The Margin Fund has responded this week to our reduction in its bet size by increasing the number of wagers that it's demanded we make - 12 in all on 6 separate games, representing 12% of the Fund and almost 2.5% of the entire Portfolio. Like a true retailer, the Fund's compensated for a reduction in price by ramping up volume.

Hawthorn, for the third game in a row - and despite eventually prevailing over the Giants, however narrowly - this week dropped Rating Points (RPs) on both the ChiPS and the MARS Systems.

With the Line Fund snaring four from six wagers to jump by 4c, and the Head-to-Head Fund winnowing a small profit from a pair of successful wagers having tantalised with two more, it felt as though we deserved more this week for our frenzied efforts. But, the Margin Fund's none from eight knocked 10c off its price and was enough to hand back to the TAB Bookmaker all but 0.3c of the profits contributed by the two other Funds, leaving the Recommended Portfolio virtually unchanged and now down by an even 2c.

Remember last week's 10 restrained and ultimately profitable wagers? Well this week we've almost twice that number of bets and we've about two-and-a-half times the total original Funds at risk. 

GWS returned to its more normal role as ChiPS Ratings Point (RP) donor this weekend, surrendering almost 6 RPs to Richmond and allowing the Tigers to leapfrog over Adelaide and into the Top 8. The only other ranking changes saw Port Adelaide slip into 2nd, relegating Geelong to 3rd.

This blog is a day delayed - though not, I'm pleased to say, as a consequence of any dissatisfaction by me with the wagering outcome - because I've been away on business in NZ and refused to pay the usurious rate that the hotel there was demanding of its inmates for internet access. Even the AUD/NZD conversion rate couldn't make that transaction worthwhile financially.

With four of the home teams short-priced favourites this week, the Head-to-Head Fund had only two decisions to make and, in both cases, it decided "no". Neither the Giants' $3.85 price tag nor the Blues' $2.15 offering were deemed sufficiently generous to merit a wager.

The Line Fund also passed on these two games, and on two more, eventually venturing just two wagers, one on the Cats giving the Roos 14.5 points start and the other on Port giving the Hawks 15.5 points start. The Margin Fund has two wagers on each of the Cats and Port Adelaide too, as well as two more on the Pies and two on the Suns.

ChiPS altered the ranking of eleven teams this week - two of them without even needing to take the field. Only one team though moved by more than a single spot, Collingwood, who fell two spots to sixth after losing to the Crows by 19 points, a result that cost the Pies 2.3 Rating Points (RPs).

It's disappointing when a round that starts so well, finishes so poorly. Thursday night's victory by the Crows landed our head-to-head and line bets and had us 2.2c closer to profitability, but just a single additional collect throughout the remainder of the extended round saw us hand all of the 2.2c back, with a 0.1c tip toppling us just over the edge from break-even into loss

This week presented the Fund algorithms with another half-dozen contests to evaluate and they've responded with wagers, in aggregate, sized very similarly to last week. We've nine bets spanning five games and representing 5.2% of the original Recommended Portfolio.

West Coast and Sydney were the two biggest Ratings Point (RP) accumulators in a truncated Round 8, West Coast ending a five-week long Ratings slump and Sydney extending a now four-week long Ratings climb as a result.

We Investors already knew our financial fate last evening. All that was left this Monday night was to see how MatterOfStats' various Predictors and Tipsters finished the round.

Round 8, which still has one wager-free game to be played before it's done, has provided Investors with their best single round return for the season.

On a per game basis this week we're investing more than we have in any other single round this season despite wagering in only four of the six games available and despite having no disturbingly large single wager. That's not to say though, as my clients in the risk industry might phrase it, that our risk is "fully diversified". We do have a fairly significant dependence on the performance of a single team.

Within the ChiPS Rating System, winning teams more often fail to accumulate Ratings Points (RPs) than they do within the MARS System.

Yet another frustrating week of wagering with only a single collect to show for it, a line wager on the Giants buried amongst two other unsuccessful line wagers, a forlorn head-to-head wager, and 10 whiffs in the SuperMargin markets

We've already collected this season, in Round 1, from a wager on GWS when they were priced in the "not this week" range, and this week the Head-to-Head Fund is hoping to reprise that symphony with a 2.1% wager on the Giants at $9.50 facing the horribly in-form Port Adelaide. Its bet is twice as large this week as it would have been were it made last week when the Fund's Kelly bet divisor was still at 20 and not 10. According to the Head-to-Head Fund, no other home team represents value in the head-to-head market this week - at least none of the three other home teams that it was entitled to consider for that privilege, they being the only ones priced at $1.50 or higher.

Port Adelaide are the competition's Most Improved Team so far this season, according both to the ChiPS and the MARS Rating Systems, Port having risen seven places in each System after accumulating about 20 Ratings Points on both.

I sometimes feel that I'd benefit from putting a little more time between the end of the weekend's last game and composing the related Results blog - but then, who'd want to read about the Round on the following Tuesday or Wednesday?

The Line Fund has wielded its new-found ability to inflict and suffer twice as much damage per game by constraining itself to only three wagers for Round 6, one on St Kilda giving the Lions 15.5 points start, another on the Dees basking in just over 7 goals start playing the Swans, and the third on Port Adelaide receiving 4.5 points start against the Cats.