2015 - Round 24 : Four Close Finals

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Entering the Finals there's always a chance that the Funds will find the prices and handicaps on offer too unattractive to induce a wager, and this thought, coupled with the very subdued nature of the Funds' wagering over the later rounds of the Home and Away season, had me expecting a wagerless weekend.

Not for the first time this season though, the Funds surprised me (let's hope this time with a happier aftermath) both finding value in the two Elimination Finals. 

Bet sizes are kept low in the Finals, so there's not a lot at stake as you can see, but Investors can still be hopeful that, in the kindest of worlds, a little over a cent will be added back to the value of the much-depleted Overall Portfolio. 

The Western Bulldogs, who carry a slightly larger head-to-head wager and who enjoy a slightly higher price, can do Investors most good, a win by them by 3 points or more promising a 0.6c gain. A defeat, however, threatens a 0.7c loss. For their part, the Tigers, by winning by 8 points or more can add another 0.5c to the Overall Portfolio, but by losing will strip 0.7c from it.

HEAD-TO-HEAD TIPSTERS

(NB The C_Marg and C_Prob predictions in this and the following sections have been updated to reflect an error in their inputs.)

With the Heuristic Tipsters finished for another season (and, I'm thinking at this stage, probably not returning in 2016), MoS is left now with a paltry 20 Head-to-Head Tipsters. I guess we'll just have to make do.

Anyway, they're all mostly in agreement this week, with just two tipping an upset Eagles win, two an upset Crows win, and one, C_Marg in both instances, tipping upset Swans and Roos victories. 

C_Marg, in tipping upsets in two of the weekend's contests could lose its near unassailable two tip lead in Week 1 of the Finals. It's been brave on a number of occasions this season, so I suppose it's unrealistic to expect it to change its character now.

Combo_NN1 and Combo_NN2 are the only other Tipsters forecasting upsets and neither of them are really close enough to the leaders to have serious hopes of finishing near the top.

MARGIN PREDICTORS

We do still have our full complement of 19 Margin Predictors, and they're showing only slightly higher levels of disagreement. 

The all-Predictor Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD) is highest for the Fremantle v Sydney game, though it's only C_Marg that finds itself on the Swans' side of positive. What's driven the MAD up in this game is that, even amongst those tipping a Fremantle win, the projected margins range from 1 to 4 goals.

It's the game with the most Predictors on the underdog's side of zero, however, that also has the round's smallest MAD, the Dogs v Crows game seeing four Predictors opting for a narrow Crows win and the entire field's predictions spanning just a 14-point range. 

C_Marg, though the Predictor Most Extreme in half of the contests, is not so extreme in its opinions to significantly imperil its 100-point lead on the MoS Leaderboard. Worst case it will see the gap to ENS_Greedy cut to about 67 points.

PROBABILITY PREDICTORS

C_Prob's lead amongst the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors would this week be most affected by a Fremantle victory, it assessing that eventuality as a 45% prospect where the Bookie trio assess it more in the 65-70% range.

That C_Prob assessment is what's made the MAD (7.5% points per Predictor) and the Range (35% points) for this game the largest of all four games this weekend. Friday's Eagles v Hawks and Sunday's Tigers v Roos games both have similar MADs (around 4% points per Predictor) and Ranges (17% points), while the Dogs v Crows game has the lowest MAD (2% points per Predictor) and narrowest Range (just 6% points).

The Line Fund algorithm has rated only one team's chances (Hawthorn's) as significantly above 50% in the line market this weekend, though it has assessed the Dogs' and Tigers' chances as sufficiently in excess of chance to make them both worth wagers. We'll see about the wisdom of that, I guess.