2014 - Round 9 : Roos Set Upper and Lower Bounds

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This week presented the Fund algorithms with another half-dozen contests to evaluate and they've responded with wagers, in aggregate, sized very similarly to last week. We've nine bets spanning five games and representing 5.2% of the original Recommended Portfolio.

Two of the bets are head-to-head wagers on the week's shortest-priced underdog home teams, the larger 1.1% on the Dons at $3.15, and the smaller 0.4% on the Crows at $2.75. Three others are line bets, two of which are also on underdogs, and the remaining four are SuperMargin wagers on home team favourites to win by a lot.

Unlike last week, we've no game where all three Funds are simultaneously wagering. That's made for better risk diversification as no single team is carrying more than about one-third of the aggregate downside or one-third of the aggregate upside.

The Roos are that team carrying the largest slice of the upside, a win by them by 50 to 59 points promising a 2.4c return. Wins for the Tigers by 40 to 49 points, for the Crows by any margin at all, or a loss for the Saints by 22 point or less, all offer the next-best gains of about 1.3% each.

Downside is also most concentrated in the Roos (worst case a 1.8c loss), with the Crows (1.4c loss) and the Saints (1.3c loss) carrying the next largest burdens.

In the best of universes, Investors finish the week up by a tad under 7c while in the worst of all universes they end down by a tad over 5c.

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

High levels of agreement amongst the Head-to-Head Tipsters has been the norm for some weeks now, and this week continues that trend. Only in the Fremantle v Cats game are there more than three Tipsters in the minority. In that game, majority support is narrowly with the underdog home team Fremantle by 15.5 Tipsters to 12.5, with Bookie_3, like the TAB Bookmaker, unable to split the teams and so opting for the draw.

MatterOfStats' Margin Predictors are also unanimous in their selection of the winner in every game other than the Freo v Cats contest, though they're less divided than the Head-to-Head Tipsters in that game too with only four Predictors siding with the Cats and one, Bookie_3, plumping for the draw as just noted.

Combo_7 is one of the Predictors landing on Fremantle's side of the ledger, but when you need to go to three decimal places to describe the magnitude of your confidence you could hardly label your endorsement "ringing". None of the other Predictors, regardless of which team they ultimately selected as winning, predict a double-digit victory margin.

Surprisingly though, the Free v Cats game isn't the contest with the narrowest all-Predictor range of victory margins. In fact, it finishes third on that characteristic, behind Thursday's Crows v Pies game where the range is just under two goals, and also behind Friday's Dons v Swans game where the range is just under three goals. The largest range attaches to the Tigers v Dees game, the Tigers being expected to win by anywhere between 7 and 45 points.

PROBABILITY PREDICTIONS

If we count draws as agreement - or at least non-disagreement - then we've complete unanimity across the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors this week. Here too it's the Freo v Cats game that's causing any consternation at all at the who wins/who loses level, Bookie-RE and Bookie-OE both opting for the draw in this contest.

Again though, as was the case for the Margin Predictors, the range of opinion is larger in games other than the Fremantle v Geelong matchup. In the Saints v Suns game, opinion spans 30% points, in the Tigers v Dees game it spans 25%, and in the Dons v Swans game it spans 14%. Spans of this size mean that we should expect some sizable differences in the probability scores for these Predictors this week.

The Line Fund algorithm assesses three teams as enjoying 60% or higher probabilities of prevailing on line betting. Most startling amongst those assessments is the 90% that the algorithm attaches to the Dees' chances, though the Crows' 62% and the Cats' 61% are also bold. Large too, therefore, is likely to be the movement in the Line Fund's probability score this week.

ChiPS Predictions

Only in the Fremantle v Geelong game has ChiPS selected the lower Rated team to emerge victorious this week, Fremantle overcoming their 6 Ratings Point deficit through the combined effects of superior form, their Home Ground Advantage and the Interstate Status of the clash.

Three teams' head-to-head prices are assessed as offering value: Essendon at $3.15, Fremantle at $1.90, and, especially, St Kilda at $4.00.

By the way, for anyone following along, ChiPS has a +1.6% RONF for the season so far, though he's made losses in three of the last five weeks and only broken even in the other two, so his form's not great.