Tag: afl

It takes a lot to keep me interested in a tipping competition. Last week my stupid dice only tipped 4 out of a possible 8. That's not the magical results I was hoping for and I'm starting to get bored.

Incidentally, the dice I'm using are in an iPhone app called Diceshaker. Is that more or less nerdy? Am I relying on an unreliable randomiser?

Anyway, I might venture into a store this weekend and get myself a couple of actual d100s to use and see if that makes any difference.

In the meantime, here are my tips for this week:

• Richmond to beat Collingwood by 37 points
• Hawthorn to lose to West Coast
• Carlton to beat Essendon
• Sydney to beat Geelong
• Port Adel to beat Adelaide
• Gold Coast to lose to Melbourne
• Fremantle to lose to North Melb

Last week there was a draw. Also, my dice tipped a draw. That was lucky. What was unlucky was that the drawn game and the game I tipped to be a draw were completely different. Not even on the same day. Stupid dice.

I realised that, using 20-sided dice, my chances of tipping a draw were just 1/20. That's just too high to be a proper random model of a non-random event, or something.

So this week I've changed my rules. Now I use 2 x 100-sided dice to determine the winner of home and away matches. I still use the 1 x 100-sided die for the margin.

Last week I only tipped 3 and the winner of the comp yet again tipped 6. These are my tips for this week.

• Collingwood to beat Carlton by 36 points
• W. Bulldogs to lose to Gold Coast
• Adelaide to lose to Fremantle
• Richmond to beat Hawthorn
• West Coast to lose to Sydney
• Melbourne to lose to Brisbane
• Geelong to beat Port Adel.
• St. Kilda to beat Essendon
• North Melb. Bye

Last week I told you all about my dice tipping technique. I managed 5 out of a possible 8 and I'm ranked 11th. This week, with the dice tipping a draw between Carlton and Gold Coast, I don't like my chances of getting 8. I've put in the odds according to BetFair in brackets and italics.

• St. Kilda to beat Richmond (1.28)
• North Melb. to beat Collingwood (8.00)
• Port Adel. to beat West Coast (1.50)
• Gold Coast to draw with Carlton (55.00)
• Fremantle to lose to Geelong (2.00)
• W. Bulldogs to beat Brisbane (1.14)
• Sydney to beat Essendon (1.82)
• Hawthorn to lose to Melbourne (3.15)

If you find this boring because of its relationship to football, think of it as a stats exercise. That's what I do. I lead a rich and fulfilling life.

I don't really follow footy. I come from Melbourne and therefore am congenitally obliged to barack for a team. That team, for me, is Carlton. If pressed, however, I'll admit that I barack for the 1982 Carlton team, which was the last time Bruce Doull played and won a premiership.

When Doull retired at the end of the 1986 season, my enjoyment of football began to wane. Doull was then as old as I am now.

I'm involved in a footy tipping competition with one of my clients. This client is footy mad, and yes, I mean the entire organisation. It's a family-run business and their offices are filled with St Kilda memorabilia.

I can't compete in a footy tipping competition in any real sense. I don't know enough about the league now. I don't care either. One year my interest came so close to zero that it was virtually indistinguishable when drawing the graph. Who knew that interest could be asymptotic?

That being said, I want to participate because there are fun prizes like Gold Class passes to be won.

So I do the only thing that makes sense to me. I leave it up to the dice.

I roll two 20-sided dice. Anything less is just too likely to result in a draw. One die is assigned as the home team and the other is the away team. Whichever is greater is the winner of that match.

The tie-breaker is decided with a single roll of a d100.

With that nerdy display, I present you my tips for round 1 of the AFL's 2011 home and away season.

• Carlton to beat Richmond by 83 points
• Geelong to beat St. Kilda
• Collingwood to beat Port Adel.
• Adelaide to lose to Hawthorn
• Brisbane to lose to Fremantle
• Essendon to beat W. Bulldogs
• Melbourne to beat Sydney
• West Coast to lose to North Melb.
• Gold Coast Bye

I'll keep posting my tips for as long as I can be bothered for any stats freaks who are interested.