On the face of it, Round 1 results were tough to pick, with only four of the nine pre-game TAB favourites running out victors. Seven of the winners, however, were teams that finished higher on the competition ladder than did their opponents at the end of the 2013 home-and-away season, which was great news for the MatterOfStats Heuristic Tipsters almost all of which adopt the Consult The Ladder approach in the first round of the season.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

WAGERING RESULTS

First, let me round up the week's wagering by revealing that the Margin Fund - the only Fund operating this weekend - landed a second success amongst the remaining games of the first round as the Hawks' 48-point win squeaked into the top end of the 40 to 49 point range attached to one of its wagers. That left this Fund up by 5c on the season.

This performance, added to the 9.4c gain by the Head-to-Head Fund and the 1.1c gain by the Line Fund, both secured last week, leaves the Recommended Portfolio up by 4.4c on the season.

What's especially pleasing about this early success is the fact that the profitability has come from all of the Funds and not just from a lucky wager or two by one of them.

TIPPING AND PREDICTING RESULTS

As mentioned earlier, many of the Heuristic Tipsters benefited from mirroring Consult The Ladder's approach in Round 1 and, as a consequence, find themselves atop the Head-to-Head Tipsters part of the Leaderboard.

The Tipsters based on the Head-to-Head Fund algorithm dominate the next tier, along with the Tipsters based on ProPred and, in an unaccustomed mid-table position, Home Sweet Home. Each of these Tipsters is on 6 from 9. At the foot of the table are the Bookmaker-inspired Tipsters, the Combo Tipsters and MatterOfStats newest and preferred Tipster, C-Marg.

A similar picture emerges for the Margin Predictors - Heuristic Tipsters aside since none of them has a margin prediction equivalent - with the Predictors based on the Head-to-Head Fund algorithm dominating and the Bookmaker-derived, Combo and C-Marg Predictors lagging. Win_7 turned in the round's best line betting performance, correctly picking the handicap-adjusted winner in 8 of the 9 contests.

Results for the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors follow the same pattern we've observed in the other two prediction contests. Here, the Probability Predictors based on the Head-to-Head Fund algorithm outputs were the only ones to record positive probability scores.

Finally, the Line Fund algorithm recorded a narrowly positive probability score for the first round.