Over 2,500 years ago Aristotle laid down his philosophy that man should strive for balance in his behaviour. His concept revolved around the golden mean the middle ground between two extremes.

As well as developing myself as an FPL manager, I do enjoy a good film. It was watching Silence of the Lambs, and becoming acquainted with Hannibal Lecter , which inspired this journey into the psychopath season.

Have you met Anton Cigurh ?

He features in the film ‘No Country For Old Men’ 2007. I can identify with him, a bit of an oddity, I am a lass in a lad’s world after all. But what is he exactly ??? a professional hit man ? a fixer ? a money retriever ?

He personifies the qualities I am trying to emulate ; calmness, pragmatism , resistance to pain and fuss, determination and detachment.

Why has he popped into my head this game week ? Tenacity, he meets each escalating event with equal stoicism. Less is more.

When creating a piece for stage, screen or book, there is a mechanism which I will call ‘the drama device’ : the worst thing will happen. This tests the characters, keeps the action moving and stops things going stale.

(Playing the ongoing soap opera that is FPL 2020, I need to add a disclaimer here, the following is probably not the worst thing that could happen)

One might think the worst thing would be a bad game week with a serious red arrow. But I want to suggest a successful week is equally consequential. Both cases might induce negative triggers, the temptation to TILT, lose focus.

What do we see happening after a bad game week ? Knee jerk over reactions, early transfers, hits, ripping teams apart,hoping for lucky breaks from explosive players that will erase the fall in rank, overacting in live stream chat rooms ; me me look at me having a meltdown.

What do we see after good weeks ? crowing, a feeling of omnipotence, having some points in hand on other players that we can gamble with, the stress of trying to maintain the buzz and protect rank, the downer as you return to normal the following week.

Outlier performances – be they good or bad – tend to be followed by performances that are more average, more akin to one’s actual ability. ( As Steve-O would say) HOLD ON, are we back to that old chestnut; regression to the mean ? Yes.

So, can you see why I say, maybe both should be treated with the same polite indifference ?

We should be strategising for consistency over a block of results, not allowing one anomaly of a game week to rudely skew our perspective. After all, being successful in FPL isn’t about being the most skillful player, but being the slightly above average player, who, with a couple of lucky breaks gets in grasping distance of the prize.

So guess who had a bad game week and is salving herself with this bunkum. Pride comes before a fall and a risky captaincy pick it seems. Six green arrows in a row down the drain, ah well. Actually it’s all good. Lessons learnt.

GW 11 was very high scoring, alas not for me – but I knew that would be the case, I was mentally prepared, I am targeting other game weeks. Namely GW12, I have 2 transfers to play with. Will I choose to cover Man City’s attacking potential or transition my team for the festive period…

Strength of mind to let go and move forward without bias is my recurring aim.

Make peace with your red arrows and move on

Make love with your green arrows but know it’s just a one night stand

Aristotle’s ethics are centered around a personal development, the endeavour for a firm unshakeable character, through balance and knowledge.

My blogs reflect my thoughts, I try to remain level headed as I write, but as I gain in confidence I know biases will become apparent and more intimate tit bits will be revealed – because who doesn’t like a bit of drama ?

Postscript

Poker much like FPL is a game of uncertainty that involves many uncontrollable variables.There aren’t many heavyweight articles on the science of FPL , to be honest I have never seen one, so I always turn to poker for analogies. Sometimes I feel like I am shoehorning, relevant or not, it’s still worth a browse.

In 2009 Smith et al published Poker Player Behavior After Big Wins and Big Losses,where they used behavioural theories to predict whether players would be more or less cautious after big wins or big losses ie would they change their playing style ? Well unsurprisingly it is dependent on the individual.

You can read more detail on their findings here https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0f7c/8b81d2d6c07d6164a3cb803f3adabd97485d.pdf

Postscript II

I entitled this blog Golden to honour ELITE FPL‘s achievement in winning a gold medal in the Football Content Awards 2020.