MAFL 2010 : Round 7 Results (Final)

Well at least we weren't left hanging until the end.

There are games that you witness where history's page is rendered inaccurate by the word "loss". When teams play as the Saints did tonight another column is required on the competition ladder, to sit alongside "W" and "L", let's call it "F", for "Failed to Compete" (although other designations also spring to mind).

About the only positive I can extract from the game is that, being played on a Monday, it's just four days distant from the next, hopefully memory-erasing wagering opportunity.

Here's what it all means for Investors:

In the end, despite the disappointment of Monday night, Shadow - and hence the Heuristic-Based Fund - made a small profit for the round, so Shadow will retain control of the Heuristic-Based Fund for at least another three rounds.

Here are the full details of the weekend's wagering:

On tipping, just five favourites were again victorious this week, which leaves BKB now an astonishing 4 games off the pace being set by Short Term Memory I on 41 from 56 (73%). Second and third spots are now filled by the Easily Impressed duo, both on 40 (71%), who've demonstrated, along with Short Term Memory I, that, for this season at least, about all you need take notice of is what happened last weekend.

Shadow and Silhouette are, however, lurking near the top and appear set to add another year of consistent tipping to their already-impressive historical record.

(I note that, at this point in the season, every one of the "unsophisticated" non margin-tipping heuristics is in the black on level-stake wagering.)

MARS ratings saw an extraordinary number of position swaps this week, including the replacement of the Saints by the Pies in the top 2, single-rung ladder climbs by Carlton, Fremantle, Adelaide, Port Adelaide and Melbourne, and falls by Sydney, the Lions, Hawthorn and the Roos.

Richmond, at 955.4 ratings points, are now just half a dozen or so solid performances away from surpassing Melbourne's end-of-2008 rating of 944.7.

On margin predicting, BKB is still the only margin-tipper with a sub-30 mean APE (though it was also the only margin-tipper to record an increase in mean APE this weekend). As well, BKB and HAMP remain as the only margin-tippers with sub-30 median APEs.

Overall, BKB still leads on both mean and median APE, while LAMP remains second on mean MAPE and HAMP remains second on median APE.

HELP performed a little more creditably this weekend, correctly predicting 5 of the 8 line betting results and providing probability assessments sufficient to drag its season-long probability scoring a little closer to naivety.

Despite two of the teams we'd wagered on this weekend being rundown in the final term, this has not generally been a season for final term reversals. Only 10 of 56 (18%) teams have won after trailing at three-quarter time, and none of them trailed by 3 goals or more at the final change.

Further, only 18 of 56 (32%) teams have won after trailing at half-time, and just 17 of 55 (31%) have won after trailing at the first change (in the other game the teams were tied at quarter-time).