2015 - Round 5 Results: Still Calibrating ...

The Eagles victory over GWS provided the week's only collect for Investors, the 1.4c return from that game been much more than offset by 4.7c losses from the three other Head-to-Head wagers that were in play over the course of the round. Combined, the four bets snipped another 3.3c off the Head-to-Head Fund's price, which now stands at 92.3c, down 7.7c.

No better was the story for the Line Fund, its sole wager on the Roos falling more than 5 goals shy of troubling the TAB Bookmaker, stripping another 1.3c off the Line Fund's price as a consequence. That Fund is now down by almost 11c on the season and the Overall Portfolio down by 9.6c. With Round 6 the last of the "calibrating" rounds before wager sizes are likely to increase, a return to profitability would serve as a comforting signal of better things to follow.

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

Few Head-to-Head Tipsters cashed in on the fact that eight of nine favourites won this weekend, as only three Tipsters recorded that score and the all-Tipster average came in at just 5.5 tips from 9. That's only the third-highest average for a round this season.

BKB, Bookie_3 and Combo_7 were the three Tipsters to score the week's maximum and, in so doing, secured joint-leadership of the Head-to-Head Tipster race. They're all on 32 from 45 (71%) for the season and 1 tip clear of the field.

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Amongst the Margin Predictors, Combo_NN1 produced comfortably the best Mean Absolute Error (MAE) score for the round, its 35.7 points per game coming in over 4 points per game better than the next best Predictor, C_Marg. Notwithstanding Combo_NN1's starkly superior performance in the current round, C_Marg remains top of the Margin Predictor ladder, although now enjoying less a single goal's buffer to Combo_NN1.

Across the season, C_Marg and Combo_NN1 are two of only eight Margin Predictors with profitable line betting records, C_Marg having produced the extraordinary statistic of selecting the correct team in 64% of contests so far.

Overall, the Margin Predictors averaged 43.2 points per game this week, the 2nd-highest average for a round this season, better only than the 44.2 points per game average in Round 2.

The Head-to-Head Probability Predictors fared a little better than the Margin Predictors and about as well as the Head-to-Head Tipsters, their Average Log Probability Score (LPS) positive for only the third time this season. Best was Bookie-OE, though Bookie-RE and C_Prob performed almost equally as well, sufficient to leave C_Prob in 1st place on the Head-to-Head Probability Predictor Leaderboard. I can't tell you how much joy it's giving me that the ChiPS System - named in honour of Chi, the late and still much-missed MatterOfStats mascot - is performing well, especially in the Margin and Head-to-Head Probability Prediction races.

There was no joy though for the Line Fund algorithm, which produced its fifth successive negative LPS for a round. Perhaps the only positive sign is that the LPS has increased round-on-round for each of the past three rounds.