MAFL 2010 : Round 26 (Week 4 of the Finals a.k.a The GF)

There'll be no dramatic last game plunge into profitability for any Investor this season.

The best that Investors with the Recommended Portfolio can hope for is to end the season down by about 4.5%, and it'll take a Pies victory in the GF by 17 points or more to deliver them that result.

Once again this week it's New Heritage, Prudence and ELO-Line that are the active Funds. Hope has made no wagers, making this the third week in a row that it's been on a wager strike. New Heritage has lobbed 10.5% on the Pies at $1.45, while Prudence has placed 4.7% on the same team at the same price. ELO-Line's taken the Pies for 5% at $1.90 giving 16.5 start.

Including these wagers, every dollar in the New Heritage Fund has now been wagered almost 9 times during the season. For the other Funds, the equivalent 'turn' figures are: Prudence just over 3 times, Hope just under 2, Shadow just over 3, Heuristic-Based exactly 5, and ELO just over 4.5.

In aggregate, then, every dollar in the Recommended Portfolio has been put at risk almost 4.4 times during the season. Given TAB Sportsbet's typical vig of around 6.9% on head-to-head markets and 5.25% on line markets, the expected loss for the Recommended Portfolio for the season was therefore around 30%. So, the Recommended Portfolio will lose quite a bit less than it 'should' have - but you can't pay bills, I know, with unexpectedly small losses ...

Here's the detail on the week's bets and tips.

Not only do we have unanimity amongst tipsters in their prediction of the Pies to win on Saturday, but we also have near-uniformity in their opinions about the size of that victory. Three of them tip Collingwood by 17, and BKB tips them by a margin as close to 17 as you can get when you're forced to tip half-point margins. ELO's the outlier, predicting the Pies to win far more comfortably - by over 8 goals. All Margin Tippers therefore expect the Pies to cover the spread - albeit narrowly and, of course, excluding BKB.

Given those margin predictions, HAMP will finish the season with a sub-30 MAPE provided the Pies win by between 9 and 25 points, and LAMP will do the same if the Saints win by 16 or fewer, or if the Pies win by 50 or fewer. BKB will finish with a MAPE below 29.5 if the Saints win by 1 or fewer, or if the Pies win by 34 or fewer.

Here's the week's Ready Reckoner:

Saturday will be the first time in a decade that 1st has met 3rd in the Grand Final. The last time this occurred was back in 2000 when the minor premiers in the Dons toppled the Dees. It'll also be only the fourth time in 12 years that a team from 3rd has made the Grand Final.

Here's a summary of the last 11 seasons' Grand Finals in terms of the ladder positions in which the participating teams finished the home-and-away season.