Round 3 close but no cigar (/ burger)

Round 3 produced 7 correct tips – in line with the bookies (and seemingly all other tipster sites: Swinburne, Footy Froecaster, Footy Maths and MAFL (well there are a lot of predictions on MAFL!).  Total for the year is only 16 (a massive 10 behind the footy tipping.com website leader) but thankfully only one behind the bookies - dissapointingly 2 behind the daughter in the family tipping and she can be counted on to regularly tip the Bulldogs!.

Fremantle’s one extra scoring shot was not enough to defeat the Bombers.  Historically the winning team has more scoring shots 71% of the time while 25.6% of the time the team with less scoring shots wins – the other 3.4% where the teams have equal scores are split 1 in 8 equal goals and points.

Ports come from behind win converted a narrow loss prediction to a narrow win (as stated in an earlier post Adelaide’s high proportion of narrow wins was flagged as a potential source of heart ache – I had meant for others and not myself!)

The dominant win by Hawthorn has extrapolated into Premier favouritism by a long margin at the moment with currently Fremantle being the runner up favourite (This will be readdressed in more detail at the round six mark).

Despite a lot of favourites coming home only 3589 people on Footytipping.com.au achieved the perfect burger index.

I am still alive in the streak tipping but my conservative approach sees me on 6 with the leader on 19 – although a lot of the leader board were stopped in their tracks.  Hopefully over the next few weeks I can keep my streak active and catch up a bit.  This weeks streak tipping is fraught with some danger as I am picking streak teams in all games except Richmond v Collingwood and Gold Coast v Port.

 

 

Similarly with the flexi tipping this weeks predictions are heavily biased towards two games: Port over Gold Coast and Richmond over the Pies.  It may well be feast or famine this week.  But interestingly the normally conservative flexi tipping which has seen reasonable predictions over the long term sees an unusually biased week this week I put this down to the bookies are a bit flustered or rather the market is spreading its cash more widely and therefore some games are popping up as tasty options in my model.  Current flexi ranking is 2918: sitting at about the 25% mark.

Onto the tips for this week and despite the large number of non favourite wins so far this year and the occasional thumping all predictions up to the end of round 4 are as per the pre season predictions (there are currently 34 swing predictions with one in rounds 5 and 6 and 2 in round 7: again these will be examined in more detail after round 6).  This shows the lag effect I feel.

Only two close games where I need to double check predictions based on team selections/ injuries on Thursday.  

 

 

Round 2: clawing back some respectability

Well at least round 2 was better than round 1 – but that would not be hard.  I still want to know how somebody on Footytipping.com.au can be on 18 correct tips!

Round 1 produced 33 perfect tipping records and round 2 highlighted the dominance of the favourites with 51812 perfect tipsters – I sadly was not one.  Faith in the model is truly tested in times like this and the poor showing in the first round will take a bit to catch up; however that said I am only one behind the bookies and can still achieve the 4 burger goal.  Flexi tipping broke even.

Correct tips: 9/18 :50% (Bookies 10)

Flexi points: 129

Burger won: zero

The tipping for round 2 fell down with the Saints who I am still in two minds whether they are over rated in the model or whether they will hit their straps this week? The model is still predicting good things for the Saints in the next three rounds.

The Hawks also upset the model – by a considerable amount.  As highlighted earlier this was a swing game in the model and predicts great things for the Hawks come the end of the year.  A big win by West Coast over Melbourne should swing the Weagles back into the mix in the model but at present they are a bit shaky in the deep into the season predictions.

Collingwood and Richmond will be reviewed after Round 6.  Currently they have not moved much on the early predictions but as i have said round 6 should tell us whether the form in the model has settled down and compares to the predicted form prior to the season start.

But one teams form is definitely a concern:

Melbourne – what can we say?  The poor performances are going to impact on the model.  The model works on tighter/ more competitive ladder percentages than Melbourne are delivering.  There was a GWS effect last year that dragged the model down by overestimating the ability of teams that beat GWS one week and what was expected the following week (despite having an easier run around the park.

Onto Round 3 tips:

The Geelong Carlton game will probably be the highlight of the round as a spectacle but the Gold Coast Brisbane game can certainly shake up the model predictions in future rounds.  Interesting to see how tired the Hawks and Pies are.  Richmond rolling on?

Also note North was not given a home ground advantage for playing in Hobart – this is usually worth 8 points in the model.  I gave GWS the home ground advantage for Manuka – in the scheme of things it does not matter in the model for this stage of the GWS development.

With gritted teeth... Round 1 analysis...

The only highlight of the 11 day round and only source of consolation while I languish in the bottom 4% of the Footytipping.com.au community and am the brunt of scorn from all and sundry is that despite only picking two correct (the worst result since using the emotion free Carlo Monty tipping model) is that I am equal with the bookies.  Note: I traditionally use the bookies odds as of Tuesday prior and this was before the Fremantle plunge.

Not only was the week particularly noteworthy for the large number of non-favourites getting up but the difference compared to my predicted wins were also well off for 5 of the games.  The following graph highlights the band within which the vast majority of predictions have fallen over the last 5 years.Makes the depression of poor tipping all the more noticed as an off seasons worth of tinkering with the model appears to be for naught!



The range of "upsets" in round one and the longer term impact on the model we will need to wait and see; but such a large number of unexpected wins will play havoc with the model (more so if they are actually outliers; if they are a true reflection of 2013 form then a couple of weeks will see the model settle down - the end of round 6 comparison will be the guide).

Notes: Richmond ran out of legs.  Freo had more fit players (19 v 14 on "player sickness index"); Sydney cruised? GWS better than expected?  Gold Coast improved: Saints dropped.  Hawks had it and lost it (is Lake the answer?) and Melbourne - oooooohh dear.

Referring to previous posts - I did say Adelaide will be the source of many a tipsters woes (although it must be said that they did manage the same number of scoring shots (I count rushed as a shot on goal).  Also: Collingwood needed to win against North to have a good crack at the tipsters end of year predictions - we will wait and see on this one but North did underperform but not as much as Melbourne.

On the footy tipping website I am ranked:
Tipping: 433210 out of 450131 (7 picks adrift)
Streak: 2277 out of 19353 (7 picks adrift and re-set to zero after the Hawks went down)
Flexi: 5412 out of 7970 (on 29 points; well behind the leader on 440)

Burgers won: zero

Compared to the bookies:
2 vs 2

One behind Swinburne.

So with teeth gritted and grinding onwards to the Round 2 preliminary predictions:



Home teams are favoured and only three games are picked for the streak tipping.  Flexi options will be considered once odds are checked tomorrow.