2014 - Round 12 Results: It's The Final Result That Counts
/At half-time in Sunday's Roos v Tigers clash I was not in my 'happy place'. Earlier in the day the Suns, despite registering as many scoring shots as their opponents, the Swans, had contrived nonetheless to go down by 35 points, thus allowing the Swans to cover the spread by a couple of goals and shunting our Line bet into the loss column, whilst Freo had kicked a late and otherwise meaningless behind in their game to tip their victory margin into our Chasm of Despair, similarly catapulting the money we'd invested in a Dockers victory by 30-39 points over the fence into the TAB's fortified compound.
With the Roos down by almost 6 goals at the main break and looking as though they'd collectively found themselves in an Existential crisis, the 21.5 points start we were giving looked like about 12 goals too many, and the extremely positive and lucrative start we'd had to the weekend seemed destined to be naught but a pleasant memory on an eventually unfulfilling weekend.
Then, the second half of the Roos' game happened, the Tigers remembered who they were and the Roos found a reason to score, and by Three-Quarter Time it looked plausible that the Roos might - just - cover the spread. I'll admit that, at that point, I wasn't even thinking about the SuperMargin wagers.
And so it was that, with about a minute to go in time on, I realised with no little amazement that the Line bet was safe and - Roos be praised - at least one of our SuperMargin wagers was destined to be a collect too. And, so it is too that I can report to Investors that the Recommended Portfolio, after making a little over 4c this weekend, is now 2.2c in profit.
(It's without a hint of irony that I can reveal my wife and I sat down to a Kangaroo mini roast this evening, with a sensational Dragon Fly Cabernet Merlot.)
Incidentally, that 2.2c profit includes an 0.1c increase, which I discovered was owed from Round 8. As part of a routine reconciliation this weekend I discovered that we'd received a price of $7.50 not $7 for our SuperMargin win on Port Adelaide to win by 10-19 points in that round, the recognition of which added that extra 0.1c to the current standing. Every little bit and all that ...
To summarise the most-recent round's wagering, the Head-to-Head Fund lost its single wager on the Suns, dropping just over 2c as a consequence, but the Line Fund landed 3 from 4 to rise by 8.5c, leaving it up by 17.5c on the season, while the Margin Fund landed 2 from 12 to rise by 2.5c, leaving it now down by just a tad under 37c on the season. At this point, it's very fair to say, the Margin Fund's hopes for a 2015 season contract extension are looking very dim.
TIPS AND PREDICTIONS
Two of the Head-to-Head Tipsters tipped the card this weekend, though for both of them - Follow The Streak and Easily Impressed II - it served only to put a little more space between them and the bottom of the ladder. Even a 9 from 9 performance wouldn't entice me to pay much more attention to their considered opinions about Round 13.
In any case, most Tipsters managed 8 from 9, tipping all of the victorious favourites, and the all-Tipster average was 7.9 from 9. Really, all you needed for perfection this week was to believe that the Lions might surprise the Eagles.
Each of the 19 highest-ranked Tipsters correctly predicted the outcome in 8 of this week's contests, so there was consequently no great movement at the top of the MatterOfStats Leaderboard. Bookie_9 still leads Combo_7 by a single tip, with Bookie_3 still half a tip further back.
Margin prediction was, if anything, even easier this week, the all-Predictor Mean Absolute Prediction Error (MAPE) coming in at a season-low 12.1 points per game. Best was ProPred_7's MAPE of 9.0 points per game, though ProPred_3 (9.3), Win_3 (9.6) and Win_7 (9.9) also recorded single-digit MAPEs. C_Marg's MAPE of 16.6 points per game was worst, though it wasn't all that much poorer than the much more highly-credentialled Bookie_9's MAPE of 15.0.
Win_7 and Win_3, on the strength of these outstanding performances, have consolidated their positions at the head of the Leaderboard where they sit ahead of Combo_7 and a marauding horde of very Bookie-based Predictors. Last season's victor, RSMP_Weighted, has - to borrow again from the vernacular - quite a bit of work to do.
C_Prob lies third amongst the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors, providing continued evidence that the ChiPS System's future role is more likely to be about probability assessment (and general team rating), than about Head-to-Head or Margin prediction. Bookie-OE retains outright leadership of that group, while Bookie-RE sits nestled in second.
The Line Fund algorithm recorded a very slightly positive probability score for Round 12, snapping a two-round negative streak and ensuring that the algorithm's season-long probability score remains positive.
With such stellar margin predicting performances, it's not especially surprising to realise that every Margin Predictor selected the correct bucket in at least one game this weekend.
In fact, amongst the 19 Predictors, only 4 managed just a single correct prediction. Ten selected the correct bucket twice and four landed 3 from 9, while Bookie_3 reigned supreme, selecting the correct bucket in 4 of the 9 games. On the back of that performance it is now the 2nd-closest Predictor to profitability on the basis of its complete set of predictions for the season, behind only H2H_Adjusted_7 whose ROI is just -1%.
Three Predictors have a season-long positive ROI based on their predictions of Home team wins or draws: Combo_NN_1 (+18%), ProPred_3 (+12%), and H2H_Adj_7 (+9%). Regrettably, Bookie_9 and Combo_NN_2 still have ROIs quite distant and on the wrong side of zero.
