MAFL 2010 : Round 5 Results

That was a weekend that could easily the unwary into thinking there's something in this statistical modelling stuff.

Six wins from seven bets, with two of the wins coming from seriously unfancied teams, lifted the Heuristic Fund by almost 30% and left it up almost 41% on the season. Investors with the Recommended Portfolio are now, therefore, up over 4% on the season.

The only bet we lost was the one on the Hawks, who just couldn't quite do enough and went down by two straight goals to the Roos. In the only game in which we didn't have a starter, Port Adelaide, who were $3.75 shots mid-week and who were playing at home and so fair-game for the Heuristic Fund or the Hope Fund, outlasted the Saints at Footy Park.

But I'll take what we landed and just smile at what we might have missed.

Here are the details of the weekend's wagering:

Home Sweet Home and Short Term Memory I recorded the weekend's best tipping performances, each bagging 7 from 8, and five other tipsters, the Heuristic Fund's current guardian, Shadow, among them, scored 6.

That leaves three tipsters as joint-leaders of our tipping competition, Easily Impressed I, Short Term Memory I and Follow The Streak, all on 29 from 40 (72.5%). With only four favourites collection the competition points this round, BKB had another mediocre return and now sits two tips off the pace on 27 from 40.

Short Term Memory I now leads the race to be the next guardian of the Heuristic Fund, though with Shadow winning again this week it'll be at least Round 9 before that can happen.

With Round 6 upon us, Shadow will start trading as a Fund in its own right next weekend, as will New Heritage, Prudence and the ELO-Line Funds. So, Investors with the Recommended Portfolio will be doubly exposed to Shadow's prowess for the next 3 rounds at least - once via the Heuristic Fund and again via the Shadow Fund.

On MARS ratings, losses by St Kilda and Geelong cost both teams ratings points but left them in positions 1 and 2, albeit with a smaller lead over the pursuing duo of the Pies and the Dogs. Sydney and Carlton both pushed up a ranking spot, overtaking a plummeting Brisbane in the process.

Fremantle round out the top eight, and have now almost a 5-point lead over the ninth-placed Hawks. Melbourne are the weekend's biggest improvers. They leapt four spots into eleventh, a just reward for their 50-point victory over the Lions.

Margin prediction proved hazardous again this weekend. HAMP produced the round's best MAPE (32.4), a fraction ahead of ELO (33.3) and Chi (33.5). BKB, in a rare show of weakness, came last amongst our margin-tipsters with a MAPE of 35.6.

However, across the entire 5 rounds, BKB still leads both on mean and median APE. HAMP is now 2nd on both measures, with LAMP is 3rd on median APE and ELO 3rd on mean APE.

HELP scored marginally better than a naive tipster this week, correctly selecting 5 of the 8 line winners to take its aggregate record to 21-19, and accruing probability scores a fraction higher than would have been accrued by a tipster assigning a 50% probability to every tip.

Its season-long performance is still sub-naive.

This week the 16 teams combined to register as many goals as they did behinds, 187 of each, which makes the season's conversion rate now just 50.3%. This is, as those of you who've read my three earlier blogs on Modelling AFL Scoring (Part I, Part II, and Part III will know, significantly below the long-term average of 53.64%.

Adelaide and Essendon are doing most to drag the average conversion rate down. The Crows have kicked 41.59 to be at 41%, and the Dons 54.67 to be at 44.6%. St Kilda, with 70.40 (63.6%), and the Swans, with 78.64 (54.9%), are doing most to raise the level.

Round 6 is next, and that's when all the Funds are in play.