2015 - Round 6 : Sooner Than I Expected

/

In the blog wrapping up last week's wagering results (not that there was much to rap) I mentioned that the Fund algorithms had one more week of calibration before bet sizes were likely to increase. While that's true for the Head-to-Head Fund, it's actually not for the Line Fund. It ratchets up from Round 5, which had me a little taken aback when the Line Fund algorithm gave me my wagering instructions for the week.

Not that there were all that many of them, but the four line bets we do have are twice the size they would have been had they been made last week, and it's not exactly as if the Line Fund has been in scintillating form so far this season. 

Anyway, we'll at least know our fate early in the round since the last of the line wagers is on Saturday's Gold Coast v Adelaide game. That bet is on the Suns with 19.5 points start and is one of two line wagers on home team underdogs, the other on the Giants with 29.5 points start playing the Hawks. The remaining two bets are on the Pies giving the Cats just over a goals start, and on the Roos giving the Tigers about two-and-a-half goals start.

With the Head-to-Head Fund venturing only a pair of wagers, those four line wagers mean that the Line Fund is the more active of the two Funds this week for the first time since Round 3. What's more, one of those Head-to-Head wagers is more a hand wave than a fist, a 0.1% wager on the Giants at $4.50 (more on which later). The other Head-to-Head bet is a more substantive 1.1% gamble on the Pies at $1.65, but the aggregate 1.2% of the Head-to-Head Fund at risk over the nine contests is dwarfed by the 10% of the Line Fund that's now notionally in bookmaker hands.

Investors' upside and downside risk this week is concentrated in the two teams carrying both Head-to-Head and Line wagers, the Pies and the Giants. The risk for me personally is even more concentrated in the latter team though because, the TAB's iPhone App being the abomination that it is, I now also have a Head-to-Head wager on the Giants for the amount that was supposed to have been wagered in the line market. I will swear from now until the day that Australia wins the Davis Cup again that I cancelled that Head-to-Head bet before placing it, but my TAB statement says otherwise. It's been about nine years since I made an error of this magnitude, though on that occasion things worked out well. Here's hoping for a reprise to avoid reprisals.

Anyway, my own giant Giant position aside, here's what Investors collectively face.

The larger line bets have lifted risk levels in all the games in which Investors have an interest, with the result that all upsides and downsides are in the 1-2% range this week. Collingwood holds the key to the week's maximum profit (+1.6c if it wins by 7 points or more) and to the week's maximum loss (-1.9c if it loses).

Combined, the six bets carry a maximum upside of 5.9c and a maximum downside of 6.5c.

Head-to-head tipsters

Disagreement levels amongst the Head-to-Head Tipsters are at a three-week low as measured by the overall Disagreement Index, which this week stands at 18%.

Silhouette has done most to lift that level this week by recording an Index of 45% after tipping five upsets, though Shadow (40%), Easily Impressed II (37%), Short Term Memory II (35%) and Home Sweet Home (35%) have done their bits as well. Offsetting these large Index values are the thirteen Tipsters with 9% figures, all of which have opted for a full house of favourites.

That group of favourite favouriters includes BKB and Bookie_3, which are two of the three joint-leaders on the MatterOfStats Tipster Leaderboard. It excludes the third joint-leader though, Combo_7, which will leapfrog the other two should the Roos upset the Tigers on Saturday.

Four games have been responsible for much of the Tipster disagreement, Gold Coast attracting nine dissenting Tipsters in its game against Adelaide, Richmond attracting eight in its Saturday Kangaroos contest, and Brisbane and West Coast attracting seven each in their contests against Carlton and Port Adelaide respectively.

Two of the other contests see unanimous support for the favourite Pies and Dockers, while the remaining matchups have no more than four Tipsters in the minority camp.

MARGIN PREDICTORS

In contrast to the Head-to-Head Tipsters, the Margin Predictors have much higher levels of dissent this week, their collective 6.6 points per game MAD the highest figure they've conspired to produce since Round 3. Three Predictors are the standout contributors to this spike, all three of them returning double-digit MADs.

C_Marg has the highest MAD of 15.5 points per game, filling the role of Predictor-most-different for the third time this season, while Combo_NN2 (10.4) and Combo_NN1 (10.3) have the two next-highest MADs. C_Marg and Combo_NN1, though both quite distant from the all-Predictor averages, are also quite distant from one another, which means that the 6 points that separates them at the top of the MatterOfStats Leaderboard at the start of the round is unlikely to be the margin that separates them at the end of it.

Combo_7, which sits in 3rd place on the Leaderboard, has the week's smallest MAD of just 2.4 points per game.

Only three games have generated MADs above the all-game average of 6.6 points, foremost amongst them the Carlton v Brisbane Lions game where Combo_NN1's 11-goal margin prediction has helped lift the MAD for this game above the two-goal mark. In the two other games with sizeable MADs, C_Marg's 45 point prediction for the size of the Dogs' win over the Saints, and Combo_NN2's 48 point prediction for the size of the Dockers' win over the Dons, have been the big drivers.

The Port Adelaide v West Coast game has created least dissent, with all Predictors forecasting margins within about a three-goal range from 13 to 30 points.

PROBABILITY PREDICTORS

You have to go back even further than for the Margin Predictors to find a higher level of disagreement amongst the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors than the figure they've returned this week. Their average MAD of 6.9% is the highest it's been since Round 2.

C_Prob is the main offender, its probability predictions different from the all-Predictor average by almost 14% points in each game. Most radical are its 36% assessment of the Roos' chances against the Tigers, and its 53% assessment of the Suns' chances against the Crows, though it's also the Predictor-most-different in the Pies v Cats, Dogs v Saints, Dockers v Dons, Blues v Lions, and Power v Eagles games. At the end of this round C_Prob will almost certainly either have considerably extended its lead over the pursuing Probability Predictors on the Leaderboard, or surrendered that lead entirely.

Whilst C_Prob does have the highest probability assessment for the Blues' chances over the Lions, it's by no means the only reason that this game carries a round-high MAD of almost 15% points per Predictor. The Head-to-Head pair have played a much bigger role in bolstering that number by assessing the Blues as only 40% chances. C_Prob is though mostly to blame for the near 10% point MAD in the Roos v Tigers game, and the 8% point MAD in the Suns v Crows game.

In line betting, the Line Fund algorithm has the Roos as its bet of the round, assessing them as 67% chances to collect. Four other teams are also rated by it as 60% or better chances: St Kilda (63%), Gold Coast (63%), West Coast (61%), and the Brisbane Lions (60%). Believe these assessments at your peril.