2011 Round 6 Results: A Couple of Goals Down at Quarter Time

This was an unusual week in that Investors were rooting solely for Away teams from Thursday to Saturday, albeit with points start in every case. That proved to be a largely unedifying experience, save for the one bright spot of the Blues defeating the Swans on a sodden SCG on Friday night, as Melbourne, Port Adelaide, Brisbane and St Kilda all conspired to lose by more than the handicap they were being provided.

Sunday brought some relief with Essendon snapping the Suns' winning streak at 1 and with Collingwood piling on the points in the final term against the Dogs to cover the 34.5 point spread they were obliged to offer, leaving the Head-to-Head Fund up by 2.3% and the Line Fund down by 9.6% on the round, plunging Investor Portfolios down a further 3.6%. So I guess it wasn't an unusual week in every respect ...

With six rounds completed we're now at the one-quarter mark of the Home-and-Away season. Time then to see which teams have been making us money and which have been losing it.

Firstly, let's take a look at how the two Funds have performed when wagering on each of the teams:

Wagering on Carlton has contributed most to the performance of the Head-to-Head Fund. Combined the pair of wagers on the Blues have added 9c to the Head-to-Head Fund price. Next best have been the wagers on Port - all 1 of them - which have contributed just over 7c to the Head-to-Head Fund price.

The efforts of Collingwood, Adelaide, Fremantle, Hawthorn, Geelong and Melbourne (barely) when backed have also, in each case, been a net positive for the Head-to-Head Fund.

Gold Coast have been the principal value destroyers knocking almost 11 cents off the Head-to-Head price on the back of just two ill-advised wagers, with the Lions not far behind having independently erased 10c from the Head-to-Head Fund price. Richmond and St Kilda have been the other major disappointments in Head-to-Head wagering.

For the Line Fund, it's been Collingwood, West Coast, Carlton and Geelong that've done most for its shareprice. In contrast, St Kilda's been particularly disrespectful of the Line Fund, knocking 20c off its price in four wagers. Melbourne, Fremantle, Hawthorn, Richmond and the Lions have been little better, erasing a combined 34c from the Line Fund's price.

We can also look at how the Funds have performed when wagering against each of the teams.

From this perspective, the Head-to-Head Fund mainly has Adelaide and the Dogs to thank for shareprices increments, and can blame Fremantle, Collingwood, Melbourne and St Kilda for most of the decrements. 

Richmond, St Kilda and Sydney are the only teams that have led to net deceases in the Head-to-Head Fund shareprice both when wagered on and when wagered against.

For the Line Fund, it's Port Adelaide, daylight second and then Sydney that have contributed most to the shareprice when wagered against, and Richmond, West Coast, the Roos and Collingwood that have been most responsible for the parlous state of the Line Fund shareprice when wagered against.

A slew of teams have been unprofitable to the Line Fund both when wagered on and when wagered against: Adelaide, the Lions, Fremantle, Hawthorn, the Roos and Richmond. 

Richmond, then, are currently the only team that have destroyed value in the Head-to-Head and the Line Funds both when wagered on and when wagered against. Clearly both Funds have a timing issue with respect to the Tigers.

On head-to-head tipping, Combo_NN_2 has retained its leadership this week and is still tipping at around 72%, though BKB's 6 from 7 has allowed it to move into an ominous joint 2nd place with four other tipsters, just one tip adrift of Combo_NN_2.

Generally it was a good week for head-to-head tipsters, with the average score being about 5.25 from 7. Best performers were the ProPred trio, which each tipped the card, and worst were Easily Impressed I and II, Short-Term Memory I and Follow The Streak, which each scored just 3 from 7.

There were very few changes in the rankings of the Margin Predictors this week, the swapping of places by ProPred_3 and ProPred_7 being the only movement, but Bookie_3 did extend its lead over Combo_NN_2 from 0.47 points per game to 1.38 points per game, while Combo_7 reduced its deficit to Combo_NN_2 from 0.88 points per game to just 0.05 points per game.

The weekend's results also produced substantial reductions in the biases of all Margin Predictors, especialy Combo_NN_2's, which now stands at just +2.9 points per game. However, the larger-than-normal victories by West Coast, the Roos, Collingwood and, especially, Essendon, had the opposite effect on Margin Predictor standard deviations, so much so that RMSEs tended to increase for all Margin Predictors.

Also, it was a generally poor weekend for line betting on the basis of the Margin Predictors' margin predictions. Best performed amongst them now is Bookie_3 on 60%, followed by Combo_NN_2, ProPred_3 and ProPred_7 on 56%.

The probability scores of all head-to-head Probability Predictors increased this week. ProPred recorded the largest gain (+2.83), and WinPred the smallest (+2.31), though the ordering of the four Probability Predictors remains unchanged.

Regretably, the probability score for the Line Fund moved in the opposite direction, dropping 1.15 points to now be at -3.15.

Bring on the 2nd quarter I say.