A fairly quiet week for MoS' traditional Rating Systems, with MARS moving only six teams in total and just three teams by more than a single spot, and ChiPS also moving only six teams in total and just one by more than a single spot.

A perfect set of wagering results this week, with the lone head-to-head and line bets on Port Adelaide proving successful, and the Overs/Unders Fund guessing correctly in the five other games.

It looks as though Investors can safely rely on the Overs/Unders Fund to provide wagering action even when the two other Funds have decided to save their money for another day.

If last weekend's Head-to-Head and Line Fund activity levels seemed a little pedestrian, this weekend's have stopped only just shy of comatose.

It's a hallmark of ELO rating systems that their level of surprise determines the size of their rating response, and this week's results provides an interesting case study of this behaviour.

But for a nine-goal final term in the Giants v Blues game, Investors would have been successful with all nine wagers this weekend. That said, two other Over/Under wagers were just a kick away from moving into the "loss" column, so the balance of the luck probably tilted in our direction.

In punting, as in life, you should be careful what you wish for, and last night's lamentation about the paucity of head-to-head and line betting this weekend has clearly been taken as a challenge by the Overs/Unders Fund, which has duly sprayed money at five of the six contests.

It seems odd, when you've byes and a truncated round, to start proceedings a day early, but that's again what the AFL has decided to do this year. Two games will have been completed then before the weekend proper has even started, and, for now at least, those are the only two games on which Investors will have any money at risk.

And not much money, nor much risk, at that.

Fewer teams in action in Round 13 meant that ChiPS and MARS had less reason to re-rate and re-rank teams this week, MARS ultimately moving seven teams and ChiPS just five. 

Any week that the Overall Portfolio increases in value is a week I'll gratefully accept, albeit that a monster head-to-head profit seemed possible for a large part of the final game of the round.

Again this week we find ourselves late on a Wednesday night waiting for the TAB to post a single Overs/Unders market, this time on the Swans v Dees game.

In this week's truncated round, five of the six home teams have been installed as underdogs by the TAB. Neither the Line Fund nor the Head-to-Head Fund wants anything to do with the lone home team favourite, the Swans, nor are they at all interested in the shortest price of the home team underdogs, the Dogs.

Just when we thought - maybe imagined - that team ratings and rankings might've settled down for a while, along comes Round 12 and the MoS Rating Systems collectively say "wait a minute ...".

There are, I'd contend, good losses and bad ones, and their ordering is not entirely determined by their magnitude.

MoSSBODS still tends to predict smaller aggregates than does the TAB bookmaker, but this week the difference is under 2 goals in six of the games with the result that the Overs/Unders Fund is only active in three.

The head-to-head prices and handicaps this week, a couple of games aside, hint at a round full of close finishes, with seven of the favourites priced in the $1.42 to $1.85 range and handicaps in those same seven games in the 2.5 to 9.5 points range.

The Swans' 38-point victory over the Suns and the Eagles' 8-point loss to the Dogs together were enough to convince MARS to move the Swans into top spot on its Ratings. ChiPS already had the Swans ranked 1st before the round commenced, and continues to hold that opinion now, though the gap between the Swans and the Eagles remains a tiny 0.4 Rating Points (RP).

Another small profit for the Overall Portfolio this week, with the Over/Under Fund making a significant contribution by landing four from five and moving into the black for the first time since Round 4.

Well there's no point waiting any longer, it seems, there just isn't going to be an Overs/Unders market posted for the Swans v Suns game anytime soon. 

If last week's portfolio of wagers was a high-risk hedge fund, this week's is a far more diversified bundle of assets, with a high-risk / high-reward tilt at the Suns offset by a trio of more pedestrian, term deposit-like investments. (Can you guess which sector of the economy I've spent a lot of my life working in?)