How lucky is captaincy?

[snakzz]

What would be best is to make the captain switchable and make you able to switch to the VC but then you will only get 1.5 X of the points.

[Finisher1]

What would be best is to make the captain switchable and make you able to switch to the VC but then you will only get 1.5 X of the points.

Interesting proposition. But it should be automatic, ie. if your VC x 1.5 is better than C x 2.0, then the switch is made automatically.

[Stemania]

It's not really viable to allow manual captaincy changes mid-gameweek and also maintain the mass appeal. And then, why not also allow midweek substitutions etc? There's already UFPL for this, which doesn't seem to have been a huge hit with the public. One of the main appeals of fpl is the number of people who play it due to the simplicity of the rules.

As for automatically changing to the VC if he has more points, why not then just give everyone two captains and keep the best? Or three? It doesn't really make sense. Among other things it would just make captaincy fairly irrelevant and a needless complication of the game, as most people would get a decent score from it every week - so then why have it at all? The point of the VC is to make sure someone's score is doubled if your captain doesn't play, and presumably wouldn't exist if we had no bench - I don't think morphing it into a genuine second chance adds anything and would just devalue what it means to name a captain in the first place.

The other suggestion earlier was to make the captain just worth 1.5x instead. But once it's been admitted that captaincy either has too much of an affect, or is unfair at the 2x multiplier, then really your admitting it's just having a bad effect on the game whatever the multiplier. The solution again, is just to remove it. I don't think either scenario will ever happen though - the level of fun the captaincy brings is probably one of the more attractive parts of the game to the general public so will unlikely be removed, whereas a 1.5x multiplier would make score calculations more complicated (with some rounding having to go on), and I don't think fpl are in the business of making the game more complicated as fundamentally all they care about is the appeal of the game.

[Finisher1]

Yes, I'm open to new ideas but I think the new captain rule is also good and personally I wouldn't change it. Captaincy definitely brings lot of excitement to the game and after all the rule is the same for everyone. Maybe 38 gameweeks is too short to even out completely, but during many seasons it will, and the best managers have made the best captain choices.

[Archy]

Ignorant is the wrong word but the overall point I agree with. It seems to be the people who have their heads stuck in the past (and still strugglng to get over the ' Halo effect' of Aguero and Sanchez because of past returns). More adaptive managers tend to have the ability to identify the latest trends and act upon them quicker. (Are you slow to adapt to change? Don't do it to yourselves!)

That all said, the difference between Kane and Aguero this week was not huge. Kane was marginally the better call, but the rewards between getting that call right and getting it wrong were disproportionate. I'd say the scale of the difference is a lucky thing and that naturally that is going to be frustrating if you were on the wrong end of it.

If I tell you that the financials/spreads had Aguero clearly the better choice (at least in terms of goal scoring) will you honestly continue with the idea Kane was the better choice? Kane was a good captain choice for those who didn't have Aguero in their squad. That's what it boils down to.

I even read above something about Kane having the edge as he's boosted by his England call-up, which is a classic.

Dazzler makes a similar comment about Aguero being the statistically better choice and that a computer using probability calculations would have chosen him every time.

I agree this is a persuasive argument but I think the reality is more complex, for 2 possible reasons:

1. The scientific - the computers only have half a seasons worth of data to go on for Kane. It must therefore be prone to greater statistical error, because of the small data set compared to Aguero?

2. Human intuition - the reason computers struggled for a long time to match humans at chess was because they don't have intuition. Now they can win because ultimately there are so many permutations possible in a chess game and computing power can cover pretty much all of them.

Intuition is much more relevant to football than it is to chess, otherwise you'd have computers running football teams instead of people. Imagine letting a computer programme decide on transfers, team selection and substitutions instead of Jose Mourinho. It will never happen.

Computers cannot read intangibles like Kane's obvious hunger and positional awareness; I imagine they'd also struggle to calculate the psychological impact on Man City of losing their title to Chelsea so early in the season, or the impact Aguero's injury has had on his sharpness. These are the sort of things you need a keen human eye for.

So I disagree with the notion that statisticians or computers always know best. If they did they'd be running football teams in the real world (why let a stupid human do it with so much money at stake!) I'd say it's people who think the most like computers (ie those who are obsessed with stats or historic performance) who seem to have the biggest issue with this.

[eastcentral1]

People need hope. That's what the captaincy gives.

[Stemania]

Getting a computer to run a real football team is an entirely different kettle of fish. Human contact and psychology are huge factors that cannot easily be replicated. It's worth noting though that all reasonably big football teams do extremely heavily use computers to process stats in analysing performance data these days.

Getting a computer to, or at least relying heavily on their computations to, predict which of two or three players is more likely to get more fantasy points is a much more reasonable task though with far fewer variables. You say "Computers cannot read intangibles like Kane's obvious hunger and positional awareness", well not exactly, no (although it can measure indicators of such things - chances attained, shot accuracy, chance conversion etc, which factors it all in). The betting companies get football experts to moderate this kind of thing anyway, while the computer does most of the number crunching legwork. What's the reason they use computers in the first place? Because they as a general rule lead to more accurate predictions than just using humans would. If this weren't true they wouldn't use them.

On a side note, I genuinely believe that given enough time you could come up with a complicated enough algorythm to run a fantasy football team to such a level that it would at least match and probably surpass the best fpl players in terms of long term results (but obviously not necessarily win due to the luck element involved). I seem to remember someone trying to do this on FISO (Fantasy Overlord or something), but it was nowhere near complicated enough imo - they got it to run a team I think, but I can't remember if we ever found out how well it did.

[Carlos Kickaball]

Archy, if there is not enough data to accurately tell how good Kane is, then why is it reasonable for you to tell us he is at least as good as Shearer in is heyday and when others say it's too early to say you accuse them of underrating Kane?

You might also want to see this.

[Finisher1]

Archy, if there is not enough data to accurately tell how good Kane is, then why is it reasonable for you to tell us he is at least as good as Shearer in is heyday and when others say it's too early to say you accuse them of underrating Kane?

You might also want to see this.

So in addition to scoring every week, Kane is also trolling everyone on internet

What a boss he is.

[Finisher1]

Kane (bur) and Aguero (cry) seem to be standout options for the next gameweek also Although there are some other reasonable options too.

I wonder if the Kane/Aguero captainers are going to stick with the same player also this gameweek. And what kind of shitstorm would it be if Aguero blanks and Kane scores a haul again

I'm currently on Kane but that might change many times before deadline.

[Mav3rick]

Kane (bur) and Aguero (cry) seem to be standout options for the next gameweek also Although there are some other reasonable options too.

Costa, Hazard, Austin, Benteke are more than reasonable for GW31. I'd probably take any of those over Man City playing away against an awkward Palace team and one of the best home supports in the league.

[Sammy the Crab]

If I bring in a DGW striker then I'll captain them. If not then probably Hazard.

[Finisher1]

Kane (bur) and Aguero (cry) seem to be standout options for the next gameweek also Although there are some other reasonable options too.

Costa, Hazard, Austin, Benteke are more than reasonable for GW31. I'd probably take any of those over Man City playing away against an awkward Palace team and one of the best home supports in the league.

I know, but since GW16 Kane has scored at least one goal in 11 games out of 15

How many hauls he must score before people learn to always captain Kane? Just asking

But seriously, I might not be bold enough either. Chelsea fixture is good and Austin has a double.

[liquidfootball2]

Austin with his double gwk and Kane the clear frontrunners in the ffs early voting both with around 27/28%.

A lot of that maybe the hat-trick points are fresh in the memory but along with Hazard and Giroud (now Skirtl looks to be out) Kane is a real option once again.

[thesilkworm]

If I bring in a DGW striker then I'll captain them. If not then probably Hazard.

This is my current thinking too.

I think that Austin is a relatively clear choice for those who own him, but I likely won't be bringing him in just for one week.

[Carlos Kickaball]

I'm still on Sergio Agüero!

[Finisher1]

So last week my captain Kane scored 17 points and this week Austin has scored 15 points so far.

I think we are quite many who have captained Kane GW30 and Austin GW31. We have won a total of 28 points compared to those who have captained Aguero both weeks.

And tonight it is even another night in pub with Charlie Austin

[Ashers]

Not sure you would captain Aguero this week as he was playing away to an inform team. There were better options such as Giroud and Rooney.

[Carlos Kickaball]

Thanks for that after Agüero has played... A few people coming out the woodwork to tell us Agüero was a confusing choice after the game.

If City had won 3-1, and Agüero had scored a brace, I think some of these hindsight posters might have been as quiet as they were before the game week started.

Giroud against Liverpool, you think that Giroud (LIV) is better than Agüero (cry)? Is it that Giroud is better than Agüero? Or that Liverpool are worse than Palace?

[MoSe]

you think that [letting] Giroud live is better than [making] Agüero cry?

[MoSe]

On a side note, I genuinely believe that given enough time you could come up with a complicated enough algorythm to run a fantasy football team to such a level that it would at least match and probably surpass the best fpl players in terms of long term results (but obviously not necessarily win due to the luck element involved). I seem to remember someone trying to do this on FISO (Fantasy Overlord or something), but it was nowhere near complicated enough imo - they got it to run a team I think, but I can't remember if we ever found out how well it did.

on a side-sidenote
has it been thought or done to play it as a "reality" or rather, a cooperative / "democracy" team?

a reality had been done in Italy (and I think the format came from the UK? https://www.google.com/webhp?q=soccer%2 ... ality+show )
to run a real life amateur club playing in 6th tier in 2004/05 and then in 5th tier (then top amateur level) in 2005/06. http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campioni,_il_sogno
The TV audience vote elected 3 players each week which the coach (former '82 world champion Graziani) had to select in the starting XI and let them play till HT at least (barring injuries)

So.... we could run a "FISO Democracy" team, entered using some email address from a staff member not interested in FPL,
and all the decisions (starting XV, transfers, bench, Captain) will have to be taken thru FPL Forum POLLS.

Would it be viable iyo?
and... interesting / FUN ???

[Archy]

Archy, if there is not enough data to accurately tell how good Kane is, then why is it reasonable for you to tell us he is at least as good as Shearer in is heyday and when others say it's too early to say you accuse them of underrating Kane?

You might also want to see this.

I said there was not enough data for a computer to say how good kane is, hence you need to human eye to make an assessment of the form, how he's playing compared to Aguero and others. Using human intuition also enables a conversation to take place as to how good he is compared to previous greats, hence all the articles that appeared in the press and the interviews with Alan Shearer himself on the subject. It seems that human beings close to football are quite capable of making these comparisons whereas a computer would have no chance.

I'm not sure to what extent the statistical models highlighted it, but it was pretty obvious before the weekend that Austin and Benteke (both in some form and with 2 matches) were better choices than Aguero (not in form and with one away match) for the armband this weekend. I hope you've learned something from these debates and managed to avoid backing the Man City player this weekend CK?

[Carlos Kickaball]

No I didn't buy Austin and Benteke in for a double game week punt, but said in the captain thread before that I'd prefer a DGW player as captain if I had one. Everything is obvious to you after it happens Archy.

It's a shame the lure of a DGW player stopped you captaining Kane this week.

[Mystery]

So.... we could run a "FISO Democracy" team, entered using some email address from a staff member not interested in FPL,
and all the decisions (starting XV, transfers, bench, Captain) will have to be taken thru FPL Forum POLLS.

Would it be viable iyo?
and... interesting / FUN ???

It's been done before in TFF land a couple of times, but having organised one of them it's really a bit of a ball-ache. You end up with additional problems you'd never thought of, because you have to have an idea of a team strategy before you start picking players so it's incredibly difficult to find a way of asking the right questions to get some coherent answers.

And then you can get thrown off-track in the late off-season by real-life transfers which again makes the organisation extra tough to try and drive forward.

Therefore, it becomes less fun for all as a result. That being said, I might try it again next season as a TFF experiment and since I'm probably not going to play FPL otherwise I could be tempted.....

[Stemania]

Would it be viable iyo?
and... interesting / FUN ???

I believe you have to get permission from fpl first to do something like that as there is a strict rule of one team per person (the podcast duo on FFS - Mark and Granville - enter a joint team every year but I believe they had to ask first).

It would be pretty difficult to manage such a team with more than two or three people - certainly the posters would have to get along already imo. I think Mark and Granville essentially just take it in turn to be in charge in alternate weeks, which kindof defeats the point of a cooperative team. I guess the type of discussion I'd be looking for would be the sort that went on in the STC RMT for the first two thirds of the season, and especially preseason (which has calmed down now options are limited and temporarily returned into a normal RMT) - some lovely anal over-analysis of options - but even with only 3, 4, 5 or so posters involved it's already been over 70 pages so far this season and while vague consensuses were often reached just about everyone would prefer a slightly different option each time. If you opened this up to a large number of posters or even as a total FISO democracy on every decision (even if this were logistically possible) I think it would be chaos and very little would be learned from it.

A few years back there was a 'team of the week' on FISO (similar to the one FFS, the site that cannot be named, and one or two others produce). It was pretty good but imo too democratic - not enough discussion for me and, if I remember correctly, mostly involved a small group of posters each picking 2-3 players independently every week. Not that I think team of the week is necessarily a particularly useful thing anyway - nowhere near as useful as FFS's watchlist appears to be to people for example - as it doesn't really give you any information in terms of what the best transfer targets might be unless you're a very short term transferer.

[Archy]

Why's that a shame CK? Because you couldn't mock me or others for backing him in a barren week, which I know you so enjoy?

The only shame from my perspective is I picked the wrong DGW week player (so far). As I pointed out previously, DGW players can pay handsomely and the old adage that 'You've got to be in it to win it' could never be more true when it comes to transferring them in to take advantage of extra fixtures.

As far as Kane is concerned, I correctly predicted he would blank against Italy and I didn't much fancy him for the Burnley game either. There are signs he's burning out a bit now. He could do with a rest and I'm inclined to find another captain pick for the next week. So please try not to be too smug if he fails to deliver in the next game.

[Carlos Kickaball]

It's a shame, because you particularly have had a fortunate run, and seem to think it's because of some amazing predictions you've made, most of which have come after the event. You also go around the forum posturing, and moaning that other people don't respect your opinion as much as they should. I am sure that many more would have captained Kane this week if not for the DGW, and unsurprisingly I actually want players I don't know who are my rivals in the rankings to do badly, even if I wish the best for my FISO friends.

To give you an example of some of your behaviour: Against Villa I had Giroud captain, and you have Cazorla captain, and you were pretending to everyone that you chose Cazorla over Sánchez (despite earlier saying you preferred Sánchez out of the two and only choosing Cazorla as Sánchez was injured), then painted it as genius over Giroud captainers who were apparently just bitter and didn't appreciate how good Cazorla was. A few weeks later you bought Giroud, and didn't own Sánchez, and you captained Giroud over Cazorla (interesting how you claimed victory for the opposite decision just 3-4 weeks ago) but also neglected to mention that you didn't own Sánchez in order to give a false impression of making a decision again.

Amazingly you've done the opposite thing with my captaincy decision this week, make wilfully inaccurate or incomplete statements to mislead, pretending that I chose Agüero over a DGW player, but I didn't really and have always said that if I had on of Austin or Benteke they would be my captain.

I'm going to leave it there, because Stemania, I and other posters have pointed this out to you before, and I'm sure you'll come up with some more inaccurate comments about me for a smear in response, like when you said I started counting Kane's points deliberately on a quiet week, which I didn't I said which week I was starting before it happened.

[Stemania]

There are signs [Kane]'s burning out a bit now.

The last two week's captaincies aside (and omg please you two no more), you really think this all of a sudden? He's only played two games (and a sub appearance) in the two weeks since his hattrick, and now has another week off. I always think the phrase 'burning out' is a bit of a cliche when usually it's just that a player naturally reaches a point where he can no-longer sustain an unnaturally high sequence of returns.

I'm sure many of us will be looking to get our excuses in early for when we might sell him in GW35 to avoid Spurs' tough finish and hit the likes of Giroud/Liverpool striker for doubles, but burning out doesn't seem a particularly defendable one to me atm.