Not As Good As Last Week (or the Week Before)

What to make of all that then?

Firstly, the Line Redux Fund has stumbled for the first time this season, winning just 1 of 3 bets, but still leaving all Investors with exposure to this Fund in profit. This weekend's results take the Line Redux Fund to 6-4 for the season, perilously close to a chance result.

And it's not as if I can claim 'near-thing' status since the Lions lost by 26.5 points and the Hawks lost by 53.5 points on handicap betting. Not even the most tenuously tenured of coaches has attributed a 9 goal loss to nothing more than the proverbial 'bounce of the ball'.

Thank heavens for the Swans. For the second time this season they've won outright when we've backed them with start.

Investors with Hope Fund exposure please note that things warm up next weekend as the Hope Fund joins the Line Redux Fund and goes live. Over the past 4 weeks, had I given it its head, the Hope Fund would've made 2 or 3 bets each week (with, if I'm honest - which I'm pathologically inclined to be, often regardless of the consequences - only marginal success).

On tipping, the bag was also decidedly mixed. No tipster managed better than 4 from 8 and only 3 favourites saluted the judge, which leaves us in the very odd position where 3 tipsters - Shadow, Silhouette and Short Term Memory II - lead BKB by a tip and a half. How strange to find a tipster underpinned by a mindless heuristic and dedicated to a non-existent dog leading one of the finest football minds on the planet. Clearly in a post GFC, climate-changing world, all the normal societal rules have been suspended. Or something.

Please note that we're now only a couple of weeks away from the Pick the Finishing positions competition. Look out for details this week.

Three More: It's Getting to be a Habit

The Line Redux Fund has so far this season acted with restraint and discernment. This week we've more evidence of that first characteristic; let's hope we also witness more of the second.

All of which is a cryptic way to introduce the fact that we've three line bets this weekend:

• Brisbane, giving Collingwood 9.5 points start on Friday night at the Gabba
• Sydney, receiving 8.5 points start from Carlton on Saturday afternoon at the SCG
• Hawthorn, giving Port Adelaide 23.5 points start on Saturday at the G

The latter two of these bets represent our 2nd bets on Hawthorn and on Sydney (both of the previous bets were winners). 

Moving next to tipping, we have:

• Unanimous support for the Lions over Collingwood, though ELO has only a 3 point margin, making this its Game of the Round
• Carlton tipped 11-2 over Sydney
• Port Adelaide tipped 9-4 over the Hawks, with the 9 including all the top-ranked tipsters bar BKB
• Unanimous support for St Kilda and the prediction of a blowout by BKB, Chi and ELO
• Geelong tipped 11-2 over Adelaide
• Essendon tipped 9-4 over the Roos, with the 9 once again including all the top-ranked tipsters bar BKB, and Chi tipping the Roos but by only a point, making this his Game of the Round
• Melbourne tipped 7-6 over Richmond, with Easily Impressed II the only top-ranked tipster siding with the Tigers and even then only doing so because they were more lightly flogged last weekend than were the Dees
• The Western Bulldogs tipped 11-2 over West Coast

(Note that we're once again waiting for the line market to go up for one game. I'll include the details in Monday's results.)

Line Redux Bags another Two from Three

Two more successful line bets from three attempts has the Line Redux Fund now priced at $1.125 and leaves those Investors with Line Redux exposure up by between about 2.2 and 2.5%. Perhaps the best thing about the weekend's performance is that the two winning bets won easily and the losing bet missed out by just a little over a goal.

Investors please note that I've changed the way I'm displaying your portfolio performance (see table at right). Rather than repeating the same number a dozen or so times, I'm now showing a single performance statistic for the Recommended portfolio. If your MIN is not shown separately it's because you have the Recommended portfolio; accordingly, the performance of that portfolio is the performance of your portfolio.

We still have one more week of Line Redux Fund langour before the madness begins when, firstly, the Hope Fund will be unleashed and allowed to fling cash for the first time. I've been tracking the bets that all the currently dormant Funds would have made had they not been in a period of enforced abstinence, and the Hope Fund is one that I'm glad has been kept away from Sportsbet. (The other is Chi-squared.) I'm assuming that this is a 'calibration' period ...

On tipping we have the extraordinary situation whereby BKB trails, albeit only by half a tip. This is down to the sterling performances of Shadow, Silhouette and Short-Term Memory II, each of which bagged 7 from 8 this week (see table at right) missing only the Hawks' win over the Roos. Chi has continued his poor run of tipping and managed just 5 this weekend to leave him tied for last with Home Sweet Home on just 14 from 24.

ELO tipping was acceptable at 6 from 8 but its line betting performance fell away dramatically from last weekend's 7 as it managed just 4 from 8 this weekend, with one of those being Adelaide who were favoured to win on line betting given their 6.5 points start yet even money head-to-head price.

Round 3 offers another trio

Three line bets again this weekend, giving start in two and receiving it in one, much as we did last weekend.

In Thursday's game - where we've 'corrected' the AFL and listed the Pies as the true home team - we've taken Collingwood with 19.5 points, playing Geelong. This is our second wager on the Pies this season.

Next, on Saturday, we've taken St Kilda giving 20.5 points start to West Coast at Docklands.

Finally, on Sunday, we're on Port Adelaide giving 30.5 points start to the early-season spoon favourites, the Dees.

On tipping we have:

• Geelong favoured 9 to 4, with Chi opting for a narrow Collingwood victory in his Game of the Round. Both of the Easily Impressed heuristics have gone with Collingwood too, each on the basis of Collingwood's sizeable victory margin last weekend.
• St Kilda favoured 12 to 1, with Easily Impressed I the only dissenting voice.
• The Lions favoured 7 to 6, though Sydney's support includes our current top 3 tipsters in CTL, EI I and FTS. ETO also favours Sydney but by only 1 point making this one of its Games of the Round.
• Essendon, the underdogs, favoured 7 to 6. However, two of the top three tipsters are on Carlton.
• Port Adelaide the unanimous choice, though not quite favoured to cover the 30.5 points spread by Chi and ELO.
• The Kangaroos tipped by all but ELO. Chi, ELO and BKB all have it as a less than two goal margin though.
• Adelaide tipped by all but Home Sweet Home and a fence-sitting BKB. ELO has this as its other Game of the Round.
• Western Bulldogs the unanimous tip, but with Chi tipping them to fail to cover the spread and ELO tipping them to cover.

ELO, as noted previously, has started well on line betting. Its line betting picks this week are: Collingwood, St Kilda, Sydney, Essendon, Melbourne, Roos and the Bulldogs. (There's no line market yet for the Fremantle v Adelaide game.)

Another Acceptable Week

A solid if not spectacular Round 2 for Investors, with 2 wins from 3 line bets once again increasing the wealth of those Investors with Line Redux Fund exposure.

Adelaide, the sole losing bet, never looked like covering the 10.5 points spread, trailed in absolute terms at every change before going on to lose handily. Collingwood also made Investors nervous, taking 3 quarters to provide any sign of solace, and finished at 3QT just one-half a point in advance of the spread before going on to cover by plenty. Sydney, in contrast, were always round about in terms of the spread and looked home on line betting by the end of the 3rd term. In the end, they won outright, making the 16.5 point start pleasingly redundant.

On the tipping front we now have the remarkable situation of three tipsters leading BKB: CTL, EI 1 and FTS (all on 12 from 16). BKB and a range of other tipsters are on 11. Home Sweet Home, which recorded the best score of the round with 7, still languishes on 10 from 16. Chi and ELO are now joint last on just 9 from 16.

Though ELO managed just 5 from 8 on tipping to go with its 4 from last week, it managed an extremely profitable 7 from 8 on line betting, moving it to 12 from 16 on line betting across the first two rounds.

ELO also continues to do well in terms of Mean Absolute Prediction Error. It's now at 30.1, a little ahead of Chi on 34.4 and a little behind BKB on 29.1.

On MARS ratings (see www.mafl-stats.blogspot.com for details), the big moves this weekend have seen Carlton move into the top 8 at the expense of Port Adelaide who, as a result of their loss to the Eagles, have dropped to 10th.