The bookmakers, on the whole, did an excellent job this week, as 6 of the 8 early-week favourites were victorious, which saw Bookie Knows Best claim top spot on the Head-to-Head Tipsters Leaderboard, though just one ahead of six other Tipsters.

The all-Tipster average for the round was 5.6 from 8, which took the season-long figure to 14.8 from 21 (70%).

Margin prediction was again quite strong this week - though not as strong as last week - with mean absolute errors (MAEs) ranging from Bookie_3’s 18.7 points per game to MoSHBODS_Marg’s 27.9, with the all-Predictor average coming in at 23.9 points per game.

That result lifted Bookie_3 into top spot, ahead of Bookie_Hcap and ENS_Linear. MoSSBODS_Marg currently fills the bottom spot, about 7 goals off the lead.

Log probability scores were all positive again this week, but far higher for the bookie-based than for the MoS-based. Bookie_LPSO now fills 1st place, ahead of Bookie_RE and then Bookie_OE. Best of the MoS trio is MoSHBODS_Prob in 4th.

WAGERING

That was clearly Investors’ horribilis septimana. It saw all of the Round 0 and Round 1 gains wiped out, plus another 1c.

The Overs/Unders Fund made a small profit, but the Head-to-Head and Line Funds lost heavily, which meant that the Combined Portfolio finished down by almost 10c. It is now up by almost 1c, that from a -2% ROT on a 0.49 turn.

We shall not speak of this again unless and until we can laugh about how it heralded an unprecedently profitable year that followed.