MAFL 2010 : Round 21 Results

Teams, I suppose, finish last for a reason.

And so it was with the Eagles on Sunday afternoon, who appeared to be oblivious to the importance that most MAFL Investors were placing on the outcome of their clash with the Roos. Going into that game, Investors with the Recommended Portfolio were up by about 1.3% on the round and only needed a win by the Eagles - or, worst case, a loss by 6 points or fewer - to finish the weekend in the black.

But the Eagles couldn't land the result, so the Recommended Portfolio finished down by about 0.5%, leaving that Portfolio down by a smidgeon over 10% on the season, with time very rapidly running out.

MIN#002's Portfolio managed a very small gain, rising by 0.6% to finish the weekend down just over 24% on the season. The MIN#017 Portfolio was not, however, as lucky, and shed almost another 7% this weekend, ending down by over 55% on the season.

Herewith, the latest Dashboard:

Amongst the losses, the Heuristic-Based Fund managed to spin a profit, thereby ensuring that Short-Term Memory I will retain control of it for the final round of the home-and-away season.

Moving next to tipping we find that we've a new leader on the MAFL Tipping Ladder. It's Follow The Streak, whose 6 from 8 took it to 110 from 168 (66%) for the season, leaving it one tip ahead of ELO, Silhouette, Easily Impressed II and Short-Term Memory II. The best performances came from Easily-Impressed I and Short-Term Memory I, each of which picked 7 of the 8 winners. BKB managed only 5 and still languishes 4 tips from the leader.

On average, the MAFL Tippers scored 5.15 correct tips each.

Four pairs of teams changed positions this week on the MARS Rating table: Hawthorn and Carlton swapped 5th and 6th, Adelaide and Fremantle swapped 8th and 9th, the Roos and Melbourne swapped 10th and 11th, and Port and Essendon swapped 13th and 14th. This leaves Adelaide in 8th on MARS with a rating of around 1,000, despite lying 12th on the competition ladder. This would suggest that they've had, in hindsight, a relatively tough draw.

Fremantle, meantime, sit 6th on the competition ladder, but 9th on MARS Ratings.

For the sixth successive round Mean Absolute Prediction Errors (MAPEs) generally rose. BKB still holds the lead on this metric and is now on 30.5 points per game, while LAMP (30.95) has reclaimed 2nd spot from ELO (31.06).

ELO and HAMP's Median APEs both rose this week. LAMP retained 1st position on 26.5 points, a whole point ahead of BKB and HAMP who now share 2nd.

HELP predicted just 3 from 8 line results this week, and was comprehensively out-tipped by the Super Smart Model, which snagged 7 from 8 (along with 6 from 8 on head-to-head tipping).

The Bookie Probability Model lost its only wager, which was 5% on Carlton. That leaves it up, notionally, by only 133% on the season. If only ...

MAFL 2010 : Round 21

The AFL contend that the Cats are taking on the Blues at home this Friday night. I contend that it's the Blues that are taking on the Cats at home.

When I made the decision to deem this game a Blues home game over 6 months ago, I had no idea quite how important it might prove to be for MAFL Investors. As a direct consequence of that decision, all but the New Heritage Fund were permitted only to wager on the Blues, and forbidden to wager on the Cats. Four of the Funds have taken this opportunity, which means that many Investors now own a large, egg-laden basket named "Carlton".

All told the Recommended Portfolio has 28 bets up for adjudication this weekend, and these total about 28% of the Fund. A quarter of those wagers are due to the New Heritage Fund - though it's the only Fund not wagering on the Blues - and these total over 60% of that Fund and carry a weighted average price of $1.37. The largest is 13.3% on Collingwood at the disturbingly short price of $1.03, and the riskiest is 6% on Port at $2.

The Heuristic-Based Fund is the next most active Fund, with Short-Term Memory I instructing it to place 6 wagers totalling 30% of the Fund at a weighted average price of $1.99. The riskiest of these is 5% on Carlton at $4.50.

Three other Funds have each made four wagers. Prudence's four total just over 20% of the Fund and have a weighted average price of $1.17. The largest bet is 6.6% on St Kilda at $1.08 and the riskiest is 1.5% on Port at $2. Shadow's another of the Funds with a quartet of wagers. Its four total exactly 20% of the Fund and sport a weighted average price of $2.15. It too has 5% on the Blues.

ELO also has four bets, each of 5%. Three of the four wagers are on teams receiving start -though two of these teams are receiving the minimum possible 6.5 point start and one of them is priced at $1.80 rather than the usual $1.90, so you could only call one of ELO's teams a genuine outsider.

Hope has only three bets, totalling 14% of the Fund, but they're at a weighted average price of $3.09, this average dragged up by a 6.1% wager on the Blues.

MIN#002 has these three Hope wagers as his weekend's action and MIN#017 has New Heritage's seven.

Here's the detail:

For the Recommended Portfolio, maximum upside - quite obviously - is tied to the Blues v Cats game (+10%), while maximum downside attaches to the St Kilda v Richmond matchup (-5.9%). The largest swing between best- and worst-possible results is also associated with the Blues v Cats game (13.2%).

MIN#002 also stands to gain most from a Blues victory (+17.5%).

MIN#017 will see his best result if West Coast beat the Roos (+6.2%), his worst result if Collingwood go down to Adelaide (-13.3%) and faces the largest swing between possible results of 14.6% on the Hawks v Freo game.

Here's the Ready Reckoner:

Whilst the Recommended Portfolio's array of wagers superficially looks balanced, this 'balance' is only achieved by the significant upside in the Blues v Cats game, roughly counter-balanced by the moderate downside in four other games and smaller downside in the remaining three.

I'm not sure that we should be relying on significant upsets to occur in Round 21 of the season, but that's what Investors with the Recommended Portfolio are faced with nonetheless.

To tipping then, where we find that the outcome of six of the contests is highly debated and that there's unanimity for the other two. The average number of dissenting MAFL tipsters per game is a high 4.25.

Here are the details:

• Geelong are 8-7 favourites over Carlton. The Margin Tippers are 5-0 in favour of the Cats and predict victory margins ranging from 19 to 30.5 points. The six best-performed MAFL Tipsters - Easily Impressed II, Follow The Streak, ELO, Silhouette, Consult The Ladder and Short-Term Memory II) are split 3-3.
• St Kilda are unanimous favourites over Richmond, the second week in a row that Richmond have been universally shunned by the MAFL tipsters. The Margin Tippers predict Saints victory margins of between 37 and 57 points.
• Hawthorn are 9-6 favourites over Fremantle. Once more the MAFL Tipsters are unanimous in their support and here they predict victory margins ranging from 12 to 38 points. The Top MAFL tipsters are split 4-2 in favour of Freo.
• Collingwood are unanimous favourites over Adelaide. The Margin Tippers tip the Pies by between 21 and 52.5 points.
• The Dogs are 10-5 favourites over the Swans, with the Margin Tippers split 4-1 in favour of the Dogs, LAMP the holdout tipping Sydney by 2 and having this as its Game of the Round. The largest predicted margin of victory by the Dogs is 17 points. The Top 6 tipsters favour the Dogs 5-1.
• Port Adelaide are 10-5 favourites over Melbourne, though the Margin Tippers favour the Dees 3-2. Chi tips Melbourne by 2, ELO Melbourne by 3, and HAMP Port by 1, making this the Game of the Round for all these tipsters. The Top 6 tipsters are also torn: they're split 3-3.
• Essendon are 9-6 favourites over the Lions, with the Margin Tippers unanimous in selecting the Dons, in this game by margins of between 5 and 15 points. The Top 6 tipsters are again split 3-3.
• The Roos are 10-5 favourites over West Coast. The Margin Tippers favour the Roos 3-2, and BKB has this as its Game of the Round. Predicted margins range from the Roos by 5 to West Coast by 6. Five of the Top 6 tipsters pick the Roos.

The Super Smart Model agrees with three of the four ELO wagers this week, disagreeing only with ELO's belief that 43.5 points start for Richmond won't be enough. SSM reckons that Richmond need another point.

Here's SSM's view of the entire round:

SSM's head-to-head tips are consistent with the majority opinion of the MAFL Tipsters except for the Dogs v Swans game, where SSM likes the Swans, and the West Coast v Roos game, where SSM favours the Eagles in a tight one.

With a hint of solidarity, the Bookie Probability Model recommends just one wager this week: 5% on Carlton. Even if the Blues don't win this weekend, I think it's fair to say that the MAFL Funds, as a whole, saw value in them at $4.50.

Lastly, the HELP line predictions.

Julia +10.5 Seats

Julia Gillard's in an unusual position this weekend. She can take either side of a wager and probably be happy whether it wins or it loses.

You too can participate in the wager, but it requires that you weigh up the relative merits of an incumbent and a wannabe Prime Minister alongside those of two footy teams vying for positions in the 8.

Perplexed? Well here are two bets that TAB Sportsbet are currently offering:

So, one way or another, Julia's team wins the bet.

It's a mystery to me how anyone could sensibly go about framing a market for this wager, but I guess TAB Sportsbet are hoping that the smart money will know a lot about psephology or a lot about footy, but not a lot about both.

To provide you with just a little of the data you might want if you're considering a wager in this most exotic of markets:

• Labor currently holds 83 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives, the Libs hold 55, the Nats 10, and Independents hold 2. So, if nothing changes, a line of ALP +10.5 gives the ALP 93.5 somethings (adjusted seats? footy-equivalent seats?)
• The Dogs have averaged just under 100 points per game this season and scored 101 points when they last played the Swans, at Manuka in Round 8. So, without adjusting for the fact that the Dogs are playing the Swans and are playing away, a line of Dogs -10.5 is likely to be something around 89.5 somethings

So, if the Dogs kick one goal more than their expectation or if Labor drop a goal's worth of marginals then the line bet favours the Dogs.

Me, I'll not be venturing a wager. I know that footy's hard to model; politics, I reckon, is nigh on impossible.

MAFL 2010 : Round 20 Results

Meh.

It's weekends like this one that make me remember a conversation that took place between two of my then team-members outside my office one morning some years ago when things were busy and nerves were generally a little frayed.

One team member, arriving at the desk of the other and clearly unhappy about something that had come to his attention in the last 12 milliseconds or so - the approximate time I imagine it had taken him to traverse the distance between his desk and his colleague's - felt obliged to 'share' his unhappiness with the desk's owner who patiently listened for about a minute and then delivered this gem, part parental, part 'get a grip': "Calm down. Nobody's died; nobody's been hurt".

And so it was this weekend for MAFL Investors, though a few might well feel that their chances of a profitable season did die at least a little over the course of proceedings.

All told, the Recommended Portfolio shed 7% to be down by just under 10% on the season, and MIN#002's Portfolio dropped 11.5% to be down by almost 25% on the season. MIN#017's Portfolio fell least of all, by just 0.1%, but is still down by almost 50% on the season and must surely now have chances for attaining profitability roughly equal to the chances of West Coast avoiding the Spoon.

Whilst five results contributed to the loss suffered by the Recommended Portfolio, I hold Freo and the Lions most culpable for the outcome. Together, their losses meant the difference between an increase of a couple of percent and the Fund's eventual 7% loss, and both teams had ample opportunity to win the games that they ultimately lost.

Anyway, here's the latest Dashboard:

That's now two weeks of losses in a row for the Heuristic-Based Fund, so another loss in Round 21 would see Short-Term Memory cede control of the Fund to another heuristic for the final week of the home-and-away season. At this point Easily Impressed I would be that heuristic as it has the best season-long level-stake home team only wagering performance.

Enough talk of wagering and loss, let's move on to MAFL Tipping.

Easily Impressed II scored just 4 from 8 this week, but that was enough to for it to hold outright 1st on the MAFL Tipping table. It's now on 105 from 160 (66%), one tip ahead of Consult The Ladder (which recorded 7 from 8, the week's best result), ELO, Follow The Streak, Silhouette, and Short-Term Memory II. BKB scored 6 from 8 this week but still finds itself four tips off the pace.

On average, the MAFL Tippers scored 4.69 correct tips in Round 20, which is about 0.2 tips better than their collective performance in Round 19.

Only four teams changed positions on the MARS Rating table. Geelong grabbed 1st spot from Collingwood, despite both teams winning handsomely in their respective encounters. Geelong, however, defeated a 1,040+ rated team, while the Pies trounced a team rated around 977, so the similarly-sized victory margins were quite rightly differentially rewarded in terms of MARS Rating points. Both teams are now rated the highest they've been all season.

Sydney and Freo were the other teams to swap MARS positions, with Sydney's victory over Freo being enough to propel them ahead of Freo and into 7th spot on the MARS ladder.

Season-long Mean Absolute Prediction Errors (MAPEs) took another beating this weekend, so much so that, for the first time this year, all Margin Tippers have MAPEs above 30. BKB retains the lead on the MAPE measure, however, and ELO is now 2nd having moved ahead of LAMP by dint of going backwards more slowly.

Median APEs were for the most part unaffected by the weekend's result, the only exception being LAMP's Median APE, which rose by half a point. Nonetheless, LAMP still leads on this metric, with HAMP and ELO still sharing 2nd.

HELP recorded its worst line-betting result of the season, correctly predicting just 1 from 8 results - a performance which, I can hear my Dad proclaim, "You couldn't do if you tried". (Of course if you could achieve this result intentionally, you'd be far better flipping your predictions and bagging 7 from 8, so the point here is probably moot, but never mind.)

To complete the tale of woe, SSM fared little better on line tipping, scoring just 2 from 8, and even our only notionally wagering model, the Bookie Probability Model, would have lost money this weekend, despite landing two of its three wagers. SSM did though manage 6 from 8 on head-to-head tipping.

MAFL 2010 : Round 20

How nice it is to be at this late stage of the season and still have six of the eight games with some effect on the composition of the final 8.

The Port v West Coast and Brisbane v Adelaide matchups are the two exceptions - though mathematically even Port and Adelaide still have the faintest glimmer of a sliver of hope (if you believe the results of my simulations in an earlier blog, which estimated them both as about 1,000/1 chances to snatch 8th).

As attractive as the games are from a spectating vantage point, they're also quite attractive from a wagering perspective, or at least they are as far as the Recommended Portfolio is concerned, which has put more than 20% of the Portfolio at risk for the fifth successive round.

This total comes from 28 individual wagers, five from all the Funds except Prudence, which has placed only three bets.

New Heritage's five bets represent the largest proportion of any Fund at risk (31.5%), though at a weighted average price of $1.53 they also carry the least risk. The largest wager from New Heritage is 11.4% on Carlton at $1.30 and the riskiest is 0.7% on West Coast at $2.80.

Shadow and the Heuristic-Based Funds have exactly the same wagers this week, which total 25% of the respective Fund and which have a weighted average price of $1.63. For both Funds the riskiest wager is 5% on the Dogs at $2.10.

ELO's five wagers also sum to one quarter of the Fund. Three are on underdogs and two are on favourites. The wager on the Dons was something of a surprise since, based on their head-to-head price, I expected them to receive only 39.5 points start not 41.5, which was the minimum start at which ELO would consider a wager on the home team.

Hope's five total 21% of the Fund but carry the extraordinarily high weighted average price of $3.76, due mainly to a 6.4% wager on the Dons at $6.25 and a 5.9% wager on the Roos at $3.75. This Fund has become progressively more active over the past five rounds, wagering 9%, 11%, 16%, 19%, and now 21% across these rounds.

Prudence's three bets are for about 9% of the Fund and have a weighted average price of $1.53. The largest and riskiest of the three bets is 4.1% on the Hawks at $1.68.

MIN#002, as always, has the Hope wagers as his weekend worry and MIN#017 is similarly burdened with New Heritage's impetuosity.

Here's the detail:

For the Recommended Portfolio, maximum upside is vested in the Essendon v Collingwood game (7.2%). This game also represents the largest swing between win and loss (9.0%), while the Carlton v Richmond game carries maximum downside (4.9%) for this Portfolio.

MIN#002 has most to gain if the Dogs beat the Cats (5.5%) and also faces the largest swing (10.5%) from this same game.

MIN#017 wants the Hawks to beat the Dees, since this carries a 5.8% upside, and for Carlton to beat Richmond, as this avoids an 11.4% loss. Two games carry almost exactly the same swing (14.8%) for this Portfolio: Carlton v Richmond and Fremantle v Sydney.

Here's the Ready Reckoner:

If the Recommended Portfolio were to lose its first three wagers this weekend it would need the remaining five results to be favourable if it were to (almost) breakeven on the round. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

In my never-ending quest to find a way of summarising the implications of the result of each game on profitability, here's another attempt:

Each block represents the profitability that would result for the Recommended Portfolio from the outcome of the eight games. The greener the block, the greater the profitability, and the redder the block, the larger the loss.

At the top and sides of the chart are labels of the form nX - where n is a number from 1 to 8 and X is the letter A, B or C - which designate the outcome of a particular game. So, for example, the block under the 1A heading are the possible returns that would ensue if Essendon were to win on Friday night. (The mapping of codes to games appears at the base of the chart). As the weekend progresses, the relevant patch of possible outcomes will shrink until, eventually, one remains, that being the one pertaining to the eight results we've witnessed.

You can see immediately from this chart how important a Dons victory is for the profitability hopes of the Recommended Portfolio. If the Dons win then we'll spend the remainder of the weekend bouncing around in the lefthand third of the chart, which is mostly veldt-like in its greenness.

If, instead, the Dons were to lose head-to-head, but win on line betting, then our weekend will be confined to the semi-arid middle third, and if the Pies were to win and cover the spread then we're faced with an equally unappealling weekend in the righthand third.

Were the first three results to go 1C, 2C, 3B then we'd be destined to finish somewhere in the three rightmost columns none of which contains a patch of green.

Anyway, on to tipping, about which there's much less divergence of opinion this week, though there's unanimity in only one game. The average number of dissenting MAFL tipsters per game is only 2.5.

Here are the details:

• Collingwood are 14-1 favourites over Essendon. The Margin Tippers are 5-0 in favour of the Pies and predict victory margins ranging from 11 to 41.5 points. The four best-performed MAFL Tipsters - Easily Impressed II, Follow The Streak, Silhouette and Short-Term Memory II) all tip the Pies.
• Carlton are unanimous favourites over Richmond, with the Margin Tippers predicting victory margins of between 17 and 39 points.
• Fremantle are 12-3 favourites over the Swans. Once more the MAFL Tipsters are unanimous in their support. Predicted victory margins range from 9 to 20 points. The Top MAFL tipsters are split 3-1 in favour of Freo, the holdout being Follow the Streak, which prefers Sydney's 1 in a row to Freo's none.
• The Dogs are 12-3 favourites over Geelong, though for this game the Margin Tippers are divided in their support, three opting for the Dogs and two (BKB and HAMP) siding with the Cats. Predicted margins range from Geelong by 2 - assuming that the bookie's $1.75 price for the Cats implies a notional 1.5 points start - to the Dogs by 8. Four of the Margin Tipsters have this as their Game of the Round: HAMP, tipping Geelong by 2; LAMP, tipping the Dogs by 4; Chi, tipping the Dogs by 6; and ELO, tipping the Dogs by 8. The Top 4 tipsters all tip the Dogs.
• Port are 14-1 favourites over the Eagles, and all five Margin Tippers are supporting Port. They predict victory margins of between 10 and 26 points. The Top 4 tipsters all side with Port too.
• Brisbane are 12-3 favourites over Adelaide, with all but ELO amongst the Margin Tippers predicting a Lions victory. Margin predictions range from Adelaide by 7 to Brisbane by 12 points. The bookies have Brisbane at $1.80, making this BKB's Game of the Round. The Top 4 tipsters are split 3-1 on this game, Silhouette being the lone dissenter tipping a Crows victory.
• Melbourne, facing the Hawks, are the narrowest of favourites, garnering support from eight of the 15 tipsters. All five Margin Tippers predict the Hawks will win, by margins between 6.5 and 19 points. The Top 4 tipsters all favour the Dees.
• St Kilda are 13-2 favourites over the Roos. The Margin Tippers favour the Saints 4-1, Chi being the holdout tipping the Roos. Predicted margins range from the Roos by 17 to the Saints by 22. In Chi's defence he is on new medication for his heart murmur this week, so perhaps it's clouded his judgement. (Unfortunately, this excuse doesn't really work retrospectively, so you'll have to come up with your own ideas to explain the other 19 rounds of his tips.) The Top 4 tipsters are unanimous in their support of the Saints.

The Super Smart Model agrees with just three of the five ELO wagers this week, the first three as it happens, leaving them at odds on the line results for the Melbourne v Hawthorn and St Kilda v Roos games.

Here's SSM's view of the entire round:

SSM's head-to-head tips are consistent with the majority opinion of the MAFL Tipsters except for the Dogs v Cats game, where SSM likes the Cats, and the Melbourne v Hawthorn game, where SSM favours the Hawks, albeit narrowly.

The Bookie Probability Model recommends three wagers in the round: 6.3% on Carlton, 6% on the Dogs, and 0.5% on Hawthorn.

Lastly, the HELP line predictions.

MAFL 2010 : Round 19 Results

The only conclusion that a reasonable person could reach is that the Recommended Portfolio, concerned about causing undue alarm, has determined the best way to prepare the TAB Sportsbet bookie for its eventual profitability is to do so very, very slowly.

After Friday night's game, in which the Dons capitulated to the Blues and failed to protect their 6.5 point start, the Recommended Portfolio was down by about 1.5%. Then, over the course of Saturday the Portfolio essentially marked time, nudging the deficit for the weekend up only a fraction, so that Investors went into Sunday still down, now by about 1.4%.

Sunday started perfectly, with the Saints and Melbourne both winning and covering their respective spreads, leaving it all to the Crows, whose desperation for a spot in the eight should surely have been enough, to finally drag the Portfolio into profit. But the Crows fell 8 points short, leaving the Recommended Portfolio up by just 1.2% on the weekend, and still 2.9% short of breakeven for the season.

MIN#002 also made a profit (3.4%), leaving his Portfolio priced at around 87c, and MIN#017 saw his Portfolio rise by 4.1% taking his Portfolio price above 50c for the first time since Round 15.

Here's the latest Dashboard:

Usually the best and worst MAFL Tipster performance span a range of two, maybe three, tips. This week they span five, from Silhouette's seven to Easily Impressed I's two.

Silhouette's performance was enough to drag it into equal 3rd on the MAFL Tipster table on 99 from 152 (65%). Ahead of it, in 1st, is Easily Impressed II on 101 (66%) and Short-Term Memory II in 2nd on 100 (66%).

BKB managed just 4 for the weekend, taking it to 95 (62.5%) for the season and relegating it to equal 3rd-last position. Over the past four rounds, favourite-tipping has yielded just 15.5 winners from 32 games, some four tips worse than what could have been achieved by someone merely consulting the most recent football ladder pre-round and then selecting the team higher on it.

On average, MAFL Tipsters scored 4.5 from 8 for the week.

Positions on the MARS Rating table were once again highly-tradeable commodities this weekend, as 10 of the 16 teams decided they didn't like the spot they already had. Five teams climbed and five fell. Collingwood and Carlton climbed most, ascending two places each, Collingwood into 1st and Carlton into 5th.

Essendon was the only team to fall multiple places. They dropped two spots into 13th.

There are now eight teams rated above 1,000 on MARS Ratings and these are the same eight teams that occupy the top eight spots on the competition ladder, though in a different order. The Top 3 teams on MARS Ratings, which were separated by only about 4 Rating Points before the round, are now separated by just 1.5 points.

All Margin Tippers saw their Mean Absolute Prediction Error rise this week, which left the top 3 places unchanged and occupied by BKB, LAMP and ELO. LAMP, however, suffered a smaller MAPE increase than BKB and so is now only 0.22 points per game behind.

The Median Absolute Prediction Errors for Chi, ELO and LAMP all rose by 0.5 points, while BKB's and HAMP's remained unchanged, which allowed HAMP to join ELO in equal 2nd on 27 points, behind LAMP on 26.

HELP this week recorded its third successive 5 from 8 performance and is now only one tip behind the result you could rightfully have expected had you tossed a coin each week to determine your line bets. HELP's Probability Scores are all still manifestly sub-naive.

In contrast, SSM continues to tantalise. It correctly tipped 6 of the 8 line results this week and now has a 56.6% season-long record. (Last week I think I might have quoted SSM's 2006-2010 record when I gave this statistic as 54.5%).

The Bookie Probability Model's lone wager for the round, which was 2.4% on the Swans, was also successful.

MAFL 2010 : Round 17

First, some good news.

Back in Round 14, Investors in the Recommended Portfolio had a line bet on the Saints, who played Melbourne at Dockland. In the Bet Summary for the week I had the Saints giving the Dees 35.5 points start, which meant that their eventual 100-65 victory was a half-point short of covering the spread, a fact that I seem to recall lamenting at some length, certainly in the conversations that I had in the following week, and probably in the blog too (which I'm not of a mind to review at the moment).

Well every couple of weeks I reconcile the TAB's view of our finances with the view that I maintain via a spreadsheet and in performing this reconciliation I discovered that the Saints were actually giving 32.5 rather than 35.5 points start. So, our line bet was a winner and I can report that this skyrockets the Recommended Portfolio price up by 1c. It now stands at 91.3c.

Recommended Portfolio holders would do well to bear in mind that they're a little wealthier than they thought they were when they started reading this blog, as they review this week's assortment of wagers.

In total, there are 27 of them representing over one-quarter of Total Initial Funds. New Heritage owns seven of them, which together represent about 60% of that Fund and which have been wagered at a weighted average price of $1.29. This relatively low weighted average is due partly to the fact that the two largest New Heritage wagers are at prices of $1.10 or lower.

Including this week's 60% contribution, every dollar in the Heritage Fund has now been wagered 5.6 times. Unfortunately, so far it's only come back a little over 5 times.

The Heuristic-Based Fund has made 5 bets totalling 25% of the Fund with a weighted average price of $1.35. The average price is boosted by its largest wager, which is on the Eagles at $1.90 who are narrow underdogs in their game with the Blues.

ELO-Line also has 5 wagers representing 25% of the Fund. Four of these wagers are on favourites giving start, and one is on an underdog receiving start.

Prudence has made 4 selections totalling 21% of the Fund and, true to its name, has secured a weighted average price of $1.17, due largely to the fact that its 2 largest wagers are, like the New Heritage Fund, on teams priced at $1.10 or below.

Shadow is the next most active Fund with 3 wagers totalling 15% of the Fund. These are at a weighted average price of $1.18, only fractionally higher than Prudence's and this only because Shadow's largest wager is on the Roos at $1.40.

That leaves only the Hope Fund, which has ventured just 3 wagers for 11% of the Fund this week though these have been placed at a weighted average price of $2, the highest of all the Funds due largely to a wager on the Dees at $2.25.

These Hope bets are also the wagers for MIN#002, and those of the New Heritage Fund are the wagers of MIN#017.

Here's the detail:

Key matches this weekend for those with the Recommended Portfolio are the St Kilda v Hawthorn game (which offers a round-high 1.9% upside), the Geelong v Lions game (which carries a round-high 6.0% downside and a near round-high 6.8% swing), and the Collingwood v Richmond game (which carries a round-high 6.9% swing).

MIN#002 cares most about the Roos v Essendon game as it represents for him both the largest possible gain (+2.0%) and the largest swing between potential win and potential loss (-7.0%).

MIN#017 faces five games for which the potential swing is 14% or more. The St Kilda v Hawthorn game offers the greatest upside of just under 6%, the Cats v Lions game threatens the largest loss at just over 13%, and the swing between the best and worst possible outcomes is greatest for the Roos v Dons clash where the difference is almost 15% (though this is only a tad higher than the swing for the Dogs v Freo game).

So the week's Ready Reckoner, as Russian Roulette, is startlingly unbalanced with respect to upside and downside risk for all Investors:

What better way to emphasise for Recommended Portfolio holders the disparity between potential profit and possible loss for most of this week's games than to construct a visual representation (aka a chart) of the Ready Reckoner?

(Games where there are two bars of equal length are those in which Investors have either no head-to-head bet or no line bet. As such Investors' return is unchanged by the result on whichever market they have no stake in.)

MAFL Tipsters are unanimous or near to it for five of this week's games and almost 50-50 split on the remaining three contests.

Here are the details:

• St Kilda are 8-7 favourites over Hawthorn. All five Margin Tippers predict a Saints victory, by margins ranging from 7.5 to 20 points, while Easily Impressed I and II, the leading MAFL tipsters, both tip a Hawks win.
• Collingwood are unanimous favourites over the Tigers, with the Margin Tippers predicting Pies wins by between 14 and 58 points.
• Geelong are unanimous favourites over the Lions, making this the second week in a row that the MAFL Tipsters have been united in discounting the Lions' chances. The Margin Tippers predict victory margins in the 22 to 52 point range.
• The Kangaroos are 13-2 favourites over Essendon. Once again the Margin Tippers are unanimous in their support, though for this game their predicted victory margins span a narrow range of 15 to 23 points. Easily Impressed I and II are split on this game's outcome.
• Carlton are 9-6 favourites over the Eagles. This is the first game for which the Margin Tippers disagree about the likely result, with three predicting a Carlton win and two an Eagles win. HAMP tips West Coast by 1 point, making this its Game of the Round, which it also is for BKB. Easily Impressed I and II are split on this game too.
• The Dogs are 10-5 favourites over Fremantle, though all five Margin Tippers are on the Dogs with predicted margins ranging from 15 to 28 points. Easily Impressed I and II both predict wins by the Dogs.
• Sydney are 13-2 favourites over Melbourne. Four of the five Margin Tippers predict Sydney victories, including ELO, which tips a 13 point Swans win, and Chi, who tips a 4 point Swans victory, making this both tipsters' Game of the Round. LAMP predicts a 1 point Melbourne win and also has this as its Game of the Round. Easily Impressed I and II both predict Sydney wins.
• Adelaide are 14-1 favourites over Port, with the Margin Tippers again unanimous in their support. Predicted margins range from 10 to 24 points. Easily Impressed I and II both predict Adelaide victories.

Here's a chart that might help you decide whether or not to take heed of any of that. It shows the cumulative tipping performance of the MAFL Tipsters as at the end of Rounds 11 and 16.

You'll recall that I'm field-testing two new algorithms for next season: a Bookie Probability Model (BPM) that will bet head-to-head on home teams only, and a Super Smart Model (SSM) that will bet on the line market.

BPM this week recommends only one bet: 1.2% on Adelaide, which it sees as value at $3.75. (Actually it also recommends a second bet on St Kilda, but the recommended size is 0.02%, which means that you'd need a bank of $5,000 in order for this recommendation to equate to the minimum allowed $1 wager. I think it's fair to deem a 0.02% recommended bet as somewhat below the level of 'who cares'.)

Here's what SSM makes of the round:

SSM agrees with only one of ELO's five bets, that on the Dogs, and disagrees with those on the Saints, Pies, Cats and Port. SSM would also have wagered on the Roos, the Dees and the Eagles, all of which selections would meet ELO's home-team-only wagering constraint. Well with that level of disagreement we certainly won't be running both ELO-Line and SSM next season.

HELP has come up with a more sensible set of probability assessments this week and has also gone with a balanced 4 home and 4 away team split:

MAFL 2010 : Round 16 Results

If ever you wanted evidence to support the aphorism that it's unwise to pre-emptorily enumerate your poultry, Sunday afternoon's Fremantle v Melbourne game is it.

At the first change Freo had already covered the spread, up 31 points facing just a 26.5 point handicap (which, of course, we'd conceded). By half time, Freo had extended its lead to 39 points and I was mentally adding the value of a Fremantle head-to-head and line win to the weekly tally. But then the Dees rallied, kicking the first 6 goals of the third term before heading into the sheds at three-quarter time just 8 points down, then closing within a kick for large portions of the final term, only to fall short by 11 points.

So, the Recommended Portfolio chalked up a small profit on this game, adding to the small profit accrued across the seven earlier games, to leave it up 1.7% for the weekend and now down just 9.7% for the season.

It'd all started so much more positively for the Recommend Portfolio, however, with the first three contests producing the required results, including underdog wins by the Crows and the Pies. Essendon started the nonsense after starting promisingly to lead 26 to 9 mid way through the first term of their game, before allowing 6 goals in each of the next two terms and eventually going down by over 5 goals to the bottom-of-the-table Eagles.

The Dogs then narrowly did what was asked of them, winning and covering the spread by just 3.5 points, before Richmond nodded off in the third term of their game, kicking just one behind to the Roos' 5.3, triggering a 50-point loss that was as expensive to Investors as it was to the Tigers' finals aspirations (if they had any).

Still, at least the Recommended Portfolio moved a mite closer to season-long profitability, which is something that can't be said of MIN#002's portfolio, which dropped 1.9%, and MIN#017's portfolio, which dropped 5.4%.

Here's the latest Dashboard with all the details.

The Heuristic-Based and ELO-Line Funds both ventured further into profitable territory this week and these Funds remain the only two that have been profitable across the season. Hope and Prudence are though within just a few cents of that same exalted status. Amongst the other Funds, Shadow probably needs a few weeks of solid profitably to reach the magic $1 price point, and New Heritage requires - well, let's just call it an extended run of favourable outcomes (sorry MIN#017).

On tipping, Easily Impressed II and Ride Your Luck produced the weekend's best performances, each bagging 6 from 8, which was enough to drag Easily Impressed II into joint leadership of the MAFL Tipping Competition alongside Easily Impressed I on 85.5/128 or about 67%. BKB had a terrible round, scoring just 3 from 8, consigning it to equal third-last.

Positions on the MARS Ratings table were swapped like guernseys at a Grand Final this week, as every team but Geelong and St Kilda found themselves in a different ladder position to that which they occupied at the commencement of the round.

Hawthorn and West Coast were the week's biggest climbers, jumping two places to 5th and 14th respectively, while Carlton were easily the week's biggest fallers, dropping three places to 9th as a result of losing to the Swans by 39 points.

Other climbers were Collingwood, Sydney, Adelaide, the Roos and Melbourne, and other fallers were the Dogs, Lions, Freo, Essendon, Port and Richmond.

Nine teams are still rated over 1,000, and the gap between 9th and 10th is a little over 16 Ratings points.

With so many upset and sizeable wins this weekend, all Margin Tippers suffered. Every Margin Tipper's Mean APE declined, by amounts ranging from 0.4 to 0.7 points, leaving BKB remaining in 1st position on this metric and LAMP and HAMP in 2nd and 3rd, HAMP nudging ELO into 4th.

With the exception of HAMP, Margin Tippers' Median APEs also rose this week. This left LAMP leading on this metric and ELO and HAMP in joint 2nd.

HELP recorded 4 from 8 on line betting - the same score that the Super Smart Model recorded - and generated probability scores of no particular note.

The Super Smart Model recorded a Mean APE for the round of just over 39 points per game, which is virtually identical to the MAPE recorded by BKB, so there's nothing much to write about there either.

The Bookie Probability Model's two home-team wagers on the Crows and the Pies would both have been successful.

To finish, I'll note that this season continues to be one in which the benefits of leading are manifest. In only 15 of the 127 games so far in which there has been a clear winner has that winner not been the team leading at 3-quarter time, and in only one more game has that winner been tied at three-quarter time. What's more, no team has been rundown after leading by 3 goals or more at three-quarter time, and only 3 teams have been rundown after leading by 3 goals or more at half-time, and only 2 after leading by 3 or more goals at quarter-time.

MAFL 2010 : Round 16

Faced with six home team favourites Investors could easily have been facing another dose of high risk, low potential return wagering this weekend, but a combination of moderate wagers on the two at-home underdogs and larger wagers on some of the more attractively priced at-home favourites has resulted in a far more balanced portfolio of wagers, at least for those with the Recommended Portfolio.

New Heritage is back to its profligate ways, finding six teams sufficiently to its liking to risk 60% of the Fund on them. Its four largest wagers are on teams priced in the $1.15 to $1.40 range, however, so it'd be fairer to call it brave rather than suicidal.

The Heuristic-Based Fund, currently entrusted to the Short-Term Memory I heuristic, is the next-most active Fund, making five wagers totalling 25% of the Fund. Four of these wagers are on favourites and one is on an underdog. Prudence has also made five bets but its five represent a marginally smaller 24% of its Fund. In keeping with its name, Prudence has outlaid money only on favourites.

Shadow has made four wagers totalling 20% of the Fund, all on favourites also, and ELO's made three wagers totalling 15%, two on teams giving start and one on a team receiving it.

Hope is this week's, and indeed this season's, least active Fund. It's made just two bets totalling 9% of the Fund, though one of these is a weekend-defining 5.9% on Adelaide at $3.75 facing the Cats at Football Park on Friday night.

Hope's two bets represent the entirety of MIN#002's wagering activity this week, while New Heritage's six represent MIN#017's weekend pleasure and pain.

For those with the Recommended Portfolio the 25 wagers represent about 27% of the entire Fund.

Here's the detail:

For Investors with the Recommended Portfolio the weekend's key matches are Adelaide v Geelong, which is the matchup offering the largest potential gain, and the Dogs v Port game, which represents both the largest possible loss and the largest swing between potential win and potential loss. In truth though, all the games except Collingwood v St Kilda and Carlton v Sydney matter to those with the Recommended Portfolio this weekend as all of them carry potential swings of 5.5% or more.

MIN#002 cares most about the Essendon v West Coast game, as it represents for him both the largest possible gain and the largest swing between potential win and potential loss.

MIN#017 faces six games for which the potential swing is 12% or more. Only the Adelaide v Geelong and Carlton v Sydney games don't meet this description. The Collingwood v St Kilda and Richmond v Roos games offer about a 6% upside, the Dogs v Port game threatens a potential 12.5% loss, and the swing between the best and worst possible outcomes is greatest for the Dons v Eagles clash where the difference is almost 15%.

Here's the Ready Reckoner:

For those with the Recommended Portfolio, the profitability equation is a simple one this week: the results in at least five of the seven games need to go their way.

Tipsters, if those in MAFL can be considered a reliable guide, face a difficult time with three of the weekend's games. Two more of the games wold appear to require some thought, and the remaining three are the proverbial no-brainers.

Here are the details:

• Geelong are 9-6 favourites over Adelaide. All five Margin Tippers are on the Cats and are predicting victory margins between 3 and 23 points. ELO is the tipster at the top of the range and, by tipping the Cats by 23 points, passed on the opportunity to make a line bet on Adelaide by just half a point. ELO aside, the other competition leading MAFL tipsters - Easily Impressed I, Short Term Memory I and Follow The Streak - are all tipping a Crows win.
• St Kilda are 9-6 favourites over the Pies. In this game, the Margin Tippers are split 3-2 in favour of the Pies, though two of the Margin Tippers opting for the Pies - HAMP and LAMP - have them winning by only 1 point making this their Game of the Round. The four leading MAFL tipsters are split 2-2 on this game.
• Hawthorn are unanimous favourites over the Lions. The Margin Tippers predict victory margins in the 21 to 28 point range, ELO this time being the low bid and therefore declining to wager on the Hawks by just one-and-a-half points.
• Essendon are unanimous favourites over West Coast. Once again the range of victory margins selected by the Margin Tippers is very narrow - 16 to 22 points in this case. ELO tips the Dons to win by 17 points, which is just one half of a point less than the start they're being asked to give on line betting, so again there's no line bet here from ELO.
• The Dogs are unanimous favourites over Port. Margin Tippers predict victory margins ranging from 32 to 64 points. ELO is the tipster predicting the biggest blowout. Its 64 point margin prediction is the largest victory margin it has tipped this year and is the result of the rough 61 Ratings point difference between the sides, coupled with the Dogs' home team status.
• Sydney are 9-6 favourites over the Blues, though all five Margin Tippers are on the Blues with predicted margins ranging from 1 to 17 points. Chi is the tipster predicting the one point win and so has this as his Game of the Round. ELO has the Blues winning by 10 points, which is half a point less than the start that they're giving, so this is yet another game where ELO has declined a bet on the narrowest of bases. ELO aside, the remaining top MAFL tipsters are all supporting the Swans.
• Richmond are 11-4 favourites over the Roos. All five Margin Tippers predict a fifth successive win for the Tigers with margin predictions spanning the range from 1 to 25 points. ELO tips Richmond by 1 point and BKB has Richmond as its longest-priced favourite, which means that this game is both tipsters' Game of the Round. All four of the top MAFL tipsters are on the Tigers.
• Fremantle are 12-3 favourites over the Dees, with the Margin Tippers again being unanimous in their support. Predicted margins range from 26.5 to 33 points. The four top MAFL tipsters are split 2-2 on this game, however, with Easily Impressed I and Follow The Streak siding with Melbourne, and ELO and Short Term Memory I opting for Freo.

Something seems to be deeply, deeply wrong with HELP. This week it's served up eight line tips all on the away team and all carrying an identical probability forecast. Weird.

MAFL 2010 : Round 15 Results

For most Investors it was another weekend of nibbling away at the season's deficit.

Carlton's loss on Sunday evening meant that, for those with the Recommended Portfolio, the nibble was only a nip, but a couple of percent is undeniably better than an ocular prod with a dulled wooden implement.

Over the eight games of the round the Recommended Portfolio jumped about 2.1% leaving it down about 11.4% on the season, while the Portfolio of MIN#002 dropped 1.4% to leave it down 13.7%, and the MIN#017 Portfolio climbed 7.3% leaving it down 47% on the season.

Here's the latest Dashboard.

With this week's 3c gain Prudence is now virtually at break-even for the season. It might well achieve profitability next week, a status currently enjoyed only by the ELO and Heuristic-Based Funds.

With seven favourites winning this weekend, tipping proved to be relatively easy for most tipsters. Along with BKB, ELO, Silhouette and Chi also scored seven from eight, which in ELO's case was enough to catapult it to joint-leadership on 80.5 from 120 (72%). Three other tipsters are on the same total for the season: Easily Impressed I, Short-Term Memory II and Follow The Streak.

BKB's seven was enough to drag it into joint fifth, one tip back on 79.5, along with Easily Impressed II and Short-Term Memory I.

Six teams either climbed or fell a single position on MARS Ratings this week. The Western Bulldogs grabbed second position at Collingwood's expense, Freo snatched fifth from Carlton, and the Tigers finally surrender last position to the Eagles.

There's now a 14 Ratings-point differential between the Crows in ninth and the Lions in tenth, which seems about the right distance when you consider that the Crows have won six of their last nine games while the Lions have won just one of their last eleven. That must feel troubling like a developing habit to Lions fans.

Our Margin Tippers performed exceptionally well this weekend, all of them knocking at least one-third of a point off their season Mean APEs, and two of them knocking off three-quarters of a point or more, an extraordinary achievement when you consider that we're already 15 rounds into the season so you'd be expecting averages to respond to weekly performance spikes as the QEII responds to requests to turn to starboard. BKB continues to lead on the Mean APE metric, with LAMP second and ELO third.

LAMP reduced its Median APE by an astonishing one-and-a-half points this weekend to claim the lead outright from ELO. BKB, which reduced its Median APE by a point, lies third.

HELP had another poor round attempting to tip line winners, managing just 3 from 8, and its probability scores suffered markedly from its misplaced conviction.

(BTW The Super Smart Model performed very well this week on margin tipping, recording a Mean APE for the round of just 17.75 points per game, two points per game better than BKB. It managed only four from eight on line tipping however.)

After last week kicking a large proportion of all goals scored, winning teams this week recorded a remarkably low proportion of all scoring shots - a season low of just 53%. This was due to losing teams' ability to create ample scoring opportunities - they produced more scoring shots than their opponents in three games - but a chronic inability to convert them. Collectively, losing teams kicked 87.97 this weekend, which means they recorded only about 3 fewer scoring shots per game than did the victors collectively, but converted at a rate over 11 percentage points lower than did the games' winners.

Mark my words: poor kicking is going to see a team miss a finals spot or lose a final, and my money's on Collingwood or Hawthorn to be one of the teams involved.

MAFL 2010 : Round 15

Investors face a far less breathtaking set of wagers this weekend.

In fact, they can take a complete breather until Saturday since none of the Funds have any interest in Friday night's Port v Collingwood game, despite Port playing at home and being priced at $5.00 head-to-head and +32.5 points on line betting.

Across the seven other games the Funds have conspired to find 20 wagering opportunities amongst themselves, in aggregate these representing about one-sixth of Total Initial Funds in the Recommended Portfolio.

The ELO-Line Fund is the busiest, with five wagers totalling 25% of the Fund. Prudence, with 4 four wagers totalling about 12% of that Fund, is next busiest, followed by New Heritage, Shadow and Hope, each with three wagers. Such is the New Heritage penchant for large wagers, however, its three bets total just under one-quarter of the Fund; Shadow's and Hope's three bets total around 15%.

The Heuristic-Based Fund is the week's quietest. It has just two wagers totalling 10% of the Fund.

Investors MIN#002 and MIN#017 have just three wagers each in total.

Here's the detail:

(Note I've updated this table, the Ready Reckoner, and the blog in general to reflect the fact that we've no line bet on Melbourne. Six and a half points start is just too much.

Friday edit: I've also updated them both now to reflect the fact that I'd reversed the prices for the Lions v Saints and Richmond v Freo games in these outputs - though fortunately not in the model inputs. Regretably the bookies hadn't reversed their prices, so I didn't get the Tigers at $4)

For Investors with the Recommended Portfolio the weekend's key matches are Carlton v the Dogs, which represents the largest potential win and the largest swing between the best and worst possible outcomes, and the Geelong v Hawthorn game, which represents the largest possible loss.

MIN#002 has the most to gain from the Carlton v Western Bulldogs game, and MIN#017 has the most to gain from the Sydney v Roos game and the most to lose from the Geelong v Hawthorn clash.

Whilst there are no unanimous favourites amongst the MAFL tipsters, in six of the eight contests there are no more than three dissenters and in the other two contests the split is only 9-6.

Here are the details:

• Collingwood are 14-1 favourites over Port Adelaide, the Margin Tippers predicting Pies victories by between 12 and 35 points.
• Geelong are 12-3 favourites over the Hawks. The Margin Tippers are all backing the Cats, and see them winning by anything between 4 and 39 points. Chi is one of these tipsters and has the Cats winning by 4 points making this one of his two Games of the Round.
  Short Term Memory I, however, is one of the three tipsters siding with Hawthorn, which is the reason Investors don't have a bet on the Cats from the Heuristic-Based Fund.
• Adelaide are 13-2 favourites over West Coast. LAMP has the Eagles winning by just 1 point, and Chi has the Crows winning by just 4 points, making this game both tippers Game of the Round (in Chi's case his second Game of the Round).
• St Kilda are 14-1 favourites over Brisbane. St Kilda are tipped to win by between 8 and 25.5 points.
• Fremantle are 12-3 favourites over Richmond. The Tigers do though have the support of Follow The Streak, one of the three joint-leaders of the MAFL Tipping Competition.
• Sydney are 14-1 favourites over the Roos, and the Swans are predicted to win by between 13 and 24 points.
• Melbourne are 9-6 favourites over Essendon. ELO tips Melbourne by 4 points making this one of its two Games of the Round.
• Carlton are 9-6 favourites over the Dogs, though the Dogs have the support of four of the five Margin Tippers, including BKB. ELO tips the Dogs to win by 4 points making this its other Game of the Round.

To finish then, the HELP line predictions, which are all for the away team and all with associated probabilities of 75% or higher.

MAFL 2010 : Round 14 Results

Well that was a good weekend's wagering no matter how you dissect it.

What prevented it from attaining 'fantastic' status was the mercy shown by the teams occupying 1st and 2nd on the table, each of which slacked off in the latter parts of their respective games leading to our losing one line bet (on the Cats) by 4.5 points and the other (on the Saints) by just half a point.

This leniency cost those Investors with the Recommended Portfolio about 2% but still left them up 7.4% on the round and, as a result, now down just 13.5c on the season. MIN#002 also made money - about 6.4% - as did MIN#017, who made 11.5%. They're now down 12.3% and 54.3% respectively.

All up then, less than perfect but directionally encouraging.

Here's the details, as recorded in this week's MAFL Dashboard.

So as well as every Portfolio, every Fund increased in value this week, though only ELO and Heuristic-Based have recorded a net profit across the entire season.

On tipping, we have three joint leaders - Follow The Streak plus Short Term Memory I and II - all on 75.5 from 112 (67.4%). They lead Easily Impressed I and II by just one tip. The week's best round was recorded by Home Sweet Home, which bagged 8 from 8 as a result of victories by the seven home teams and by the team higher on the ladder in the one contest for which there was no home team (the Collingwood v West Coast game). Tipsters generally performed well this week, with the average score being 6.2 from 8.

Collingwood leapt two places on MARS Ratings this week, jumping into 2nd ahead of the Dogs and the Saints, who each slipped by one position. In other moves, Hawthorn and Sydney swapped places, with the Hawks taking 7th, and the Roos and Essendon also swapped places, with the Roos snatching the coveted 11th position.

Four Margin Tipsters now have sub-30 Mean Absolute Prediction Errors, Chi being the odd one out, and with BKB leading the pack with a MAPE of 28.3 points per game. All five Margin Tipsters now also have sub-30 median APEs, with ELO and LAMP responsible for the lowest median APEs of 26.0 points. HAMP has joined BKB in third on this metric, each of them with median APEs of 27.5 points.

HELP had a poor round attempting to tip line winners, managing just 2 from 8. Its probability scores suffered commensurately.

This week, winning teams kicked 64.8% of all the goals registered. That's the greatest proportion that winning teams have snared in any round this season, and takes the season-long proportion to 60.6%, which is a couple of percent higher than the historical average for this metric. Winning teams also kicked quite straight this week, none of them converting at a rate under 50% and most converting at a significantly higher rate, Richmond foremost amongst them in kicking 14.5. Their accuracy was the main reason they edged out the Swans who managed to convert just 48% of their 25 scoring shots.

MAFL 2010 : Round 14

If you're an Investor this is probably a blog best read seated.

In six of the weekend's eight games the home team is the favourite, and in five of them it's the short-priced favourite. The reaction from the MAFL Funds to this circumstance - especially from the New Heritage Fund - has been akin to the response you get if you open a packet that sounds even vaguely like a chip packet within earshot of Chi: immediate and overwhelming interest, palpable desire and a fixation on securing a piece of whatever's on offer.

Here's what the result of all that interest looks like.

(I feel as though I should have triggered a warning when you clicked the "Read more" button just then ...)

If your maths is exceptionally good, you'll have noted that Investors with the Recommended Portfolio find themselves with 33 wagers across 8 games this week, totalling over one-third of Total Initial Funds - the greatest level of activity and the highest outlay in a single round in the history of MAFL.

A hefty slice of that total outlay has been wagered head-to-head on teams at prices of $1.33 and below, which means that the total upside in all of that activity falls some considerable distance short of the downside, as illustrated in the week's Ready Reckoner.

Only the Hawks v Bulldogs and Tigers v Swans games are of little consequence this weekend for Investors with the Recommended Portfolio. The Adelaide v Essendon game offers the greatest upside and is also the game with the largest difference between the best and worst results.

A Pies loss to the Eagles would be the single most painful result for the weekend for these Investors, although losses by either the Cats or the Saints would be less painful only in a strictly mathematical sense.

For MIN#002, as ever all losses are equally costly, while Crows and Blues wins would be most welcomed.

For MIN#017 the weekend holds the greatest terror of all. A worst-case set of outcomes would reduce this Portfolio to zero, while a best-case set of outcomes would restore only about 15% of its initial value. Over one-half of any increase would come from Adelaide and Carlton wins, and any of six separate outcomes could knock about 10% off the value of the portfolio.

The confidence displayed by the Funds is, for the most part, reflected in the tips of the MAFL Tipsters where we find four games with unanimous support for the favourite and three more games where at least 11 of the 15 tipsters foresee an Investor-pleasing outcome.

Here are the details:

• Carlton are the first of the week's unanimous favourites. They face the Lions and are tipped to win by margins ranging from 12 to 28 points.
• The Bulldogs are 11-4 favourites over the Hawks. LAMP is among the minority but tips the Hawks by just a point, making this its Game of the Round.
• Fremantle are unanimous favourites over Port and are tipped to win by anywhere between 12 and 42 points.
• Collingwood are unanimous favourites over West Coast. The Pies are predicted to win by between 9 and 57 points, the latter prediction belonging to ELO and representing the largest margin predicted by this tipster so far this season.
• Adelaide are 13-2 favourites over Essendon. ELO tips Adelaide to win by just 12 points, which makes this its Game of the Round.
• The Cats are 11-4 favourites over the Roos and are expected to win by a margin between 17 and 52 points.
• Richmond are 8-7 favourites over Sydney in the only game that's generating significant rates of disagreement this week. This uncertainty is reflected in the fact that three tipsters have this as their Game of the Round: HAMP, which tips Richmond to win by 1; Chi, who tips Sydney by 7; and BKB, which tips Richmond to win (probably) by 6.5 points.
• St Kilda are unanimous favourites over the Dees. The Saints are predicted to win by between 22 and 45 points.

That leaves me with only the HELP line predictions to report.

MAFL 2010 : Round 13 Results (Final)

This'll be brief.

When scanning the week's Ready Reckoner, never do I consider the "Best Possible" or "Worst Possible" results as lying within the feasible set of actual wagering outcomes. How wrong I've been.

Three games, three losses. Waiter, may I have the menu for Round 14 please?

Here's the week's MAFL Dashboard.

In deference to the dollars that sacrificed themselves in providing the data that now lies in the MAFL Wagering section of the Dashboard, I'll not be further commenting on it.

On tipping, Short-Term Memory now leads outright on 69.5 from 104 (67%), 1 tip ahead of Easily Impressed I and II, Short Term Memory II, Ride Your Luck and Follow the Streak, the latter tipster bagging the round's best performance, tipping 6 from 8.

Home Sweet Home recorded the round's worst tipping performance, managing just 3 from 8, to leave it with a season-long 53.4% record. As MAFL is currently constructed, it's never going to be a good year for wagering when Home teams aren't performing.

St Kilda's dominant second half over the Cats, which led to its 24-point victory, was enough to leap it over the Pies on MARS Ratings, despite Collingwood's 25-point win over the Swans. There were two other ratings moves further down the ladder, which saw the Crows and the Roos swap places with the Lions and the Dees respectively. The Crows now lie 9th on the MARS ladder, almost 8 Ratings points behind the Hawks.

All Margin Tippers except LAMP saw their Mean APEs fall over the round. BKB still leads, but LAMP's decline has allowed ELO to slip into second place. All three tipsters still have sub-30 MAPE's.

As we've seen a few times already this season, it's quite possible for a tipster's Mean and Median APEs to move in different directions over the course of the same round. We saw that again this round, which meant that LAMP took outright leadership on the Median APE metric, relegating ELO to second-place. BKB remains third.

HELP correctly predicted five of the round's eight line results and did a little to restore its overall probability scoring record to something a mite less embarrassing. I'll provide more details in future weeks if the upward trend continues.

MAFL 2010 : Round 13 - Part II

Even with two attractive-looking matchups in the Cats v Saints and Swans v Pies games, this weekend can't help but seem like the stale bit of the loaf that is Round 13. (Apologies if you're a Melbourne or Adelaide fan, but I'm finding it hard to get enthused about 13th v 15th.)

The weekend's status might be elevated though if the Cats, Swans and Dees all wins, the Cats doing so by 21 points or more, since then the Recommended Portfolio will rise by about 3.9% more than offsetting, if barely, the losses suffered last weekend.

Rooting for an away team victory, which all Investors except MIN#002 will be doing this weekend in the Crows v Dees game, is a relative rarity for Investors since all but the New Heritage Fund are permitted to wager only on home teams. This week, New Heritage's splurge on the Dees is sufficiently bold to induce broad Investor support for the travellers.

The Cats, by the way, as far as MAFL is concerned are the home team in their game, since it's being played at the MCG, one of the Cats' MAFL-designated home grounds this season and not one of the Saints'.

All told, Investors holding the Recommended Portfolio have 10 wagers totalling about 9% of Total Funds this week.

MIN#002's happiness rests solely in the hands of the Crows, who need only to win to produce a profit for his portfolio, and MIN#017 shares the hopes and dreams of Recommended Portfolio holders in that he wants the Cats, Swans and Dees to win. In his case though, the size of the Cats' victory is immaterial.

Here's the detail:

For the Recommended Portfolio, the Cats v St Kilda game represents the greatest potential profit and the greatest potential loss.

For MIN#017 the Adelaide v Melbourne game is the one filled with equal parts promise and pain, while MIN#002, as already noted, has a stake in only one contest.

Here's the Ready Reckoner detail:

On tipping this week, no team has the support of more than 80% of tipsters.

Here are the details:

• Geelong are the week's most supported favourites. Twelve of the fifteen tipsters are predicting that they will prevail. The Margin Tipsters, Chi aside, reckon that the Cats should win by about 3.5 to 4 goals. Ride Your Luck is the best-credentialled amongst the minority plumping for a Saints victory.
• Collingwood are 10-5 favourites over the Swans, though none of the Margin Tipsters predicts a double-digit victory margin for either side.
• Adelaide are 10-5 favourites over Melbourne. If you're an Adelaide fan you might take comfort from the fact that the Margin Tippers have the Crows winning by between 8.5 and 27 points; if you're a Melbourne fan you might, instead, note that Easily Impressed I and Short-Term Memory I - currently joint-leaders of our tipping competition - are both tipping a Dees victory.

HELP produced a 3 from 5 performance last weekend, reviving some hope that publishing its forecasts won't continue to feel so futile. Here are its remaining predictions for the round: