Even if they dont use automation or whatever, they will still be able to enter lots of teams. The competition will still be there.

recap -
WDT is a game where you re-enter your existing teams for the weekends game by adding 3 new players and captaining one, you don't have to enter any CC details, just do lots of clicking. Tam refers to a syndicate that have 18k teams in the main comp, and they manage to enter (pretty much all of) them for the WDT side game each and every Friday, something only a robot could realistically do, but nothing has yet been proved, admitted etc.
The present discussion arose because it was noticed that Tam had managed to pick players that were not on the lists of extra players.

The discussion seems to be circling around the following points with my summary of the responses

Is automation against the rules (clearly not as there are no rules regarding such tools)
Is the automation slowing down the site for everyone else (anecdotal evidence only)
Is it fair to pick players that no-one else can (no but it is pretty stupid because you can't win if your teams contain invalid players)
Is it fair to automate (no, but we would all do it if we could)
Where will it all end (Tam enters every possible combination of team and wins every single prize but then realizes he has spent 5 million to win 1 million)

Official statement now received by the Sun:

automation-t83881.html

I wrote this before I saw the official statement thingy....... i'll digest that later..... and i'm not letting all my typing goto waste!



Great, we all want competition Pseudo, pity your wits against others on a level playing field, wonderful, that is what we all want.... and expect.

I don't think any of us are saying we don't want to see Tam and his pals competing next season, we just want parity.

Due to the size of their 18k entry, they need an automater. If they entered a "humanly capable" amount of entries for each of their 18 man/woman Syndicate, then they wouldn't need an automater as they could manage them manually.(as we all do) If there are 18 of them (still some doubt), they could realistically enter around max 4,000 teams between them and still manage those on a weekly basis. (around 5 hours say per person required to enter 222 WDT sides every week)

Putting it simply: (and for fear of repeating myself)
The have only put 18k teams into the game "because" the have an automater.
But they "need" an automater to enter 18k teams at the beginning and to process every WDT weekend.

The 2 things are linked, one doesn't come without the other. As Ronny rightly says, unless the Sun amend the T&Cs on automaters and ban there use we could easily see a 25,000 entry from Tam next season, maybe higher as they look to chase both the 100k and 500k top prizes.

Every prize virtually wrote off for everyone right from day one....... The Sun have a decision to make don't they? Take Tam's vast amount of entry fees next season and then see Noah's Ark plastered over each and every prize?

I'm sure Joe Public will love to see that (if they aren't already wazzed off with it this season).

The other choice they have is to ban automation and create a level playing field where there is every chance the prizes end up in the hands of Joe Public as well as others.

How do all the people who have finished 2nd to Tam this season feel? Knowing that say as many as 75% to 80% of Tam's entries wouldn't have been entered into the game without automation?

Using that simple percentage, out of the 14 prizes Tam have won this season, if there was no automation and they entered a human amount of teams, they might have only won 3 or 4 prizes, not 14. So there would have been 10 or 11 other different prize winners. Better??


The Sun promote their WDT game every week in the paper only to see the leaderboard littered with Tam's teams that have been entered at the press of a button.

Take away the automater and their Tam's Syndicate is bound by time and effort constraints like the rest of us. That is all we are asking for, we aren't asking for the script to do it for us. (and a little naive to suggest we ask/they'd give)

I think I speak for most of us when I say that we all entered the amount of teams we did because that is what we felt we are comfortable in managing week on week and we knew the time constraints as we handed over our dough. And we expected all of the competition out there; both individuals and groups to be bound by the same.

In my opinion, an automator is only required by an individual or a group who want to enter more teams than they humanly can. And that to me is not right.


Right, i'm off to watch Barca v Arsenal. (who says we don't mention football in all this?)

It was mentioned at the last sun meeting, in reference to the allocation of prizes, that WDT was there at £5k per week to be contested by the average punter with a handful of teams and the multi entrants, but not dominated by the multi's. The £100k seasonal mini league prize was a significant increase on last season to give the syndicates something to fight over, as well as giving them £2k per week for the weekly mini leagues.

Tam has won 6 WDT's so far out of 23 weeks or so. Roughly 25%. This has been achieved not by carefully picking a new set of 14 players for that weekend, but just through weight of numbers only achievable through using an automator. This is not what dreamteam had planned, maybe they don't care because the average punter doesn't realise what has gone on.

It was a really poor response from Mick Robins, fudged things really. I'd rather he came out and said automated entry absolutely fine if you can crack it, then at least we'd all know where we stood.

Incredible, isn't it?

I'd love to use Automation but as i only have a handful of teams i don't really need it. One thing for sure though i wouldn't tell anyone how to do it.

So whats next? People that can afford to throw more money than the average joe should be restricted? I keep hearing the level playing field

Maybe you should move to a communist country or just wake the ef up, life isn't fair matey

I think it's quite clear that Sanjay and tomuk's agenda is to deflect discussion away from the topic at hand.

Here's my Paxman moment:

Mr Sanjay/tomuk -

How is it fair* that Tam use an automation system for entry, while everyone else is forced to use the proper 'front-end' form system?

And, would you advocate SDT/WDT allowing automation, and if so do you encourage a culture of automation?

What is your advice to 'Joe Public'? Would you say that it is not worth them entering, and if so why?

If you don't answer these questions, it can only be the case that you find them difficult to answer...

* Fair - To clarify, I mean a system that is equitable for all players, that all players are constrainted by the same pratical limitations.

How is it fair* that Tam use an automation system for entry, while everyone else is forced to use the proper 'front-end' form system?

Nothing is fair really. Depends on knowledge i guess. If you cant do something there is no point moaning, just get on with it and do the best you can. Just work within the rules

And, would you advocate SDT/WDT allowing automation, and if so do you encourage a culture of automation?

Yes i would it would be much better than clicking buttons but as always there is software out there to help oneself so the sun don't need to encourage.

What is your advice to 'Joe Public'? Would you say that it is not worth them entering, and if so why?

I think im classed as joe public so i advise myself be realistic and know you can really win anything unless you invest a substantial amount of cash.

Im sorry but most of this discussion is pointless. If automation is 'unfair' and not breaking any of the suns rules, then most of the rhetoric going around is aimless. If you want to make this automation process both unfair AND against the rules then contact the sun. Petition them to put something in the rules about automation or see if they are going to improve their website to stop this automation from happening.

Personally I think if automation or whatever you call it is happening, then its making the sun's competion a monopoly for a few individuals. If this was shown to the dreamteam masses, how many would stop entering teams? As i say, tell the sun your concerns and if they dont listen go to WATCHDOG and go public with whats happening.

..

Reading some of your posts....i think you should apply that to YOURSELF !! ?? I'm begining to think you're in Tams syndicate ! ? You're obsessed with any comments related to the Tam clan ! ( and any anti comments about Tams auotmated entries are just ! )
The simple fact of the matter, which has been pointed out by many fiso members now, is NO ONE should have the advantage of choosing their teams via a " automated system ", regardless whether that's 18.000 entries, or some other number !
Unfortunately, i don't think " the Sun " will do anything about this situation, for the remainder of the season ( Tams, too much of a valued customer ! ) but hopefully this will be stopped next season.

I've posted follow up questions to your answers, please do answer them

Oh please reply soon as we can make this post look so pretty with all the different colours going on

Indeed! I'll stick to red and you to blue so we know who said what

I was gonna go for green next

I've been watching this thread for a while now and can see that it decends into a bit of a farce at regular intervals. I play TFF, FPL and SDT and can definitely be called Joe Public (not part of any syndicate and only spending enough that a £1k win would make me a huge profit!). Other than a couple of MOTW prizes in TFF cricket and football I have won very little and enter only a handful of teams normally (although have entered a few more than normal in the telegraph this year). I also took advantage of the 5-4-5 a few times in order to enter the WDT and will continue to enter these teams until the end of the season although will unlikely enter anymore new ones.

I am really glad that this point of automation has been highlighted. Whether any of you feel it is right or wrong is not important to me but my own opinion is that it is wrong and the fact that the Sun allow it to happen without broadcasting it is what is wrong.

The Tams have found a loophole and are fully exploiting this as a business opportunity rather than any fun which is fair enough but it just means that the only team I will be entering next year will be in a mates minileague that we have been doing for years (unless I can get them to change to TFF).

That's just my own personal opinion and one that the Sun will probably not give a toss about as I am not throwing thousands of pounds at them every year!

But what you do highlight is, if every other entrant of Dreamteam knew what we all knew, would they also have the same attitude as yourself?. If so, the game as a whole would be in big trouble

If I didn't think there were serious flaws to there approach of entry, I wouldn't bother either. What Dreamteam are saying by not taking action on this is, unless you are prepared to enter a very large amount of teams, join a syndicate etc, you basically have no chance

What would they rather lose, 20,000 plus entries from one syndicate or a couple of hundred thousand entries from thousands of people. It may not happen next season, but if they don't stop this ready for next season then I fear the worse based on an inevitably large entry (far bigger than this year) by Tam. And sadly it may be impossible to beat him then and they could win virtually everything

The post of Jagduracell above is probably the most important / relevant on this whole thread. This is what Robins and co. need to understand at The Sun. Their statement to refer to a tightening of controls, so I hope they actually do realise what they need to do, just maybe found over the course of the last 2 weeks that stopping it was going to be not that easy. Be nice if instead of political responses that don't say too much, they could just give us a proper view from them on automation.

I disagree, there are a number of syndicates operating this season, a first real go at multi-entry for most, most will be learning from the experience and will be better prepared for next season (assuming rules and prizes are generally the same).

It's the BBM's first shot at the seasonal and although there is still a way to go being first and 2nd currently says we've got the general idea right and we know that we've made mistakes in our general approach that we would refine for next season, in theory less, better focused entries, more of our MLs challenging for the seasonal or one of them miles ahead (nice to dream ). But having said that all the other syndicates/ small groups will also have learnt something and will be more competitive in their approaches next season, again possibly for a similar or smaller outlay.

Mad Dog for one is proving yet again that he has a very good FF brain, sitting in third (before tonight anyway) from just a handful of MLs entered for the seasonal. The syndicates and the good individuals such as bloggie will be competitive throughout for the ML prizes, the scatter-gun approach will pick up the odd win here when random coverage does fall into place.

WDT is the place where we (the BBM and most other syndicates) have failed miserably, but no doubt other groups and individuals are looking at what they've done and are doing and sooner or later will find the tweaks to become competitive week in and week out, when several get their approaches right there then where do the mega entrants look to get their money back, let alone make a profit?

If the Tam syndicate want to double their entry next season, so what? I don't see them ever being realistic challengers for the individual prizes with their approach, even if they were close at any point they'd blow it in the TWs due to poor decision making. The MLs will be too competitive for them, just leaving WDT as their major source of income, if someone could develop and make available to all a method of easier WDT entry to all then I believe their strength their would also disappear.

Well said Vid, atleast someone is not afraid of the competition.

Agree geek. I also find it amusing to see how many members of syndicates (which are formed specifically to target Mini League prizes) are suddenly putting their "think of the poor Joe Public" hat on.

Yet again sanjay you are spot on.

When ronny got excited a couple of months back when a BBM league was climbing the season table didn't he say if they win the 100k then he wants to invest 50k of it back into DT next season

I don't think I was really being serious when I said that, do you


Anyway, why would we need too. We are actually thinking of cutting back

My views are based on 'Joe publics' possible decision to cut back significantly on how many teams they enter if things go the way I predict.

Its just my opinion Tom, nothing more, nothing less.

Im going to ruin your year now Thomas Tam..........................Santa Claus & the tooth fairy.................they dont exist

Why do you think the 'joe public' will cut back significantly??

I doubt anyone cares or even knows about this alleged automation system.

How are you going to make them aware? Protest? Get JPK to hack into the system and find out every single joe public's address so you can personally send them letter explaining what you think is going on?

Its simple really. The only people that don't like this automation are the anti tam crew or the ones that reallllllllly want to find out how to get it

You are right Tom, I am jealous. I am jealous of Tam's ability to pick a decent seasonal league, not

I have said before, I have no problem with how many teams they enter, its how they are entered. We all know if the entries were not automated they would not enter half as many if not considerably less than that.

TBH they need all the help they can get, I hope they continue to use it next season, I hope they spend 50 to 100k or more, I hope u continue to stay here and support their cause.

18000 teams and they can't get 1 league into the top 5, its embarrassing. Why not lets just let them embarrass themselves even further.

TW3 is comng boys, what have you got up the old automated sleeve then



Consider this my last post on the matter

Ditto!

I will love it if we beat them, LOVE IT.

good luck to all, i'm sure there will be plenty of twists & turns to come.

The Tams have been using their automated system nearly all this season.

Are they going to win the individual-No
Are they doing to win the seasonal mini league-MAYBE
Have they won every weekly and monthly mini league-No
Have they won every wdt-No

This automated system they use makes life easier for them to enter their teams,its probably the only way they could manage such a huge amount of teams,it doesn't mean they are going to win everything as this season has shown.