Can we define a casual player?

Mint Sauce

Seen the term creeping up again in some of the other threads.

Personally I would see my self somewhere above casual, whilst I may not make the best decisions every week, I finish above the FPL average most weeks, although more than likely in and around the active average. It took me a while to get in Suarez, team went into free fall after Ramsey got injuried, and its taken me to now to get back to where I was at GW13 (top 500k).

I check the the FPL and Total Site nearly every day, trawl this forum for ideas and pointers, although in terms of GWs might only check the up coming and next, unless theres a DGW coming up.

So whilst dont rate my self a casual, i would agree I may not be very good at the game all the time based on my GW history.

So what dose make a casual, what do they do, or not do to make that category. Is there categories in between, and why cant we all just get along.

jimmii

You are definitely not a casual! A casual normally only logs into fantasy sites on match days and when making a transfer will normally just look at who is in the top page of transfers in on the transfers page or who scored the most the previous week (which is why City players are getting transfers in this week!). They are unlikely to have heard of FFS and no chance they have used TFPL or here.

You are one of us now deal with it!

Menas

Yup, for me the casual player makes reactive transfers based on what he has seen on MOTD or based on a quick glance at form or transfers in.

No planning.
No strategy.

KevIRL

Its funny, the term casual player is thrown around here (and other FPL sites) like some sort of insult. Really it should be the other way around as they are off living life and doing stuff while us FPL geeks are furiously clicking F5 on a Tuesday night at 7pm for some West Ham v Norwich team news before the GW deadline closes.

FHFC

KevIRL wrote: »

Its funny, the term casual player is thrown around here (and other FPL sites) like some sort of insult. Really it should be the other way around as they are off living life and doing stuff while us FPL geeks are furiously clicking F5 on a Tuesday night at 7pm for some West Ham v Norwich team news before the GW deadline closes.

It's just that we expect to be rewarded for the Tuesday evening F5 clicking. And get annoyed when the obvious move works out for the pesky ppeople with lives.

Iused2likebusts

A casual player will not look ahead at upcoming fixtures so wont be really clued into blanks and dgw's, wont be aware of price rise websites, will constantly sign a player that has just scored( which unlike other years has worked a treat this year). The casual player will be caught out from now till the end of the season as there is so much going on.

zarquon

As above casual players are reactive and usually only play from weekend to weekend without due consideration midweek or even looking more than one gameweek ahead with no forward planning involved.

There are of course die hard players who are not very good and often it is hard to distinguish the 2 which is where the confusion comes from. For instance a persistant player that cannot get their head around double GWs, cancelled games etc is probably going to be no more effective than a casual player who barely notices when a double GW is coming.

Mint Sauce

zarquon wrote: »

As above casual players are reactive and usually only play from weekend to weekend without due consideration midweek or even looking more than one gameweek ahead with no forward planning involved.

There are of course die hard players who are not very good and often it is hard to distinguish the 2 which is where the confusion comes from. For instance a persistant player that cannot get their head around double GWs, cancelled games etc is probably going to be no more effective than a casual player who barely notices when a double GW is coming.

And that exactly where I think the confusion or the distinguishing lies, I've had some horror weeks which seen me in the millionaire club a few times, and someone else looking in, or one or two of my Cup oponents might have considered me one.

roryc

KevIRL wrote: »

Its funny, the term casual player is thrown around here (and other FPL sites) like some sort of insult. Really it should be the other way around as they are off living life and doing stuff while us FPL geeks are furiously clicking F5 on a Tuesday night at 7pm for some West Ham v Norwich team news before the GW deadline closes.

Yep, agree with this. I work upwards of 50 hours a week but still juggle things around so I can look at Boards, FPL etc for easily 5 of those. I'm currently getting my ass handed to me by a friend who I would define as a semi-casual player. He has 2 seasons playing the game, finishing 374,000th last year, and only checks the site once or twice a week at weekends. He does read the odd article on FFS, but has no forward planning and has made some glaring mistakes this year. I asked him the other day if he thinks the FA Cup results would go in his favour and he said "FA Cup games don't count do they, I thought it was just Premier League?" Unfortunately (for me!) due to a cracking run of form and 'inspired' captain choices he's currently sitting just outside the top 1k in the world. I can guarantee he puts in 10% of the time I do, so calling him a casual player is not an insult at all. Quite the contrary.

Scorpion Sting

KevIRL wrote: »

Its funny, the term casual player is thrown around here (and other FPL sites) like some sort of insult. Really it should be the other way around as they are off living life and doing stuff while us FPL geeks are furiously clicking F5 on a Tuesday night at 7pm for some West Ham v Norwich team news before the GW deadline closes.

Wait, what are you implying? FPL is life! :pac:

Decoda

jebforever wrote: »

Wait, what are you implying? FPL is life! :pac:

It's life Jeb....but not as we know it.

This is my 6th season in Fantasy Football and I would class myself as quite similar to Mint Sauce. I nearly went into meltdown on Sunday for the Liverpool match as I was in the black hole of Calcutta with regards to phone signal and had no idea what was happening until I emerged and discovered an absolute goal Fest.

D

iroced

I'm not sure what this whole casual players thing is all about. I noticed the time you spend at this game is not proportional to how good you perform at it (personally I won a monthly prize last year in a competitive enough league - the winner finsihed in top 4k - in the last month of my PhD write-up and had very poor returns at other times while overthinking it).

To perform in this game, I noticed I need to visit a couple of dedicated websites to get the precious necessary info:

• www.totalfpl and/or FISO to follow price changes

totalfpl is also good for players scoring odds, FF players related info

• FFS for FPL dedicated articles (players watchlist, differentials, planning transfers considering the relative fixtures), captain poll, injuries/suspensions info etc...

FFS also has 2 great little "diagrams/tables": the next 6 ticker with a color scale proportional to the difficulty of the games, the suspension tightropes.

• This forum for general info about the game.

I feel if you can spend 5 to 15 min per day visiting these 3 FPL ressources on a e-mails checking basis, you should get enough info to build up, shape and prepare your team the best possible way and should be able to get a top 50k finish at least.

Then with more time to spend on it you can enjoy all the FPL geeks debates going on in here .

zarquon

Last year was the first year i took a casual approach as i had too many other commitments in life so only looked at the team a saturday morning and a few times just ignored it completely as i busy elsewhere. I thus finished my worst ever season at 64K and realised that while not earth shattering that a 64K without hardly trying versus a top 10K finish with loads of effort doesn't justify the effort tbh. I have put in extra effort this year though to make up for the lost bragging rights of last year and hoping for a top 1K finish this year.

Mr. Incognito

A casual is defined as anyone who scores more than the person using it that week.

CSF

roryc wrote: »

Yep, agree with this. I work upwards of 50 hours a week but still juggle things around so I can look at Boards, FPL etc for easily 5 of those. I'm currently getting my ass handed to me by a friend who I would define as a semi-casual player. He has 2 seasons playing the game, finishing 374,000th last year, and only checks the site once or twice a week at weekends. He does read the odd article on FFS, but has no forward planning and has made some glaring mistakes this year. I asked him the other day if he thinks the FA Cup results would go in his favour and he said "FA Cup games don't count do they, I thought it was just Premier League?" Unfortunately (for me!) due to a cracking run of form and 'inspired' captain choices he's currently sitting just outside the top 1k in the world. I can guarantee he puts in 10% of the time I do, so calling him a casual player is not an insult at all. Quite the contrary.

Part of your mistake is mentioning the likes of FA Cup impact to him, if I consider someone a casual player with an impact on my profitability, I will avoid talking strategy (or at least my actual strategy) at all costs. I keep the reasoned discussion for more like-minded individuals.

In the end I'm not going to impress these people with how much I know anyway as they think entirely in terms of the numerical standings at the end of that given week.

Iused2likebusts

CSF wrote: »

Part of your mistake is mentioning the likes of FA Cup impact to him, if I consider someone a casual player with an impact on my profitability, I will avoid talking strategy (or at least my actual strategy) at all costs. I keep the reasoned discussion for more like-minded individuals.

In the end I'm not going to impress these people with how much I know anyway as they think entirely in terms of the numerical standings at the end of that given week.

absolutely a couple of my workmates made dreadful transfers this week. Transferring out players that play gw 29 and bringing in players that dont. Give away no info and collect their money at the end of the year is my strategy. No doubt they will tell me how lucky I was to be able to field a team come gw 29:D

CSF

Iused2likebusts wrote: »

absolutely a couple of my workmates made dreadful transfers this week. Transferring out players that play gw 29 and bringing in players that dont. Give away no info and collect their money at the end of the year is my strategy. No doubt they will tell me how lucky I was to be able to field a team come gw 29:D

And when they call you lucky, never disagree!!!

FHFC

Iused2likebusts wrote: »

absolutely a couple of my workmates made dreadful transfers this week. Transferring out players that play gw 29 and bringing in players that dont. Give away no info and collect their money at the end of the year is my strategy. No doubt they will tell me how lucky I was to be able to field a team come gw 29:D

The guy I'm competing with at the top of my league seems to take it pretty seriously, just beat me well in a cup match and 30 points ahead. But broughtIin Cazorla this week leaving him with 3 players for 29. Also had to tell him he had to use the Jan WC in Jan.

Come to think of it. I think he still has his other wc left too. Maybe that's his game.

Edit. His WC is gone. Thank fook, I'm counting on mking gains GW29-31. Caused myself a mini panic there.

CSF

FHFC wrote: »

The guy I'm competing with at the top of my league seems to take it pretty seriously, just beat me well in a cup match and 30 points ahead. But broughtIin Cazorla this week leaving him with 3 players for 29. Also had to tell him he had to use the Jan WC in Jan.

Come to think of it. I think he still has his other wc left too. Maybe that's his game.

But why did you tell him that?

FHFC

CSF wrote: »

But why did you tell him that?

Cause he's a LOI legend.

And he was well behind me at the time. Won't make same mistake again! He can stick that hat trick against Longford up his .....

PARlance

I think the best definition of a casual player is: "Anyone that is not aware of the term casual player"

This is my first year as a Non Casual... If you told me last year that there was an inner circle of lads that think about the game daily and have been waiting on the Hull v Brighton result for days now. I would have laughed.

CSF

FHFC wrote: »

Cause he's a LOI legend.

And he was well behind me at the time. Won't make same mistake again! He can stick that hat trick against Longford up his .....

Kevin McHugh?

CSF

PARlance wrote: »

I think the best definition of a casual player is: "Anyone that is not aware of the term casual player"

This is my first year as a Non Casual... If you told me last year that there was an inner circle of lads that think about the game daily and have been waiting on the Hull v Brighton result for days now. I would have laughed.

Yes. I do worry though that the casual number will dwindle by the year in this manner.

Mint Sauce

Could have been quite badly caught out my self there if I had not took into account tonights FA Cup match.

Could have been calling my self a casual again.

Lemlin

I do find certain terms like "casual player" and "bandwagon" overused on this forum. This year, the two appear to be going hand in hand.

For example, last week I heard Ivanovic called a bandwagon. What is bandwagon about a player who is consistently one of the top scoring defenders each year in the game?

For me, a bandwagon is someone like Marlon Harewood at Blackpool a couple of years ago. One good week and the masses are transferring him in. Gary Cahill was another huge bandwagon at Bolton a couple of years or so back when he scored in GW1.

I know people who only log into the game once a week on a Friday night and do superbly well at this game. That said, they watch football five to seven nights a week.

Different people have different ways of playing and that has to be appreciated. For example, I rarely watch live games these days due to a lack of time. I find MoTD is all I need. Two years ago I finished 328th in the world and I never looked at FISO once. Now I was aware of what players were rising and falling from here but this season is the first year I have used it myself.