MAFL 2010 : Round 6

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It's as if someone flicked a switch, which in a fashion someone did.

All six Funds have taken up their option to participate in the weekend's wagering, many of them with an alacrity that can only be exhibited by something inanimate that has no sense of the terror that can be induced by a large wager on a team at $1.01.

Hope is the only Fund to show any restraint, chancing just a single wager - its first for the season - of around 1.6% on Sydney at $1.55 facing the Lions at the SCG. New Heritage has waded in like an adrenalin junkie coming home from an enforced 6-week stay at a Buddhist retreat. It's found 6 wagers to its liking, these totalling almost 41% of the Fund and including a 13.5% tilt at the Cats paying $1.01, an almost equally futile 0.1% wager on the Pies at $1.55, and a 3.1% bet on the Crows at $2.35.

The ELO-Line Fund has been almost as profligate, dropping 30% on 6 wagers (one of which - 5% on the Roos - I've yet to make as the market isn't currently available). Mercifully, it's avoided taking the Cats giving 60.5 (yes, over 10 goals) start to the Tigers.

Prudence, Shadow (and hence the Heuristic-Based Fund) have all outlayed about 15% of their respective Funds, in Prudence's case on four wagers, and in Shadow's and the Heuristic-Based Fund's, on three.

Here's the detail (in a slightly larger font this week):

Unsurprisingly, this cacophany of wagers puts a considerable chunk of total Funds in play this weekend, including those of MIN#002 and MIN#017, whose money is at risk for the first time this season. Welcome.

For those with the Recommended Portfolio, the Sydney v Brisbane game represents the largest gap between exaltation and despair, the difference being almost 7.5% of total Funds. The Geelong v Richmond game is next largest, but in that game the upside doesn't justify the label "exaltation" and the downside is the poster-child for "despair".

The remaining details of what result mean what profit and loss are in the Ready Reckoner, which appears below:

As it's been a while since you've had to worry about not just which team wins but also by how much they win, I'll just briefly go through how the Ready Reckoner works.

Consider the second row of the Recommended Portfolio part. It shows that if the Roos win, Investors' net MAFL worth increases by 1.64% (in this case the head-to-head and the line bets win).

If, instead the Roos lose head-to-head but Port fails to cover the spread, then the figure in the third column, representing the case where the home team (the Roos) win head-to-head but lose on handicap, pertains. It shows that Investors will lose 0.90% in that instance, the result of the head-to-head bets losing but the handicap bet winning.

The final column shows the result if the Roos lose head-to-head and also lose on handicap. In that case Investors will be down 1.8% for the game.

Next we look at the tipsters, who this week agree more often than not about the likely outcomes of each contest.

  • The Dogs are 13-2 favourites over the Saints, Consult The Ladder and Silhouette being the only holdouts.
  • Melbourne are 11-4 favourites over the Roos, though 3 of the 5 margin-tippers are on the Roos. All of the margin predictions are for a victory by either side of 9 points or fewer and this is one of BKB's two Games of the Round.
  • Port Adelaide are 11-4 favourites over the Crows, and again 3 of the 5 margin-tippers are on the less-favoured team. Both BKB and LAMP have this game as one of their two Games of the Round.
  • Hawthorn are 10-5 favourites over the Dons. Yet again the margin-tippers are split 3-2 in favour of the less-favoured team. ELO predicts that the Dons will win by just a point and therefore has this as its Game of the Round.
  • Sydney are unanimous favourites over the Lions. Predicted margins range from 12.5 points to 17 points, so no tipster is foreseeing a blowout.
  • Geelong are unanimous favourites over the Tigers. In this game, though, a blowout is seen as a distinct possibility. The bookies are giving the Tigers 60.5 start, which is one of the largest starts amongst my records. The only larger start was the 75.5 points that the Cats gave the Dees in Round 3 of 2008 (which, by the way, the Dees covered easily, going down by just 30 points).
  • Collingwood are 11-4 favourites over the Blues. Once again the margin-tippers are 3-2 to the underdogs. Chi has the Blues winning by just 4 points and so has this as his Game of the Round. LAMP has the Pies winning by 1 point and has this as its second Game of the Round.
  • Fremantle are 12-3 favourites over the Eagles. HAMP tips the Eagles to win by 1 point and has this as its Game of the Round.

The plethora of Games of the Round is a reflection of the overall narrowness of expected victory margins. Apart from the all-feline Cats v Tigers matchup where the Cats seem destined for a percentage-building massacre, no line market is offering a start greater than 15.5 points. That should make for a cardiovascularly taxing weekend.

Finally, to the HELP predictions.

HELP's predictions this week are just a little more risky than last week's. Two of the predictions are only barely non-naive - the first two - and five more have associated probabilities ranging from 58% to 63%. Only the 80% prediction for the Tigers to lose by less than 60.5 points will have any significant effect on HELP's average probability scores.