The GFC (Galling Football Crisis)

Ouch.

Perhaps that was the "Saturday we had to have".

As you know by now, I don't do excuses. So, instead, allow me to, completely impartially, present you with the details of what I'm now calling "Sobering Saturday". (Yes, there were other, less G-rated alternatives that I considered.)

Game 1: Geelong v Fremantle

The Cats dominate Freo and build steadily to lead by 55 points, 70-15, at the 5-and-a-half minute mark of the 3rd term, already covering the 47.5 points start we'd given.

They score only 24 more points in the game's remainder and concede 39, eventually winning by only 40 points, securing our head-to-head bet but surrendering our line bet in the process.

The Recommended Portfolio drops 0.9% - a mocking portent of what was to come.

Game 2: Hawthorn v Essendon

The Hawks complete two solid quarters of football and lead by 28 points late in the 2nd term before conceding the term's final goal to usher the Dons into the half-time break with just a sniff, trailing by 22 points.

Essendon pile on 21 unanswered points from the 7 minute to the 16 minute mark of the 3rd term before the Hawks briefly steady and limp into the 3-quarter-time break still up by 5 points.

But the signs are already there, and the Dons swamp the Hawks in the final term, scoring 6.7 to 3.3 to win by 17 points.

The Recommended Portfolio drops another 5.1% and a trend is established.

Game 3: Carlton v Adelaide

Carlton impress early to lead the Crows by 30-8 at the 17 minute mark of the 1st term but muster just 2 more goals in the 1st term while conceding 6 to finish the term with a 5 point lead.

They then kick just 9 more goals in the game while the Crows kick 21.

The Recommended Portfolio drops another 3.4% and we have what a stockmarket analysis might call a bear run.

Game 4: Sydney v Brisbane Lions

The Swans lead early - hmmm, there's a familiar theme - but never by much, and proceed to leak goals from the middle of the 2nd term to the early part of the 3rd, finding themselves down by 39 points at the 8 minute mark of the 3rd term.

Cruelly, over the course of the next 17 minutes they kick 5.1 to 0.0 to close within 8 points of a faltering Lions, before the Lions kick a confidence-restoring goal just before the final break.

Next, the Swans register the opening 13 points of the final term to trail by just a point. At the 15 minute mark of the term the Lions kick their first goal, to which the Swans reply some 10 minutes later to restore the deficit to 1 point. But the Lions scramble and cling on to win by 8 points.

The Recommended Portfolio drops another 4.3% and optimism excuses itself and leaves by the nearest exit.

Game 5: Port Adelaide v Kangaroos

Port are scratchy - they need to win by over 100 points to have a chance of making the finals, but you'd never guess it - but eke out a 20-point lead by the 10-and-a-half minute mark of the 3rd term.

What follows has, by now, a hint of inevitability.

Port enter stage left and concede 19 points in 5 minutes before snagging briefly on a ledge on the way down, registering a couple of late behinds to face the final term with a lead of just 3 points.

The Roos kick the opening 7 points of the final term to lead by 4, before Port scrambles three behinds to fool the audience and trail by 1. The suspense is deftly built as a handful of behinds are traded - though both teams are ostensibly in the market for goals - before Port secures a 6-pointer 30 seconds into time-on to lead by 4.

Port glances to the stage wings and whispers "prompt" and then, remembering its lines, concedes 1.2 - the goal coming from a debatable 50m penalty - while eschewing further point-scoring itself and goes on to lose by 4 points. Right on cue.

The Recommended Portfolio drops another 3.4% and the day's destruction is over.

In summary, for those with the Recommended Portfolio: the New Heritage Fund recorded 3 winning wagers from 6 bets, dropping 19.4%; Prudence snagged 2 from 3 but still dropped 3.6%; Hope lost its only bet and dropped 6.7%; Chi-squared lost 3 of 3 and plummeted 26.9%; and Line Redux landed just 1 of 4 and fell by 21.4%.

So, the Recommended Portfolio fell by 15.4%, leaving it down about 2.5% on the season. Other portfolios fell by between 15% and 20%, leaving them narrowly to moderately up on the season. The best portfolio is MIN#017's, which is up by a tick under 12%.

Anyway, on to tipping.

Astonishingly, BKB has finished out of the MAFL Tipster medals this year. Silhouette - who registered 6 from 8 this week, equal-best with Shadow - finished 1st, with an incredible 124 from 176 (71%). Second went to CTL with 120 (68%), and 3rd went to Shadow with 119 (68%).

ELO and BKB finished joint-4th on 117 (67%).

Four tipsters finished the home-and-away season in the black on level-stake, start in Round 6, Home Team only wagering: Silhouette, CTL, Shadow, and STM II. This is the fourth consecutive season in which these tipsters have finished in profit using such a strategy.

On line betting, ELO recorded a modest 4 from 8, but is still up on level-stake wagering, now by just under 7 units. Chi managed just 3 from 8 to drop further into deficit for the season.

ELO's MAPE now stands at 28.6 points per game and its Median Absolute Prediction Error at 23 points per game, leaving it narrowly behind BKB's MAPE (28.3 points) and narrowly ahead of BKB's Median APE (23.5 points). Chi languishes on both measures, with a 30.7 points per game MAPE and a 27 point Median APE, though neither of those results are of a "go to your kennel" level of incompetence.

So, on to the Finals ...

(Congratulations go to Dan on winning the Pick the Finishing Order Competition. Plaudits too go to Tim and Rohan who finished 2nd and 3rd.)

Just How Much Do the Dees Want the Priority Pick?

Stakes at Stake

(** See updates on the Hawthorn v Essendon line wager, below.)

If my knowledge of Catholicism serves me well, St Jude is (or was) the Hope of the Hopeless. How apt then that it's the Hope Fund that has chosen to lavish its final attention for the Home and Away season on last-placed Melbourne at $11, taking on the first-placed and joint flag favourites, St Kilda.

The Hope Fund is risking just 6.7% on the Dees, making this bet a relatively lucrative proposition for many Investors with fairly limited downside. Basically, it's a Heritage Fund wolf-style wager dressed up in sheepish Hope clothing.

In other news, the New Heritage Fund has 6 wagers totalling a tick under 60% of the Fund, the largest a 13.3% wager on the Cats at $1.03 taking on Fremantle at the Cats' cradle, and the riskiest a 4.8% wager on the Dogs at $2.15 sparring with the Pies for a 3rd-place finish.

Prudence, meantime, has just 3 wagers for about 15% of the Fund, its largest being 5.9%, also on Geelong, and its riskiest 4.6% on Port Adelaide at $1.33, who face the Roos.

Chi-squared also has 3 wagers, though they're a little larger on average than those of Prudence and total 27% of the Fund. The largest and riskiest is 9.8% on the Hawks at $1.80 in their spot-in-the-finals and earn-a-chance-to-defend-the-Premiership clash with the Dons.

Line Redux has, at this point, just 3 wagers too, totalling 15% of the Fund, though this is likely to change once the Hawks/Dons line market is posted on TAB Sportsbet anytime soon now. I'm expecting a wager on the Hawks, but the size of it will depend on the price offered.

(** Update at 2:45pm on Friday: Hawthorn opened on Line betting at $2.15 giving 6.5 points start. Line Redux really likes that deal and has plonked 15.9% of the Fund on the Hawks - comfortably its largest wager of the season.)

In total, the Round's wagering represents somewhere bewteen the 4th- and 6th-largest outlay for Investors this season.

(** Now 2nd to 5th.)

Ready Reckoner

This outlay provides the following risk-reward tradeoff:

For most then it's the Melbourne v St Kilda, (and now Hawthorn v Essendon), Sydney v Brisbane Lions, and Geelong v Fremantle matchups that represent the widest gap between potential profit and possible loss.

Tipping

This week's tipping features an absence of unanimous favourites (assuming the lack of something can legitimately be called a feature). In fact, no team has fewer than 3 supporters this week, though not all of the minority support comes from particularly convincing sources.

We have:

• West Coast as 10-3 favourites over the Tigers. None of the Top 5 MAFL tipsters are siding with the Tigers.
• Geelong as 8-5 favourites over Fremantle. Again, the underdog support is bereft of high-profile MAFL tipsters.
• Hawthorn as 10-3 favourites over Essendon. Essendon can count CTL and Silhoutte amongst its more comforting backers.
• Carlton as 9-4 favourites over Adelaide. Both Silhouette and Shadow are tipping the upset.
• The Lions are 10-3 favourites over Sydney. BKB is the only credentialled MAFL tipster predicting a Swans victory. ELO, though tipping with the majority, has the Lions winning by just a point, making this its Game of the Round.
• Port Adelaide are 8-6 favourites over the Roos. Shadow is the only elite tipster with a contrarian view.
• St Kilda are 10-3 favourites over Melbourne. Shadow, once again, finds itself as the lone dissenting voice amongst the tipsters that matter. Chi though is tipping the Saints by just 1 point, making this his Game of the Round.
• Collingwood are 10-3 favourites over the Dogs. ELO and Shadow are both tipping a Dogs victory.

BKB aside, the best tipping performance of any heuristic tipster over the past 12 seasons is RYL's 124 last year. Silhouette needs 6 from 8 to equal this mark, and 6.5 or more to break it.

Line Betting

On Line Betting this week, Chi and ELO differ more often than they agree:

• Chi is on Richmond, Fremantle, Hawthorn, Carlton, Sydney, Kangaroos, Melbourne and Collingwood.
• ELO is on Richmond, Geelong, Hawthorn, Adelaide, Brisbane, Kangaroos, St Kilda and Western Bulldogs.

A Return To Profit For Most

This weekend, apparently the Lions and the Saints thought it'd make for more entertaining football viewing if they were to spot their opponents a bit of a start, 47 points in the case of the Lions and 32 points in the case of the Saints.

Many Investors had a financial interest in both these teams - in the case of the Lions, with the additional challenge of giving 33.5 points start - and no doubt found this fox-and-hound approach somewhat alarming. While the Lions did, indeed, metaphorically catch the fox, the Saints did not, an entirely unsatisfactory turn of events when you're wagering on short-priced hounds.

Still, in the end, all Investors except MIN#017 did make profits for the weekend, ranging from 3.1% to 3.9% and including 3.3% for those with the Recommended Portfolio. MIN#017 suffered a 3.8% loss.

For the season, the Recommended Portfolio is up about 13%, MIN#001 is up 18.5%, MIN#015 is up almost 16%, and MIN#017 is up over 31%, so you'd struggle at this point to be an unhappy Investor.

Atypically, Chi-squared recorded the weekend's best return amongst the Funds, up almost 9% on a solitary successful wager on Freo. Next best was Hope, also up almost 9% on 2 successful wagers from 2 outlays. Line Redux and Prudence also made profits, Line Redux up 4% on 2 wins from 3, and Prudence up a little under 1% on 5 successful wagers from 6.

New Heritage was the only Fund to make a loss. It dropped 3.8% on 5 successful wagers from 7, the two losses attributable to Essendon and the Saints.

With 5 favourites and an equal favourite saluting the judge this weekend, tipsters generally fared well, the best of them being Shadow, Chi and HSH, each of which scored 6 from 8.

Silhouette still leads, now on 118 from 168 (70%), three ahead of CTL on 115 (69%) and one more ahead of BKB on 114 (68%).

Five tipsters remain in positive territory on level-stake, Home Team only, start at Round 6 wagering.

On Line Betting, Chi managed just 3 from 8 and ELO just 4 from 8.

Just Say No to Surprisals

Stakes at Stake

This week, Investors are hoping for a round almost bereft of upsets, save for wishing for a minor upset on Friday night in the shape of the Dogs outbarking the Cats.

The New Heritage Fund has waited until Round 21 to record its highest level of aggregate Funds at risk for the season: about 70% at risk on 7 wagers, the largest being 13.2% on the Saints at $1.05, and the riskiest 4% on the Dogs at $2.25.

Prudence has also lashed out this week, dropping a little under one-third of the Fund on 6 wagers. Its largest is 6.1% on Carlton at $1.08 and its riskest is 2.8%, also on the Dogs. Hope has just 2 wagers for the round totalling about 8% of the Fund, the largest and riskiest being 4.6% on the Dogs, while Chi-Squared's sole wager - also, of necessity, its largest and riskiest - is 10.4% on Fremantle at $1.85.

Line Redux has 3 wagers for the week totalling 15% of the Fund. One wager is on a team receiving start (the Dogs) and the other two are on teams giving start (Adelaide and Brisbane).

Ready Reckoner

In total, for everyone except MIN#017, these wagers represent the second-largest aggregate wagering for a single round this season, trailing only the profligacy of Round 16. For MIN#007, this round's wagers are, in fact, the season's apogee (or, perhaps, the nadir, depending on your viewpoint). There's some comfort though in the fact that most of the week's wagers are on favourites.

Here's the week's Ready Reckoner:

For most Investors then, the weekend's key games are, in order, the Dogs versus the Cats, the Lions versus Port, and the Crows versus the Eagles.

Tipping

On tipping, we have:

• Geelong 9-4 favourites over the Dogs. Amongst the Top 5 MAFL tipsters only Shadow is siding with the Dogs. ELO and Chi are both tipping the Cats, though each only by 1 point, making this, for both, the Game of the Round.
• Carlton 12-1 favourites over Melbourne. Only EI I is tipping the upset.
• Adelaide 11-2 favourites over West Coast with, once again, the Top 5 tipsters unanimously on the favourite.
• Brisbane unanimous favourites over Port Adelaide.
• Hawthorn 9-4 favourites over Richmond. Again, the Top 5 tipsters are backing the favourite.
• St Kilda unanimous favourites over the Roos.
• Collingwood unanimous favourites over the Swans.
• Essendon 9-4 favourites over Fremantle. With the teams in this contest equal favourites as at noon on Wednesday, BKB sides with CTL for this game and therefore tips Essendon, again making all Top 5 tipsters unanimous for this game.

Line Betting

On Line Betting this week, Chi and ELO differ on 3 games:

• Chi is tipping the Dogs, Melbourne, Eagles, Port, Richmond, the Roos, Sydney and Essendon
• ELO is tipping the Dogs, Carlton, Eagles, Port, Richmond, St Kilda, Collingwood and Essendon

I Don't Like Saturdays

Well that hurt a bit.

Of the 20 bets that those with the Recommended Portfolio had in play just 8 were successful. Three of those winning bets came from New Heritage, but its 2 losing bets were enough to push it, like every other Fund, into the red for the weekend. It finished down a little over 2% on the weekend's indulgences. Prudence had 2 more of the winning bets, but also 2 more of the losers, which saw it drop by a touch under 2% for the weekend.

Amongst the other Funds, Hope had just 1 winner from 4 bets and dropped about 7%. Chi-squared registered an identical 1 from 4 performance, but Chi's proclivity for large wagers turned this into a 22% decline for the Fund.

Finally, Line Redux managed just 1 winner from 3 bets and dropped 5.5%.

All told, those with the Recommended Portfolio dropped about 7.5% on the weekend. MIN #001 and MIN # 015 lost similar amounts, and MIN #017 lost a tick over 2%.

These results could have been considerably worse but for a profitable Sunday's wagering. It struck me that Sundays had - or so I thought - often been kind to us this year. Which, inevitably, led to some analysis and the following table:

As you can see, Sundays have indeed been very lucrative for the Recommended Portfolio. It has made money on 12 of the 17 Sundays on which it's had wagers, producing a net profit across all those Sundays of almost 30%. In contrast, Saturdays have been unprofitable 11 times out of 19, and unprofitable in total, due entirely to the 15% losses that have been experienced over the previous 2 rounds.

In fact - as the table shows - the Saturday just gone was the worst single day's wagering the Recommended Portfolio has endured this season.

On tipping, CTL and ELO had the best rounds, scoring 6 from 8. This pushed CTL into outright 2nd for the season with 110 from 160 (69%), three tips behind Silhouette on 113 (71%) and 1 tip ahead of BKB on 109 (68%). Five tipsters remain profitable on level-stake home team only wagering commencing in Round 6. (A sixth, RYL, is virtually at breakeven.)

Finally, on Line Betting, Chi scored 3 from 8 and ELO 4 from 8, leaving ELO showing a profit and Chi a loss for the season.