The Line Fund is 22 and 14 since Round 17, 7 and 3 since Round 22; the Head-to-Head Fund is 4 and 2 and up almost 16c over the past two rounds; the Margin Fund is 0 and 30 since the back end of Round 17. How apposite then that we have no Line bets, one Head-to-Head bet, and four SuperMargin wagers in week 1 of the Finals.

If the stars align, our dreams come true, the world is our oyster etc etc, we could just about erase the season's deficit this weekend but, realistically, if the Crows win and, say, two of our SuperMargin wagers are successful, at best we'll end the weekend up by about 8c having roughly halved what's needed for black ink.

This week, most of the Head-to-Head Tipsters have ceased trading, leaving only four to venture an opinion albeit a singular one:

The Margin Predictors are, collectively, of the same view about which teams will win, though some of them hold that view more and some less ardently:

More notably than I recall for recent weeks, Combo_NN2 is behaving as an outlier. It believes that Hawthorn, Geelong and West Coast will win more comfortably than other Predictors are suggesting, and believes that the Crows will win far less comfortably. Indeed, for a time, I thought it might be plumping for a draw in the Crows v Swans contest.

On the Head-to-Head Probabilities front, the non-TAB Predictors rate the Pies', Crows' and Cats' chances more highly, and have mixed opinions about the prospects for the Eagles, generally thinking that the TAB has it about right with the exception of WinPred, which rates the Eagles' chances far higher.

The Line Fund algorithm, meantime, rates the Pies' line market chances as better than 70%, and the Swans', Dockers' and Roos' chances as between 51% and 56%. It rates none of the Home teams as likely to cover their respective spreads, and this is why Investors are without a Line wager this weekend.