interest is the fact that every Fund has a wager on Fremantle, a situation from which Investors are 3 from 4 this season, missing out only when the Swans went down to Essendon in Round 15.

The Essendon v Brisbane Lions and the Dogs v Eagles matchups are also of considerable interest to most Investors.

Tipping

This week there's only one unanimous favourite amongst the MAFL tipsters.

We have:

* Geelong 9-4 favourites over Carlton, with only Shadow supporting the Blues from amongst the MAFL Top 6 tipsters.

* The Dogs unanimous favourites over the Eagles.

* St Kilda 12-1 favourites over Hawthorn. Only HSH is tipping the upset, though Chi has the Saints winning by just a point and so has this as his Game of the Round.

* The Lions 10-3 favourites over Essendon. None of the MAFL Top 6 are tipping the Dons.

* Adelaide 8-5 favourites over Collingwood. None of the MAFL Top 6 are tipping the Pies, though ELO has the Crows emerging victorious by just 3 points, making this one of its two Games of the Round.

* The Roos 11-2 favourites over the Dees, with only STM II a credentialled tipper opting for the current Spooners.

* Richmond 9-4 favourites over Sydney, though Sydney has ELO, CTL, Shadow and Silhouette all tipping the upset. ELO has the Swans winning by just 3 points, making this its second Game of the Round.

* Port Adelaide 10-3 favourites over Fremantle, with none of the Freo support coming from the Top 6 MAFL Tipsters.

Four matches will, therefore, potentially affect the rankings amongst the top 6 tipsters: Geelong v Carlton, Adelaide v Collingwood, Kangaroos v Melbourne, and Richmond v Sydney.

Line Betting

This week on Line Betting:

* Chi's on Carlton, West Coast, Hawthorn, Essendon, Adelaide, Melbourne (TBC), Richmond (TBC) and Fremantle

* ELO's on Carlton, West Coast, St Kilda, Essendon, Collingwood, Kangaroos (TBC), Sydney (TBC) and Fremantle

For the season, Chi's tipped 71 from 144 (49%) and would have made a 9.48 unit loss on level-stake line betting. ELO's tipped 77 from 144 (53%) and would have made a 1.22 unit profit on level-stake line betting.

(Update at 8pm Thursday: as expected, no bets on the Richmond/Sydney or Kangaroos/Melbourne games. A new download is available with the line market details for these games. Note also that the Hawks are now favourites over the Saints on TAB Sportsbet, so much so that we now couldn't secure the same price head-to-head as we did on Wednesday with 15.5 points start. This is due to the major outs for the Saints, viz. Riewoldt, Montagna, Goddard, Hayes and Baker. The Hawks/Saints line market is suspended as I type this, as it has been for the past couple of days, but you can be certain that the Hawks will be priced at a lot less than the $1.90 we have locked in.)

The Ladder's Still Full of Opportunities

The top 8 of the MARS Projected Final Table after Round 18 differs from the current ladder only in that Adelaide and Collingwood trade places. MARS predicts that Adelaide will grab 4th spot on the back of four straight wins over the remainder of the season, skipping them past the Pies, who win only two more, beating Richmond and Sydney but losing to Adelaide and the Dogs.

Under the MARS scenario, 4th place will still be undecided as we move into Round 22.

Here's MARS' current projected final table and the predicted results that will produce it:

The key clash for Adelaide looms as the Round 20 matchup with the Hawks, which MARS has the Crows winning by a point. Assuming that Hawthorn lose in Round 19 to the Saints and beat Richmond and Essendon in Rounds 21 and 22, Hawthorn will need to down the Crows to have a chance at securing 8th spot, knocking Port out of the eight and relegating the Crows to 5th, behind the Pies.

Collingwood might otherwise grab a spot in the top 4 if they defeat the Bulldogs, as might the Lions if they, instead, beat the Dogs.

Essendon are projected to miss the 8 by two games, as MARS forecasts them to lose to the Lions, St Kilda and Hawthorn, securing a solitary victory over a floundering Fremantle in Round 21.

Sydney, though still a mathematical chance to reach 44 points and therefore press for a finals spot, would need to topple Richmond, Geelong, Collingwood and the Lions in successive weeks to do so, which seems about as likely at the moment as the AFL relenting and changing the rules for the draft.

A Round to Savour

For most Investors, a perfect wagering Sunday required that the three underdogs emerge victorious, an outcome which, save for an after-the-siren Tiger goal, would have transpired. Regardless, Investors landed the two wagers that really mattered, which saw all of them emerging with hefty portfolio increases.

In all, only 2 of 17 bets were unsuccessful: Prudence's wager on the Tigers and Line Redux's on Geelong. New Heritage landed 4 from 4 to jump by 8%, Prudence snagged 4 from 5 to rise by about the same amount, Hope managed 2 from 2 to climb by 22%, Chi-squared (at last!) bagged 1 from 1 to climb by 26%, and Line Redux scored 4 from 5 to rise by 13%.

All of which saw the Recommended Portfolio rise by 14.5%, leaving it up by 18.5% on the season, and other Portfolios rise by between 8% and 22% to leave them all up by amounts ranging from 21% to 53%. That's quite a round.

On tipping, Chi had the best of it, picking 7 from 8 to take him to 95.5 from 144 (66%) for the season. Silhouette managed 6 and still leads the pack, now on 104.5 from 144 (73%), 3 tips ahead of BKB on 101.5 (71%), and 2 more tips ahead of CTL and Shadow on 99.5 (69%).

The generally solid tipping performance of all our tipsters now sees 8 of them in black ink on level stake, start at Round 6, home team only wagering.

On line betting, Chi and ELO both fared well, correctly predicting 6 of the 8 winners.

One feature of this weekend's football was the regularity with which teams recording more scoring shots still contrived to lose. Three teams - the Roos, Adelaide and Hawthorn - all managed that achievement this weekend. Last weekend, Hawthorn, West Coast and Melbourne suffered the same fate, and Essendon also went down to the Tigers having recorded the same number of scoring shots. It's time for a few teams to spend a bit more time practising set shots, I reckon.

Game Cadence

If you were to consider each quarter of football as a separate contest, what pattern of wins and losses do you think has been most common? Would it be where one team wins all 4 quarters and the other therefore losses all 4? Instead, might it be where teams alternated, winning one and losing the next, or vice versa? Or would it be something else entirely?

The answer, it turns out, depends on the period of history over which you ask the question. Here's the data:

So, if you consider the entire expanse of VFL/AFL history, the egalitarian "WLWL / LWLW" cadence has been most common, occurring in over 18% of all games. The next most common cadence, coming in at just under 15% is "WWWW / LLLL" - the Clean Sweep, if you will. The next four most common cadences all have one team winning 3 quarters and the other winning the remaining quarter, each of which such cadences have occurred about 10-12% of the time. The other patterns have occurred with frequencies as shown under the 1897 to 2009 columns, and taper off to the rarest of all combinations in which 3 quarters were drawn and the other - the third quarter as it happens - was won by one team and so lost by the other. This game took place in Round 13 of 1901 and involved Fitzroy and Collingwood.

If, instead, you were only to consider more recent seasons excluding the current one, say from 1980 to 2008, you'd find that the most common cadence has been the Clean Sweep on about 18%, with the "WLLL / "LWWW" cadence in second on a little over 12%. Four other cadences then follow in the 10-11.5% range, three of them involving one team winning 3 of the 4 quarters and the other the "WLWL / LWLW" cadence.

In short it seems that teams have tended to dominate contests more in the 1980 to 2008 period than had been the case historically.

(It's interesting to note that, amongst those games where the quarters are split 2 each, "WLWL / LWLW" is more common than either of the two other possible cadences, especially across the entire history of footy.)

Turning next to the current season, we find that the Clean Sweep has been the most common cadence, but is only a little ahead of 5 other cadences, 3 of these involving a 3-1 split of quarters and 2 of them involving a 2-2 split.

So, 2009 looks more like the period 1980 to 2008 than it does the period 1897 to 2009.

What about the evidence for within-game momentum in the quarter-to-quarter cadence? In other words, are teams who've won the previous quarter more or less likely to win the next?

Once again, the answer depends on your timeframe.

Across the period 1897 to 2009 (and ignoring games where one of the two relevant quarters was drawn):

• teams that have won the 1st quarter have also won the 2nd quarter about 46% of the time
• teams that have won the 2nd quarter have also won the 3rd quarter about 48% of the time
• teams that have won the 3rd quarter have also won the 4th quarter just under 50% of the time.

So, across the entire history of football, there's been, if anything, an anti-momentum effect, since teams that win one quarter have been a little less likely to win the next.

Inspecting the record for more recent times, however, consistent with our earlier conclusion about the greater tendency for teams to dominate matches, we find that, for the periods 1980 to 2008 (and, in brackets, for 2009):

• teams that have won the 1st quarter have also won the 2nd quarter about 52% of the time a little less in 2009)
• teams that have won the 2nd quarter have also won the 3rd quarter about 55% of the time (a little more in 2009)
• teams that have won the 3rd quarter have also won the 4th quarter just under 55% of the time (but only 46% for 2009).

In more recent history then, there is evidence of within-game momentum.

All of which would lead you to believe that winning the 1st quarter should be particularly important, since it gets the momentum moving in the right direction right from the start. And, indeed, this season that has been the case, as teams that have won matches have also won the 1st quarter in 71% of those games, the greatest proportion of any quarter.

Will Investors Be Having A Port Whine on Sunday?

Stakes At Stake

Once again this weekend most Investors will find themselves disproportionately concerned about the outcome of a single contest.

Whilst it'll still be possible for a petite profit to be made should Port fail to topple the Hawks at Football Park, a truly memorable weekend will only be had if the upset eventuates.

To the details then.

New Heritage has 4 bets adding up to a little over one-third of the Fund, amongst them a 13.4% wager on the Dogs at a price not statistically significantly different from money back. They're at $1.02. The riskiest bet amongst the New Heritage clutch is 0.7% on Port Adelaide at $2.65. Every Fund has a wager on Port Adelaide this week, which is why Investors care so much about the outcome.

(Speaking of the use of 'clutch' as a collective noun for wagers, a visitor to the MAFL Online website this week arrived having searched on the phrase "clutching betting" using Google. Quite what he or she was truly looking for I'm as yet unable to fathom, but the length of the visit - 0 seconds - suggests he or she didn't find it on the MAFL Online site.)

Prudence has 5 bets totalling about 20% of the Fund. Its largest is also on the Dogs, 7.2% in its case, and its riskiest is 1.5% on Melbourne at $3.30.

Hope has just 2 wagers. Its largest and riskiest wagers is 5.7% on West Coast at $3.30, and its other wager is also on an underdog: 4.48% on Port Adelaide.

Line Redux has a record-equalling 5 wagers this weekend, 3 on teams receiving start and 2 on teams giving start.

Chi-squared is supporting a dog again this weekend, though whether it's yet another mongrel dog or merely an underdog is yet to be determined. He has 15.6% on Port Adelaide. The evidence does not bode well for this wager given the data in the table below, coupled with the knowledge that he's tipping Port Adelaide by just 3 points.

As you can see, he's 0 from 5 for wagers on teams that he's tipped by 4 points or fewer. Still, based on the wisdom of (generally near-broke) gamblers, I guess that makes him 'due'.

Ready Reckoner

This weekend's Ready Reckoner looks remarkably like this:

For the first time since Round 12, no Investor has an interest - at least on MAFL grounds - in the Friday night fixture. Saturday is, however, moderately important to everyone but MIN#002, and Sunday is screamingly important to everyone except MIN#017.

Tip-top Tipping

On tipping we have no unanimous favourites this week. Here are the details:

* Carlton are 10-3 favourites over the Roos. None of the top 5 tipsters is siding with the Roos.

* The Dogs are 8-5 favourites over Fremantle. Freo's only support amongst the top tipsters comes from STM II, who did tip Essendon to beat Hawthorn at $5 in Round 7, but surely can't be expected to prevail on a team currently at $11.

* Geelong are 10-3 favourites over Adelaide. Amongst the top tipsters only Shadow favours Adelaide.

* St Kilda are 12-1 favourites over Sydney, with Sydney's sole supporter being HSH.

* Collingwood are 7-6 favourites over Brisbane. The Lions count Shadow and STM II amongst their supporters.

* Richmond are 10-3 favourites over Melbourne, though the Dees do have Shadow's and Silhouette's vote.

* Hawthorn are 8-5 favourites over Port Adelaide. Port have a majority of the top 5 tipsters selecting them, however, as Shadow, Silhouette and STM II have lined up behind them. ELO is tipping the Hawks, but only by 4 points, making this its Game of the Round.

* Essendon are 12-1 favourites over West Coast. Once again HSH finds itself in the lonely part of the tipping convention. Chi, though, is tipping the Dons by just a point, making this his Game of the Round.

A Fine Line

On line betting this week, Chi and ELO are of one mind (though I suspect Chi's not contributing much to that entity). They're both implicitly tipping the Roos, Fremantle, Geelong, Sydney, Lions, Melbourne, Port, and West Coast.

An Honourable (Near) Draw

Investors with the Recommended Portfolio should probably be thankful that they escaped the weekend with just a small loss (0.4%), leaving them still up 4.0% on the season. Melbourne's inability to beat the Swans was the cause of most damage, though the Dons' narrow failure to pip the Tigers didn't help, nor did Freo's inability to cover their 8.5 point spread.

Other Investors lost too, MIN#001 and MIN#015 also only narrowly, and MIN#002 a little more substantially. MIN#017 was the only Investor to show a profit on the weekend. MIN#001 and MIN#015 are now up 7.2% for the season, MIN#002 is up 31%, and MIN#017 is up 38.5%.

Two Funds made profit on the weekend. New Heritage made almost 7% from 5 successful bets out of 6, leaving it ahead by 38.5% on the season, such profit deriving from 50 successful bets out of 66 wagers. Line Redux made 4% from its 2 out of 3 performance, leaving it down just over 1.5% on the season based on 25 successful wagers from 49 bets.

Prudence landed 4 bets from 6 but dropped 1.5% and is now up a little over 12% on the season with a 47 from 63 record. Hope won 1 and lost 1 to drop 4.4% but remains 31% ahead on the season with a 10 from 22 record. Chi-squared landed 3 from 4, but lost the one that mattered and so dropped 8% on the round to move to a loss of 55% on the season due to just 12 successful wagers from 25.

On tipping, BKB had the best performance of the round, snaring 7 from 8 to move to 95.5 from 136 (70.2%), joining Shadow on that score thanks to Shadow's paltry 2 from 8 for the week. Silhouette managed 5 from 8 and continues to lead, now by just 3 tips on 98.5 from 136 (72%).

Chi and ELO both had unremarkable line betting weekends, each bagging 4 from 8.

Chi continues to threaten the 30 points per game Mean Absolute Prediction Error (MAPE) landmark. He's now on 30.2 points per game; ELO's on 28.1 and BKB's on 27.2. As a measure of margin-tipping accuracy, MAPE is a good one, though it is subject to the distorting influence of a view blowout results. A measure that is less susceptible to such results, and one that is therefore preferred by some as a measure of margin-tipping accuracy is the Median Absolute Prediction Error.

For Chi, this measure is 26 points, for BKB it's 23.5 points, and for ELO it's 21.5 points, highlighting just how accurately ELO's been tipping margins this season.

Over on MAFL Stats you can view the latest MARS Ratings and there you'll see that the Saints have grabbed the number 1 ranking from the Cats for the first time this season. Given the Cats' patchy performances over the last month, I think that's probably a fair assessment.

A team-by-team comparison of results also highlights the Saints' superiority, especially against teams higher on the ladder:

In this table results in green are victories and those in red are losses. Where a team is to be played in a future round the details are shown in black. The teams are ordered by current ladder position.

21 Again

Tonight I thought I'd wait a little longer to see if TAB Sportsbet would post the final 2 line markets before I wrote this blog but, as of a little after 8pm, they've not.

The two line markets awaited are those for the Carlton v Collingwood game, on which I don't expect we'll have a wager, and for the Fremantle v West Coast game, on which I expect we will. This week's Ready Reckoner is based on us having 5% of the Line Redux Fund on Freo, probably giving 9.5 points start. I'll confirm this as soon as I can.

Including the assumed Dockers wager, we'll again have 21 wagers this weekend, though Chi-squared's marginally more temperate behaviour means that Investors will have, in aggregate, less money at risk.

New Heritage has 6 wagers totalling about 55.5% of the Fund, the largest being a 12.7% wager on the Lions at $1.13. The other 5 wagers are each sized 9.2% or larger and are on favourites, the longest priced of which is Fremantle at $1.60.

Prudence also has 6 wagers, totalling almost a quarter of the Fund, and also has its largest wager - 6% in its case - on the Lions. Its most speculative wager though is on the Dees and is for 3.1% at $2.40. (The Dees have blown significantly since we placed this bet, which is rarely a happy portent.)

Chi-squared has found 4 wagers totalling a little over 25% of the Fund. It too fancies the Dees - if 14.6% can rightly be labelled merely a fancy. Its 3 other wagers are on favourites.

Hope has just 2 bets this weekend, 4.9% on the Dees at the aforementioned $2.40, and 1% on the Crows at $1.50.

Line Redux has 3 bets (including the prospective Freo wager), all on teams giving start.

Every Fund has wagered something on the Crows this weekend, making them only the second team this year - the other being Sydney - to earn such unamimous wagering support. There's some proverb about eggs and baskets that I can only vaguely recall at this point.

Here then is the weekend's Ready Reckoner:

It's a dark weekend indeed when your fate is in the hands of the Dees, especially when draft picks are at stake.

Next, let's turn to tipping, where we have:

* Carlton 9-4 favourites over Collingwood. Though the Pies have scant support, 3 of their 4 supporters come from amongst our top 5 tipsters in the form of BKB, CTL and Silhouette. ELO tips Carlton, but only by 2 points, making this its Game of the Round.

* Geelong 8-5 favourites over the Hawks. Amongst our tipping elite, only Shadow is on the Hawks. Chi's tipping a Cats victory, but only by 3 points, making this his (only!) Game of the Round.

* Fremantle 7-6 favourites over the Eagles, with CTL, Shadow and Silhouette all tipping the Eagles.

* Brisbane unanimous favourites over the Roos.

* St Kilda, perhaps surprisingly, unanimous favourites over the Dogs.

* Melbourne 7-6 favourites over Sydney, with BKB and CTL the only credentialled tipsters foretelling a Swans victory.

* Essendon 10-3 favourites over the Tigers. STM II stands alone amongst its peers in tipping the Tigers.

* Port Adelaide 7-6 favourites over the Crows, with half of the Crows' support coming from CTL, BKB and Silhouette.

On line betting, assuming Freo give 9.5 points start and Carlton receive 6.5 points start (which, as I type this, is no certainty):

* Chi's on Collingwood, Hawthorn, Fremantle, the Kangaroos, St Kilda, Melbourne, Richmond and Adelaide

* ELO's on Carlton, Hawthorn, West Coast, the Kangaroos, St Kilda, Melbourne, Essendon and Adelaide

Update on Friday morning: Fremantle line wager is confirmed. We're giving only 8.5 start. Also, as expected, no Carlton line bet. New Round Summary now available for download.

July - When a Fan's Thoughts Turn to Tanking

Most major Australian sports have their iconic annual event. Cricket has its Boxing Day test, tennis and golf have their respective Australian Opens, rugby league has the State of Origin series, rugby union the Bledisloe, and AFL, it now seems, has the Tanking Debate, usually commencing near Round 15 or 16 and running to the end of the season proper.

The T-word has been all over the Melbourne newspapers and various footy websites this week, perhaps most startlingly in the form of Terry Wallace's admission that in Round 22 of 2007 in the Tigers clash against St Kilda, a game in which the Tigers led by 3 points at the final change but went on to lose by 10 points:

"while he had not "tanked" during the Trent Cotchin game in Round 22, 2007, he had let the contest run its natural course without intervention"

That stain on the competition's reputation (coupled, I'll admit, with he realisation that the loss cost MAFL Investors an additional return of about 13% for that year) makes it all the more apparent to me that the draft system, especially the priority draft component, must change.

Here's what I wrote on the topic - presciently as it turns out - in the newsletter for Round 19 of 2007.

Tanking and the Draft

If you’re a diehard AFL fan and completely conversant with the nuances of the Draft, please feel free to skip this next section of the newsletter.

I thought that a number of you might be interested to know why, in some quarters, there’s such a fuss around this time of year about “The Draft” and its potential impact on the commitment levels of teams towards the bottom of the ladder.

The Draft is, as Wikipedia puts it, the “annual draft of young talent” into the AFL that takes place prior to the start of each season. In the words of the AFL’s own website:

"In simple terms, the NAB AFL Draft is designed to give clubs which finished lower on the ladder the first opportunity to pick the best new talent in Australia. At season's end, all clubs are allocated draft selections. The club that finished last receives the first selection, the second last team gets the second selection and so on until the premier receives the 16th selection."

So, here’s the first issue: towards season’s end, those teams for whom all hopes of a Finals berth have long since left the stadium find that there’s more to be gained by losing games than there is by winning them.

Why? Well say, for example, that Richmond suddenly remembered what the big sticks are there for and jagged two wins in the last four games, leaping a startled Melbourne in the process, relegating them to position Spoon. The Tigers’ reward for such a stunning effort would be to (possibly – see below) hand Melbourne the sweetest of draft plums, the Number 1 draft pick, while relegating themselves to the Number 2 pick. Now, in truth, over the years, Number 1 picks have not always worked out better than Number 2 picks, but think about it this way: isn’t it always nicer to have first hand into the Quality Assortment?

Now entereth the notion of Priority Picks, which accrue to those teams who have demonstrated season-long ineptitude to the extent that they’ve accumulated fewer than 17 points over its duration. They get a second draft pick prior to everyone else’s second draft pick and then a third pick not that long after, once all the other Priority Picks have taken place. So, for example, if a team comes last and wins, say, four games, it gets Pick #1, Pick #17 (their Priority pick, immediately after all the remaining teams have had their first pick) and then Pick #18 (their true second round Pick). If more than one team is in entitled to Priority Picks then the Picks are taken in reverse ladder order.

Still with me?

Now, the final twist. If a team has proven its footballing inadequacy knows not the bounds of a single year, having done so by securing fewer than 17 points in each of two successive seasons, then it gets its Priority Pick before anyone else gets even their first round pick. Once again, if more than one team is in this situation, then the tips are taken in reverse ladder order.

So, what’s the relevance to this year? Well, last year Carlton managed only 14 points and this year they’re perched precipitously on 16 points. If they lose their next four games, their first three draft picks will be #1 (their Priority Pick), #4 (their first round pick), and #20 (their second round pick); if they win or even draw one or more of their remaining games and do this without leaping a ladder spot, their first three draft picks will be #3, #19 and #35. Which would you prefer?

I find it hard to believe that a professional footballer or coach could ever succumb to the temptation to “tank” games (as it’s called), but the game’s administrators should never have set up the draft process in such a way that it incites such speculation every year around this time.

I can think of a couple of ways of preserving the intent of the current draft process without so blatantly rewarding failure and inviting suspicion and rumour. We’ll talk about this some more next week.

*****

In the following week's newsletter, I wrote this:

Revising the Draft

With the Tigers and the Dees winning last week, I guess many would feel that the “tanking” issue has been cast aside for yet another season. Up to a point, that’s probably a fair assessment, although only a win by the Blues could truly muffle all the critics.

Regardless, as I said last week, it’s unfair to leave any of the teams in a position where they could even be suspected of putting in anything other than a 100% effort.

I have two suggestions for changes to the draft that would broadly preserve its intent but that would also go a long way to removing much of the contention that currently exists.

(1) Randomise the draft to some extent. Sure, give teams further down the ladder a strong chance of getting early draft picks, but don’t make ladder position completely determine the pick order. One way to achieve this would be to place balls in an urn with the number of balls increasing as ladder position increased. So, for example, the team that finished 9th might get 5 balls in the urn; 10th might get 6 balls, and so on. Then, draw from this urn to determine the order of draft picks.

Actually, although it’s not strictly in keeping with the current spirit of the draft, I’d like to see this system used in such a way that marginally more balls are placed in the urn for teams higher up the ladder to ensure that all teams are still striving for victory all the way to Round 22.

(2) Base draft picks on ladder position at the end of Round 11, not Round 22.

Sides that are poor performers generally don’t need 22 rounds to prove it; 11 rounds should be more than enough. What’s more, I reckon that it’s far less likely that a team would even consider tanking say rounds 9, 10 and 11 when there’s still so much of the season to go that a spot in the Finals is not totally out of the question. With this approach I’d be happy to stick with the current notion that 1st draft pick accrues to the team at the foot at the ladder.

Under either of these new draft regimes, the notion of Priority Picks has to go. Let’s compensate for underperformance but not lavish it with silken opportunity.

****

My opinion hasn't changed. The changes to the draft for the next few years that have been made to smooth the entry of the Gold Coast into the competition probably mean that we're stuck with a version of the draft we have now for the next few years. After that though, we do have to fix it because it is broken.