MAFL 2010 : Round 14

If you're an Investor this is probably a blog best read seated.

In six of the weekend's eight games the home team is the favourite, and in five of them it's the short-priced favourite. The reaction from the MAFL Funds to this circumstance - especially from the New Heritage Fund - has been akin to the response you get if you open a packet that sounds even vaguely like a chip packet within earshot of Chi: immediate and overwhelming interest, palpable desire and a fixation on securing a piece of whatever's on offer.

Here's what the result of all that interest looks like.

MAFL 2010 : Team Dashboard for Round 13

Sorry that this is a little late this week. I think I've been mentally recovering from the hiding that MAFL took last weekend.

Anyway, here's the MAFL Team Dashboard:

MAFL 2010 : Round 13 Results (Final)

This'll be brief.

When scanning the week's Ready Reckoner, never do I consider the "Best Possible" or "Worst Possible" results as lying within the feasible set of actual wagering outcomes. How wrong I've been.

Three games, three losses. Waiter, may I have the menu for Round 14 please?

MAFL 2010 : Round 13 - Part II

Even with two attractive-looking matchups in the Cats v Saints and Swans v Pies games, this weekend can't help but seem like the stale bit of the loaf that is Round 13. (Apologies if you're a Melbourne or Adelaide fan, but I'm finding it hard to get enthused about 13th v 15th.)

The weekend's status might be elevated though if the Cats, Swans and Dees all wins, the Cats doing so by 21 points or more, since then the Recommended Portfolio will rise by about 3.9% more than offsetting, if barely, the losses suffered last weekend.

MAFL 2010 : Round 13 Results (Interim)

If I've much more practice in being philosophical after wagering losses I fear I'll wind up smoking a pipe, blogging about the meaning of truth, affecting a permanent, faraway look and calling myself Bruce. (Any Monty Python fans here?).

So far, Round 13 has not been a happy one for any Investor. The Recommended Portfolio has shed 3.7%, MIN#002's Portfolio has dropped 7.5%, and MIN#017's Portfolio has fallen 7.1%, these falls largely due to poor showings by the Blues and the Lions, who went down by 9 and 19 points respectively.

Given the likely prices on offer for the remaining three games, it seems unlikely that a net profit for the round will be the final outcome. Only an upset Sydney win over the Pies might make a difference, but it doesn't look as if any of the Funds is especially keen to invest in that particular result.

MAFL 2010 : Round 13 - Part I

And so we enter the first half - well five-eighths actually - of the split Round 13.

Recommended Portfolio holders have wagers in four of the week's five games, with the Eagles v Dogs clash the only one failing to attract the interest of at least one Fund. New Heritage is the boldest Fund (who'd have guessed?), wagering about 22% of the Fund on three bets including two that are for around 10% of the Fund both of which are on teams that are favourites but by no means raging hot ones in the form of the Hawks and Lions. The third bet is a contrarian, away team wager on Port Adelaide that, when offset by the wagers of Prudence and the Heuristic-Based Funds on the Roos in the same game, makes the outcome at best a small profit for those with the Recommended Portfolio.

MAFL 2010 : Team Dashboard for Round 12

Here's the week's MAFL Team Dashboard.

This week I thought we'd take a look at the correlations between team ladder position and the performance statistics in the Scoring Shot Data and Quarter-By-Quarter Performance sections of the Dashboard.

Here's the summary:

Scoring Shots

• The (rank) correlation between Scoring Shots For (measure A) and Ladder Position is +0.75. It would be much higher but for the effect of St Kilda who are 12th on this measure but 2nd on the ladder.
• The (rank) correlation between Scoring Shots Against (measure B) and Ladder Position is +0.84.
• The (rank) correlation between the Scoring Shot Differential (measure C) and Ladder Position is +0.98.
• Creating and preventing scoring shots seem to be of roughly equal importance in generating success so far this season.

Scoring Shot Conversion

• The (rank) correlation between Own Conversion Rate (measure D) and Ladder Position is +0.72. Collingwood, who are 3rd on the ladder but an astonishing 14th on this measure, drag this correlation down. The Pies could surely have had no better reminder of the importance of converting opportunities than that provided by their 9.22 performance on the weekend, which cost them 2, and almost 4, competition points.
• The (rank) correlation between Opponents' Conversion Rate (measure E) and Ladder Position is +0.08.
• The (rank) correlation between Conversion Rate Differential (measure F) and Ladder Position is +0.41.
• Clearly, this season, success has been far more about converting opportunities than it has been about preventing opponents from doing the same.

Quarter-By-Quarter Performance

• The (rank) correlation between ranking on Q1 performance and Ladder Position is +0.79.
• The (rank) correlation between ranking on Q2 performance and Ladder Position is +0.58, dragged down by St Kilda, who are 2nd on the ladder but 14th on Q2 performances, having won just 4 from 12 second terms.
• The (rank) correlation between ranking on Q3 performance and Ladder Position is +0.69
• The (rank) correlation between ranking on Q4 performance and Ladder Position is +0.65. Two teams have depressed this correlation, Collingwood and Hawthorn, the former being 3rd on the ladder but 11th on Q4 performances, and the latter being 8th on the ladder but 16th on Q4 performances.
• Unusually, it's been Q1 performances that have been most indicative of a game's outcome this season. Winning teams have won first quarters in 71 of the 96 games played so far this season (and they've drawn 2 more), which is higher than any other quarter.
  To put this in some historical context, last season, winning teams won just 68.9% of games (ignoring draws). This season they've won 75.8% (ignoring the draw).