2020 - Round 5 : Some Trouble Getting On

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It’s not often I wake up on a Monday and discover that the preparation I’d done the night before has been wasted because the games my models had forecasted are no longer the games being played.

But that, in a proverbial nutshell, is 2020.

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

For the round that we have, for now, ended up with, almost half of the contrarian head-to-head tips have come from Consult The Ladder, and just three from Home Sweet Home. Looking for a game-by-game rather than a Tipster perspective, one-quarter have come in the Dogs v Swans game and another one-quarter in the Lions v Power game

Most relevant for the top of the leaderboard are the contrarian selections by the MoS twins of the Swans, those of the RSMP twins for the Power, and all three of Home Sweet Home’s.

Amongst the Margin Predictors there are forecasts on either side of zero in just two games, and ranges of 11 points or less in seven games. The largest range is for the Geelong v Gold Coast game where the low forecast is for a 13-point Cats win from ENS_Linear, and the high forecast is for a 35-point Cats win from MoSSBODS_Marg.

The mean expected margin across all games and all Predictors just 8.3 points per game, which is once again even smaller than the bookmaker’s average of 9.5 points per game.

Extreme forecasts are relatively dispersed this week, with MoSSBODS_Marg most extreme forecaster in five games this week, and Bookie_9 in four.

Lastly, turning to the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors, we find the largest range of probability estimates in percentage point terms in the Cats v Suns game where it’s 20% points, followed by the Eagles v Swans game where it’s 18%. In no other game is the range larger than 12% points.

MoSSBODS_Prob has the round's most extreme estimates in six contests. MoSHBODS_Prob in five, and Bookie_LPSO in four.

WAGERS

It’s been quite the week to be a punter. For much of Monday morning, markets were missing for two or three of the games from the newly-announced fixture, and the Blues v Saints game was amusingly appearing and disappearing at regular intervals from the TAB site.

When markets went up for all nine contests, BetEasy were being absurdly cautious - so much so that I found myself capped with them at what I would consider to be a fairly low level. As a result, for a number of the wagers I’ve ended up with blended TAB and BetEasy prices and, in one case, I have wagered against two different lines.

(This experience has reinforced to me how cautious you have to be interpreting the apparent wagering performances of anyone whose results are based on “shadow” betting - that is, notionally betting against some price they’ve found in the market. If you’re not actually placing the bets, you’ll never know what the real world outcome would have been.)

Anyway, the details.

We have, in total only four wagers across three teams:

  • a 1.5% wager on Carlton head-to-head at $2.30

  • a 5.9% wager on Geelong head-to-head with about one-third of it at $1.34 and two-thirds at $1.32

  • a 2.1% wager on Sydney, one-half +9.5 at $1.90, and one-half +10.5 at $1.91

  • a 2.9% wager on Geelong -18.5, about two-thirds at $1.90, and one-third at $1.91

The image below shows this as best I can without making it unreadable, but the Ready Reckoner further down fully reflects the complexity of the situation.

(Please click on the image below to access a larger version.)

Geelong, by virtue of the sizeable head-to-head and line wagers carries most of this week’s risk (as measured by the difference between best and worst outcomes), with the difference between successful and unsuccessful wagers on them representing 5.7% of the original Combined Portfolio, as you can see in the Ready Reckoner below.

We also have Sydney controlling a 2.4% swing, and Carlton 1.1%.

In total, 5.2% of the original Combined Portfolio is at risk, and the maximum upside is 3.9%.

To finish, here are MoSS2020's and MoSH2020's opinions about likely team scoring.

Commentary about these forecasts will come in the week's Overs/Unders blog and MoSHPlay’s various forecasts will be posted after the relevant team line-ups are made public.