Model Performance - Round 3

How Did the Model Perform?

Round three threw up quite a few unexpected results, with somewhere between 4 and 5 underdogs getting the victory, depending on which source you use. For the PPP model it was the best round so far to date in terms of tips and MAE with a -0.11 bit round being second only to round 1's -0.07 bits. 

It is too easy to say this year has been unpredictable and not easy to model, the evidence for this however is in the Squiggle model competition, with only four models in the net positive on bits. Having three straight rounds of negative bits does notr bode well for your model but so far in 2023 we can all be given a pass while the ratings and teams find their running order and settle down going into the first turn and back straight.

If the betting markets are your preferred yardstick then we can safely say we have the bookies covered on MAE and bits, only being one behind on tips.

For round three alone, the model tipped 5/9, lost 0.11 bits and had a MAE of 22.45. 

Impressively, the model tipped Hawthorn and St Kilda to get up in their respective matches, both going against the grain of the tipsters in the football world, however most models had these two as favourites this round.

Bits

The model held its position on the Squiggle ladder this week on bits, moving to -0.75 on the year and remaining 8th overall, just ahead of the s10 "model", a combined model of last year's 10 best finishers. It's a good one to be above.

plusSixOne still leads the field on bits with 0.69 then a 0.52 gap to The Cruncher and Squiggle themselves round out the top three on 0.14.

MAE

We had our best round so far on MAE with an average of 22.45 away from the real margin.

Some really impressive results included Collingwood v Richmond being 1.8 away from tipped, Hawthorn v North was 7.87 away, GWS v Carlton was 1.18 away, St Kilda v Essendon 6.07 and Fremantle v West Coast only 6.08.

The games which hurt the model were the upsets, mainly Adelaide, Gold Coast and Melbourne all winning rather comfortably, a MAE of 51.91 for these three games alone. 

We move to 28.78 running MAE on the year, up to 13th on Squiggle from 18th last week.

Tipping and FMI Competition

As discussed earlier we tipped 5/9 correct this week, moving to 14 correct for the year, only good for 52%.

In the FMI comp we played ZaphBot, Zaph's bot, and we had a very tight 3-all draw. Playing another model means our tips were mostly going to be similar with margins coming into play more than anything.

We both tipped the five matches identically with the margin differences being 4, 7, 4, 11 and 4. Zaph got out of the gates with the first point, a win on Hawthorn, I fought back with a bonus point performance when Carlton won by 10 over GWS, giving me a 2-1 lead. Zaph then punched right back that night when St Kilda beat Essendon by 18 points, two away from Zaph's 16 point predicition.

A 2-3 deficit had to be overcome on Sunday and when Gold Coast beat Geelong with no points awarded, our best case looked to be a draw, needing Fremantle to win by 33 points or more.

West Coast lost four players to injury and with Fremantle's 20-odd point lead with 30 minutes of to play, surely I would cruise to a 33 or more point victory, right?

West Coast decided to show a bit of ticker for the first time in the match and got the margin within a kick and all hoped looked to be lost for my game.

Fremantle to their credit put the Eagles to the sword on their weary legs and ran right over them, kicking away to a beautiful 35 point lead, my exact tip, with 3 minutes in the game left.

Anywhere from a 33 to 38 point win would mean I would get the point for the tip and the bonus point needed to beat Zaph, however Michael flipping Frederick kicked a beautiful running snap, as I barked at for it to "Miss! Miss! Miss!", right through the big sticks, putting the margin out to 41 points, resulting in a boring 3-3 draw.

We move to equal 6th with the result, one spot out of finals places going into round four where our opponent will be Manikato888. They are 1-0-2 with a -4 point differential, a crucial game for our finals asperations.

Nicely for us, we currently lead Division 7 on MAE, best of any tipper from Division 2 through 7.

Betting

We cashed two of three bets, Bulldogs beating Brisbane at $2.80 and Hawthorn beating North at $2.55, with the later being the second of two bets I have staked down which have both saluted. We lost the bet on Sydney to beat Melbourne, a blow to futures and the head to heads.

I staked down the North Melbourne bet from 2 units to 1 to account for some early season regression, players changing and other variables the model does not know about which has cost us some ROI, the second time I have done this so far after St Kilda in round one which I dropped from 3 units to 0.5 (oof).

We profited 2.35 units this round from 3 units staked, good for a 78.3% ROI. On the season we move to the positive with 0.2 units profit, a 3.1% ROI so far.

Wrap Up

A better, if still frustrating week for the model. 5/9 tips with some really good MAE picks, however our most confident prediction went under with Geelong getting knocked off, and some others which I feel should have been more confident saluted, costing us valuable bits (confirmation bias be damned).

Round four kicks off thursday with Collingwood travelling up to the Gabba to play Brisbane, tips and bets for that and the round coming soon.