MAFL 2010 : Round 3

This week the Heuristic Fund will again be guided by the selections of the heuristic tipster named Shadow, a situation that will not persist into next week if Shadow's Round 3 tips are responsible for the Fund's third straight weekly loss.

Were Shadow hell-bent on retaining control of the Heuristic Fund - assuming, for the sake of the narrative, that it were sentient at all - it might have chosen to respond to this situation by wagering on a couple of short-priced favourites, hoping to eke out a small profit and in so doing earn the right to manage the Heuristic Fund for at least another 3 weeks.

As it happens, there's only one markedly short-priced favourite this weekend - Sydney at $1.10 facing Richmond - and Shadow has, indeed, thrown bread at the Swans ... but also at six other teams.

Yes, that's right, Investors have bets in every game but one this weekend, the Roos being the only home team felt unworthy of a flutter by Shadow. Here are the details:

Three weeks ago few could have imagined the Dees priced at just $2.80 taking on one of last year's semi-finalists, but that's the situation we have this week and it's one that's prompted Shadow to lob 5% on the Dees. This is the highest-priced team that Shadow is supporting this week and is one of only two wagers that Shadow has made on underdogs, the other being another 5% on Fremantle at $2.50.

Not surprisingly, this makes the Melbourne v Adelaide and Fremantle v Geelong contests those with the greatest differences between potential profit and potential loss. Here are the Ready Reckoner details for the week:

With so many wagers it's not easy to summarise in words the minimum set of favourable outcomes that will ensure Investors earn a profit this week, so I've opted for a graphic instead.

In the graphic, the ticks in each row are against those games where the outcome must be favourable if we're to make a profit and the blanks represent games where, in the context of the ticks in the same row, we're indifferent to the result. Considered as a whole, each row represents one set of outcomes that will produce a profit, however small, for the Heuristic Fund.

So, for example, since there's a tick in every row against at least one of Friday's or Saturday's games we know that it won't be possible to make a profit on the entire weekend if we're 0 for 4 come Saturday night. If, instead, we clean sweep (swept?) the Friday and Saturday bets, the fact that every row has at least one tick against a Sunday game tells us that we'd still need at least one of the Sunday bets to win for us to finish ahead.

The last row of the graphic tells us that if Port's our only success across Friday and Saturday, we'll need the two underdog bets on Sunday to get home if we're to finish in the black. The eleventh row - the last row in which there's a tick against the St Kilda game - tells us that if the Saints win on Friday but the three Saturday wagers lose, we'll need all three Sunday bets to win if we're to register a profit.

You can generate and analyse a range of other what-if scenarios using this graphic. I feel like there should be a simpler way to describe the sets of favourable outcomes necessary for profitability, but this is a task I've wrestled with for a few years now and still haven't found a way to satisfactorily resolve. Your suggestions are welcomed.

Anyway, time for a look at our tipsters.

In Friday's game there's unanimous support for the Saints to topple the Pies. Amongst the margin-tippers only ELO has the Saints covering the spread and even then only by half a point.

Next, the underdog Eagles have majority support in their clash with the Roos, though four of the five margin-tippers, including the bookies, are selecting a Roos win. HAMP is the lone Eagle-supporter and has them winning by just 2 points, making this one of its two Games of the Round. LAMP's on the Roos (which sounds a bit like the name for a depressing documentary on the Discovery Channel chronicling the night-time culling of one half of our coat of arms) but is predicting just a 4 point win, which also makes this one of its two Games of the Round. Assuming that the line market is eventually posted as Roos -6.5 it'll also be a Game of the Round for the bookies. The sentiment seems to be then that this game will be a close one.

In the Swans v Tigers game, Sydney are the unanimous selection, with comfortable wins predicted by all of the margin-tippers except Chi who's predicting a margin of only a point, making this his Game of the Round. Carlton, facing the Dons at the G on Saturday evening, are another unanimous tip, by margins ranging from one to four goals.

The Port v Lions game is the other game this weekend that seems likely to be a thriller according to our margin-tippers. ELO, HAMP and LAMP - and probably the bookies, again assuming the line market is posted with 6.5 points start to one team or the other - have this game as a Game of the Round, each predicting margins of 4 points or fewer. Majority tipping support is with the home team as it is in all but one game this week.

Melbourne take on Adelaide at the G on Sunday and enjoy unanimous support from all the non margin-tippers. Adelaide, on the other hand, has unanimous support from all margin-tippers and is predicted by them to win by between 1.5 and 3 goals.

In the Sunday game at Docklands where the Dogs face the Hawks, Chi and Consult the Ladder are the only tipsters opting for an underdog Hawks victory, and in the weekend's final game, which sees Fremantle pitted against the Cats, we again find unanimous non margin-tipper support for one team (Fremantle) and unanimous margin-tipper support for the other (Geelong).

So, in summary, this week's majority tips are: St Kilda (15-0), West Coast (10-5), Sydney (15-0), Carlton (15-0), Port Adelaide (10-5), Melbourne (10-5), Western Bulldogs (13-2) and Fremantle (10-5).

Lastly, let's have a look at HELP's line betting tips for the week.

There are a few high-risk probability forecasts in that lot, most obviously the 97% probability attaching to Richmond's winning on line betting, an outcome that will require the Tigers to lose by 39 points or fewer.