2012 Round 7 : Wagers & Tips : Dead Reckoning

It's been an unusual week over at TAB Sportsbet as the market for the GWS game went up around noon on Wednesday along with the markets for the other eight fixtures. I suppose it had something to do with the fact that the Giants this week face the Suns, which is about as near to a peer as I reckon they'll encounter this season.

Not everything was back to normal though, so we're still awaiting a Line and a SuperMargin market, but probably more for curiosity's sake than for the prospect of another wager. For the purposes of the current blog I've assumed that GWS will receive 18.5 points start, a handicap that's consistent with the head-to-head market prices as they were originally posted.

For now we've no stake in Saturday's GWS v Gold Coast game, and we definitely have none in the Adelaide v Geelong or Brisbane Lions v Collingwood games, but there's plenty to keep Investors interested in the other six contests.

All three Funds have been relatively constrained this week, with only the Head-to-Head Fund, in just its second week of active trading, ramping up its activity compared to last round. It's opted for two sizeable bets on two favourites in the form of the Tigers and the Dons, and a tiny speccie on the Saints at $4.00.

The Line Fund's also plumped for the Tigers and the Dons, but has added the Dees, enjoying over 9 goals start in taking on the Hawks on Friday, and the Roos, offering 16.5 start to the stuttering Dogs, to its assortment.

Our Margin Fund has found nothing to interest it on Friday or Saturday, and only one game on Sunday and one more, the lone game, on Monday as being worthy of a wager.

What then do these nine wagers offer and risk? For the last couple of rounds, manually producing the answer to this question in the form of an error-free Ready Reckoner has proven far too great a challenge for me, so this week I've spent a few hours creating an automated version, as follows:

(There is, as one Investor put to me this week, something profoundly odd when you need a cheat sheet to track the progress of your wagering ...)

Each chart shows, for a customised, sensible range of victory margins from the Home team's perspective, what a particular result will mean for Overall Portfolios. So, for example, an Essendon win by over 5 points would ratchet up Overall Portfolios by a little under 4c, since such a result would land both the head-to-head and the line wagers.

The chart for the Roos v Dogs game is particularly odd, mainly due to the narrow three-point range which will land both the Line and SuperMargin wagers and which is flanked by smaller profit opportunities immediately on either side. Should the Roos fail to win by at least 10 points however, Investors will find themselves at the foot of the chart having tumbled 3c.

Head-to-Head Tipsters are this week mostly arguing over just two games: the Crows v Cats game where the majority support lies 9 to 4 with the Away team favourites in the Cats, and the Dons v Eagles game where the Away team underdogs, the Eagles, are favoured 7 to 6.In four other games, Home Sweet Home has adopted its usual, lone contrarian posture, in a fifth there's unanimous support for the favourite, and in the other two only a pair of Tipsters have found themselves willing to tip the upset.

It's a similar, and familiar story for the Margin Predictors too, which are unanimously behind the favourite in seven contests, and 12-1 supporters in the other two games, CN2 being the lone dissenter in each, in so doing preventing the Margin Fund from making two more wagers.

Relative to the TAB bookmaker, the other Head-to-Head Probability Predictors are less enthusiastic about the Giants', Crows' and Lions' chances, and more enthusiastic about those of the Tigers, the Dons, Freo and, to a lesser extent, the Roos. For the Saints v Blues matchup, WinPred stands somewhat alone in rating the Saints' as being worse than $10 prospects.

For the Line Fund algorithm, this week's outstanding prospects are the Roos, Pies,  Dons and Dees. Amongst the Home teams in the other games, it rates the Tigers as being barely worthy of a wager, and the Giants (assuming they receive 18.5 start or thereabouts) and the Crows as being marginally unworthy.

Once the line market is posted for the Giants game I'll rerun the Line Fund algorithm for that game and provide an update if one is warranted.