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.