Simulating the Finals (After Week 2 of the Finals)

Another week, another 1,000,000 simulations.

This week it's a relatively brief summary, since there are only four teams remaining and because TAB Sportsbet no longer has markets for teams' chances of making the Grand Final nor for the possible Grand Final pairings.

Here's what I have by way of simulation inputs and outputs:

Firstly note that I have the Dogs, who have the higher MARS Rating, as favourites to defeat the Saints. That certainly isn't the way that the TAB Sportsbet bookie is seeing it: in the row labelled "Offer" you can see that he currently has the Saints at $3 for the Flag and the Dogs at $11. Not surprisingly, the simulations suggest the Dogs are very good value at that price - hence the double-asterisk under them.

The Cats too, however, are value in the Flag market, priced as they are at $3. The simulations suggest that anything over about $2.60 represents value for them.

Collingwood, at $2.75, are about $0.45 too short to be attractive, and the Saints, at $3, are way too short to be worthy of a punt.

All four possible Grand Final pairings are near equally likely, with a Cats v Dogs matchup marginally the most likely pairing for the Big One, and a Pies v Saints matchup the least likely.