2016 Round 10 : Swinging for the Fences and Hoping for Rain

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So astutely has the TAB Bookmaker priced the head-to-head and line markets this week that seven games have been assessed by MoS Funds as bereft of value for their respective home teams. In the two remaining games, the Head-to-Head and Line Funds have spotted a glimmer of hope - in an expected value sense - for the home team underdogs.

And that is how Investors find themselves this week hoping for an unlikely Lions or Dons upset win or, barring that, a smaller-than-expected loss.

Given those four wagers:

  • A Brisbane Lions win would add 12c to the Overall Portfolio, a draw 6c, and a loss by less than 55 points 1c, while a loss by more than 55 points would nip 3c off the value of the Overall Portfolio
  • An Essendon win would add 7c to the Overall Portfolio and a draw 4c, while a loss by less than 45 points would essentially be a wash and a loss by more than 45 points would shave 2c off the value of the Overall Portfolio

I'd not be honest if I said I was thrilled with the decisions these two Funds have made this week, but MoS is, always has been, and always will be committed to a pure model-based approach.

Some weeks though ...

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

It's Home Sweet Home doing its usual thing this week amongst the Head-to-Head Tipsters and disagreeing with, on average, just over one-half of its peers. Consult The Ladder and MoSSBODS_Marg are the only other Predictors to record a Disagreement Index above the all-Tipster mean, which this week has come in at 21%. That's the equal-4th highest mean of the season to date.

Scanning across the games we find that it's only the Melbourne v Port Adelaide, and Adelaide v GWS contests where any significant minority group has formed. In both of those games, four Tipsters have rallied behind the underdogs, while in no other game is there a minority of larger than one Tipster.

The Margin Predictors have recorded relatively high levels of disagreement this week, the all-Predictor average mean absolute deviation (MAD) of 5.5 points per game per Predictor the 3rd-highest average for the season. That figure has, somewhat ominously, been driven up by C_Marg and the three MoSSBODS-based Predictors, they all recording MADs of their own of 6.3 points per game or higher.

It's the Brisbane Lions v Hawthorn game where the MAD is highest, the 11.2 points per Predictor figure there bolstered by a well-below average margin prediction from MoSSBODS (Hawks by 22 points) and well-above average margin predictions from ENS_Linear (Hawks by 62 points), Bookie_3 (Hawks by 60 points), and ENS_Greedy (Hawks by 59 points).

The two other games with MADs of around 8 points per Predictor or higher are the Essendon v Richmond, and Carlton v Geelong matchups.

For the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors it's a week of relative agreement with the all-Predictor average MAD coming in at 3.6% points per Predictor per game, which is the equal-4th lowest average for the year. Here too though, it's the ChiPS- and MoSSBODS-based Predictors that are driving up that average.

These two Predictors have very different assessments to their peers in the Lions v Hawks, and in the Dons v Tigers games, where they both rate the home team's chances more highly, and in the Crows v Giants game where C_Prob rates Adelaide's chances more highly, and MoSSBODS_Prob rates them less highly.

It seems likely that there'll be some substantial movements on the MoS Probability Predictor Leaderboard this weekend, one way or the other.

MoSSBODS DETAILS

According to MoSSBODS, seven of the home teams this week enjoy a net venue benefit for the ground they're playing on and the team they're playing there, the exceptions being the Dees, who are playing at Traeger Park where an insufficient number of games have been played for MoSSBODS to have an opinion about teams' relative abilities there, and Carlton, who are assessed as suffering a 2.2 Scoring Shot (SS) penalty in facing the Cats at Docklands.

In the other games the Net Venue Effects range from a low of +0.1 SS for the Dons facing the Tigers at the MCG, to a high of +3.8 SS for the Eagles meeting Gold Coast at Subiaco.

That large Net Venue benefit for the Eagles is coupled with a 20 SS superiority in underlying ability, meaning that MoSSBODS expects the Eagles to win by 74 points on Sunday, its highest forecast margin of the season.

The round's highest aggregate is forecast to come in the Adelaide v GWS game where MoSSBODS predicts 197 points will be scored, and the lowest aggregate in the Carlton v Geelong game where the forecast is for just 156 points.

Four teams are expected to score more than 100 points: West Coast (129), Geelong (104), Hawthorn (103), and GWS (102). Two are expected to score less than 60 points: Gold Coast (55 points) and Carlton (52).