Remember last week's 10 restrained and ultimately profitable wagers? Well this week we've almost twice that number of bets and we've about two-and-a-half times the total original Funds at risk.

The menu includes:

• 5 Head-to-Head wagers totalling almost 7% of the Head-to-Head Fund,
• 6 Line wagers totalling 15% of the Line Fund, and
• 8 SuperMargin wagers totalling 10% of the Margin Fund.

Together, they put almost 12% of the entire Portfolio at risk.

Three of the Head-to-Head wagers are on teams that only a committed optimist could see as likely victors, though the two largest wagers are on more likely winners in the shape of the Crows (3% at $1.65) and Sydney (1.9% at $1.55).

The Line bets are on four of the same teams that the Head-to-Head bets are on, and are split 50:50 in terms of teams giving and teams receiving start.

Sydney and Adelaide, which are included amongst those Line bets, are both also the subjects of the Margin Fund's attention, meaning that every Fund has an interest in their performance this week. As well as contributing to the concentration of Investor risk this week, the Margin Fund has foisted us with a Chasm of Despair in the Hawthorn v GWS game, a chasm which runs from the 40 to 49 point range, though it at least has the redeeming feature of $13 and $8 prices on either side.

Actually, when we combine the Margin Fund's shenanigans with the Line Fund's activities, a second Chasm appears for the Hawks v GWS game, as you can see below. In exists for results in the 60 to 72 point range for a Hawthorn win, in which both SuperMargin wagers fail and the Line bet is trousered by the TAB Bookmaker as well. 

Adelaide carries the greatest upside this week, though the attainment of the maximum possible return on them requires the Crows to win by exactly 8 or 9 points. Melbourne offers a slightly less lucrative and only slightly more plausible maximum return, promising a gain of 3.6c should the Dees surprise the in-form Port Adelaide team. A Sydney win by 10-19 points offers a 2.8c return.

The Crows also harbour the largest risk this week and will drop the Recommended Portfolio by 2.6c should they contrive to lose. As well, Sydney will cost Investors 2.3c should they surrender the points to the Cats on Thursday night. Four other teams are capable of lowering the Recommended Portfolio price by between 1.3c and 1.8c.

Best case this week sees an 18c gain, and worst case a 12c loss.

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

In 6 of the weekend's 9 games - and isn't it nice to have a full set of games to look forward to again? - there's at least 6:1 support for the favourites amongst the Head-to-Head Tipsters. That leaves only three games to discuss: the Dons v Tigers game, where the Tigers enjoy 20-8 favouritism, the Crows v Suns game, where the Crows enjoy a 19-9 margin, and the Eagles v Roos game, which is the most hotly-disputed game of all and where the Eagles have only a 17-11 margin.

Home Sweet Home is the round's Tipster Most Different, this week returning a Disagreement Index of 63%, which means that a randomly selected Tipster in a randomly selected game is more likely than not to disagree with Home Sweet Home. Silhouette, Shadow and CTL are the next-most different from the norm. 

It's unusual to see Control The Ladder amongst the list of contrarian Tipsters, but this week the favourites in three games - Sydney, Adelaide and West Coast - sit lower on the ladder than the team they are facing.

The Margin Predictors are split in only two games - the Dons v Tigers and the Eagles v Roos clashes - though in the first of these only C_Marg is proffering a double-digit margin, and in the second of these only Combo_NN_1, Bookie_3 and Bookie_9 are doing likewise. In that Eagles v Roos game, Combo_NN_2 eventually settled on a victory margin for the Eagles of just under a point, which is why we've a SuperMargin wager on the 1-9 point bucket, but in the early parts of the week it looked, instead, as though we'd be on the Draw.

Across the 9 games the widest range of predictions comes in the Hawks v Suns game where they span almost 50 points from +37 (Combo_NN_2) to +87 (C_Marg). Ranges are also wide for the Saints v Pies (41 points), Dees v Port (39 points), and Dons v Tigers (34 points) games. They're narrowest for the Eagles v Roos (14 points) and the Lions v Blues (16 points) contests.

Bookie_3 is the Predictor most different from the all-Predictor average this week and is the most extreme Predictor in 4 of the 9 games. Combo_NN_1, which is also at the extreme in 4 games, has the next-highest Mean Absolute Deviation. RSMP_Weighted, in contrast, is the Predictor most similar to the all-Predictor average, its predictions, on average, only 4 points different from the consensus.

PROBABILITY PREDICTORS

The Head-to-Head Probability Predictors deviate from unanimity in the same two games in which the Margin Predictors deviate, the Dons v Tigers game where the Tigers are favoured 5-3, and the Eagles v Roos game where a lone Predictor (WinPred) comes down on the Roos' side.

Predictive ranges are generally in the 15-25% bracket, smaller only for the Hawthorn v GWS game where they've been naturally bounded by the ceiling of 100% for the Hawks, and for the Dogs v Dockers, and the Eagles v Roos games.

WinPred's assessments are most different from the all-Predictor norm, those assessments forming one or other of the extremes in 4 of the 9 contests. C_Prob's assessments are, again, also quite divergent from the average, this week coming in at the far end of predictions in 5 of the 9 games.

The Line Fund algorithm continues to make decisive probability assessments in the line market, this week rating the Tigers 90% chances, the Dees 82% chances, the Saints 67% chances, and three more teams as 60% chances or better.

ChiPS Predictions

The ChiPS System has proven an enigmatic provider of predictions this season. C_Marg sits equal 10th amongst the Head-to-Head Predictors, just 3 tips behind the leader, but is last amongst the Margin Predictors, despite having picked the correct line result 56% of the time, more often than all but a couple of Predictors. C_Prob lies third amongst the Probability Predictors, ahead of Bookie-LPSO, which was designed to produce competitive probability scores.

This week, it's gone with the higher-Rated team in all but the first and last contests, in both cases the advantages of venue overwhelming the Ratings deficit suffered by the home team.

ChiPS recommends only two, small wagers this week, both on fairly rank outsiders. Amusingly, it rates the Hawks as 99.5% chances, and so would consider GWS as a value bet only if they were priced at over $200. With that assessment, $16 doesn't quite cut it.