I'm not doing very well but I also don't care very much.
There are many weeks I forgot to put my tips in and now I'm in position 91 out of 100 with a total score of 29 in 9 rounds. There's no coming back.
Anyway, this week the dice gave the following predictions:
Melbourne to beat Carlton by 8 points North Melb. to beat Sydney Fremantle to beat St. Kilda
Gold Coast to lose to Geelong Richmond to beat Port Adel. Adelaide to beat Brisbane
Collingwood to lose to West Coast
W. Bulldogs to beat Hawthorn
Who knows where that will leave me? I don't even bother finding the results of the games anymore.
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.
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.
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.
I'm not doing very well but I also don't care very much.