Only the most speculative of the wagers failed to provide a return this week, the three others combining to lift the value of the Head-to-Head Fund by a little over 6c and, in turn, lift the value of the Overall Portfolio by almost 2.5c.

In a week where seven home team are giving start and the two others aren't receiving much, the Line Fund has opted to keep its wallet in its pocket, leaving the Head-to-Head Fund's four forays as the round's only activity for Investors.

The two losing favourites were severely punished by ChiPS over the weekend, not so much because they lost, but because they did so by such huge margins

After a round in which the football was very much secondary to the tragedy that proceeded it, it seems almost inappropriate to fuss about its results.

So far this season 12 teams have played after a bye in the previous week and their collective record is just 4 wins and 8 losses. I'm hoping that the two MoS Funds, who both determined to nominate last weekend as their impromptu "bye", fare a little better this weekend.

First up this week, a correction. Last week's ChiPS Ratings for Geelong and Melbourne were slightly in error because I neglected to input the scores for their game into the relevant Official ChiPS Spreadsheet.

The Swans were the only favourites to lose this weekend and victory margins in all games were under 40 points, which made for a round of relatively strong performances by all MoS Tipster and Predictor groups.

For the first time in a home and away season round since I can remember - which must surely make it at least four or five weeks - none of the MoS Funds has seen fit to place a wager.

Some unexpected results on the weekend led to larger-than-normal changes in ChiPS Team Ratings, which, in turn, led to four pairs of teams trading places on ChiPS Rankings.

Another week with just a single head-to-head collect and a blank sheet in the line market delivered Investors one more set of unprofitable wagers, this week made worse by the ramping up of the Line Fund wager size.

Did I mention that the Line Fund doubles its bet size starting this week until the end of Round 23?

With just six games over the weekend, wholesale changes in team Rankings seemed unlikely and, in the end, ChiPS re-Ranked only three team and MARS re-Ranked seven.

Again this week it fell to a single team to provide the only bright spot in an otherwise dark and depressing round of wagering. It was the Pies who eventually gave that relief when they comfortably accounted for the Giants on Sunday, though the Suns, which we'd bought at $10, had gone very close to lighting up the entire weekend only 24 hours earlier.

Round 11 is the first of three successive truncated rounds comprising just six games, and this limited opportunity for spotting value, however illusory, has predictably resulted in reduced exposure for Investors this week.

Just five teams changed their ChiPS Ranking this week while 13 changed their MARS Ranking, though nine of those MARS changes were only by a single position, so the contrast isn't as stark as it first appears.

Investors suffered yet another loss this week, the Roos' win over the Eagles the only thing preventing a dreaded "no-collect" round.

Investors have eight bets again this week, though the mix is different to last week's.

For all the weekend and mid-week drama on and off the field, the results we ended up with weren't all that far from those the ChiPS and MARS Rating Systems expected.

I was tempted to fashion a title for today's blog around the theme "Pies reheated during half-time break" to reflect Collingwood's remarkable reversal of form in the second half of their match against the Roos, but gave up when I couldn't find something snappy enough. So, as least you were saved from that.

It's Round 9 and we've already spotted the TAB bookmaker 10c headstart, 6.5c more than we'd surrendered to him at the same point last season, so it's arguably not a bad thing to find ourselves with a little more action this week.