Cornbread Maxwell wrote:I used to think FFB had more skill involved. Not anymore - especially when you play in competitive leagues, luck becomes a much larger factor than you might think.
Luck is a huge factor, but you have to wonder - are some owners just luckier than others? When a team wins over and over and over despite having a low draft position every year, you start to question whether some people just have mad skills, and you don't!
hmm - my guess is that the competition allows this to happen. Dont get skill confused with lack of competition. What I have found is that when you find a truly competitive league from top to bottom, the chances that there is a repeat winner from yr to yr is extremely rare - in fact, I have yet to see it happen. I mean, I know that knowledge is key - but what happens when your competitors put just as much time into studying and learning as you do? Luck becomes a much greater part of winning - it has to.
Well said, once all the tangibles are factored out the intangibles such as luck are the only remaining variables in the FF equation..
Don't give up the ship...........sell it!!
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Timbathia wrote:I think skill is a VERY appropriate word to use in this discussion. Knowledge is not a skill, but the application of knowledge most definitely is.
No. Comprehending math is knowledge; performing 2 + 2 = 4 is an application of said knowledge. You aren't "skilled" at math. You possess more knowledge or less.
Timbathia wrote:how you draft, who you pick up during the year in WW, how and when you trade, etc. are all about how you apply your knowledge.
Exactly.
Timbathia wrote:If you think that all it takes to be good at FFL is for you to have read loads of info and predictions about players, then you are obviously playing against average opponents. Knowledge is necessary, but how you use it is what separates us.
I feel like here is required a, "By the power of Greyskull!!!!!"
Seriously, though, if you think that you're being "cagey" by picking players or faking out your opponents or, well, really doing anything other than filtering information provided to you by others through your own analysis of probabilistic situations, you're seriously deluding yourself. And don't start that, "you're playing in an inferior league" crap. That's such a tired line that even Rodney Dangerfield stopped using it three years ago. Someone who wins at fantasy football can be, in no particular order: astute, well-informed, or lucky. But until you define a skill which one can be skilled at... they can't be skilled.
I'm a 7-0 newb FF fan, points leader in my 10 person league, made up of people who are NOT newbs. Luck rules the day, but you have to make your luck, much of the time. Good drafting, and good research seem to meen a lot.
I think the Poker analogy is best. There are standard plays, gut feelings, skill and luck. It might, for example be better to play the Bears Defense based on the matchup, but luck often shows that a WW defense has the better week. The standard "strategies" are things like Plindsey's formula results... things that you expect to pay off... but that don't HAVE to pay off. In poker you THINK your full house is a winner until someone has the nuts.
Skill comes down to knowing the teams in your leagues, knowing the matchups in the week, and knowing how to research your best moves. It also comes into play with the WW. Skill is 5 days a week. Luck is Sunday and Monday. Just like the best football team, for the season, doesn't always beat the team with the worst record for the season... you have no guarantees.
Timbathia wrote:I think skill is a VERY appropriate word to use in this discussion. Knowledge is not a skill, but the application of knowledge most definitely is.
No. Comprehending math is knowledge; performing 2 + 2 = 4 is an application of said knowledge. You aren't "skilled" at math. You possess more knowledge or less.
2 + 2 = 4 is an extremely simple application of said knowledge that you appear to be able to handle. Well done. There is also a whole world of problem-solving based math out there. You can teach the necessary basic knowledge required to solve these problems to almost anyone, but the application of that knowledge often eludes many people. Problem solving is a skill and I dont see how you can argue otherwise.
If you draft your roster taking into account ALL the potential variables in FFL with the aim to maximize the weekly output of your team for the entire season while minimizing the impact of "bad-luck", then that is a difficult problem. People have totally different drafting techniques and ways of accounting for potential injuries (i.e quality 3rd back or just taking handcuffs), or other factors such as predicting who will be drafted before your next pick based on what you believe the other owners are trying to do with their rosters. This is all to do with how they apply their knowledge, and since some are better at it than others despite having read the same mags or web-sies, it shows they have different levels of "skill" at it.
Then again, maybe it is just how I just approach FFL, but seeing as though half the people in here use stuff like statistic-based approaches for match-ups etc, I seriously doubt it.
FatFoot wrote:I'm a 7-0 newb FF fan, points leader in my 10 person league, made up of people who are NOT newbs. Luck rules the day, but you have to make your luck, much of the time. Good drafting, and good research seem to meen a lot.
I think the Poker analogy is best. There are standard plays, gut feelings, skill and luck. It might, for example be better to play the Bears Defense based on the matchup, but luck often shows that a WW defense has the better week. The standard "strategies" are things like Plindsey's formula results... things that you expect to pay off... but that don't HAVE to pay off. In poker you THINK your full house is a winner until someone has the nuts.
Skill comes down to knowing the teams in your leagues, knowing the matchups in the week, and knowing how to research your best moves. It also comes into play with the WW. Skill is 5 days a week. Luck is Sunday and Monday. Just like the best football team, for the season, doesn't always beat the team with the worst record for the season... you have no guarantees.
You are just deluding yourself Fatfoot, there is no skill in poker, only knowledge and luck (Mattias has set me straight).
Timbathia wrote:I think skill is a VERY appropriate word to use in this discussion. Knowledge is not a skill, but the application of knowledge most definitely is.
No. Comprehending math is knowledge; performing 2 + 2 = 4 is an application of said knowledge. You aren't "skilled" at math. You possess more knowledge or less.
2 + 2 = 4 is an extremely simple application of said knowledge that you appear to be able to handle. Well done. There is also a whole world of problem-solving based math out there. You can teach the necessary basic knowledge required to solve these problems to almost anyone, but the application of that knowledge often eludes many people. Problem solving is a skill and I dont see how you can argue otherwise.
If you draft your roster taking into account ALL the potential variables in FFL with the aim to maximize the weekly output of your team for the entire season while minimizing the impact of "bad-luck", then that is a difficult problem. People have totally different drafting techniques and ways of accounting for potential injuries (i.e quality 3rd back or just taking handcuffs), or other factors such as predicting who will be drafted before your next pick based on what you believe the other owners are trying to do with their rosters. This is all to do with how they apply their knowledge, and since some are better at it than others despite having read the same mags or web-sies, it shows they have different levels of "skill" at it.
Then again, maybe it is just how I just approach FFL, but seeing as though half the people in here use stuff like statistic-based approaches for match-ups etc, I seriously doubt it.
you still haven't identified a practice to be "skilled" at. even a real-life football scout would be deemed a, "good judge of talent" or, "a poor judge of talent" not, "well-skilled in the practice of talent-judging." as i said earlier: you can be asute; you can be well-informed; you can be lucky.
but this all boils down to semantics. some people do better than others. and, in the particular, it may be completely luck. but, in the general, the people who prepare better, perform better. which is all anyone is trying to say, anyways.
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by Horizons » Thu Oct 27, 2005 7:32 pm 
