It's almost certainly too late for the Line Fund to drag itself back into profit for the season, but it did show further evidence of the previously-elusive form this weekend, landing two of its three wagers and missing out by only a kick on landing all three.

That performance, coupled with the Head-to-Head Fund's success in its lone wager, lifted the Overall Portfolio by just under 2c, the second successive weekend that Investors have enjoyed profit, which has the Portfolio now down by about 31c on the season.

I believe the appropriate cliche is "too little, too late".

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

Round 19 proved a reasonably good one for favourites, with only the Swans and Tigers failing to win as pre-game bookmaker fancies. This level of success helped lift the all-Head-to-Head Tipster accuracy level somewhat, though moderate amounts of pre-round disagreement amongst them meant that their final average was just 6.8 from 9. That's the 3rd-highest average for a round so far this season.

Best was C_Marg's 8 from 9, that score lifting it to within a tip of the outright leader, Combo_7, who sits currently on 115.5 from 161 (72%). Twenty-four of the Tipsters scored 7 from 9 this week, three more scored 6 from 9, and the round's worst score of 5 from 9 was recorded by two Tipsters, Easily Impressed I and Home Sweet Home.

C_Marg's stellar head-to-head tipping performance was more than matched by its extraordinary margin predicting where its Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 19.1 points per game was more than a point better than every other Margin Predictor. That's cemented its position at the head of the Leaderboard where it now finds itself almost 20 goals clear of the rest of the field. This year, it has been closer to the actual margin than all other Predictors in almost 20% of games. If I'd only known this at the start of the season.

Even the worst Margin Predictor, Combo_NN2, registered a sub-27 MAE this week, and the all-Predictor average of 22.3 points per game per Predictor was the 3rd-lowest for the season.

C_Marg, Bookie_3 and Combo_NN2 remain as the only Predictors with season-long profitable line betting records, C_Marg continuing to get it right in over 60% of games.

Completing the weekend of impressive performances by the Tipsters and Predictors that form the ChiPS System, C_Prob recorded the round's best probability score and now sits 2nd on the ladder. Probability scores were generally high this week, the all-Predictor average score of +0.335 bits per game per Predictor the 2nd-highest average for the season.

Even the Line Fund algorithm had reason to smile this weekend, its positive average probability score for the round only the fifth with that sign this season and the 2nd-highest score it's produced for a single round. As I said, too little ...