MAFL 2010 : Round 20

How nice it is to be at this late stage of the season and still have six of the eight games with some effect on the composition of the final 8.

The Port v West Coast and Brisbane v Adelaide matchups are the two exceptions - though mathematically even Port and Adelaide still have the faintest glimmer of a sliver of hope (if you believe the results of my simulations in an earlier blog, which estimated them both as about 1,000/1 chances to snatch 8th).

As attractive as the games are from a spectating vantage point, they're also quite attractive from a wagering perspective, or at least they are as far as the Recommended Portfolio is concerned, which has put more than 20% of the Portfolio at risk for the fifth successive round.

This total comes from 28 individual wagers, five from all the Funds except Prudence, which has placed only three bets.

New Heritage's five bets represent the largest proportion of any Fund at risk (31.5%), though at a weighted average price of $1.53 they also carry the least risk. The largest wager from New Heritage is 11.4% on Carlton at $1.30 and the riskiest is 0.7% on West Coast at $2.80.

Shadow and the Heuristic-Based Funds have exactly the same wagers this week, which total 25% of the respective Fund and which have a weighted average price of $1.63. For both Funds the riskiest wager is 5% on the Dogs at $2.10.

ELO's five wagers also sum to one quarter of the Fund. Three are on underdogs and two are on favourites. The wager on the Dons was something of a surprise since, based on their head-to-head price, I expected them to receive only 39.5 points start not 41.5, which was the minimum start at which ELO would consider a wager on the home team.

Hope's five total 21% of the Fund but carry the extraordinarily high weighted average price of $3.76, due mainly to a 6.4% wager on the Dons at $6.25 and a 5.9% wager on the Roos at $3.75. This Fund has become progressively more active over the past five rounds, wagering 9%, 11%, 16%, 19%, and now 21% across these rounds.

Prudence's three bets are for about 9% of the Fund and have a weighted average price of $1.53. The largest and riskiest of the three bets is 4.1% on the Hawks at $1.68.

MIN#002, as always, has the Hope wagers as his weekend worry and MIN#017 is similarly burdened with New Heritage's impetuosity.

Here's the detail:

For the Recommended Portfolio, maximum upside is vested in the Essendon v Collingwood game (7.2%). This game also represents the largest swing between win and loss (9.0%), while the Carlton v Richmond game carries maximum downside (4.9%) for this Portfolio.

MIN#002 has most to gain if the Dogs beat the Cats (5.5%) and also faces the largest swing (10.5%) from this same game.

MIN#017 wants the Hawks to beat the Dees, since this carries a 5.8% upside, and for Carlton to beat Richmond, as this avoids an 11.4% loss. Two games carry almost exactly the same swing (14.8%) for this Portfolio: Carlton v Richmond and Fremantle v Sydney.

Here's the Ready Reckoner:

If the Recommended Portfolio were to lose its first three wagers this weekend it would need the remaining five results to be favourable if it were to (almost) breakeven on the round. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

In my never-ending quest to find a way of summarising the implications of the result of each game on profitability, here's another attempt:

Each block represents the profitability that would result for the Recommended Portfolio from the outcome of the eight games. The greener the block, the greater the profitability, and the redder the block, the larger the loss.

At the top and sides of the chart are labels of the form nX - where n is a number from 1 to 8 and X is the letter A, B or C - which designate the outcome of a particular game. So, for example, the block under the 1A heading are the possible returns that would ensue if Essendon were to win on Friday night. (The mapping of codes to games appears at the base of the chart). As the weekend progresses, the relevant patch of possible outcomes will shrink until, eventually, one remains, that being the one pertaining to the eight results we've witnessed.

You can see immediately from this chart how important a Dons victory is for the profitability hopes of the Recommended Portfolio. If the Dons win then we'll spend the remainder of the weekend bouncing around in the lefthand third of the chart, which is mostly veldt-like in its greenness.

If, instead, the Dons were to lose head-to-head, but win on line betting, then our weekend will be confined to the semi-arid middle third, and if the Pies were to win and cover the spread then we're faced with an equally unappealling weekend in the righthand third.

Were the first three results to go 1C, 2C, 3B then we'd be destined to finish somewhere in the three rightmost columns none of which contains a patch of green.

Anyway, on to tipping, about which there's much less divergence of opinion this week, though there's unanimity in only one game. The average number of dissenting MAFL tipsters per game is only 2.5.

Here are the details:

• Collingwood are 14-1 favourites over Essendon. The Margin Tippers are 5-0 in favour of the Pies and predict victory margins ranging from 11 to 41.5 points. The four best-performed MAFL Tipsters - Easily Impressed II, Follow The Streak, Silhouette and Short-Term Memory II) all tip the Pies.
• Carlton are unanimous favourites over Richmond, with the Margin Tippers predicting victory margins of between 17 and 39 points.
• Fremantle are 12-3 favourites over the Swans. Once more the MAFL Tipsters are unanimous in their support. Predicted victory margins range from 9 to 20 points. The Top MAFL tipsters are split 3-1 in favour of Freo, the holdout being Follow the Streak, which prefers Sydney's 1 in a row to Freo's none.
• The Dogs are 12-3 favourites over Geelong, though for this game the Margin Tippers are divided in their support, three opting for the Dogs and two (BKB and HAMP) siding with the Cats. Predicted margins range from Geelong by 2 - assuming that the bookie's $1.75 price for the Cats implies a notional 1.5 points start - to the Dogs by 8. Four of the Margin Tipsters have this as their Game of the Round: HAMP, tipping Geelong by 2; LAMP, tipping the Dogs by 4; Chi, tipping the Dogs by 6; and ELO, tipping the Dogs by 8. The Top 4 tipsters all tip the Dogs.
• Port are 14-1 favourites over the Eagles, and all five Margin Tippers are supporting Port. They predict victory margins of between 10 and 26 points. The Top 4 tipsters all side with Port too.
• Brisbane are 12-3 favourites over Adelaide, with all but ELO amongst the Margin Tippers predicting a Lions victory. Margin predictions range from Adelaide by 7 to Brisbane by 12 points. The bookies have Brisbane at $1.80, making this BKB's Game of the Round. The Top 4 tipsters are split 3-1 on this game, Silhouette being the lone dissenter tipping a Crows victory.
• Melbourne, facing the Hawks, are the narrowest of favourites, garnering support from eight of the 15 tipsters. All five Margin Tippers predict the Hawks will win, by margins between 6.5 and 19 points. The Top 4 tipsters all favour the Dees.
• St Kilda are 13-2 favourites over the Roos. The Margin Tippers favour the Saints 4-1, Chi being the holdout tipping the Roos. Predicted margins range from the Roos by 17 to the Saints by 22. In Chi's defence he is on new medication for his heart murmur this week, so perhaps it's clouded his judgement. (Unfortunately, this excuse doesn't really work retrospectively, so you'll have to come up with your own ideas to explain the other 19 rounds of his tips.) The Top 4 tipsters are unanimous in their support of the Saints.

The Super Smart Model agrees with just three of the five ELO wagers this week, the first three as it happens, leaving them at odds on the line results for the Melbourne v Hawthorn and St Kilda v Roos games.

Here's SSM's view of the entire round:

SSM's head-to-head tips are consistent with the majority opinion of the MAFL Tipsters except for the Dogs v Cats game, where SSM likes the Cats, and the Melbourne v Hawthorn game, where SSM favours the Hawks, albeit narrowly.

The Bookie Probability Model recommends three wagers in the round: 6.3% on Carlton, 6% on the Dogs, and 0.5% on Hawthorn.

Lastly, the HELP line predictions.