Investors have eight bets again this week, though the mix is different to last week's. Five are head-to-head wagers ranging in size from a trivial 0.1% on the Blues to a more substantial 3.7% on the Dons, and ranging in price from $2 for the Roos to $13 for the Saints. The other three are line bets, one on the four-and-a-half goal favourite Dockers and the others on narrow underdogs receiving minimal starts.

In total, the five head-to-head bets represent 7.7% of initial Funds, the second-largest outlay by the Head-to-Head Fund in a single round so far this season, and the three line bets represent 7.5% of the Line Fund.

Together, the two Funds have risked 7.6% of the initial Overall Portfolio, about 1% less than they risked last week but still the third-largest total outlay of the season.

St Kilda, by some considerable margin, holds the key to the week's upside, a win by them capable of more than halving Investors' current loss by adding over 5% back to the Portfolio. Three other teams, the Suns, Dons and Roos, also carry upsides in excess of 2%.

It's the Dons though that control the round's largest downside, a loss by them by 5 points or more capable of snipping almost three cents off the value of the Overall Portfolio. The Roos could do almost as much damage should they contrive to lose by 3 points or more, such thoughtless behaviour surrendering to the TAB Bookmaker almost two-and-a-half percent of the Portfolio.

A great round will see 14.5c added to the Portfolio and a disastrous one will see 7.6c taken from it.

HEAD-TO-HEAD TIPSTERS

In no game are the 30 Head-to-Head Tipsters completely in agreement, but in four of them it's only Home Sweet Home preventing this outcome and in one more it's Easily Impressed I singing its off-key. 

Easily Impressed I has also teamed with Easily Impressed II in another of the contests to form the hugely outnumbered minority tipping Richmond to best Fremantle, and Consult The Ladder, Follow The Streak and the two Short Term Memory heuristics have formed a small breakaway group tipping the Dogs to topple Port Adelaide.

That leaves just two contests where the minority represents at least one-third of the Tipsters: the Dons v Cats game where the Cats have the backing of 10 Tipsters, and the Roos v Eagles game where the Roos have the backing of 13.

All told, disagreement levels are again therefore very low this week. In fact, the average Disagreement Index of 12% is the second-lowest value we've seen this season. That's not stopped Home Sweet Home, however, from producing its record-high Disagreement Index - a whopping 54%, the second-highest figure recorded by any Tipster so far this season.

The two Easily Impressed Tipsters have the round's two next-highest Indexes, while five Tipsters - the two ENS Tipsters, Silhouette, Shadow and Ride Your Luck - have recorded the round's lowest Indexes of 7%.

All three of the Tipsters currently heading the MoS Leaderboard have selected the nine favourites this week, as have the two ENS-based Tipsters, which trail the leaders by a single tip. None of those Tipsters, therefore can move relative to the other on the ladder. Bookie_9, however, has opted for the Roos to beat the Eagles and will join the leading pack should that result transpire.

Further down the Leaderboard, last week's card-tipping H2H_Unadj_10 has plumped for two underdogs, the Dons and the Roos, and could also join the leaders should these predictions prove prescient.

MARGIN PREDICTORS

There's much more disagreement amongst the Margin Predictors, though it's mostly about the margins of victory and only a little about the sign of them: only in the Dons v Cats and the Roos v Eagles games is there anything other than unanimous opinion about which team will be victorious.

The week's Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD) though is a relatively high 7.7 points per game per Predictor, the largest MAD we've witnessed since Round 2 and the second-largest MAD we've seen all year.

In two games, the Suns v Swans and the Saints v Hawks matchups, the MAD is above 10 points per Predictor, and in two more, the Dockers v Tigers and the Roos v Eagles, it's above 8 points. These relatively high MADs are counterbalanced by the relatively low MADs in the Blues v Crows (4.6) and Dees v Pies (3.5) contests.

Three Predictors have MADs of above 10 points per game, Combo_NN2 having the highest average at 13.8 points per game, thereafter followed by Bookie_3 with 12.1 and C_Marg with 10.1. Bookie_3 is the only Predictor to have recorded a MAD above the all-Predictor MAD in every round this season.

The round's low MADs belong to Bookie_9 (2.9 points per game) and Combo_7 (3.3 points per game), these two Predictors the only ones to have recorded a MAD below the all-Predictor MAD in every round this season.

C_Marg, which heads the MoS Leaderboard, is the Predictor Most Extreme in three contests this week, forecasting the largest margins of victory of all the Predictors for Port Adelaide, West Coast and Collingwood. The two RSMP and the two ENS Predictors, which fill the next four places on the Leaderboard, are Predictor Most Extreme in no contests at all.

PROBABILITY PREDICTORS

While the Head-to-Head Tipsters disagree only a little this week and the Margin Predictors disagree quite a lot, the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors find themselves somewhere in the middle, their collective 5.5% point MAD the highest since Round 6 but only the seventh-highest figure of the season.

In only one game, the Roos v Eagles game, is the MAD above 10% points per Predictor (it's just over 12% for that game), and in five games it's below 5% points per Predictor.

C_Prob, for the second week in a row, is the Predictor with the largest MAD, its 7.8% points per game just fractionally above WinPred's 7.5% and about 1% per game above ProPred's 6.7%. Bookie-OE, the current leader on the MoS Leaderboard, has the round's smallest MAD of 4.0% points per game, this just slightly smaller than Bookie-LPSO's and the two H2H Predictors' 4.4% points per game.

Bookie-LPSO is the only Predictor whose MAD has been below the all-Predictor MAD in every round this season. No Predictor has been above the all-Predictor MAD in every round, though C_Prob has missed in only a single round, and WinPred has missed in only two.

The Line Fund algorithm has assessed only two teams as having greater than 60% chances of winning in the line market this week, Essendon (63%) and the Western Bulldogs (62%). The Roos just miss out on joining that group with their 59% probability as do the Hawks with their 58%.

TIPSTER AND PREDICTOR DISAGREEMENT

After last week's results, the correlations between the various disagreement and performance metrics are as follows:

• Between the Disagreement Index and Accuracy for the Head-to-Head Tipsters: -0.54
• Between MAD and MAE for the Margin Predictors: +0.29
• Between MAD and LPS for the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors: -0.58

So, as we found earlier in the season, going with the consensus has been moderately rewarding for the Head-to-Head Tipsters and Probability Predictors, somewhat less so for the Margin Predictors.