Winning at Fantasy Football is %100 luck!!!!!

[Gnu314]

Also the poker analogy falls apart a bit because you don't have websites, publications, and message boards when you're trying to make a decision on a bet/raise/call or fold. I almost always check here before I make a move to get people's opinion, you can't ask the player at the table next to you for their opinion when you've got a move to make in poker.

[maddog60]

Also the poker analogy falls apart a bit because you don't have websites, publications, and message boards when you're trying to make a decision on a bet/raise/call or fold. I almost always check here before I make a move to get people's opinion, you can't ask the player at the table next to you for their opinion when you've got a move to make in poker.

In terms how each function with luck they do relate. Think about the games. In both games you have incomplete information before you decide (you don't know how the games will turn out), and you have to try to stack the odds in your favor committing yourself to the higher percentage chance to win the matchup, just like how you committ to a hand in poker with the when you think you've got the highest percentage (in poker by betting, in fantasy football, but starting a player).

Not as many studies have been done on poker, but I'd wager that the top fantasy football minds here over say a 10 year period will have a significantly high win loss record. That's not going to happen by luck alone.

[Paladyr]

Also the poker analogy falls apart a bit because you don't have websites, publications, and message boards when you're trying to make a decision on a bet/raise/call or fold. I almost always check here before I make a move to get people's opinion, you can't ask the player at the table next to you for their opinion when you've got a move to make in poker.

In terms how each function with luck they do relate. Think about the games. In both games you have incomplete information before you decide (you don't know how the games will turn out), and you have to try to stack the odds in your favor committing yourself to the higher percentage chance to win the matchup, just like how you committ to a hand in poker with the when you think you've got the highest percentage (in poker by betting, in fantasy football, but starting a player).

Not as many studies have been done on poker, but I'd wager that the top fantasy football minds here over say a 10 year period will have a significantly high win loss record. That's not going to happen by luck alone.

I bet you're wrong. I'd bet that the elite poker players have a higher win percentage than elite FF players. There is a LOT less luck involved in poker than FF. In poker you know your odds of winning based on what the opponent could have. It's a much easier game to win consistently at. FF, you have no idea who's going to blow up any given week. It's almost a crapshoot. I always say it's 60% luck, 40% skill, and I firmly believe that to be true.

In most decent leagues at the beginning of the season, no one has any idea who will win the league. Teams all look pretty even. Then after the seasons over, there are some really bad teams and some good teams. The only thing that changed is some players underperformed, some overperformed, and perhaps 1 or 2 GREAT FA pickups. It's mostly luck, any way you look at it.

[Vixtor]

Luck is a factor but not even close to 100%. In any given league you can look at the draft and so forth and completely rule out like half of them due to dumb owners. The luck factor comes into factor a lot on "any given Sunday" but the best teams win out in the end. In conclusion, the title of this thread is false.

[Plindsey88]

mabe luck doesn't play as big a factor as i stated early or maybe i have been unluckly year after year. if you win your competive league then you got extremely lucky. you my like to think that you are FF guru but you are not, noone is. i have been 15 - 40pts favorite everygame this year and lost half of them. luck is invovled in determining the draft order and the players weekly performaces. everyone has access to the same information so if you can read you should start the right guys week after week. the people on this forum that think they are pros at FF either 1) play with a entire league of idoits or 2) take credit for having a golden horseshoe up their ass.

Is this the team you drafted that you think is so unlucky:

D.Brees
D.Davis
C.Dillon
R.Moss
T.Owens
E.Kennison
B.Franks
M.Stover


OK, Brees is a mediocre quarterback... You knew that going in...

Dom Davis is a perpetual injury risk... Always has been... Always will be... I would be very surprised if this guy ever plays 16 games in a season over the course of his entire career... In short - he's a pansy... He will miss four weeks with an injury that guys like Jerome Bettis tape up and miss 2 plays...

Corey Dillon is older than Christmas... Most people that knew what they were talking about would have told you in the off-season that 2004 was his last hoorah... Everything is downhill from here...

Randy Moss aint a bad pick, but the guy IS starting to show the wear and tear that comes from being the only offense on your team for close to a decade... Not to mention the new team... If you took Moss any sooner than the mid-second, I think you made a mistake, and I would have told you the same in August...

You knew (or should have known) that Terrell Owens was a HUGE risk coming into this year... Looks to me like you probably picked him up in the fourth round, in which case you had no choice but to make that pick, and you did, in fact, get a little unlucky with him, but everyone knew going into '04 that Owens was a true gamble...

Kennison has always been and will always be a fantasy tease... He's one of the more inconsistent fantasy receivers out there, but he's just good enough that you have to hold him, cause you never know when he might put up 110 and a score...

Franks is garbage... He's on the wire in most of my leagues, which is where he belongs....

Stover aint a bad kicker, but you should have dumped him AGES ago... It's ridiculously ignorant to carry the kicker of the lowest scoring offense in football... Play kickers week to week, but get Stover the hell out of there... I can't blame you for drafting him, but I have to say that your decision to hold him this long has probably contributed to your "bad luck."


All in all, I would say that the problem you have with this team is that YOU placed too much faith in WR's... You drafted risky RB's, which are the bread and butter of any fantasy team, and you placed all your faith in the two biggest egomaniacs in football... Bad move...

And all your support positions (K, TE, QB) are mediocre at best... There is no real talent there...

The fact that this team is 5-5 has nothing to do with bad luck... It has to do with the fact that you choose to put all of your team's chances in risky players... YOU chose to make the risky play, and it didn't pay off... To use a poker analogy, you chose to go all-in with a pair of jacks (or in this case - jackasses), got busted, and now you want to say there is no skill involved in poker....

I suggest next year you get back to basics... Start by drafting reliable, consistent, YOUNG runningbacks who don't typically miss 4 games a year with vaginal injuries, and build your team around them.... And don't underestimate the importance of quality at the QB and TE positions.... Oh, and have the decency to play kickers and defenses according to matchups on a weekly basis... If you draft losers, dump them early...


AND THE NUMBER ONE RULE OF FANTASY FOOTBALL:

NEVER, EVER, EVER count on Wide Receivers to win you championships... Sometimes you'll get lucky, and pick the yearly stud, but never bet the farm on it... The best wide receivers in the game are still only about half as consistent as quality running backs...

If you would have told me before the season started that your #1 and #2 RB's were a guy who was 107 years old and a guy who had never finished a complete season of football, respectively, I would have told you, going in, to expect to go .500 .



You make your own luck....

[Sixxgunn]

I don't think you can judge what % is what. You can't predict an injury, a D's game plan to shut down a certain aspect of the other team, a QB getting hot suddenly in the duration of a game with a certain WR, or a guy just going flat. But you can put yourself into the best possible position to succeed by surrounding yourself with the players that have the best possible chance of succeeding. After all, who knew Caddy would go flat against SF, that Greg Jones would lay an egg in TEN, that Reggie Brown would go off 2 weeks ago, do nothing last week, then go off again this week. Who thought Peyton would have had over 200 yds and a couple of TD's in the first quarter or so against Cincy? You may have suspected good games from guys like LJ, but 211 and 2 TDS? No way. The NFL is constantly in flux, and even the Niners can put up 25 points sometimes.

[danleroi22]

Plindsey nailed it on the head....

Luck is a SMALL cog in the wheel when it comes down to it...

I figure that Fantasy football not only has to do with how skilled you are... but also how skilled your opponent is.

Your opponent is definitely a factor, as much a factor as you are. If you lose a game by a point... does that mean you are a horrible player. No. It doesn't prove a thing. In fact, it means that your opponent beat you. He's better than you are this week.

Their are actually times where your opponent can set an unstoppable lineup, where even your optimal socring wouldn't be enough to get you over the top... luck plays a factor, but not a big one... your skill, against your opponent's skill (In THAT SPECIFIC WEEK) is really what it comes down to.

So I say it's about 40/40/20... The first number your skill, the second number your opponents skill, and the third number luck.

Ultimately... you and the league's parity control your destiny.[/url]

[octagon999]

No way its pure, 100% luck, but... there IS a large element of luck that CAN be involved.

Otherwise, my team at 5 and 6 would not be the highest scoring team in the league.

All you can do is pay attention, study, listen to people who know more than you (in my case, that's a large group) and do your best.

How the head to head matchups, the blown calls, the TD's called back because some bonehead lineman moved, etc, work out, is out of your control. That's where the luck comes in.

People who do their homework and are dilligent tend to be "luckier" but not always.

[ateam]

So I've now won 10 straight in my $ league at 10-1, and have 4 straight in my 14 teamer at 6-5. I guess I'd rather be lucky than good in your world!

Funny thing is the guy who claims he has no luck in my deep league, 2 yrs. running simply always makes bad decisions. This weekend he claims it was unlucky that Mike Anderson had 25 points on his bench?! Though he's the bufoon who put him there. He's changed his team name to "Cursed One", while it should read "Bad GM". Case in point, w/ last yrs. worst record, he "earned" #1 pick this yr. and chose Peyton. 3 Wks. ago he dealt Peyton at his low point.

Sure that's 100% luck, eh.

[Cornbread Maxwell]

I really believe in what FB said - there is a knowledge ceiling that must be reached - once that ceiling is reached leaguewide, then the winner is decided by luck mostly. Since its in vogue to put a % on it - let me put luck at about 75% in the winning formula.

Let me also say that the chances that this topic gets started in another thread at least 5 more times between now and the beginning of next season is about 100%.