2019 - Round 26 (Week 3 of the Finals) - Are Cats Underrated?

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The bookmakers have installed two firm home team favourites this week, with Richmond currently almost three-goal favourites over Geelong, and Collingwood about two-and-a-half-goal favourites over GWS.

In 2018, Richmond were 15.5 point favourites over Collingwood, and West Coast just 2.5 point favourites over Melbourne, and only one of those two results went the expected way.

To the MoS forecasters then.

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

There’s virtually no Head-to-Head Tipster support for the underdog Cats this week, nor any support at all for the underdog Giants, the upshot of which is that there’ll be no meaningful moves on their Leaderboard this weekend, and Bookie Knows Best is now at least guaranteed of a joint 1st finish.

Amongst the Margin Predictors, a few have come close to tipping the Cats but have ultimately decided on a narrow Tigers win. The extremes in that game belong to C_Marg (Tigers by 3), and Bookie_3 (Tigers by 22).

In the other game, forecast victory margins for the Pies range from a low of 10 points (MoSSBODS_Marg and MoSHBODS_Marg) to a high of 20 points Bookie_3.

RSMP_Weighted currently leads RSMP_Simple by 4.4 points. A best-case set of results for RSMP_Simple will reduce that lead to 3.2 points. Just behind, Bookie_LPSO trails RSMP_Simple by 35.3 points, and can only hope to reduce that gap by about 10 points this week, which makes it unlikely that it has enough games left to challenge for 2nd.

Turning, finally, to the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors, we find probability estimates spanning a range of 18% points from 54% (C_Prob) to 72% (Bookie_LPSO) in the Tigers v Cats game, but spanning only 7% from 63% (MoSSBODS_Prob and MoSHBODS_Prob) to 70% (Bookie_LPSO) in the Pies v Giants game.

MoSSBODS_Prob and MoSHBODS_Prob seem fairly safe bets then to retain 1st and 2nd positions on the Leaderboard.

WAGERS

Investors are on the Cats again this week, but only in the Line market. MoSHBODS would have leapt on them at $3.20 head-to-head as well, but remains precluded from wagering on Away teams.

In fact, MoSHBODS would also have taken GWS at $3, were it allowed to.

(Incidentally, had MoSHBODS been allowed to wager on Away teams this season using the same thresholds and staking strategy as it does for Home teams, the Head-to-Head Fund’s price would by 6.4c higher, and the price of the Combined Portfolio 1.6c higher. The ROT on the wagers is about 13% and the additional turn on original funds about 0.49. Hindsight’s always a fine thing.)

Anyway, with just that one actual wager, the calculations for the Combined Portfolio are very straightforward:

  • Cats lose by 17 points or less: 50% x 0.91 x 1.6% = 0.7c gain

  • Otherwise: -50% x 1.6% = 0.8c loss

The total at risk is 50% x 1.6%, which is 0.8% of the original Combined Portfolio funds, and the swing from best to worst outcome is 1.5c.

To finish, here are MoSSBODS' and MoSHBODS' opinions about likely team scoring.

Commentary about these forecasts will come in the week's Overs/Unders blog and MoSHPlay’s various forecasts will be posted after the relevant team line-ups are made public.