2013 : Round 16 - Wagers & Tips

For the sixth week in a row the Head-to-Head Fund has seen fit to make just a single wager, and for the third time during this self-enforced period of restraint, its lone wager is on Port Adelaide.

That head-to-head wager is joined by three Line bets, all on home team favourites facing between 20.5 and 74.5 points start, and by 10 SuperMargin wagers, two of them priced at an unfamiliar $17. Those two longshot SuperMargin gambles are down to Combo_NN2, which, as is its wont, is predicting unfashionably small victories by teams priced in the head-to-head market at $1.01.

That collection of wagers leaves Investors exposed in all but three of the week's contests. Two of the games in which they've no pecuniary interest are the final two games of the round, so our collective financial position will have been determined by around mid-afternoon on Sunday. I find nothing worse than waiting for the last games of the round to play out - especially when the last game is in the West, which makes for an even later finish - knowing that later in the evening I'll be writing about the weekend's loss. It's like (I imagine) waiting outside the Principal's office. Let's all hope I don't find myself in that position on Sunday.

This week's Ready Reckoner includes four games for which the difference between the best possible and worst possible results are about 6% or more. Amongst those, a Port Adelaide victory is associated with the greatest profit - over 5c - while failures to cover the spread and missing all of the consolation SuperMargin buckets by Richmond, Carlton or Sydney all threaten losses of over 3c.

Should every result go our way this week the Recommended Portfolio will climb by almost 17c; should the opposite occur it will fall by over 11c.

TIPSTERS AND PREDICTORS

Only the Carlton v St Kilda and Bulldogs v Essendon clashes see more than two of the Head-to-Head Tipsters sounding dissenting voices this week. In two other games, the Pies and Swans enjoy unanimous support, and in four more there's just a lone contrarian Tipster - though unusually it's Home Sweet Home in only two of these games, leaving Easily Impressed I and Easily Impressed II to take on HSH's more-accustomed role, once each in the two other games.

The Margin Predictors are collectively resolute in their opinions, tipping the favourites to win in every game. Numerically, debate about the likely victory margins is greatest for the two games predicted to be blowouts - the Cats v Dees and Swans v Giants games - where the standard deviation of the predicted margins is around 3 goals. The Port Adelaide v Hawthorn game is the only other where the standard deviation reaches double digits.

That same clash is also associated with the second-highest range of probability predictions by the the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors, with Port Adelaide's assessed chances ranging from 18% to 38%. Only the Lions v Roos game has generated a larger range, the H2H Predictors rating the Lions as only 11% chances while WinPred rates them as 39% chances.

Meantime the Line Fund algorithm rates three teams as better than 60% chances on line betting this week: Adelaide (61%) receiving 27.5 points start from the Pies, Hawthorn (63%) giving Port Adelaide 24.5 points start, and Carlton (68%) giving the Saints 20.5 points start. The Blues are the only team amongst that lot playing at home and so are the only team carrying Investor's financial fates onto the ground this weekend.