Do you think captaincy is just a major luck factor in this game?

[Finisher1]

Opinions please.

[TheChairLeg]

You select the player in your team who you think will score the most points. I don't see why it's any different to selecting which players to have in your team. If selecting your captain is luck then selecting your team is luck.

[Finisher1]

You select the player in your team who you think will score the most points. I don't see why it's any different to selecting which players to have in your team. If selecting your captain is luck then selecting your team is luck.

Because most other decisions have long term effect on your team while captaincy is just a one-off decision with potentially massive lucky points swings in it.

[Carlos Kickaball]

Did your captain just blank Finisher1?

[From4corners]

Did your captain just blank Finisher1?

Of course he did, you wouldn't have seen this topic from him if Kane had scored a hattrick. Blaming it on "luck" is the easiest thing to do.

[Skrtel]

Did your captain just blank Finisher1?

[Zimmerman]

You select the player in your team who you think will score the most points. I don't see why it's any different to selecting which players to have in your team. If selecting your captain is luck then selecting your team is luck.

Because most other decisions have long term effect on your team while captaincy is just a one-off decision with potentially massive lucky points swings in it.

But you select some players because of their captain potential though?

[TheBigLewandowski]

Did your captain just blank Finisher1?

[Sonnie Sarko]

Thought is usually put into choosing your captain, same as selection and transfers, so no I don't think it is luck.

[From4corners]

Could those three who selected "Yes" please answer if they capped Kane this gameweek.

[Valeron]

You select the player in your team who you think will score the most points. I don't see why it's any different to selecting which players to have in your team. If selecting your captain is luck then selecting your team is luck.

nonsense.

There is a lot of randomness is just 38 single players, over a single season you can get big swings in luck. However if your captain in averaging 5 points over 5 seasons then you're not making great captain choices.

[White Tiger]

There's not really any skill involved, it's just a case of looking at the obvious options & picking one of them, although I'm a bit rubbish (or unlucky ) at picking captains, so maybe I'm wrong.

[Stevieste]

I captained Kane this week and im honestly not surprised, he never really produces in the easy games, where you expect a big haul.

I wouldnt really say its luck or skill, but it does take balls to sometimes go for what looks the simple choice on paper and go for someone who away from home and could be potentially a tricky game.

Salah was a great captain pick this week, as soon as i seen line up with Mane in the team i knew he do well and when i seen spurs with no Davies, Trippier and Alli i was already thinkg he we go again with Kane.

Also was a risk with him considering he just come back from injury.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing at times

[um09a2k]

What are you on about?

You go by the laws of probability. Yes probability is based on chance, but going with a high chance of something occurring (and the result consequently being correct) is not luck at all because it was a calculated decision.

[Zimmerman]

I captained Kane this week and im honestly not surprised, he never really produces in the easy games, where you expect a big haul.

I wouldnt really say its luck or skill, but it does take balls to sometimes go for what looks the simple choice on paper and go for someone who away from home and could be potentially a tricky game.

Salah was a great captain pick this week, as soon as i seen line up with Mane in the team i knew he do well and when i seen spurs with no Davies, Trippier and Alli i was already thinkg he we go again with Kane.

Also was a risk with him considering he just come back from injury.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing at times

So minutes before kick off you had a better idea than you did hours/days before where starting lineups were unknown?

[Turd Ferguson]

If you rephrase luck to mean “high variance” then yes I think it’s absolutely true. If you’re trying to pick between two of the best 4.5 defenders, it might mean a difference of a few clean sheets over the course of a season. Maybe 20 points. And you can always correct that mistake in a later gamweek.

With the captaincy, you can suffer a 20 point swing in a single gameweek. And that happens almost every single week that there’s hauls and blanks from the top choices! This week someone bringing in salah and captaining him outscored the Kane captainers by 26. Is it luck? I don’t know. But it’s certainly a large amount of variance compared to the difference in their “expected” scores. No other decision in the game produces such large random point swings.

[Finisher1]

If you rephrase luck to mean “high variance” then yes I think it’s absolutely true. If you’re trying to pick between two of the best 4.5 defenders, it might mean a difference of a few clean sheets over the course of a season. Maybe 20 points. And you can always correct that mistake in a later gamweek.

With the captaincy, you can suffer a 20 point swing in a single gameweek. And that happens almost every single week that there’s hauls and blanks from the top choices! This week someone bringing in salah and captaining him outscored the Kane captainers by 26. Is it luck? I don’t know. But it’s certainly a large amount of variance compared to the difference in their “expected” scores. No other decision in the game produces such large random point swings.

+1

[Ruth_NZ]

If you rephrase luck to mean “high variance” then yes I think it’s absolutely true. No other decision in the game produces such large semi-random point swings.

Agree with that as amended but not with the original proposition and I will vote against.

As it happens I didn't think Kane would be 100% today and he wasn't. Unfortunately my captain was injured and Kane was my vice-captain. To tell the truth I didn't think much about that because I didn't expect it to matter. Which is perhaps a lesson for me.

[First Sub Podcast]

It’s not solely down to luck. Picking a roulette number is luck as the previous spin has nothing to do with the next one. Picking a captain pick goes on many factors from FPL managers, including form, fixture, stats, simple eye test.

The only way I feel a captain pick is unlucky is if your man suffers an early injury for a 1 pointer. To simply state it’s purely luck because your captain blanked is a really easy get out imo.

[Finisher1]

As it happens I didn't think Kane would be 100% today and he wasn't. Unfortunately my captain was injured and Kane was my vice-captain. To tell the truth I didn't think much about that because I didn't expect it to matter. Which is perhaps a lesson for me.

You thought Kane was your second best captain pick after Alli, that's a truth really.

[Ruth_NZ]

As it happens I didn't think Kane would be 100% today and he wasn't. Unfortunately my captain was injured and Kane was my vice-captain. To tell the truth I didn't think much about that because I didn't expect it to matter. Which is perhaps a lesson for me.

You thought Kane was your second best captain pick after Alli, that's a truth really.

No, it was kind of an auto-pilot thing, didn't really think much about it. But he became my captain and that's down to me, not to luck.

[Finisher1]

As it happens I didn't think Kane would be 100% today and he wasn't. Unfortunately my captain was injured and Kane was my vice-captain. To tell the truth I didn't think much about that because I didn't expect it to matter. Which is perhaps a lesson for me.

You thought Kane was your second best captain pick after Alli, that's a truth really.

No, it was kind of an auto-pilot thing, didn't really think much about it. But he became my captain and that's down to me, not to luck.

Well that was a really poor play by you. What a major mistake, wasn't it?

[Ruth_NZ]

What do you want me to say here? Yes, if you like. Probably more accurate to recognise an insufficient attention to detail, which I already did.

[From4corners]

Well that was a really poor play by you. What a major mistake, wasn't it?

Just get over how you picked Kane and it was a bad call from your (own high) standards, had nothing to do with bad luck. No need to pick on others now to make yourself feel better.

[Tacalabala]

I wouldn't call it a mistake. I wouldn't say captaning Kane a mistake either. Kane has been the best captaincy pick this season, and he was playing a poor Palace team this week. Realistically, who were the viable alternatives to Kane this week? Were any of those standing out as a strong alternative? No I don't think they were.

Have you heard of Captain Hindsight?

[Finisher1]

What do you want me to say here? Yes, if you like. Probably more accurate to recognise an insufficient attention to detail, which I already did.

I don't know, people say to me that blaming luck is just an excuse. But when you make a poor (vice-)captain decision you just say "I didn't think about it, that's all". To me that seems more like an excuse

From now on, when I have a poor captain pick, I'm just saying "I didn't think about it"

[Finisher1]

I wouldn't call it a mistake. I wouldn't say captaning Kane a mistake either. Kane has been the best captaincy pick this season, and he was playing a poor Palace team this week. Realistically, who were the viable alternatives to Kane this week? Were any of those standing out as a strong alternative? No I don't think they were.

Have you heard of Captain Hindsight?

You misinterpreted my post. I was saying that Ruth's "I didn't think about my (vice-)captain decision" was a major mistake, that's all. Nothing wrong with Kane, he was the best choice in my opinion too.

[From4corners]

I wouldn't call it a mistake. I wouldn't say captaning Kane a mistake either. Kane has been the best captaincy pick this season, and he was playing a poor Palace team this week. Realistically, who were the viable alternatives to Kane this week? Were any of those standing out as a strong alternative? No I don't think they were.

Are Palace as poor as people seem to make them to? There were concerns over Kane's fitness and he played a long game against Real. I was surprised to see him start, but he did and he wasn't a 100%. Not the most standout captaincy choice in my book this gameweek. Salah was for me, which proved to be correct so far.

[Pirlo's Beard]

Realistically, who were the viable alternatives to Kane this week? Were any of those standing out as a strong alternative? No I don't think they were.

This is a strange comment from someone who captained Salah.

[Finisher1]

Realistically, who were the viable alternatives to Kane this week? Were any of those standing out as a strong alternative? No I don't think they were.

This is a strange comment from someone who captained Salah.

It's not strange, he seems to think Kane and Salah were more or less equal captain picks this gameweek. Yet the points swing 15-2. This just illustrates how massive points swings these 50-50 decisions may lead to, and these swings don't even out during one season. Hence, the captaincy is the best argument for luck in this game.