Ive had too many beers for this, kane (c)

Deffo a strategical game, but luck doesn't do any harm

at the end of the day, FPL is a game which encompasses the game I love. I watch MOTD, live matches , and pick my squad. Delving into stats helps sometimes, but that isn't the way to go about winning this game, or doing well in fact

Give this man a PhD.

This comment deserves to be green, fantastic explanation.

So do you think 50/50 is the incorrect balance and that 80/20 is the balance of luck and skill in the game?

I believe the statistic is 90% of all people who try to invest in stocks fail. By that I mean over the course of a year or so only 10% of traders can make a profit. So, I like your analogy. It's very difficult to be one of those 10% who can consistently pick good stocks (players), and eventually do consistently well every year.

FPL's nothing like trading, largely because there's little to no skin in the game and psychology completely different.
I'm sure there are those with real £on the line, who play with strategy, deliberate methodology etc. But at end of the day it's paper trading and/or competing in a market with paper traders where paper traders can win.

Too good of a debate for comments to go unnoticed. I agree with everything you said, I've written my own (similar) view, as a "foreigner" in less fancy words of course.

Like in everything else in life, the factor of luck decreases with increasing knowledge. FPL success is driven by decisions based on your knowledge, first of all about clubs, players, who's nailed, suspended, injured etc. These are the basics, the next step is experience and data analysis, the final factor is luck. For example, you know players A and B are big hitters, you check their stats and are similary good, they play against similary bad opponents (lots of shots and goals conceded, not many saves etc). You have a 50-50 decision to make, toss a coin and go with player A. 25 minutes into the game he gets injured, meanwhile player B gets a haul. That's luck, because you can hardly predict an injury. However season is 38 gameweeks long so these situations even themselves out. The factor of knowledge is at least around 95%, in the long run, luck is pretty irrelevant.

...and another thing. What I've noticed with my rivals is that the more a manager believes in luck, the worse he is at managing his team.

An underrated factor (along with million others to consider) is club support and optimism/pessimism of managers. One's subjective view of the team he/she supports or their rivals could crucially impact their decision making.

I think she you been playing a while and you know how to play it is probably the luck factor that separates you. Anyone can follow stats or watch games and make an informed decision. I think most of us would be better than the casual players but most of us get spoon fed and make the decision off what we are being given.

Is that classed as skill? I'm not sure but I appreciate there are different views. Mine would be probably more luck over skill so long as you know how to play the game

Take an upvote. I would say that the emotional roller-coaster that is FPL is more like the cryptocurrency market than traditional stocks.

The analogy I always used was poker. Winning any given GW, just like any given hand, has a huge amount of luck involved. However over the course of a season/ multiple hands, the cream will rise to the top

Nice post. I agree - you can't control what happens on the pitch for 380 games a season, but you can use the tools available to us in order to narrow the field of viable potential returns.

It is easy to get a good high score with the information on this site. Anything lower than about 50K OR starts to get higher and higher amounts of luck involved, culminating in top 100 being impossible to plan for.

Everyone who isn't an idiot can get a decent score by following simple rules like- get in proven performers during their hot streaks, captain people like Kane and Lukaku etc. The people on here that fail are the ones that take punts and go for 'differentials'. A differential is a differential because he is a player that isn't returning points. It's that simple. It really is that simple.

As for the stockmarket, if you go for a balanced portfolio of blue chips from one or more of the world's leading exchanges (NYSE, LSE, ASX etc) and don't touch the money, over the long run (at least 20 years), you'll be looking at an annualised return of 7%. This is better than any bank interest will ever give you.

Interesting
Knowing when to do nothing and trust your previously well thought decisions is key for me
I also never trade on a game day which is why i am making a sat morning appearance this week
Can't abide the usual end of life emotions around at this time normally

38 hands/games -enough for top10k
+ transfer discipline + luck with injuries = top5k
+ 50/50 decisions mostly right =top1k
+ 50/50 always right + more luck(lucky fantasy assists and goals +baps)=top300 + more than you could imagine luck = NUMERO UNO

Fooling yourself a bit it's only part of the game. Thing is money isn't that important as there is always a cheaper option performing just as well and until you accept that you will always take hits to save 0.1

If are hits were equal it would be more considered but as you get a free one the best option is usually to wait.

Throw in injuries and suspensions then saved transfers actually become more valuable.

With respect to luck vs skill i look at it this way - luck will end up determining the range of possible finishes for you in a given season, your skill will determine where you finish within that range.

As for players who are regularly good at FPL, i think one thing they likely have in common is that they are able to adapt to each FPL season as well as removing emotion from decision making as far as possible.