Apparently, if you can beat the reigning premiers you can beat the runners-up of the year before. That's the only rationale I can posit as to why the Head-to-Head Fund has made its only bet this week on Port Adelaide, at home again, facing the Pies.

As well, the Line Fund has ignored its poor form for the season to date, venturing six wagers, four on favourites and two on underdogs, while the Margin Fund has made 12 wagers on six games, including a bet on a draw in Friday's game at $51.

All told, those bets leave Investors exposed in seven of the week's games and blissfully indifferent to the outcome of the other two. Focussing on those two bet-free games I find it hard to argue with any Fund that determines that the Dees at $4.60 or at $1.90 receiving 29.5 points start are a team worth ignoring.

Collectively, these wagers make for another interesting Ready Reckoner.

Yet again we find that Port Adelaide offers the highest possible return for Investors, this time a return of 4.6c should they conjure another unlikely victory. Next best would be a Cats win by 10-19 points, which would be worth almost 4c, followed by a West Coast win by 3 to 9 points or a Sydney win by 40 to 49 points, which would each be worth about 3.4c.

The worst result for Investors this week would be a Collingwood win, costing 3.8c. Next worst would be an Essendon win by 10 points or more, a Sydney win by 19 points or fewer, a Geelong win by 9 points or fewer, or a Roos win by 29 points or fewer, by 40 to 49 points, or by 60 to 77 points, all of which would cost Investors about 3.2c.

In summary, this week it's serious: a best-case set of results would add about 21.5c to the Recommended Portfolio while a worst-case set of results would knock almost 20c from the value of that Portfolio. Almost inevitably, we'll wind up somewhere in the middle of those two extremes, but that's a very wide canvas this week.

TIPS & PREDICTIONS

There's an unusually high level of disagreement amongst the Head-to-Head Tipsters this week, with the average disagreement measure registering at 26% led, as always, by Home Sweet Home, but atypically supported by the Easily Impressed and Short-Term Memory family, and even by Bookie Knows Best.

Five games in particular are somewhat distant from unanimity. Collingwood, Fremantle and Essendon are all Tipster-preferred but with a less than 2:1 majority, while Adelaide and the Dogs both find themselves with majority support but with at least 2 Tipsters tipping against them.

Amongst the Margin Predictors, only one game is creating truly significant disagreement, the Eagles v Dons Friday night clash, which sees 6 of the Predictors siding with the Eagles and 10 siding with the Dons. The Geelong v Fremantle game, while generating unanimous Cats support, is nonetheless seen as being a close-run thing by all Margin Predictors. Combo_NN2's prediction of a 14-point win by the Cats represents the strongest support for Geelong.

The Head-to-Head Probability Predictors are also proffering diverse opinions. The Eagles are favourites with most Predictors, though not with ProPred nor the H2H family; Gold Coast are variously assessed as being "some chance", "little chance" and "virtually no chance"; while the Dees are rated as "virtually no chance" or "only in your dreams" depending on which Predictor's assessment you believe.

On line betting, Melbourne, Sydney, Collingwood, Brisbane, West Coast and St Kilda are all assessed by the Line Fund algorithm as being better than 55% chances of winning on a handicap-adjusted basis.