Not a Round for the Highlights Reel

Sometimes, where sport's concerned, it's all about playing for the honourable draw  - though this is a concept that's clearly foreign to the Americans, who'd rather have 9 overtimes than see their team split the points  - and that's what it felt like for MAFL for most of this weekend.

Regrettably, most Investors finished with little honour and a little less cash.

Those with the Recommended Fund dropped just over 4% on the weekend, leaving them down about two-thirds of a percent on the season. Most other Investors dropped between about 3.5% and 9.5% across the weekend but still finished the weekend at least a little ahead. The exception was MIN#017 who made a smidge over 6.5% on the weekend to leave them down a tick over 3.7% on the season.

What hurt most Investors was the combined performance of the Hope, Chi-squared and Line Redux Funds that, amongst them, managed 0 wins from 6 bets, contrasting sharply with New Heritage's 5 from 6 and Prudence's 5 from 5.

Almost all tipsters performed well this weekend. In particular, CTL tipped the card and moved to joint-leadership on 42 from 64 alongside Shadow and BKB who themselves tipped 7 from 8. Others to tip 7 from 8 were Silhouette (now on 41), ELO (41), Ride Your Luck (40) and Chi (38). The round's worst tipsters were STM II and EI II who both managed just 4 from 8.

These generally strong tipping performances have left 8 of our 13 tipsters in profit (and 1 more at breakeven) on level-stake wagering across this round and last, and 5 tipsters at profit across the whole season.

On Line Betting, ELO managed 5 from 8, taking it to +1.72 units for the season and Chi managed just 4 from 8 to move to -9.33 units for the season.

Eight Games, Seventeen Bets, No Promises

This week, again, we find ourselves just 24 hours from the first ball-up and without a full set of line markets. Currently, TAB Sportsbet are silent on what they'll be offering for the Freo v Hawks game, but I'm guessing it'll be Freo -6.5 points in which case we'll have no interest.

Not that we're short on interest this week. As we did last week, we've at least one wager in every game. Indeed, so eager have the various Funds been this week to ensure that we have comprehensive coverage, two of them have opted for wagers on competing teams in the same game.

So then, what have we got?

The New Heritage Fund has again found 6 wagers this week, virtually all of it on teams priced at $1.25 or under, the exceptions being a minuscule wager on Carlton at $1.55 and a slightly larger wager on Adelaide at $3.30. It's this larger wager on the Crows that Prudence has opted to cover by placing a slightly bigger wager on the Lions. In total, we've just over one-half of the New Heritage Fund at risk.

Prudence's 4 other wagers - aside from the Lions - are on the same teams that New Heritage has endorsed. The largest of them won't be resolved until the final game of the round: 6.5% on the Saints.

Next, the Hope Fund, our in-form Fund, has 2 bets this week, a modest wager on Freo at $1.83 and a far bigger and bolder wager on the Dees at $5.00, our first (and let's hope near to last) wager on this most hapless of teams.

Chi-squared has tentatively re-entered the wagering fray, with a sole but confident outlay on Freo up against the Premiers.

Finally, the Line Redux Fund has found 3 teams to favour with its affections this week, 2 of them giving start (Sydney and St Kilda) and 1 of them receiving start (Collingwood).

For those with the Recommended Portfolio, the largest profit would come with a Melbourne or Freo win, though a Sydney or a St Kilda win of sufficient magnitude to cover the respective spread would also be welcomed. The largest potential losses would come with a St Kilda or a Sydney head-to-head loss. 

Turning next to tips:

* Fremantle are favoured 8-5 over the Hawks, though Chi has the Dockers as just 4 point favourites, making this game one of his two Games of the Round (Game of the Rounds?).

* The Bulldogs are favoured 11-2 over Melbourne, though the Dees can count amongst their supporters the highly-performed STM II.

* Geelong are, yet again, favoured 13-0, this time over the Roos. ELO has Geelong covering the 46.5 point spread.

* The Lions are also unanimous favourites, they against the Crows. ELO is predicting just a 9 point win for the Lions though, making this game its Game of the Round.

* Sydney are favoured 7-6 over the Eagles. STM II is once again alone amongst the tipsters-of-note, this time in supporting the heavy underdog West Coast.

* Port Adelaide are the unanimous tips facing the Tigers. Neither Chi nor ELO though have Port covering the 26.5 point spread.

* Collingwood are favoured 7-6 over Carlton. Chi is opting for the Blues by 4 points, making this his other Game of the Round. BKB is also on the Blues, though STM II and Shadow have sided with the underdog Pies.

* St Kilda are favoured 12-1 over the Dons, with EI II, a tipster 4 tips off the pace, the Dons' sole friend.

Finally, on Line Betting:

* Chi's line bets are Hawthorn, Melbourne, Kangaroos, Adelaide, Sydney, Richmond, Collingwood and Essendon.

* ELO's line bets are Hawthorn, Melbourne, Geelong, Adelaide, West Coast, Richmond, Collingwood and St Kilda.

(For those of you who've made it this far, there's a new blog up on www.mafl-stats.blogspot.com looking at how the competition ladder will finally look if our MARS Ratings are vaguely accurate.)

Projecting the Final Eight

This year I've adapted the ELO-based MARS Rating system so that it now provides a margin of victory as well as a tip for each game. Based on the current ratings, these margins and tips can be generated for all the remaining home and away matches and these, in turn, can be combined with the existing table to arrive at a projected end of season table.
Well, I've just done this and the results appear below.



(Because MARS provides a margin but not a score for each game, I've had to use the difference between points for and points against - rather than percentage - as my tiebreaker when teams are equal on competition points. Generally the two approaches will produce the same ordering, but not always.)

Our projections have Hawthorn and Adelaide slipping into the top 8 at the expense of the Lions and the Dons.

Adelaide is a particularly interesting case to look at. It is projected to finish 7th despite currently being 12th on the ladder and ranked only 10th on current MARS Ratings. So, how can it be projected to climb 5 ladder positions? It's on the strength of its easier draw for the remainder of the season.

Collingwood is another team that appears to benefit from its draw according to MARS Ratings, though less so than does Adelaide. The Pies are projected to finish 4th despite currently being 8th on the ladder and ranked only 5th by MARS.

In contrast to Adelaide and Collingwood, Carlton suffers, to a small degree, from a difficult remaining draw, evidenced by the fact that its projected final ladder position is below both its current ladder position and its current MARS Ranking. All other teams are projected to finish in a position that is between (or equal to) their current ladder position and current MARS Ranking.

One other notable feature of the projected ladder is that it takes only 10 wins to make the final 8 whereas, historically, it has usually taken 12 or 13 wins. This is due to the projected dominance of Geelong and St Kilda; their combined projected 43 wins doesn't leave many points to go around.

A Game of Four Quarters?

I was reviewing the data in the Alternative Premierships file and thought I'd share a quick analysis of it with you.

I've jotted down some pen notes against each team, which I'll leave as an (eye) exercise for you to read. Looking at some of the broader trends, it's interesting to note how poorly some of the teams currently in the top 6 have performed in at least one quarter. Brisbane is the best example of this, having recorded an average sub-100 percentage in all but the 3rd quarter of its games yet doing enough on the strength of this to be placed 6th on the ladder.

Further down the table we find the converse, with generally poorly performing teams nonetheless returning solid results in one quarter of their games. West Coast, for example, has a 158 percentage in 1st quarters, but lies 11th, and Richmond has a 127 percentage in 3rd quarters, but lies 15th.

Profit For Most

Of the fifteen bets we had on the weekend, 9 of them were successful.

The New Heritage Fund landed 3 from 6, dropping 16.7c in the process to drive its price down to 89.7c. Carlton's narrow loss to Freo was most painful for this Fund, accounting for 11.8c of the drop.  Prudence recorded a 3 from 5 result, but still dropped by 1.8c, leaving it now priced at 97.1c. It, like New Heritage, suffered most from Carlton's loss, dropping 3.4c on that result alone.

The stories for the two remaining active Funds were far more positive.

Line Redux managed only 1 from 2, but had more riding on its winning bet than it did on its losing bet and so finished up 2.4c on the weekend, driving its price to $1.084. The Hope Fund, quite simply, sparkled, landing 2 from 2, both underdogs, lifting its share price by 33.6c to $1.391. 

(The remaining Fund, the Chi-Squared Fund, did not wager this week and remains at 93.3c.)

All that activity generated additional net profit on the weekend for all Investors except MIN#017. The Recommended Portfolio rose by 1.74c, leaving it now up 3.43% on the season.

On tipping, Follow the Streak had the best performance, bagging 6 from 8 for the third time this season. ELO, in contrast, struggled, backing up its season-high of 7 last week with a season-low of 3 this week. Three tipsters are now joint leaders in our tipping competition - BKB, Shadow and STM II - all on 35 from 56 (62.5%).

So far this season, level-stake betting on four tipsters would have been profitable: STM II, Shadow, Silhouette and EI II (in decreasing order of net profit). EI II has been profitable despite managing only tipping correctly on 31 occasions by virtue of landing teams such as Fremantle and Essendon at juicy odds this week and 5 other teams priced at better than $2 in weeks gone by.

In the wagering analysis of the heuristic algorithms that I carried out looking at previous seasons' data, you might recall that I found that level-stake betting on every tip was a profitable proposition provided that we started in Round 7 of each year. Accordingly, I've now added another column to the table tracking the heuristics' wagering performance, headed "From R7", in which we'll record the result of following this approach. 

We've A Stake In All Eight

Apologies for the delay in uploading the bets and tips this week, but it wasn't until 7:20 tonight that two of the line markets were posted, one of which I was fairly certain - correctly  as it turned out - we'd have an interest in.

And what an array of bets we've wound up with. For the first time that I can remember, we've a wager in every game, this despite the fact that the Chi-Squared Fund has found nothing at all to its liking (which is surprising, since 'fussy' is not a word I'd be tempted to use about Chi).

The New Heritage Fund has found 6 wagers, on teams ranging from the laughingly short-priced Cats at $1.08 to the narrowly-underdogged (watch the spellchecker gag on that word) Tigers at $2.00. All up, it's put over 60% of the Fund at risk, so a round choc-full o' upsets could prove hard to digest.

Prudence has plumped for 5 wagers, mirroring the New Heritage Fund in all but its wager on the Crows.

The Hope Fund has 2 bets, 1 on the Dons at $5, and another on the Roos at $2.65, thus ensuring our collective Funds' coverage of all 8 contests.

Lastly, the Line Redux Fund has lavished 5% on the Cats who are giving 39.5 start at $1.90, and another 2.06% on Richmond receiving 6.5 start but priced at just $1.85.

Turning next to tips:

* Hawthorn are favoured 8-5 over Essendon, though our top 5 tipsters favour the Dons 3-2.

* Geelong are favoured 13-0 over Sydney. Fitting, I guess, for a team at $1.08.

* The Lions are favoured 11-2 over Richmond. One of the Tigers' 2 supporters is, however, our in-form tipster, ELO, and Chi is tipping the Lions by only 2 points (his Game of the Round), so the Tigers aren't without hope.

* Port Adelaide are favoured 12-1 over the Roos. ELO has Port winning by a solitary point, making this its Game of the Round.

* Carlton are favoured 8-5 over Fremantle, including 4-1 favouritism for the Blues amongst our top 5 tipsters (with STM II the dissenter).

* Adelaide are favoured 7-6 over the Bulldogs. In this game the top 5 tipsters are split 3-2 in favour of the Crows.

* West Coast are favoured 9-4 over Melbourne, though Melbourne (yes, Melbourne) are favoured 3-2 amongst our top 5 tipsters.

* St Kilda are favoured 11-2 over Collingwood.

Finally, for what it's worth:

* Chi's line bets are Essendon, Sydney, Richmond, Roos, Fremantle, Adelaide, Melbourne and Collingwood.

* ELO's line bets are Essendon, Sydney, Richmond, Roos, Carlton, Adelaide, Melbourne and St Kilda.

I Blame the Eagles

Not a great weekend for most Investors, due largely, I'd contend, to the waywardness of the Eagles, whose 9.20 was insufficient to prevail over the Dockers' 7-fewer-scoring-shot 13.9. Put simply, the Eagles should have won. (Okay, okay ... perhaps the Hawks were a little lucky to win, but surely I'm as entitled as the next person to attribute good luck to superior foresight and bad luck to ... well, sheer bad luck.)

Most Investors suffered losses in the 1.5% to 2% range, though MIN#002 fared worst, losing 7.88% and MIN#017 fared far better, gaining 6.39%. The good news is that all Investors have made a profit so far this season.

On tipping, ELO had an extraordinary weekend, bagging 7 from 8, taking it to joint-leadership on 30 from 48, level with BKB (it was only a matter of time, wasn't it?), STM II, Shadow and Silhouette. Only 4 tips separate 1st from last now, with Chi, HSH, EI I and EI II filling the bottom places on 26 from 48.

In stark contrast with its tipping performance, ELO managed just 3 from 8 on line betting, moving it to 26 from 48 for the season. Chi. meantime, has recorded just 21 from 48 on line betting, meaning that betting against him would have been profitable whereas betting with him would not. Hmmm ... good thing he only bets head-to-head then.

** Please note that entries in the Pick the Ladder Competition are due by midnight this Wednesday. **