2015 - Round 12 : A Giants Upset Required

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Did I mention that the Line Fund doubles its bet size starting this week until the end of Round 23? Given its 15 and 26 record for the season so far - and 9 and 19 record excluding Round 1 - the timing of this increase doesn't seem especially propitious, but it is based on the Fund's historical successes around this time of year.

Mercifully, the Line Fund hasn't gone nuts with its now-larger allowance, restricting itself to two wagers, one on Richmond giving the Eagles 4.5 points start, and the other on GWS receiving just over two goals start and playing the Roos.

Four bets dot the Head-to-Head Fund's calendar, though two of those are mere rounding errors, an 0.2% wager on the Crows at $3.05, and an 0.1% wager on Carlton at $3.55. More significant is the 0.7% wager on the Tigers at $1.70, and most significant of all is the 2% wager on GWS at $2.60.

GWS then, carries the week's largest upside (4c) and largest downside (3.8c), while Richmond could add 2.9c to the value of the Overall Portfolio, or take 3.3c from it, depending on whether or not it can, firstly, win and, secondly and preferably, win by 5 points or more.

In total, this week's wager-load represents a maximum upside of 7.1c and a maximum downside of 7.2c.

HEAD-TO-HEAD TIPSTERS

The weather forecast is for continued high levels of disagreement amongst the Head-to-Head Tipsters, this week's overall Disagreement Index coming in at 22%, which is about the same as last week's high figure and the fourth-highest figure of the season.

Two games are generating particularly high levels of debate, the Tigers v Eagles matchup where 11 Tipsters form the minority support base for the Eagles (though none are from the best-performed Tipsters), and the Giants v Roos game where the Tipsters are split 15-all (and all of the best-performed Tipsters are tipping a Roos victory).

Home Sweet Home once again has the week's largest Disagreement Index of 50%, while Easily Impressed I and II, and Short Term Memory II have all registered the next-largest Index value of 36%.

The top 6 Tipsters on the MatterOfStats Leaderboard have predicted all six favourites will win, which provides C_Marg with an opportunity to move just one tip behind the outright leaders should both the Eagles and the Giants win their respective matches.

MARGIN PREDICTORS

In contrast with the Head-to-Head Tipsters, the Margin Predictors have this week recorded their lowest collective Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD) since Round 4. Only in the Dogs v Lions, and Cats v Dees games is the overall MAD higher than a goal.

C_Marg is very much the Predictor Most Extreme this week, most notably in the Tigers v Eagles game where it predicts an Eagles win by 23 points, a prediction some 20 points greater than that of any other Predictor. It's also forecast a 46-point Dogs victory, which is a 19 points higher victory margin than has been suggested by any other Predictor. 

The next-highest MADs belong to Combo_NN1 and Bookie_3, Combo_NN1 being the Predictor Most Extreme in the Giants v Roos game, and Bookie_3 the Predictor Most Extreme in the Crows v Hawks, and the Blues v Power matchups.

RSMP_Weighted, the current MoS leader on Mean Absolute Error (MAE) is most different from the all-Predictor average in the last two games of the round, being about 7 points higher than the mean in the Dogs v Lions game, and about 8 points higher in the Cats v Dees game.

PROBABILITY PREDICTORS

All but two of the Probability Predictors are this week almost of the same mind in terms of their probability assessments, this extremely high level of agreement being reflected in the week's all-Predictor MAD of 4.5% points per game per Predictor, the lowest overall MAD for a round this season.

The largest MAD is in the Tigers v Eagles game, though that 7.3% figure is almost entirely due to C_Prob's extraordinarily low assessment of the Tigers' chances. It rates the Tigers some 30 to 35% points less likely to win than does any other Predictors. 

C_Prob is only partly responsible for the next-highest MAD, which is the 6% figure for the Giants v Roos game, this figure also being elevated by the demarcation between the Bookie trio of Predictors and the WinPred, ProPred and two H2H Predictor quartet. 

It's C_Prob again though that's driving the MAD in the Dogs v Lions game, in the Crows v Hawks game, and, somewhat, in the Blues v Power contest. No surprise then that C_Prob has by far the largest MAD of all the Predictors this week, which at 12.4% is more than double the next-highest MAD of 5.9% recorded by WinPred.

As usual, small MADs have been recorded for all three of the Predictors that sit atop the MoS Leaderboard - Bookie-OE, Bookie-RE, and Bookie-LPSO. All three have, in fact, set new season low MADs this week, all three going under 3% points for the first time this season.

The Line Fund algorithm assesses Melbourne's line betting prospects as the best of all the team's this week. It has them as 59% chances to win, a little better than the Giants' and the Lions' 55% chances, and the Tigers' 54% chances.

DISAGREEMENT PROFILE

You can see just how low in historical terms those Bookie-based Probability Predictor MADs are this week by reviewing the table below showing the MADs for every Predictor every week.

Conformity with the consensus is becoming less-and-less performance enhancing amongst the Margin Predictors however, the correlation between the 11 weekly-average MADs and the 11 weekly-average MAEs now standing at just +0.07. The correlation between Disagreement Index and Accuracy is -0.44 amongst the Head-to-Head Tipsters, and between MAD and Probability Score is -0.58 amongst the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors.