The Tradition Continues

Stakes at Stake

There's just no rest if you're a MAFL Investor.

For those with the Recommended Portfolio we've another 20 wagers this weekend, covering all but the Tigers v Pies game on Saturday. The most profligate Fund is the Chi-squared Fund, which has 4 wagers totalling a smidge under half the Fund, the largest and riskiest of which being 15.2% of the Fund on the Swans at $2.55 facing the Cats. Two other wagers are equally brow-raising and are sized around the 12% mark and on teams priced at $2 or a little higher. This dog shows no fear/sense (delete whichever isn't applicable).

Next most profligate is the New Heritage Fund, which has 5 wagers totalling almost one-third of the Fund, the largest being 11% on West Coast at $1.36 and the riskiest 4.8% on Hawthorn at $2.15. Hope comes next, with 4 wagers totalling around 16% of the Fund, the largest and riskiest 5.1% on Sydney at $2.55.Then follows the Line Redux Fund, with three wagers each at 5% of the Fund, 2 on underdogs and 1 on a favourite. (Two line markets are yet to be posted, but they'll both probably be the home team +6.5 points which won't be enough to entice a flutter.)

Finally, Prudence is this week's spendthrift - such things being relative - having 4 wagers totalling only 13% of the Fund, the largest 3.5% on the Eagles and the riskiest 3% on Melbourne at $2.05.

In truth, by just about any measure, the weekend's fare is not especially scary. Had last year's Heritage Fund still been active, who knows what it might have outlayed on the Tigers at home at $6.25 or the Dons at home at $6.50.

Ready Reckoner

So, to the week's Ready Reckoner:

The Melbourne v Freo, Lions v Dogs, and Sydney v Geelong clashes are then the ones that matter most to all Investors, except MIN #017, who cares only about the first two of those games.

Tipping

We have no games this week for which the tipsters are unanimous and 7 games for which there is at least 3 tipsters in the minority camp.

We have:

• Adelaide 10-3 favourites over the Hawks. Both Chi and ELO are tipping the Crows but both by sufficiently narrow margins to make this their Game of the Round. Amongst MAFL's top 5 tipsters only Shadow is tipping the Hawks.
• Collingwood 10-3 favourites over the Tigers. None of the top tipsters are on the Richmond.
• The Roos 7-6 favourites over the Eagles, though BKB, ELO and CTL are all on West Coast.
• The Lions 8-5 favourites over the Dogs, with ELO, CTL and Silhouette supporting the Dogs.
• Geelong 7-6 favourites over the Swans. Amongst the top tipsters only Shadow is tipping the Swans.
• Fremantle 9-4 favourites over the Dees, with Shadow and Silhouette tipping Melbourne.
• Carlton 10-3 favourites over Port. Only Silhouette are supporting Port from amongst the top tipsters.
• St Kilda 12-1 favourites Essendon. HSH is the only tipster hoping for a Dons victory.

Line Betting

On Line Betting:

• Chi is tipping: Hawthorn, Richmond, Kangaroos, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Port Adelaide, Essendon
• ELO is tipping: Hawthorn, Richmond, Kangaroos, Western Bulldogs, Geelong, Melbourne, Carlton, Essendon

(Update at 7:00pm on Thursday: the line markets for the Melbourne v Freo and Port v Carlton games have now been posted and, despite Melbourne receiving a little more start than I expected, we've no interest in either game, from a line betting perspective at least.)

Bitten By the Dogs

Well, 22 tall and athletic Dogs wearing Red, White and Blue guernseys and pushing for a top 4 spot dug the hole on Saturday, and 1 short and stocky white dog wearing nothing but a green collar just about filled it in on Sunday evening - with a little help mostly from Hope.

At least, that was the story for most Investors this weekend. Investors with the Recommended Portfolio wound up losing 1.4% and other Investors lost amounts ranging from 0.4% to 9.3%. MIN #002 was the only Investor to record a profit, jumping 7% courtesy of the Hope Funds' impeccable 2 from 2 record.

Other Funds were less successful than Hope, though Chi-squared did also eke out a profit, rising just over 4c on 2 wins from 4 bets. New Heritage dropped over 9c also on 2 wins from 4 bets, Prudence dropped 5c on 2 wins from 5 bets, and Line Redux dropped 1c on 2 wins from 4 bets. All told the Funds won just 10 bets from 19, so dropping a percent or two is probably not such a bad result, especially when you consider that 3 of those 'winning' bets were on the drawn Essendon v Lions game.

What generally hurt the majority of Funds this weekend was the unlikelihood of many of the results. Only 3 favourites won and another only drew, leading to the season's most unpredictable set of results, as measured by surprisals.

The table below lists the average outcome surprisals per game for each of the rounds this season alongside which I've shown the returns recorded for each of the Funds.

At the foot of the table I've calculated the correlation between the average outcome surprisals and the Fund returns for each round. The negative correlations on the left show that the New Heritage and Prudence Funds have prospered when results have been most predictable and surprisals have therefore been low, and the positive correlations on the right show that the Hope, Chi-squared and Line Redux Funds have prospered when results have been least predictable and surprisals have therefore been high.

The latest round was a perfect example of this phenomenon. The average outcome surprisals per game was a season-high 1.42 bits, the Hope and Chi-squared Funds made profits, the Line Redux Fund almost broke even, and the New Heritage and Prudence Funds made losses.

(For information on team-by-team outcome and margin surprisals visit MAFL Stats.)

Unpredictability also affected the MAFL tipsters' predictive accuracy. The round's best performance was 4.5 from 8 as was recorded by Shadow, CTL and STM I. The worst was just 1.5 from 8 and was recorded by STM II.

Silhouette now leads our tipping competition on 108 from 152 (71%), ahead of Shadow, CTL and BKB, all on 104 from 152 (68%).

Shadow, Silhouette and STM II remain strongly in profit on level-stake wagering on their head-to-head tips, whether you start counting from Round 1 or from Round 6.

Though ELO managed just 3.5 from 8 on head-to-head tipping, it bagged a perfect 8 from 8 on line betting, moving it to 85 from 152 for the season (56%), a record that would have yielded +8.22 units from level-stake wagering. Chi correctly predicted only 4 from 8 on line betting.

Exceptional line betting generally results from exceptional margin prediction and this is indeed how you'd describe ELO's margin prediction performance this season. Its Mean Absolute Prediction Error is now just 28 points per game and its Median Absolute Prediction Error is 22.5 points per game.

In comparison, Chi's Mean APE is 29.7 points per game and his Median APE is 26 points per game. More relevantly, BKB, always the benchmark, has a 27.8 points per game Mean APE and a 23.5 points per game Median APE.

So, ELO is just 0.2 points per game behind BKB on Mean APE and is a full 1 point per game ahead of BKB on Median APE.

Another Roll of the Dice

Bet or Bank?

There's a famous line by somebody that "the dice have no memory", an allusion to the startlingly obvious fact that inanimate objects - spotted or otherwise - are bereft of the necessary cerebral capacity to recall what they did last, and are therefore unable to take account of their previous behaviour when they 'decide' (which they don't do either) what to do next.

As the Alzheimic dice, so the Funds.

Clearly, none of the Funds has spent any time reflecting on last week's glory and thought to itself "Might have a quiet weekend and make that Sportsbet bookie sweat a bit", nor have any of them suddenly become more concerned about the possibility of late-season tanking, which are reasonable thoughts and sentiments that I'm sure more than one Investor has entertained this week.

With this in mind I decided to review how the various Fund algorithms would have performed had we been using them over the closing rounds of previous seasons. This analysis shows that the Funds have generally performed fairly well from this point in the season onwards, rarely losing, often doing just a little better than breakeven, and occasionally piling on the percentage gains. Then again, football results have no memory either ...

Anyway, if you're at all keen to take a few weekends off from wagering - if nothing else so that you can start enjoying games again - please let me know and we can sort out a strategy for you for the remainder of the season.

Stakes at Stake

Investors in the Recommended Portfolio have 19 wagers to shepherd this weekend, covering all but the Friday-night game yet again.

New Heritage has outlayed cash on 4 teams totaling about 21% of the Fund. The largest wager is 13.3% on the Dogs who are again at an apparently backable unbackable $1.04 this weekend. This Fund's highest-priced wager is 0.7% on Melbourne at $3.15. Those with the Recommended Portfolio and MIN#015 would prefer this bet to lose, however, as they also have a head-to-head bet on the Roos and will fare better if the Dees go down. MIN#001 and MIN#017, in contrast, want the Dees to win, and MIN#002 cares not for the outcome. So, this is a contest where I can't hope to make everybody happy.

Prudence has identified 5 gold-plated opportunities totalling just 15% of the Fund. Its largest outlay is 6% on the Dogs and its riskiest is 2.3% on Fremantle at $2.35.

Hope has 2 wagers both in the 4.6% to 4.8% and the largest - 4.8% on Fremantle - is also the riskiest.

Chi-squared, exhibiting perhaps the most Alzheimic behaviour of all, has splashed out again with 4 wagers totalling 45% of the Fund, including 14.3% on Fremantle (at $2.35) and 13.8% on Essendon at $2.25, in what appears to be a quest to achieve profitability or, like some of the MAFL Small Cap Mining Stocks, to go broke trying.

Line Redux has plumped for 4 wagers, each sized 5% as is customary, 3 of them on underdogs and the other on a favourite. The Line Redux Fund has been in fine form of recent weeks, landing 15 of 22 wagers across the last 6 rounds. Unfortunately this performance back-ended a 14 from 32 start to the season, though it has been enough to nudge the Line Redux Fund into its highest level of profitability since Round 4.

(Two line markets are yet to be posted - those for the Richmond v Sydney and the Kangaroos v Melbourne clashes - but I'm not expecting we'll have a wager in either. As usual, I'll confirm this once the markets are posted.)

Ready Reckoner

Here's what all the wagering means for your Portfolio:

Once again this weekend, Investors care deeply about the fate of Port, though now the guernsey's on the other back (or something like that), since this week we want Fremantle to prevail over the Power. What's driving this interest is the fact that every Fund has a wager on Fremantle, a situation from which Investors are 3 from 4 this season, missing out only when the Swans went down to Essendon in Round 15.

The Essendon v Brisbane Lions and the Dogs v Eagles matchups are also of considerable interest to most Investors.

Tipping

This week there's only one unanimous favourite amongst the MAFL tipsters.

We have:

• Geelong 9-4 favourites over Carlton, with only Shadow supporting the Blues from amongst the MAFL Top 6 tipsters.
• The Dogs unanimous favourites over the Eagles.
• St Kilda 12-1 favourites over Hawthorn. Only HSH is tipping the upset, though Chi has the Saints winning by just a point and so has this as his Game of the Round.
• The Lions 10-3 favourites over Essendon. None of the MAFL Top 6 are tipping the Dons.
• Adelaide 8-5 favourites over Collingwood. None of the MAFL Top 6 are tipping the Pies, though ELO has the Crows emerging victorious by just 3 points, making this one of its two Games of the Round.
• The Roos 11-2 favourites over the Dees, with only STM II a credentialled tipper opting for the current Spooners.
• Richmond 9-4 favourites over Sydney, though Sydney has ELO, CTL, Shadow and Silhouette all tipping the upset. ELO has the Swans winning by just 3 points, making this its second Game of the Round.
• Port Adelaide 10-3 favourites over Fremantle, with none of the Freo support coming from the Top 6 MAFL Tipsters.

Four matches will, therefore, potentially affect the rankings amongst the top 6 tipsters: Geelong v Carlton, Adelaide v Collingwood, Kangaroos v Melbourne, and Richmond v Sydney.

Line Betting

This week on Line Betting:

• Chi's on Carlton, West Coast, Hawthorn, Essendon, Adelaide, Melbourne (TBC), Richmond (TBC) and Fremantle
• ELO's on Carlton, West Coast, St Kilda, Essendon, Collingwood, Kangaroos (TBC), Sydney (TBC) and Fremantle

For the season, Chi's tipped 71 from 144 (49%) and would have made a 9.48 unit loss on level-stake line betting. ELO's tipped 77 from 144 (53%) and would have made a 1.22 unit profit on level-stake line betting.

(Update at 8pm Thursday: as expected, no bets on the Richmond/Sydney or Kangaroos/Melbourne games. A new download is available with the line market details for these games. Note also that the Hawks are now favourites over the Saints on TAB Sportsbet, so much so that we now couldn't secure the same price head-to-head as we did on Wednesday with 15.5 points start. This is due to the major outs for the Saints, viz. Riewoldt, Montagna, Goddard, Hayes and Baker. The Hawks/Saints line market is suspended as I type this, as it has been for the past couple of days, but you can be certain that the Hawks will be priced at a lot less than the $1.90 we have locked in.)

A Round to Savour

For most Investors, a perfect wagering Sunday required that the three underdogs emerge victorious, an outcome which, save for an after-the-siren Tiger goal, would have transpired. Regardless, Investors landed the two wagers that really mattered, which saw all of them emerging with hefty portfolio increases.

In all, only 2 of 17 bets were unsuccessful: Prudence's wager on the Tigers and Line Redux's on Geelong. New Heritage landed 4 from 4 to jump by 8%, Prudence snagged 4 from 5 to rise by about the same amount, Hope managed 2 from 2 to climb by 22%, Chi-squared (at last!) bagged 1 from 1 to climb by 26%, and Line Redux scored 4 from 5 to rise by 13%.

All of which saw the Recommended Portfolio rise by 14.5%, leaving it up by 18.5% on the season, and other Portfolios rise by between 8% and 22% to leave them all up by amounts ranging from 21% to 53%. That's quite a round.

On tipping, Chi had the best of it, picking 7 from 8 to take him to 95.5 from 144 (66%) for the season. Silhouette managed 6 and still leads the pack, now on 104.5 from 144 (73%), 3 tips ahead of BKB on 101.5 (71%), and 2 more tips ahead of CTL and Shadow on 99.5 (69%).

The generally solid tipping performance of all our tipsters now sees 8 of them in black ink on level stake, start at Round 6, home team only wagering.

On line betting, Chi and ELO both fared well, correctly predicting 6 of the 8 winners.

One feature of this weekend's football was the regularity with which teams recording more scoring shots still contrived to lose. Three teams - the Roos, Adelaide and Hawthorn - all managed that achievement this weekend. Last weekend, Hawthorn, West Coast and Melbourne suffered the same fate, and Essendon also went down to the Tigers having recorded the same number of scoring shots. It's time for a few teams to spend a bit more time practising set shots, I reckon.

Will Investors Be Having A Port Whine on Sunday?

Stakes At Stake

Once again this weekend most Investors will find themselves disproportionately concerned about the outcome of a single contest.

Whilst it'll still be possible for a petite profit to be made should Port fail to topple the Hawks at Football Park, a truly memorable weekend will only be had if the upset eventuates.

To the details then.

New Heritage has 4 bets adding up to a little over one-third of the Fund, amongst them a 13.4% wager on the Dogs at a price not statistically significantly different from money back. They're at $1.02. The riskiest bet amongst the New Heritage clutch is 0.7% on Port Adelaide at $2.65. Every Fund has a wager on Port Adelaide this week, which is why Investors care so much about the outcome.

(Speaking of the use of 'clutch' as a collective noun for wagers, a visitor to the MAFL Online website this week arrived having searched on the phrase "clutching betting" using Google. Quite what he or she was truly looking for I'm as yet unable to fathom, but the length of the visit - 0 seconds - suggests he or she didn't find it on the MAFL Online site.)

Prudence has 5 bets totalling about 20% of the Fund. Its largest is also on the Dogs, 7.2% in its case, and its riskiest is 1.5% on Melbourne at $3.30.

Hope has just 2 wagers. Its largest and riskiest wagers is 5.7% on West Coast at $3.30, and its other wager is also on an underdog: 4.48% on Port Adelaide.

Line Redux has a record-equalling 5 wagers this weekend, 3 on teams receiving start and 2 on teams giving start.

Chi-squared is supporting a dog again this weekend, though whether it's yet another mongrel dog or merely an underdog is yet to be determined. He has 15.6% on Port Adelaide. The evidence does not bode well for this wager given the data in the table below, coupled with the knowledge that he's tipping Port Adelaide by just 3 points.

As you can see, he's 0 from 5 for wagers on teams that he's tipped by 4 points or fewer. Still, based on the wisdom of (generally near-broke) gamblers, I guess that makes him 'due'.

Ready Reckoner

This weekend's Ready Reckoner looks remarkably like this:

For the first time since Round 12, no Investor has an interest - at least on MAFL grounds - in the Friday night fixture. Saturday is, however, moderately important to everyone but MIN#002, and Sunday is screamingly important to everyone except MIN#017.

Tip-top Tipping

On tipping we have no unanimous favourites this week. Here are the details:

• Carlton are 10-3 favourites over the Roos. None of the top 5 tipsters is siding with the Roos.
• The Dogs are 8-5 favourites over Fremantle. Freo's only support amongst the top tipsters comes from STM II, who did tip Essendon to beat Hawthorn at $5 in Round 7, but surely can't be expected to prevail on a team currently at $11.
• Geelong are 10-3 favourites over Adelaide. Amongst the top tipsters only Shadow favours Adelaide.
• St Kilda are 12-1 favourites over Sydney, with Sydney's sole supporter being HSH.
• Collingwood are 7-6 favourites over Brisbane. The Lions count Shadow and STM II amongst their supporters.
• Richmond are 10-3 favourites over Melbourne, though the Dees do have Shadow's and Silhouette's vote.
• Hawthorn are 8-5 favourites over Port Adelaide. Port have a majority of the top 5 tipsters selecting them, however, as Shadow, Silhouette and STM II have lined up behind them. ELO is tipping the Hawks, but only by 4 points, making this its Game of the Round.
• Essendon are 12-1 favourites over West Coast. Once again HSH finds itself in the lonely part of the tipping convention. Chi, though, is tipping the Dons by just a point, making this his Game of the Round.

A Fine Line

On line betting this week, Chi and ELO are of one mind (though I suspect Chi's not contributing much to that entity). They're both implicitly tipping the Roos, Fremantle, Geelong, Sydney, Lions, Melbourne, Port, and West Coast.