A Trio to Finish

Round 12 continues this weekend, with just three games to complete the formalities.

The New Heritage Fund has two wagers across the weekend totalling around 19% of the Fund. By a considerable margin the larger wager is at $1.25 on the Dons, a team with which New Heritage has had a barely profitable season. The other wager at a generous $1.90 on Sydney, a team which has been responsible for a 12c gain in the New Heritage Fund price (and for a 5c gain in the Prudence Fund).

Prudence has two wagers too, and they're also on the Dons and the Swans. Together, they total about 6% of the Fund.

Line Redux has just one wager, on Freo with 45.5 points start playing the Cats, though there might be another wager on Sydney when their line market opens for betting. This is the Line Redux Fund's first wager on Fremantle this season.

Chi-squared and Hope complete a quiet round for them both, with neither of them venturing a wager this weekend. Between them, they've mustered on a single bet across the entire round. Earlier in the week Chi-squared was contemplating a wager on the Swans, but it went off this idea when the Pies shortened to equal favouritism. The Chi-squared Fund is very sensitive to price movements around the $1.85-$1.95 range.

Here's this week's Ready Reckoner (which I'll update if the Sydney line bet eventuates, so please have another look before the weekend).

(Thursday night update: no line bet on Sydney. Even though they're receiving 6.5 points start - and I expected them to be giving it - they're only at $1.75. There's no value in that.)

So it's the Essendon v Melbourne game that has the greatest potential impact on all Investors except for the once-again wagerless MIN#002.

To tipping:

* The Dons are unanimous favourites over the Dees.

* The Pies are 11-2 favourites over Sydney, though one of the Swans' supporters is ELO. Both Chi and ELO have this as their Game of the Half Round. (Note that, since Sydney and Collingwood are equal favourites, BKB goes with CTL and so is on the Pies.)

* Geelong are 12-1 favourites over Freo. Only HSH is opting for the home team.

Finally, on Line Betting:

* Chi's line bets are Melbourne, Sydney and Freo

* ELO's line bets Essendon, Sydney and Freo.

Split Round, Spilt Money

To (mis)use a footballing term: it was a weekend of two halves.

Saturday was wonderful, with the Dogs and the Tigers doing what we'd asked. Sunday was, in equal measure, appalling, due largely to the Hawks' failure to show up for the second half, but capped off by the Roos' inferior aquatic skills against the Crows at Football Baths.

All told, every Investor with a wager in the round so far - which excludes only MIN#002 - has lost money, in amounts ranging from 2.5% to 10.2%. So, at this point, 5 games into the split 12th round, the Recommended Portfolio is under water by about 0.8%. Other portfolios remain profitable, but MIN#001 and MIN#002 are now just a loss or two away from red ink.

On tipping, Silhouette and Shadow are joint leaders on 66, BKB is third on 64, and STM II, with 5 from 5 for the weekend, has moved into fourth on 62.

There's still 3 more games to turn this Round around ...

When the Low Scorer Wins

One aspect of the unusual predictability of this year's AFL results has gone - at least to my knowledge - unremarked.

That aspect is the extent to which the week's low-scoring team has been the team receiving the most points start on Sportsbet. Following this strategy would have been successful in six of the last eight rounds, albeit that in one of those rounds there were joint low-scorers and, in another, there were two teams both receiving the most start.

The table below provides the detail and also shows the teams that Chi and ELO would have predicted as the low scorers (proxied by the team they selected to lose by the biggest margin). Correct predictions are shaded dark grey. "Half right" predictions - where there's a joint prediction, one of which is correct, or a joint low-scorer, one of which was predicted - are shaded light grey.

To put the BKB performance in context, here's the data for seasons 2006 to 2009.

All of which might appear to amount to not much until you understand that Sportsbet fields a market on the round's lowest scorer. So we should keep an eye on this phenomenon in subsequent weeks to see if the apparent lift in the predictability of the low scorer is a statistical anomaly or something more permanent and exploitable. In fact, there might still be a market opportunity even if historical rates of predictiveness prevail, provided the average payoff is high enough.

Five Games; Money on Four

Round 12 in the AFL is a split round this year, so our tipsters and our Funds need only make decisions about 5 contests this week. Only Prudence and New Heritage have expressed any significant enthusiasm for what's on offer; amongst them, the other three Funds have just two wagers.

Prudence, this week's most active Fund, has four wagers totalling around 13.5% of the Fund and spanning teams with prices ranging from $1.15 to $1.55. Its Adelaide wager is its first on them this season. 

New Heritage, the next most active Fund, has three wagers, two of them with substantial downside tied to the fate of the Dogs and the Hawks, and another with substantial upside but relying on the Roos at $5 to overcome the Crows at Footy Park. The Roos wager is New Heritage's first on this team this season.

Chi-squared, feeling a little anxious at last weekend's 14% decline, has ventured just a single wager: a smidge over 4.6% on the Tigers at $1.55. This is Chi-squared's first flutter on the Tigers this year. Excepting Hope, the other Funds have all had bad years punting on Richmond, registering just a solitary profitable bet amongst them from five attempts. Line Redux has been similarly restrained in also opting for only one wager. Its is on Hawthorn giving 15.5 points start to the Lions.

The Hope Fund, a trifle ironically, has found no team worthy of its faith this weekend and so will finish the weekend where it'll start it at +24.6%. 

Here's this week's Ready Reckoner.

For all Investors - bar MIN#002 who is without wager - the two most financially important games are the Hawks v Lions clash and the Bulldogs v Port matchup. These games represent potential swings of around 4-6% for most Investors and around 15% for MIN#017.

Moving then to tipping:

* The Saints are favoured 12-1 over the Blues. HSH is home alone on the Blues. ELO has this game as its Game of the Half Round though it is tipping more than a 2-goal margin.

* The Dogs are unanimous favourites over Port, with Chi and ELO both predicting that the Dogs will cover the 25.5 point spread.

* West Coast are 8-5 favourites over Richmond. Amongst the upper echelon of our tipsters, the Tigers have the support of BKB, ELO and STM II, while Shadow, Silhouette and CTL are siding with the Coast.

* Hawthorn are favoured 9-4 over the Lions, with Silhouette and STM II the only members of the tipping elite jumping on the Lions.

* Adelaide are unanimous favourites over the Roos. Chi has the Crows squeaking home by just 7 points, making this his Game of the Half Round.

Finally, on Line Betting:

* Chi's line bets are 3 mammals, a bird and a colour: Blues, Dogs, Eagles, Lions and Roos.

* ELO's line bets have the same mix of fauna and hue, but swap a crow for an eagle and a tiger for a roo: Blues, Dogs, Tigers, Lions and Crows.

Not Quite What I Was Planning

Okay, I admit it: making money is much more fun than losing it, no matter how tiny and glacially produced that profit is. 

This weekend, most Investors were on the wrong side of a number of narrow wagering losses. First, the Roos collapsed in the final term against the Saints to lose by 46, just a little over a goal more than the 39.5 start we were receiving on line betting. Next, the Lions couldn't quite do enough in the last quarter, despite kicking 7 goals, and wound up losing by just 6 points to the Blues. Then the Dons became only the sixth team this year to surrender a three-quarter time lead in going down to the Crows by 16 points, taking three Funds' money with them. And finally, to complete the weekend's indignities, the Hawks fell just 4.5 points short of covering the spread against the Swans.

All up, we won just 6 of 14 bets. 

The New Heritage Fund fared best, bagging 3 from 3 to give it an impressive 75% win record for the season. Prudence managed just 3 of 5, which gives it a less impressive but still profitable 67% win record for the season. Hope scored 0 from 2 and now has only a 40% win record for the season, but its winners have generally been at long odds, so it too is still in profit. 

More troubling have been the Chi-squared Fund, which recorded 0 from 2 this weekend and now has only a 45% win record, and the Line Redux Fund, which also recorded 0 from 2, leaving it with a win record similar to Chi-squared's. To date, the Line Redux Fund is, however, 2 and 5 on games where the handicap-adjusted margin was less than 2 goals, so I'm feeling a little better-disposed towards this Fund than I might otherwise be. Chi-squared's performance is just a mystery though, to be fair, none of his losses have been by more than 22 points and only one of his wins has been by such a narrow margin.

With so little success, it's not surprising that all Investors except MIN#017 - who's 100% invested in New Heritage - lost money this weekend, all in the 3-5% range. MIN#017 meantime made just over 9% on the strength on New Heritage's perfect weekend. Across the season, all Investors remain in profit, albeit narrowly.

Since we're at the halfway point in the season I thought I'd provide a new chart, this one showing how the profitability of each portfolio has varied by game across the 88 games of the season so far.

On  tipping, Shadow and STM I both tipped the card this week. This moved Shadow to 63 from 88 for the season (which is 71.5%), one clear of Silhouette and a stunning 3 clear of BKB. HSH had a horror week, scoring just 3 to leave it equal last on 49 from 88, which is still a respectable 55.7%.

On level-stake, home-team-only wagering, commencing in Round 6, five tipsters remain in profit: Shadow, Silhouette, BKB (barely), STM II and EI II. 

Finally, looking at line betting performances, ELO notched 5 from 8 this week to leave it with a +2.27 unit profit for the season. Chi managed just 3 from 8 and is losing more than it matters to count.

(Incidentally, this week's blog name is an allusion to SMITH magazine's six-word memoirs which, legend has it, were inspired by Hemingway's response to a challenge to write a story in just 6 words. His answer, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn", is hard to top, but others on the site and in the book such as "I still make coffee for two" also give pause.)  

The Funds Grow A Little More Discerning

A quieter weekend is in prospect for most Investors as we've just 14 bets in total covering only 6 of the 8 contests. As it's a long weekend, there's a Monday game, but it's not one we have any financial interest in.

Across the weekend, we have:

* New Heritage Fund: 3 wagers for about 35% of the Fund. Each wager is about 11 or 12% of the Fund and they're on teams with prices of $1.18, $1.25 and $1.36, so we'll need all 3 to win if this Fund is to return a profit for the weekend.

* Prudence Fund: 5 wagers for about 16.5% of the Fund. Again Prudence has wagers on the same teams as New Heritage, the largest of these on Port at $1.18. The two additional wagers are both small and they're on the Lions and the Dons.

* Hope Fund: 2 wagers for about 5% of the Fund, the more significant of those on the Dons at $1.80.

* Chi-squared Fund: 2 wagers for around 14.5% of the Fund. The larger - almost 10% of the Fund - is on the Dons.

* Line Redux Fund: 2 wagers for 10% of the Fund, 5% on the Roos receiving 39.5 points start playing the Saints, and another 5% on Hawthorn giving Sydney 15.5 points start.

Here's this week's Ready Reckoner. (Fortunately, none of the New Heritage bets are on the away team this week, so we've no instances of bets on both teams head-to-head.)

So, for most Investors it's the Hawks v Sydney game that represents the largest potential swing in terms of the best-case versus the worst-case outcomes. For those with the Recommended Portfolio - and for MIN#001 and MIN#015 - it's the Essendon v Adelaide game that's next most important.

(Note that there's still one line market to come - that for the Essendon v Adelaide game - but we're unlikely to have a line wager on this game.)

Next, tipping:

* The Dogs are favoured 13-0 over the Tigers.

* The Saints are favoured 12-1 over the Roos, with the only support for the Roos coming from HSH.

* Brisbane are 9-4 favourites over the Blues. Silhouette is the only tipster of note siding with the Blues.

* Port are favoured 12-1 over Freo, with only EI I tipping the Dockers. Chi has Port winning by 6 points making this his Game of the Round.

* Adelaide are 7-6 favourites over the Dons. BKB are on the Dons as is ELO but by only 1 point making this its Game of the Round.

* Hawthorn are favoured 9-4 over Sydney. Sydney has CTL on its side, but the remaining form tipsters are all on the Hawks.

* Geelong are favoured 12-1 over the Eagles. Again, HSH finds itself alone on the underdog.

* Collingwood are favoured 12-1 over the Dees and once more its HSH the lone dissenter.

Finally, on Line Betting:

* Chi's line bets are Richmond, Kangaroos, Carlton, Fremantle, Essendon, Hawthorn, West Coast and Melbourne.

* ELO's line bets are Bulldogs, Kangaroos, Carlton, Fremantle, Essendon, Sydney, Geelong and Melbourne.

ELO Projected Ladder II

The last three weeks has had quite an effect on ELO's projected end of season ladder, as you can see in the table below.

The top 3 positions are unchanged, firmly held by the Cats, Saints and Dogs, but there's significant movement amongst the next 8.

Carlton moves from the fringes of the top 8 into 4th, dethroning the Pies who drop to 6th. The Lions and Sydney - both now projected to win two more games than thought previously - move into the top 8 at the expense of the two Adelaide teams, who both now miss out on a finals spot based on (my proxy of) percentages.

Making the final 8 now requires 11 wins, which is more in keeping with seasons past than the 10 wins that were projected previously. Also, the teams that make up the projected final 8 are the same teams that currently occupy the top 8 teams on the competition ladder.

Positions 11 through 16 are all held by the same teams as in the earlier projections, albeit that there's been some interesting but inconsequential rearrangements. Unrearranged though is Melbourne, now projected to lose all of its remaining games.