The Tradition Continues

Stakes at Stake

There's just no rest if you're a MAFL Investor.

For those with the Recommended Portfolio we've another 20 wagers this weekend, covering all but the Tigers v Pies game on Saturday. The most profligate Fund is the Chi-squared Fund, which has 4 wagers totalling a smidge under half the Fund, the largest and riskiest of which being 15.2% of the Fund on the Swans at $2.55 facing the Cats. Two other wagers are equally brow-raising and are sized around the 12% mark and on teams priced at $2 or a little higher. This dog shows no fear/sense (delete whichever isn't applicable).

Next most profligate is the New Heritage Fund, which has 5 wagers totalling almost one-third of the Fund, the largest being 11% on West Coast at $1.36 and the riskiest 4.8% on Hawthorn at $2.15. Hope comes next, with 4 wagers totalling around 16% of the Fund, the largest and riskiest 5.1% on Sydney at $2.55.Then follows the Line Redux Fund, with three wagers each at 5% of the Fund, 2 on underdogs and 1 on a favourite. (Two line markets are yet to be posted, but they'll both probably be the home team +6.5 points which won't be enough to entice a flutter.)

Finally, Prudence is this week's spendthrift - such things being relative - having 4 wagers totalling only 13% of the Fund, the largest 3.5% on the Eagles and the riskiest 3% on Melbourne at $2.05.

In truth, by just about any measure, the weekend's fare is not especially scary. Had last year's Heritage Fund still been active, who knows what it might have outlayed on the Tigers at home at $6.25 or the Dons at home at $6.50.

Ready Reckoner

So, to the week's Ready Reckoner:

The Melbourne v Freo, Lions v Dogs, and Sydney v Geelong clashes are then the ones that matter most to all Investors, except MIN #017, who cares only about the first two of those games.

Tipping

We have no games this week for which the tipsters are unanimous and 7 games for which there is at least 3 tipsters in the minority camp.

We have:

• Adelaide 10-3 favourites over the Hawks. Both Chi and ELO are tipping the Crows but both by sufficiently narrow margins to make this their Game of the Round. Amongst MAFL's top 5 tipsters only Shadow is tipping the Hawks.
• Collingwood 10-3 favourites over the Tigers. None of the top tipsters are on the Richmond.
• The Roos 7-6 favourites over the Eagles, though BKB, ELO and CTL are all on West Coast.
• The Lions 8-5 favourites over the Dogs, with ELO, CTL and Silhouette supporting the Dogs.
• Geelong 7-6 favourites over the Swans. Amongst the top tipsters only Shadow is tipping the Swans.
• Fremantle 9-4 favourites over the Dees, with Shadow and Silhouette tipping Melbourne.
• Carlton 10-3 favourites over Port. Only Silhouette are supporting Port from amongst the top tipsters.
• St Kilda 12-1 favourites Essendon. HSH is the only tipster hoping for a Dons victory.

Line Betting

On Line Betting:

• Chi is tipping: Hawthorn, Richmond, Kangaroos, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Port Adelaide, Essendon
• ELO is tipping: Hawthorn, Richmond, Kangaroos, Western Bulldogs, Geelong, Melbourne, Carlton, Essendon

(Update at 7:00pm on Thursday: the line markets for the Melbourne v Freo and Port v Carlton games have now been posted and, despite Melbourne receiving a little more start than I expected, we've no interest in either game, from a line betting perspective at least.)

Bitten By the Dogs

Well, 22 tall and athletic Dogs wearing Red, White and Blue guernseys and pushing for a top 4 spot dug the hole on Saturday, and 1 short and stocky white dog wearing nothing but a green collar just about filled it in on Sunday evening - with a little help mostly from Hope.

At least, that was the story for most Investors this weekend. Investors with the Recommended Portfolio wound up losing 1.4% and other Investors lost amounts ranging from 0.4% to 9.3%. MIN #002 was the only Investor to record a profit, jumping 7% courtesy of the Hope Funds' impeccable 2 from 2 record.

Other Funds were less successful than Hope, though Chi-squared did also eke out a profit, rising just over 4c on 2 wins from 4 bets. New Heritage dropped over 9c also on 2 wins from 4 bets, Prudence dropped 5c on 2 wins from 5 bets, and Line Redux dropped 1c on 2 wins from 4 bets. All told the Funds won just 10 bets from 19, so dropping a percent or two is probably not such a bad result, especially when you consider that 3 of those 'winning' bets were on the drawn Essendon v Lions game.

What generally hurt the majority of Funds this weekend was the unlikelihood of many of the results. Only 3 favourites won and another only drew, leading to the season's most unpredictable set of results, as measured by surprisals.

The table below lists the average outcome surprisals per game for each of the rounds this season alongside which I've shown the returns recorded for each of the Funds.

At the foot of the table I've calculated the correlation between the average outcome surprisals and the Fund returns for each round. The negative correlations on the left show that the New Heritage and Prudence Funds have prospered when results have been most predictable and surprisals have therefore been low, and the positive correlations on the right show that the Hope, Chi-squared and Line Redux Funds have prospered when results have been least predictable and surprisals have therefore been high.

The latest round was a perfect example of this phenomenon. The average outcome surprisals per game was a season-high 1.42 bits, the Hope and Chi-squared Funds made profits, the Line Redux Fund almost broke even, and the New Heritage and Prudence Funds made losses.

(For information on team-by-team outcome and margin surprisals visit MAFL Stats.)

Unpredictability also affected the MAFL tipsters' predictive accuracy. The round's best performance was 4.5 from 8 as was recorded by Shadow, CTL and STM I. The worst was just 1.5 from 8 and was recorded by STM II.

Silhouette now leads our tipping competition on 108 from 152 (71%), ahead of Shadow, CTL and BKB, all on 104 from 152 (68%).

Shadow, Silhouette and STM II remain strongly in profit on level-stake wagering on their head-to-head tips, whether you start counting from Round 1 or from Round 6.

Though ELO managed just 3.5 from 8 on head-to-head tipping, it bagged a perfect 8 from 8 on line betting, moving it to 85 from 152 for the season (56%), a record that would have yielded +8.22 units from level-stake wagering. Chi correctly predicted only 4 from 8 on line betting.

Exceptional line betting generally results from exceptional margin prediction and this is indeed how you'd describe ELO's margin prediction performance this season. Its Mean Absolute Prediction Error is now just 28 points per game and its Median Absolute Prediction Error is 22.5 points per game.

In comparison, Chi's Mean APE is 29.7 points per game and his Median APE is 26 points per game. More relevantly, BKB, always the benchmark, has a 27.8 points per game Mean APE and a 23.5 points per game Median APE.

So, ELO is just 0.2 points per game behind BKB on Mean APE and is a full 1 point per game ahead of BKB on Median APE.

Another Roll of the Dice

Bet or Bank?

There's a famous line by somebody that "the dice have no memory", an allusion to the startlingly obvious fact that inanimate objects - spotted or otherwise - are bereft of the necessary cerebral capacity to recall what they did last, and are therefore unable to take account of their previous behaviour when they 'decide' (which they don't do either) what to do next.

As the Alzheimic dice, so the Funds.

Clearly, none of the Funds has spent any time reflecting on last week's glory and thought to itself "Might have a quiet weekend and make that Sportsbet bookie sweat a bit", nor have any of them suddenly become more concerned about the possibility of late-season tanking, which are reasonable thoughts and sentiments that I'm sure more than one Investor has entertained this week.

With this in mind I decided to review how the various Fund algorithms would have performed had we been using them over the closing rounds of previous seasons. This analysis shows that the Funds have generally performed fairly well from this point in the season onwards, rarely losing, often doing just a little better than breakeven, and occasionally piling on the percentage gains. Then again, football results have no memory either ...

Anyway, if you're at all keen to take a few weekends off from wagering - if nothing else so that you can start enjoying games again - please let me know and we can sort out a strategy for you for the remainder of the season.

Stakes at Stake

Investors in the Recommended Portfolio have 19 wagers to shepherd this weekend, covering all but the Friday-night game yet again.

New Heritage has outlayed cash on 4 teams totaling about 21% of the Fund. The largest wager is 13.3% on the Dogs who are again at an apparently backable unbackable $1.04 this weekend. This Fund's highest-priced wager is 0.7% on Melbourne at $3.15. Those with the Recommended Portfolio and MIN#015 would prefer this bet to lose, however, as they also have a head-to-head bet on the Roos and will fare better if the Dees go down. MIN#001 and MIN#017, in contrast, want the Dees to win, and MIN#002 cares not for the outcome. So, this is a contest where I can't hope to make everybody happy.

Prudence has identified 5 gold-plated opportunities totalling just 15% of the Fund. Its largest outlay is 6% on the Dogs and its riskiest is 2.3% on Fremantle at $2.35.

Hope has 2 wagers both in the 4.6% to 4.8% and the largest - 4.8% on Fremantle - is also the riskiest.

Chi-squared, exhibiting perhaps the most Alzheimic behaviour of all, has splashed out again with 4 wagers totalling 45% of the Fund, including 14.3% on Fremantle (at $2.35) and 13.8% on Essendon at $2.25, in what appears to be a quest to achieve profitability or, like some of the MAFL Small Cap Mining Stocks, to go broke trying.

Line Redux has plumped for 4 wagers, each sized 5% as is customary, 3 of them on underdogs and the other on a favourite. The Line Redux Fund has been in fine form of recent weeks, landing 15 of 22 wagers across the last 6 rounds. Unfortunately this performance back-ended a 14 from 32 start to the season, though it has been enough to nudge the Line Redux Fund into its highest level of profitability since Round 4.

(Two line markets are yet to be posted - those for the Richmond v Sydney and the Kangaroos v Melbourne clashes - but I'm not expecting we'll have a wager in either. As usual, I'll confirm this once the markets are posted.)

Ready Reckoner

Here's what all the wagering means for your Portfolio:

Once again this weekend, Investors care deeply about the fate of Port, though now the guernsey's on the other back (or something like that), since this week we want Fremantle to prevail over the Power. What's driving this interest is the fact that every Fund has a wager on Fremantle, a situation from which Investors are 3 from 4 this season, missing out only when the Swans went down to Essendon in Round 15.

The Essendon v Brisbane Lions and the Dogs v Eagles matchups are also of considerable interest to most Investors.

Tipping

This week there's only one unanimous favourite amongst the MAFL tipsters.

We have:

• Geelong 9-4 favourites over Carlton, with only Shadow supporting the Blues from amongst the MAFL Top 6 tipsters.
• The Dogs unanimous favourites over the Eagles.
• St Kilda 12-1 favourites over Hawthorn. Only HSH is tipping the upset, though Chi has the Saints winning by just a point and so has this as his Game of the Round.
• The Lions 10-3 favourites over Essendon. None of the MAFL Top 6 are tipping the Dons.
• Adelaide 8-5 favourites over Collingwood. None of the MAFL Top 6 are tipping the Pies, though ELO has the Crows emerging victorious by just 3 points, making this one of its two Games of the Round.
• The Roos 11-2 favourites over the Dees, with only STM II a credentialled tipper opting for the current Spooners.
• Richmond 9-4 favourites over Sydney, though Sydney has ELO, CTL, Shadow and Silhouette all tipping the upset. ELO has the Swans winning by just 3 points, making this its second Game of the Round.
• Port Adelaide 10-3 favourites over Fremantle, with none of the Freo support coming from the Top 6 MAFL Tipsters.

Four matches will, therefore, potentially affect the rankings amongst the top 6 tipsters: Geelong v Carlton, Adelaide v Collingwood, Kangaroos v Melbourne, and Richmond v Sydney.

Line Betting

This week on Line Betting:

• Chi's on Carlton, West Coast, Hawthorn, Essendon, Adelaide, Melbourne (TBC), Richmond (TBC) and Fremantle
• ELO's on Carlton, West Coast, St Kilda, Essendon, Collingwood, Kangaroos (TBC), Sydney (TBC) and Fremantle

For the season, Chi's tipped 71 from 144 (49%) and would have made a 9.48 unit loss on level-stake line betting. ELO's tipped 77 from 144 (53%) and would have made a 1.22 unit profit on level-stake line betting.

(Update at 8pm Thursday: as expected, no bets on the Richmond/Sydney or Kangaroos/Melbourne games. A new download is available with the line market details for these games. Note also that the Hawks are now favourites over the Saints on TAB Sportsbet, so much so that we now couldn't secure the same price head-to-head as we did on Wednesday with 15.5 points start. This is due to the major outs for the Saints, viz. Riewoldt, Montagna, Goddard, Hayes and Baker. The Hawks/Saints line market is suspended as I type this, as it has been for the past couple of days, but you can be certain that the Hawks will be priced at a lot less than the $1.90 we have locked in.)

A Round to Savour

For most Investors, a perfect wagering Sunday required that the three underdogs emerge victorious, an outcome which, save for an after-the-siren Tiger goal, would have transpired. Regardless, Investors landed the two wagers that really mattered, which saw all of them emerging with hefty portfolio increases.

In all, only 2 of 17 bets were unsuccessful: Prudence's wager on the Tigers and Line Redux's on Geelong. New Heritage landed 4 from 4 to jump by 8%, Prudence snagged 4 from 5 to rise by about the same amount, Hope managed 2 from 2 to climb by 22%, Chi-squared (at last!) bagged 1 from 1 to climb by 26%, and Line Redux scored 4 from 5 to rise by 13%.

All of which saw the Recommended Portfolio rise by 14.5%, leaving it up by 18.5% on the season, and other Portfolios rise by between 8% and 22% to leave them all up by amounts ranging from 21% to 53%. That's quite a round.

On tipping, Chi had the best of it, picking 7 from 8 to take him to 95.5 from 144 (66%) for the season. Silhouette managed 6 and still leads the pack, now on 104.5 from 144 (73%), 3 tips ahead of BKB on 101.5 (71%), and 2 more tips ahead of CTL and Shadow on 99.5 (69%).

The generally solid tipping performance of all our tipsters now sees 8 of them in black ink on level stake, start at Round 6, home team only wagering.

On line betting, Chi and ELO both fared well, correctly predicting 6 of the 8 winners.

One feature of this weekend's football was the regularity with which teams recording more scoring shots still contrived to lose. Three teams - the Roos, Adelaide and Hawthorn - all managed that achievement this weekend. Last weekend, Hawthorn, West Coast and Melbourne suffered the same fate, and Essendon also went down to the Tigers having recorded the same number of scoring shots. It's time for a few teams to spend a bit more time practising set shots, I reckon.

Will Investors Be Having A Port Whine on Sunday?

Stakes At Stake

Once again this weekend most Investors will find themselves disproportionately concerned about the outcome of a single contest.

Whilst it'll still be possible for a petite profit to be made should Port fail to topple the Hawks at Football Park, a truly memorable weekend will only be had if the upset eventuates.

To the details then.

New Heritage has 4 bets adding up to a little over one-third of the Fund, amongst them a 13.4% wager on the Dogs at a price not statistically significantly different from money back. They're at $1.02. The riskiest bet amongst the New Heritage clutch is 0.7% on Port Adelaide at $2.65. Every Fund has a wager on Port Adelaide this week, which is why Investors care so much about the outcome.

(Speaking of the use of 'clutch' as a collective noun for wagers, a visitor to the MAFL Online website this week arrived having searched on the phrase "clutching betting" using Google. Quite what he or she was truly looking for I'm as yet unable to fathom, but the length of the visit - 0 seconds - suggests he or she didn't find it on the MAFL Online site.)

Prudence has 5 bets totalling about 20% of the Fund. Its largest is also on the Dogs, 7.2% in its case, and its riskiest is 1.5% on Melbourne at $3.30.

Hope has just 2 wagers. Its largest and riskiest wagers is 5.7% on West Coast at $3.30, and its other wager is also on an underdog: 4.48% on Port Adelaide.

Line Redux has a record-equalling 5 wagers this weekend, 3 on teams receiving start and 2 on teams giving start.

Chi-squared is supporting a dog again this weekend, though whether it's yet another mongrel dog or merely an underdog is yet to be determined. He has 15.6% on Port Adelaide. The evidence does not bode well for this wager given the data in the table below, coupled with the knowledge that he's tipping Port Adelaide by just 3 points.

As you can see, he's 0 from 5 for wagers on teams that he's tipped by 4 points or fewer. Still, based on the wisdom of (generally near-broke) gamblers, I guess that makes him 'due'.

Ready Reckoner

This weekend's Ready Reckoner looks remarkably like this:

For the first time since Round 12, no Investor has an interest - at least on MAFL grounds - in the Friday night fixture. Saturday is, however, moderately important to everyone but MIN#002, and Sunday is screamingly important to everyone except MIN#017.

Tip-top Tipping

On tipping we have no unanimous favourites this week. Here are the details:

• Carlton are 10-3 favourites over the Roos. None of the top 5 tipsters is siding with the Roos.
• The Dogs are 8-5 favourites over Fremantle. Freo's only support amongst the top tipsters comes from STM II, who did tip Essendon to beat Hawthorn at $5 in Round 7, but surely can't be expected to prevail on a team currently at $11.
• Geelong are 10-3 favourites over Adelaide. Amongst the top tipsters only Shadow favours Adelaide.
• St Kilda are 12-1 favourites over Sydney, with Sydney's sole supporter being HSH.
• Collingwood are 7-6 favourites over Brisbane. The Lions count Shadow and STM II amongst their supporters.
• Richmond are 10-3 favourites over Melbourne, though the Dees do have Shadow's and Silhouette's vote.
• Hawthorn are 8-5 favourites over Port Adelaide. Port have a majority of the top 5 tipsters selecting them, however, as Shadow, Silhouette and STM II have lined up behind them. ELO is tipping the Hawks, but only by 4 points, making this its Game of the Round.
• Essendon are 12-1 favourites over West Coast. Once again HSH finds itself in the lonely part of the tipping convention. Chi, though, is tipping the Dons by just a point, making this his Game of the Round.

A Fine Line

On line betting this week, Chi and ELO are of one mind (though I suspect Chi's not contributing much to that entity). They're both implicitly tipping the Roos, Fremantle, Geelong, Sydney, Lions, Melbourne, Port, and West Coast.

An Honourable (Near) Draw

Investors with the Recommended Portfolio should probably be thankful that they escaped the weekend with just a small loss (0.4%), leaving them still up 4.0% on the season. Melbourne's inability to beat the Swans was the cause of most damage, though the Dons' narrow failure to pip the Tigers didn't help, nor did Freo's inability to cover their 8.5 point spread.

Other Investors lost too, MIN#001 and MIN#015 also only narrowly, and MIN#002 a little more substantially. MIN#017 was the only Investor to show a profit on the weekend. MIN#001 and MIN#015 are now up 7.2% for the season, MIN#002 is up 31%, and MIN#017 is up 38.5%.

Two Funds made profit on the weekend. New Heritage made almost 7% from 5 successful bets out of 6, leaving it ahead by 38.5% on the season, such profit deriving from 50 successful bets out of 66 wagers. Line Redux made 4% from its 2 out of 3 performance, leaving it down just over 1.5% on the season based on 25 successful wagers from 49 bets.

Prudence landed 4 bets from 6 but dropped 1.5% and is now up a little over 12% on the season with a 47 from 63 record. Hope won 1 and lost 1 to drop 4.4% but remains 31% ahead on the season with a 10 from 22 record. Chi-squared landed 3 from 4, but lost the one that mattered and so dropped 8% on the round to move to a loss of 55% on the season due to just 12 successful wagers from 25.

On tipping, BKB had the best performance of the round, snaring 7 from 8 to move to 95.5 from 136 (70.2%), joining Shadow on that score thanks to Shadow's paltry 2 from 8 for the week. Silhouette managed 5 from 8 and continues to lead, now by just 3 tips on 98.5 from 136 (72%).

Chi and ELO both had unremarkable line betting weekends, each bagging 4 from 8.

Chi continues to threaten the 30 points per game Mean Absolute Prediction Error (MAPE) landmark. He's now on 30.2 points per game; ELO's on 28.1 and BKB's on 27.2. As a measure of margin-tipping accuracy, MAPE is a good one, though it is subject to the distorting influence of a view blowout results. A measure that is less susceptible to such results, and one that is therefore preferred by some as a measure of margin-tipping accuracy is the Median Absolute Prediction Error.

For Chi, this measure is 26 points, for BKB it's 23.5 points, and for ELO it's 21.5 points, highlighting just how accurately ELO's been tipping margins this season.

Over on MAFL Stats you can view the latest MARS Ratings and there you'll see that the Saints have grabbed the number 1 ranking from the Cats for the first time this season. Given the Cats' patchy performances over the last month, I think that's probably a fair assessment.

A team-by-team comparison of results also highlights the Saints' superiority, especially against teams higher on the ladder:

In this table results in green are victories and those in red are losses. Where a team is to be played in a future round the details are shown in black. The teams are ordered by current ladder position.

21 Again

Tonight I thought I'd wait a little longer to see if TAB Sportsbet would post the final 2 line markets before I wrote this blog but, as of a little after 8pm, they've not.

The two line markets awaited are those for the Carlton v Collingwood game, on which I don't expect we'll have a wager, and for the Fremantle v West Coast game, on which I expect we will. This week's Ready Reckoner is based on us having 5% of the Line Redux Fund on Freo, probably giving 9.5 points start. I'll confirm this as soon as I can.

Including the assumed Dockers wager, we'll again have 21 wagers this weekend, though Chi-squared's marginally more temperate behaviour means that Investors will have, in aggregate, less money at risk.

New Heritage has 6 wagers totalling about 55.5% of the Fund, the largest being a 12.7% wager on the Lions at $1.13. The other 5 wagers are each sized 9.2% or larger and are on favourites, the longest priced of which is Fremantle at $1.60.

Prudence also has 6 wagers, totalling almost a quarter of the Fund, and also has its largest wager - 6% in its case - on the Lions. Its most speculative wager though is on the Dees and is for 3.1% at $2.40. (The Dees have blown significantly since we placed this bet, which is rarely a happy portent.)

Chi-squared has found 4 wagers totalling a little over 25% of the Fund. It too fancies the Dees - if 14.6% can rightly be labelled merely a fancy. Its 3 other wagers are on favourites.

Hope has just 2 bets this weekend, 4.9% on the Dees at the aforementioned $2.40, and 1% on the Crows at $1.50.

Line Redux has 3 bets (including the prospective Freo wager), all on teams giving start.

Every Fund has wagered something on the Crows this weekend, making them only the second team this year - the other being Sydney - to earn such unamimous wagering support. There's some proverb about eggs and baskets that I can only vaguely recall at this point.

Here then is the weekend's Ready Reckoner:

It's a dark weekend indeed when your fate is in the hands of the Dees, especially when draft picks are at stake.

Next, let's turn to tipping, where we have:

• Carlton 9-4 favourites over Collingwood. Though the Pies have scant support, 3 of their 4 supporters come from amongst our top 5 tipsters in the form of BKB, CTL and Silhouette. ELO tips Carlton, but only by 2 points, making this its Game of the Round.
• Geelong 8-5 favourites over the Hawks. Amongst our tipping elite, only Shadow is on the Hawks. Chi's tipping a Cats victory, but only by 3 points, making this his (only!) Game of the Round.
• Fremantle 7-6 favourites over the Eagles, with CTL, Shadow and Silhouette all tipping the Eagles.
• Brisbane unanimous favourites over the Roos.
• St Kilda, perhaps surprisingly, unanimous favourites over the Dogs.
• Melbourne 7-6 favourites over Sydney, with BKB and CTL the only credentialled tipsters foretelling a Swans victory.
• Essendon 10-3 favourites over the Tigers. STM II stands alone amongst its peers in tipping the Tigers.
• Port Adelaide 7-6 favourites over the Crows, with half of the Crows' support coming from CTL, BKB and Silhouette.

On line betting, assuming Freo give 9.5 points start and Carlton receive 6.5 points start (which, as I type this, is no certainty):

• Chi's on Collingwood, Hawthorn, Fremantle, the Kangaroos, St Kilda, Melbourne, Richmond and Adelaide
• ELO's on Carlton, Hawthorn, West Coast, the Kangaroos, St Kilda, Melbourne, Essendon and Adelaide

Update on Friday morning: Fremantle line wager is confirmed. We're giving only 8.5 start. Also, as expected, no Carlton line bet. New Round Summary now available for download.

Sometimes, Seven Goals Just Isn't Enough

You might think, if you'd wagers on three teams (albeit outsiders) that led by 8, 7 and 42 points at half time, that at least one of them would take home the biscuits, especially the one that led by 42 points. If you'd thought this over the last weekend, you'd be wrong.

The Dons were the first of the disappointments, leading the Dogs by 8 points at the half only to concede 11 goals in the second half to go down by 33 points. Next came Fremantle, who enjoyed a 7 point buffer at the half and who maintained legitimate hopes until late in the final term only to falter in the wet against the Lions and lose eventually by 15 points.

Then, on Sunday, the Tigers, who led by 7 straight goals (yes, 7) at the half, barely managed to cling on for a draw, which was enough to stop Investors losing a great deal on the game, but wasn't enough to provide them with a profit. In draws, head-to-head wagers pay out at half-price, so teams at prices below $2 pay back less than the amount wagered. Investors had the Tigers at $1.95.

Indeed it was a weekend littered with close finishes for many Investors. The Cats lost on line betting by half a point, Freo won on line betting by two and a half points, and Port won on line betting by a point and a half. Still, most Investors would've swapped those two favourable line betting results for a Tigers head-to-head victory.

In total, New Heritage won 4.5 of 6 wagers and fell 3.3%, Prudence won 4.5 of 7 wagers and fell 4.2%, Hope lost its only bet and fell 5.5%, Chi-squared won 0.5 of 3 wagers and fell a precipitous 33.3%, and Line Redux won 2 of 4 wagers and fell 1%.

As a result, the Recommended Portfolio fell 9.4% to leave it just 4.5% ahead for the season. Other Portfolios fell by between 3.3% and 9.5% to leave them in front for the season by amounts ranging from 7.5% to 35.4%.

On tipping, RYL had the best possible round, landing 7.5 from 8. Silhouette and Shadow bagged 6.5 and 5.5 respectively to jointly lead outright on 93.5 from 128 (73%), 5 tips ahead of BKB on 88.5 from 128 (69%) and a further tip ahead of CTL and STM II on 87.5 from 128 (68%).

Level-stake, home team only, start at Round 6 wagering on the heuristic tipsters has now been profitable for all tipsters except ELO, Chi and HSH. Shadow, Silhouette and STM II are currently up by over 11 units using such a wagering strategy - if only we'd known ...

Chi's and ELO's line betting results were once again poor this weekend, with Chi scoring 3 from 8 and ELO just 2 from 8.

All told, a weekend best forgotten.

Clutch Betting

The English language has many wondrous, often euphonious collective nouns ready to serve as descriptors for sets of objects, especially animals. So we have, for example, an exultation of larks, a murder of crows, a gaggle of geese, a cloud of bats, a flutter of butterflies, a cackle of hyenas, a smack of jellyfish, a deceit of lapwing, a richness of martens, a parliament of owls, a watch of nightingales and - a personal favourite - a prickle of porcupines.

English lacks, however, a collective noun for a group of bets, a deficiency I feel needs to be remedied. Accordingly, I'm nominating the word 'clutch' for this purpose.

Its appropriateness can be argued on a number of fronts.

Firstly, the word clutch evokes images of an anxious punter, betting slips gripped tightly in hand, attention riveted on a large screen that's beaming the performance of some two- or four-legged determiner of his or her fate. Surely such a punter can be said to be in the clutch.

The word's also evocative of the notion of 'clutching at straws', a desperate and generally futile exercise, which can seem an especially apposite metaphor some weekends.

Further and more positively, the term 'clutch' already has a sporting pedigree as an honorific applied to the exalted few who can be expected to perform when it matters - hence 'clutch' putter, 'clutch' hitter, 'clutch' pitcher and, more generally, 'clutch' player.

Clutch it is then.

This weekend Investors most certainly face a clutch of bets, 21 in all for the second weekend in a row, and 8 of them on underdogs priced as high as $3.

Chi-squared's own clutch is the scariest. Three bets totalling over 44% of the Fund, the two largest on Essendon and Fremantle both at $3 and both facing teams that are fighting for top 8 and possible top 4 positions. The remaining bet is on Richmond, also the underdogs, but they're only at $1.95 and the bet is relatively small.

New Heritage is also putting a large proportion of the Fund at risk - just under 63% of the Fund on 6 teams, all of them favourites and all but one of them home teams. The largest wager is just over 13% of the Fund on Geelong at what others might call an unbackable $1.04. The smallest wager is just over 2% on the Roos at $1.80 away to the Tigers.

Prudence, as has been its habit for most of the season, has this week nibbled on a smorgasbord of teams rather than gorging on just a few. It has 7 bets totalling a little over 30% of the Fund, 2 of them on underdogs and including a surprising 2% wager on the Dons at $3. The largest wager is for a trifle under 7% of the Fund on the Cats at $1.04.

Line Redux has four wagers representing 20% of the Fund. Two of these wagers are on favourites (Geelong and Port Adelaide) and the other 2 are on underdogs (Essendon and Fremantle).

(There is still one line market to be posted - that for the Tigers v Roos clash - but I don't expect we'll have a bet in it.)

Hope, whose selectivity has been its hallmark this season, has only 1 bet this week, its 20th of the season and its 6th on the Dons. It has 5.5% of the Fund on them at $3.

Together these bets yield the following Ready Reckoner:

The entire tenor of the weekend will be established late on Friday night for all Investors except MIN#017, though even a Dons win won't make the weekend entirely pot-hole resistant.

Next we move to tipping where we find:

• Essendon are 8-5 favourites over the Dogs. Amongst our top 5 tipsters, Silhouette, BKB and CTL have sided with the Dogs, while Shadow and STM II (along with a cadre of anxious MAFL Investors and a badly-bred Pomeranian) are riding the Don train. Chi could definitely be more convincing in his Dondom - he has them as only 1 point winners making this game one of his two Games of the Round.
• Carlton are unanimous favourites over the suddenly unpopular Swans.
• Geelong are 8-5 favourites over the Dees, the narrowness of their favouritism due mostly to the shortness of the memories of many of our heuristic-based tipsters. Amongst the cream of these tipsters, only Shadow and STM II are lining up behind the Dees in what will surely be the shortest of queues.
• Collingwood are 8-5 favourites over the Hawks. Once again it's only Shadow and STM II from the top 5 tipsters who are supporting the underdogs.
• Brisbane are 11-2 favourites over Fremantle, the sole support for the Dockers coming from HSH and Chi, who has this as his second and final Game of the Round.
• Port Adelaide are unanimous favourites over the Eagles.
• The Roos are 8-5 favourites over Richmond. The Tigers' following amongst our top tipsters is thin: only STM II is in their corner. ELO is another Tigers tipper, though only by 6 points, making this its Game of the Round.
• St Kilda are 11-2 favourites over the Crows, with EI I and II the only ornithologists amongst the MAFL tipsters.

On line betting, ELO will surely improve on its 0 from 8 record last weekend, though I'm not as certain that Chi will better his 3 from 8 performance. This week:

• Chi's on: Essendon, Sydney, Melbourne, Collingwood, Fremantle, West Coast, Richmond and Adelaide.
• ELO's on: Essendon, Sydney, Geelong, Collingwood, Brisbane Lions, West Coast, Richmond and St Kilda.

On Line Betting this year teams receiving start have fared much better than those giving it. The current tally is 69-51 in favour of the teams receiving start. The teams with the best records when receiving start are Carlton (4-0), St Kilda (3-0), Brisbane (4-1), and West Coast (8-3). Those with the poorest records when giving start are Fremantle (0-4), West Coast (0-4), Hawthorn (1-11), Port Adelaide (3-6), Adelaide (2-4), Sydney (2-4), Geelong (6-9) and Carlton (4-7).

One last statistic before I go. Which teams do you think have the best and worst win-loss records this year in games that have been decided by fewer than 12 points?

Three teams have perfect records: Essendon (2-0), St Kilda (2-0) and Adelaide (1-0). The Hawks (3-1) also have a strongly positive record. The worst, or perhaps the unluckiest, team in these situations has been Carlton (1-4), followed by 5 teams - Collingwood, Port Adelaide, Richmond, West Coast and the Western Bulldogs - all with 1-2 records.

No team has failed to register at least one result where the margin of victory or defeat has been 11 points or fewer.

Favourites Stumble While (Most) Investors Profit

When you lose your first 9 wagers of the weekend and when you've a strategy built around favourites and half of them lose, you're not really entitled to expect to profit from such a weekend, especially when such profit is largely dependent on the team that's at the foot of the ladder toppling a team vying for a spot in the finals and the major wager on that team is one that's been placed by a canine whose to-do list comprises sleep, eat and beg for pats in varying orders.

So, it's with some relief that I report that the Recommended Portfolio and all but one Investor finished in the black this weekend.

Three Funds declined: New Heritage, which won 3 of 5 bets but declined by just under 10%; Prudence, which landed 4 from 6 bets but fell by 1%; and Line Redux, which was right only 1 time in 3 and consequently fell 5.5%. The two successful funds were Hope, which was right 2 times in 3 and rose almost 8%, and Chi-squared, which picked 2 from 4 but rose almost 19%, ensuring that Chi gets fed for another week.

In total that left the Recommended Fund up about another 1.5% and other portfolios up by amounts ranging from 1% to 8%, the only exception being the portfolio of MIN #017, which is down by almost 10% this week though still up almost 35% across the season.

On tipping, Shadow led the way with 6 from 8, propelling it to outright lead on 88 from 120 (73%), now one tip ahead of Silhouette in 2nd and a remarkable 6 tips ahead of BKB on 82 in 4th. Never have the bookies seemed so fallible.

On level-stake, home team only, starting in Round 6 wagering (one day I'll come up with a neat shorthand for that), all but one tipster, ELO, remain profitable.

Indeed, ELO posted something of a record this weekend, landing no line bets at all, three fewer than even Chi managed. Still, line betting based on ELO margin predictions would have been profitable across the entire season, albeit now only by 2.57 units. ELO still has an impressive MAPE of 28.2 points per game, just 0.3 points behind BKB and 2.3 points ahead of Chi.

Fremantle's capitulation to the Crows on Saturday shouldn't go unremarked. Freo recorded just 8 scoring shots (7 of them behinds) to Adelaide's 35, meaning that Freo registered only 19% of the scoring shots in the same. In the entire history of VFL/AFL, spanning more than 13,500 games, only 76 teams have kicked a smaller proportion of scoring shots, and only 3 have done so in the seasons from 1980 onwards. Oddly enough, the most recent of these was this season - in Round 5 when Geelong thumped the Lions 18.18 to 5.3. Prior to that, you need to hark back to Round 13 of 1996 when Geelong beat Fitzroy 25.16 to 6.3. Before that you need to return to Round 14 of 1981 when a wayward Carlton thumped Footscray 15.25 to 5.4. So, truly an historic occasion, though not one you'd expect Dockers fans to commit to memory.

A Blackjack of Wagers

What is it they say again about old dogs and new tricks?

Buoyed - or perhaps blinded - by recent successes, the Funds have launched a record-equalling 21-bet salvo at the very much suspecting TAB Sportsbet bookie, amongst these wagers another fur-raiser from Chi. He's made 4 wagers this week totalling about 27.5% of the Fund, 3 of them on favourites, but the fourth on Melbourne at $2.80. Such is his faith on the Dees' going back-to-back he's put 16% of the Fund at risk.

Chi's faith in the Dees is mirrored, though with considerably less conviction, by Prudence and Hope, as odd a pairing in wagering as they are in life. Prudence has about 1.5% on the Dees as one of its 6 wagers for the weekend, which total around 20% of the Fund. Its other wagers are on teams ranging in price from $1.12 (Adelaide, 5.6%) to $1.60 (Sydney 3.3%).

Hope has 5.3% on the Dees and two other wagers: 2% on Sydney at $1.60, and 0.3% on Hawthorn at $1.45. In total Hope has put about 7.5% of the Fund at risk.

New Heritage has nothing on the Dees but has 54% of the Fund on 5 other teams. The largest wager is 12.7% on Adelaide at $1.12 and the most improbable is 9.2% on Sydney at $1.60. New Heritage's aggregate wagering of 54% in this round is its third-highest aggregate for the season, trailing only the 64% of Round 13 and the 60% of Round 7.

Line Redux has found 3 acceptable risks for the weekend: the Dogs giving the Pies 12.5 points start, Sydney giving Essendon 8.5 points start, and West Coast receiving 32.5 points start from the Saints.

Looking at the wagers across the Funds I note that Sydney, for the second time this season, finds itself with a wager from every Fund. No other team has enjoyed such unanimous support even once, let alone twice, from our 5 Funds this season.

In total, those Investors with the Recommended Portfolio have about 24% of their Initial Funds at risk, which is the second highest aggregate this season, behind only the proportion that was at risk in Round 13, which was 0.6% higher.

Here's the week's Ready Reckoner:

On tipping:

• The Dogs are 12-1 favourites over the Pies, with FTS the only Pie-eyed tipster.
• Sydney are 8-5 favourites over the Dons, though the Dons have the support of 4 of our top 5 tipsters, excluding only BKB. ELO is tipping an 11-point Sydney win and has this as its Game of the Round.
• Carlton are unanimous favourites over the Tigers.
• Geelong are 12-1 favourites over the Lions. HSH, as has often been the case this season, finds itself the lone tipster supporting the underdogs. Chi, though siding with the Cats, predicts only a 5-point margin making this one of his two Games of the Round [he's trying to cut back to just a couple a week].
• Adelaide are unanimous favourites over Fremantle.
• Hawthorn are 11-2 favourites over the Roos. The Roos' 2 supporters include the highly-ranked STM II and the lesser-ranked EI I.
• Port Adelaide are 9-4 favourites over the Dees. Amongst the Dee-favourers are Shadow and STM II. Chi also tips the Dees but by only 5 points, making this his Alternative Game of the Round.
• St Kilda are 12-1 favourites over West Coast and it's once again HSH that is the outlier.

On line betting:

• Chi favours: the Dogs, Sydney, Carlton, Brisbane, Fremantle, Hawthorn, Melbourne and West Coast
• ELO favours: the Dogs, Sydney, Carlton, Geelong, Fremantle, Hawthorn, Port Adelaide and St Kilda

I was reviewing the extended ladder (which can be downloaded from the MAFL Stats site each week) and noticed how strong the Saints' defence has been this season. While their attack has been more than acceptable - they rank 3rd overall in terms of points scored - their defence has been 250 points better than any other team in the league. That's almost 3 goals better per game.

Adelaide, 5th on the ladder, are another team whose success has been based more on defence than attack. They're ranked 9th on Points For and 4th on Points Against. Carlton, who sit 7th on the ladder, have instead relied on attack. The opposite of the Crows, the Blues are ranked 4th on Points For and 9th on Points Against.

In general, defence has had a larger bearing on teams' competition points so far this season than has attack, as evidenced by the slightly higher (in absolute terms) correlation between Competition Points and Points Against (-0.92) than between Competition Points and Points For (+0.85). Put another way, variation in Points Against explains about 12% more (ie 0.92 squared vs 0.85 squared) of the variation in Competition Points than does Points For.

More Green Shoots

This weekend we learned a great deal.

We learned - if we didn't already know - that the Saints are genuine contenders for the flag this year and aren't at all intimidated by the Cats' incredible win-loss record since 2007. We learned that it is possible to make money without relying on occasional improbable victories by rank outsiders and that last weekend's profit wasn't merely a statistical anomaly. We learned that the Hawks aren't good enough to go back-to-back and that the Dees aren't yet focussed on priority draft picks. And we learned that dogs of dubious breeding shouldn't be entrusted with large sums of cash.

Still, it was another glorious weekend's wagering. Combined, across this weekend and last, Investors have landed 31 winners from 33 bets, missing only a line bet on the Cats last weekend and a highly speculative head-to-head bet on the Tigers at $3.75 this weekend. Even then, neither of these bets lost by more than 3 goals.

New Heritage has so far this season won 38 from 49 bets and is up about 45%. Prudence has won 35 from 44 bets and is up about 19%. Hope, inactive this week, has won 7 from 16 bets across the season and is up by about 33%. Line Redux has won 20 from 39 bets and is finally back in the black, although only by about 1%. Chi-squared is what could politely be called the 'outlier'. It's won 7 from 14 bets and is down by around 33%, over one-half of that loss attributable to this weekend's (obvious in hindsight) folly.

For most Investors, the weekend's successes added between about 8c and 9c to their share price. The two exceptions were MIN #002, who was betless this weekend and so marked time, and MIN #017, whose Heritage-only portfolio leapt over 27c.

These increases leave most Investors up by between about 12% and 15% on the season, the exceptions yet again being MIN #002, who's up 33%, and MIN #017, who's up nearly 45%.

Here's a chart showing each Investor's triumphal march:

On tipping, this week's best performance was HSH's 7 from 8. Most other top tipsters scored 6 from 8, though BKB managed just 5, dropping it into joint 3rd place with STM II on 78 from 112 (70%). Shadow and Silhouette remain joint leaders, now on 82 from 112 (73%). CTL fills out the top 5 places with 76 from 112 (68%).

Only one tipster, ELO, is now showing a loss on level-stake, home team only wagering, commencing in Round 6. Applying this same wagering strategy to the tips of our top 3 tipsters would have yielded profits of over 11 units, which represents an ROI of over 10%.

Whilst ELO might not be performing well on head-to-head wagering, it continues to excel on line betting, recording 6 from 8 this weekend to move to 65 and 47 for the season and a profit to level-staking of 10.57 units. Chi had a good line-betting week too, picking 7 from 8 this week, but he's still at less than 50% (he's 54 and 58) for the season.

In running down the Dockers in the final term on Sunday night, Carlton became only the 8th team this season to come from behind at three-quarter time to win and the 1st team to do so when trailing by 2 goals or more at the last change.

As I've commented before, this has not been a season for winning after trailing. About 68% of teams who've led at the first change (ignoring games that were tied at this change) have gone on to win. This is about 1% point higher than the all-time average. Teams leading at the half (again ignoring games tied at the half) have won 81% of the time, up 2% points on the all-time average, and teams leading at the final change (ignoring games tied at this point) have won 93% of the time, up a startling 7% points on the all-time average.

This latter statistic is not, as you might suspect, the result of teams tending to lead by more at the final change this season compared to previous seasons. In fact, even teams with quite slender leads have been hanging on to win at historically high rates. For example, teams leading by between 6 and 11 points have won 85% of the time (up 13% points on the all-time average), and those leading by between 12 and 17 points have won 100% of the time (up 18% points on the all-time average).

The only three-quarter time lead range that has proved more vulnerable this season than has been the case historically is a lead of between 1 and 5 points, which has been defended only 55% of the time this season, 3% points under the all-time average.

Chi Returns As Hope Fades

Chi, as a dog (which he is, so I guess that's a little redundant, but bear with me) is prone to inexplicable bursts of canine euphoria during which times he's apt to bound around like a dog a fraction of his age.

Whatever it is that transports him into these displays of friskiness clearly struck sometime this week just as he was contemplating his weekly wagers. Why else would he have decided to put 17.7% of the Fund on the Tigers at $3.75? His other wager is a much more sedate one: 4.6% of the Fund on the Pies at $1.55.

Prudence has sipped from the same chalice - dog slobber and all - as evidenced by its two most extreme wagers of 1.9% on St Kilda at $2.35, and 1.5% on the Dees at $2.10. As well as these it has three other wagers on teams at prices ranging from $1.30 to $1.55, the largest on being 4.9% on the Swans at $1.30.

New Heritage has also found a lot to like, with wagers in all but the Richmond v Adelaide game. These wagers include almost 12% of the Fund risked on teams priced above $2: Melbourne (5.4% @ $2.10), Port (3.1% @ $2.35) and St Kilda (3.1% @ $2.35). The four other bets range in size from 11.4% on Sydney @ $1.30 to a neither-here-nor-there 0.1% on Carlton @ $1.55.

Line Redux, the only other active Fund this weekend as we are again Hope-less, has found four wagers, three on teams receiving start and one on the Pies, giving start.

Together these produce a Ready Reckoner that looks a lot like this:

Unusually, due mainly to Chi's Richmond wager, all Investors except MIN #017 have roughly equal upside and downside risk this weekend.

On tipping we have:

• Collingwood the unanimous favourites over the Dons.
• West Coast 9-4 favourites over the Dees. Amongst the top six tipsters, the Dees have Shadow, Silhouette and STM II as supporters and the Eagles have BKB, ELO and CTL. Chi has this as one of his four - yes, four - one point margin predictions and hence Games of the Round.
• Brisbane are 12-1 favourites over Port. Only HSH is tipping Port.
• Adelaide are 12-1 favourites over the Tigers. Chi is the sole Tigers fan (hence the wager) but here too is prediction a single point margin making this another of his Games of the Round.
• The Dogs and unanimous favourites over the Hawks.
• Sydney are 8-5 favourites over the Roos. The top six tipsters are split as for the Eagles v Dees clash. This time Shadow, Silhouette and STM II are siding with the Roos and BKB, ELO and CTL are on the Swans.
• St Kilda are 10-3 favourites over the Cats. Geelong have, amongst the top six tipsters, only BKB and ELO in their corner. Chi and ELO are tipping just one point margins and so have this as a/the Game of the Round.
• Carlton are 11-2 favourites over Freo. Only HSH and EI II have tipped Fremantle. Chi though has this as another one pointer, which makes this his fourth and final Game of the Round.

So close are many of the games expected to be this weekend, anyone who tips the card deserves double points in their tipping competition. One measure of this expected closeness is the average points start per game on line betting.This week that statistic is 14.6 points per game, more than two points lower than the next-lowest this season, which was 16.9 points per game in Round 5.

Another measure is the combined probability of all underdogs winning in the round. The probability of that happening this week is about 3,800 to 1, which is roughly 12 surprisal bits. Previously, the lowest this has been this season was about 7,950 to 1, or approximately 13 surprisal bits, which it was in Round 1. In other words, the probability of all 8 underdogs winning this week is roughly twice what it's been for any other round this season.

For Line Betting:

• Chi's on Collingwood, Melbourne, Port, Richmond, the Dogs, the Roos, the Saints and Fremantle.
• ELO agrees except for swapping West Coast in for Melbourne.

Almost Perfect

Wagering weekends don't come much sweeter than this last one. Only Geelong's lack of killer instinct - which surely must be troubling the Cats' coaches and fans alike - spoiled a 15 wins from 15 wagers result.

Still, 14 from 15 was good enough to allow all Investors to record solid gains for the week in amounts ranging from about 5% to 8.5%. On the back of these gains the Recommended Portfolio is now up by over 4% and all other Portfolios are up by between 6% and 33%.

At the Fund level, Hope rose by the largest percentage, climbing 8.5% on the strength of its sole wager on the Dons. The Dons have now contributed more than 34c worth of gains to the Hope Fund, the result of 3 wins from 5 wagers. Overall, the Hope Fund now has a 7 and 9 record.

The next highest increase was recorded by Prudence, whose 7% increase this week thanks to 6 successful wagers, was its greatest single-week increase this season. Prudence now has a 5 from 5 record with St Kilda, a 3 from 3 record with Geelong, and a 30 from 39 record overall.

New Heritage bagged 5 from 5 and jumped 6.3%. It now has perfect records with Geelong (3 from 3), St Kilda (5 from 5), Collingwood (3 from 3), and the Lions (3 from 3). Its season-long record stands at 31 from 42.

The only other active Fund this weekend was the Line Redux Fund, which managed 2 wins from 3 thus registering only its third profitable round in the last 10. It now stands at 16 from 35 for the season.

On tipping, Silhouette and Shadow each scored 7 from 8, moving them to 76 from 104 (73%) for the season, one further tip clear of BKB, whose 6 from 8 left it on 73 from 104 (70%). STM II also scored 7 from 8 and is now on 72 from 104 (69%). Only one tipster picked all 8 winners this weekend: HSH, who now sits on 60 from 104 (58%). No tipster fared worse than 6 from 8.

All that fine tipping has lifted the wagering returns from level-staking our tipsters' tips. Nine tipsters are now showing a profit on level-stake, home-team only wagering, commencing in Round 6, and four of those are also showing a profit on level-stake, season-long wagering.

Moving to line betting, Chi and ELO each tipped 5 from 8 this weekend, which leaves ELO at 59 from 104 for the season and Chi at 47 from 104. Level-stake wagering on ELO line bets is now showing a +7.17 unit return for the season.

Lastly, an update on the Mean Absolute Prediction Error metric. Chi's MAPE is currently 30.9 points per game while ELO's is an exceptional 27.9 points per game, only narrowly trailing BKB's 27.7 points per game.

No Triskaidekaphobia Here

Clearly the Funds aren't superstitious. Why else would they, collectively, choose Round 13 as the round in which to - for most Investors - make their largest outlay?

Foremost for profligacy amongst the Funds is the New Heritage Fund, which this week has found five wagers totalling approximately 64% of Initial Funds at prices ranging from $1.04 (for the Cats) to $1.22 (for Adelaide). So, mercifully, not much in terms of risk for each bet, but a considerable amount in terms of total risk. Indeed, this is the largest amount that the Heritage Fund has wagered in any single round this season.

Prudence, too, has set a record for most Initial Funds at risk this week. It's wagered about 31% of the Fund on six wagers, five of them on the same teams as the New Heritage Fund, but the sixth on West Coast at - wait for it - $3. Since when does Prudence wager on 2/1 longshots?

The Hope Fund is a little more restrained, making just a single wager on Essendon at $2.65 for a smidgeon over 5% of the Fund.

Also somewhat restrained is the Line Redux Fund with 3 wagers this week totalling 15% of the Fund. Two of these wagers are on short-priced favourites offering 44.5 (Brisbane) and 47.5 (Geelong) points, and the third is on the Roos receiving 36.5 points.

Coyest of all is the Chi-squared Fund, which has found nothing to wager on this week.

As I hinted at earlier, combined these wagers represent the largest single-round outlay for all Investors except MIN #002. The table below provides detail about the outlay and return for each Investor profile for each round.

On then to this week's Ready Reckoner:

So, for those with the Recommended Portfolio and for MIN #001 and MIN #015, the Geelong v Port clash is that contest representing the largest potential swing between the best and worst results. For this same group of Investors, the Brisbane v Melbourne matchup represents the next largest swing.

(This week the Ready Reckoner includes information about the best- and worst-possible outcomes for each Investor across the weekend. For example, a perfect set of eight results for those with the Recommended Portfolio would lead to about a 7% gain and, by contrast, a anti-perfect set of eight result would lead to just over a 24% drop.)

To tipping:

• Essendon, the market underdogs, are 9-4 favourites over the Blues. Amongst our best tipsters, BKB, ELO and CTL are all siding with the Blues, while Silhouette, Shadow and STM II are with the Dons. ELO, though coming down in favour of the Blues, has them winning by just 2 points, making this its Game of the Round.
• Collingwood are unanimous favourites over Freo.
• Adelaide are unanimous favourites over the Swans.
• Brisbane, continuing the trend, are unanimous favourites over the Dees.
• Hawthorn are 11-2 favourites over the Eagles. Our two least-performed tipsters in HSH and EI I are the Eagles' only friends.
• Geelong, as is custom, are unanimous favourites over Port.
• The Dogs are the round's fifth unanimous favourites, they over the Roos. Chi, however, has the Dogs winning by just 4 points and therefore has this as his Game of the Round.
• St Kilda are 12-1 favourites over Richmond, the Tiger's sole supporter being EI I, which this year is just about as close to no support at all as it's possible to have.

The only game with any significant implications for our top tipsters is, therefore, Friday nights Dons v Blues clash.

On Line Betting this week, Chi's with all the teams receiving start. ELO differs only in that it's predicting the joint competition leaders in the Cats and the Saints to cover the spread.

Swans Turn Into Ugly Ducklings

Two of the three teams did what Investors asked of them this weekend, but Sydney's failure to be amongst this group meant another small loss for most this weekend. This leaves the Recommended Portfolio down about 1% on the season and all other Investors up by amounts ranging from 0.9% (MIN #015) to 24.6% (MIN #002).

At this point in the season New Heritage is up about 11%, Prudence is up about 3.5%, Hope is up almost 25%, Chi-squared is down about 17.5%, and the Line Redux Fund is down about 21%.

On tipping, Silhouette and Shadow continue to perform well and jointly lead our tipping competition, two tips clear of BKB and four tips clear of STM II, who've leaped into fourth thanks to an 8 from 8 performance this round. Over the past 3 rounds STM II has scored 21 from 24.

On level-stake, home-team-only wagering, commencing in Round 6, we still have five tipsters showing a profit: Shadow, Silhouette, BKB, STM II and EI II. Three of these tipsters - Silhouette, Shadow and STM II - are also showing a profit on season-long wagering.

ELO performed well again this round on line betting, picking up 6 from 8 to go to 54 and 42 for the season, which is good enough for a 5.67 unit profit on level-stake wagering across the season. Chi managed just 4 from 8 and is now 42 and 54 for the season.

A Trio to Finish

Round 12 continues this weekend, with just three games to complete the formalities.

The New Heritage Fund has two wagers across the weekend totalling around 19% of the Fund. By a considerable margin the larger wager is at $1.25 on the Dons, a team with which New Heritage has had a barely profitable season. The other wager at a generous $1.90 on Sydney, a team which has been responsible for a 12c gain in the New Heritage Fund price (and for a 5c gain in the Prudence Fund).

Prudence has two wagers too, and they're also on the Dons and the Swans. Together, they total about 6% of the Fund.

Line Redux has just one wager, on Freo with 45.5 points start playing the Cats, though there might be another wager on Sydney when their line market opens for betting. This is the Line Redux Fund's first wager on Fremantle this season.

Chi-squared and Hope complete a quiet round for them both, with neither of them venturing a wager this weekend. Between them, they've mustered on a single bet across the entire round. Earlier in the week Chi-squared was contemplating a wager on the Swans, but it went off this idea when the Pies shortened to equal favouritism. The Chi-squared Fund is very sensitive to price movements around the $1.85-$1.95 range.

Here's this week's Ready Reckoner (which I'll update if the Sydney line bet eventuates, so please have another look before the weekend).

(Thursday night update: no line bet on Sydney. Even though they're receiving 6.5 points start - and I expected them to be giving it - they're only at $1.75. There's no value in that.)

So it's the Essendon v Melbourne game that has the greatest potential impact on all Investors except for the once-again wagerless MIN#002.

To tipping:

• The Dons are unanimous favourites over the Dees.
• The Pies are 11-2 favourites over Sydney, though one of the Swans' supporters is ELO. Both Chi and ELO have this as their Game of the Half Round. (Note that, since Sydney and Collingwood are equal favourites, BKB goes with CTL and so is on the Pies.)
• Geelong are 12-1 favourites over Freo. Only HSH is opting for the home team.

Finally, on Line Betting:

• Chi's line bets are Melbourne, Sydney and Freo
• ELO's line bets Essendon, Sydney and Freo.

Split Round, Spilt Money

To (mis)use a footballing term: it was a weekend of two halves.

Saturday was wonderful, with the Dogs and the Tigers doing what we'd asked. Sunday was, in equal measure, appalling, due largely to the Hawks' failure to show up for the second half, but capped off by the Roos' inferior aquatic skills against the Crows at Football Baths.

All told, every Investor with a wager in the round so far - which excludes only MIN#002 - has lost money, in amounts ranging from 2.5% to 10.2%. So, at this point, 5 games into the split 12th round, the Recommended Portfolio is under water by about 0.8%. Other portfolios remain profitable, but MIN#001 and MIN#002 are now just a loss or two away from red ink.

On tipping, Silhouette and Shadow are joint leaders on 66, BKB is third on 64, and STM II, with 5 from 5 for the weekend, has moved into fourth on 62.

There's still 3 more games to turn this Round around ...

Five Games; Money on Four

Round 12 in the AFL is a split round this year, so our tipsters and our Funds need only make decisions about 5 contests this week. Only Prudence and New Heritage have expressed any significant enthusiasm for what's on offer; amongst them, the other three Funds have just two wagers.

Prudence, this week's most active Fund, has four wagers totalling around 13.5% of the Fund and spanning teams with prices ranging from $1.15 to $1.55. Its Adelaide wager is its first on them this season. 

New Heritage, the next most active Fund, has three wagers, two of them with substantial downside tied to the fate of the Dogs and the Hawks, and another with substantial upside but relying on the Roos at $5 to overcome the Crows at Footy Park. The Roos wager is New Heritage's first on this team this season.

Chi-squared, feeling a little anxious at last weekend's 14% decline, has ventured just a single wager: a smidge over 4.6% on the Tigers at $1.55. This is Chi-squared's first flutter on the Tigers this year. Excepting Hope, the other Funds have all had bad years punting on Richmond, registering just a solitary profitable bet amongst them from five attempts. Line Redux has been similarly restrained in also opting for only one wager. Its is on Hawthorn giving 15.5 points start to the Lions.

The Hope Fund, a trifle ironically, has found no team worthy of its faith this weekend and so will finish the weekend where it'll start it at +24.6%. 

Here's this week's Ready Reckoner.

For all Investors - bar MIN#002 who is without wager - the two most financially important games are the Hawks v Lions clash and the Bulldogs v Port matchup. These games represent potential swings of around 4-6% for most Investors and around 15% for MIN#017.

Moving then to tipping:

• The Saints are favoured 12-1 over the Blues. HSH is home alone on the Blues. ELO has this game as its Game of the Half Round though it is tipping more than a 2-goal margin.
• The Dogs are unanimous favourites over Port, with Chi and ELO both predicting that the Dogs will cover the 25.5 point spread.
• West Coast are 8-5 favourites over Richmond. Amongst the upper echelon of our tipsters, the Tigers have the support of BKB, ELO and STM II, while Shadow, Silhouette and CTL are siding with the Coast.
• Hawthorn are favoured 9-4 over the Lions, with Silhouette and STM II the only members of the tipping elite jumping on the Lions.
• Adelaide are unanimous favourites over the Roos. Chi has the Crows squeaking home by just 7 points, making this his Game of the Half Round.

Finally, on Line Betting:

• Chi's line bets are 3 mammals, a bird and a colour: Blues, Dogs, Eagles, Lions and Roos.
• ELO's line bets have the same mix of fauna and hue, but swap a crow for an eagle and a tiger for a roo: Blues, Dogs, Tigers, Lions and Crows.

Not Quite What I Was Planning

Okay, I admit it: making money is much more fun than losing it, no matter how tiny and glacially produced that profit is. 

This weekend, most Investors were on the wrong side of a number of narrow wagering losses. First, the Roos collapsed in the final term against the Saints to lose by 46, just a little over a goal more than the 39.5 start we were receiving on line betting. Next, the Lions couldn't quite do enough in the last quarter, despite kicking 7 goals, and wound up losing by just 6 points to the Blues. Then the Dons became only the sixth team this year to surrender a three-quarter time lead in going down to the Crows by 16 points, taking three Funds' money with them. And finally, to complete the weekend's indignities, the Hawks fell just 4.5 points short of covering the spread against the Swans.

All up, we won just 6 of 14 bets. 

The New Heritage Fund fared best, bagging 3 from 3 to give it an impressive 75% win record for the season. Prudence managed just 3 of 5, which gives it a less impressive but still profitable 67% win record for the season. Hope scored 0 from 2 and now has only a 40% win record for the season, but its winners have generally been at long odds, so it too is still in profit. 

More troubling have been the Chi-squared Fund, which recorded 0 from 2 this weekend and now has only a 45% win record, and the Line Redux Fund, which also recorded 0 from 2, leaving it with a win record similar to Chi-squared's. To date, the Line Redux Fund is, however, 2 and 5 on games where the handicap-adjusted margin was less than 2 goals, so I'm feeling a little better-disposed towards this Fund than I might otherwise be. Chi-squared's performance is just a mystery though, to be fair, none of his losses have been by more than 22 points and only one of his wins has been by such a narrow margin.

With so little success, it's not surprising that all Investors except MIN#017 - who's 100% invested in New Heritage - lost money this weekend, all in the 3-5% range. MIN#017 meantime made just over 9% on the strength on New Heritage's perfect weekend. Across the season, all Investors remain in profit, albeit narrowly.

Since we're at the halfway point in the season I thought I'd provide a new chart, this one showing how the profitability of each portfolio has varied by game across the 88 games of the season so far.

On  tipping, Shadow and STM I both tipped the card this week. This moved Shadow to 63 from 88 for the season (which is 71.5%), one clear of Silhouette and a stunning 3 clear of BKB. HSH had a horror week, scoring just 3 to leave it equal last on 49 from 88, which is still a respectable 55.7%.

On level-stake, home-team-only wagering, commencing in Round 6, five tipsters remain in profit: Shadow, Silhouette, BKB (barely), STM II and EI II. 

Finally, looking at line betting performances, ELO notched 5 from 8 this week to leave it with a +2.27 unit profit for the season. Chi managed just 3 from 8 and is losing more than it matters to count.

(Incidentally, this week's blog name is an allusion to SMITH magazine's six-word memoirs which, legend has it, were inspired by Hemingway's response to a challenge to write a story in just 6 words. His answer, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn", is hard to top, but others on the site and in the book such as "I still make coffee for two" also give pause.)