Timesonline is advertising a new game "with brains"

TIMES ONLINE

Tired of hearing your friends' "expert" views? Tired of hearing them rubbish your excellent theories? Put them all to the test with a game which shows who really knows their football.

Want to know more? Sign up here. We'll do the rest.

Meanwhile, study the stats - you're going to need them.

Football features and analysis from The Fink Tank

The Top 50 Footballers in the world - read Gabriele Marcotti's controversial list

Transfer Gossip - club-by-club guide to summer transfe

seems to be based on the esoteric Times 'Fink Tank'

unfortunately the link has now disappeared though there is an advert in today's Sunday Times

its up and running

http://playthegame.timesonline.co.uk/so ... /rules.asp

have registered a team not a clue how you play it but its free

Seems to be a draft style game, run by stats.com - if memory serves they ran a football game for ladbrokes or hills last world cup. Front page mentions "fabulous prizes" yet FAQs state "there are no cash prizes". One less comp to worry about this year then.

I'm going to play it just to have "Glenn Hysen LM Sunderland" in my team

A 16 page guide to the new game in todays Times. Anyone buy it?

I nicked it from the gym, need to have a good read through.
Doesnt look easy. No cash prizes, but £50,000 worth of monthly prizes

Berloody 'ell ! When do the rules come out in paperback? Looks a bit different though to be fair.

It's a maybe for me.

Prizes include:

Tickets to - Prem games, see Beckham in LA, Football in Barca/Madrid/Milan/Munich as well as Euro 2008.
TVs, armchair supporters kit etc

These prizes seem to be drawn rather than won by a leader/winner

I might have a go as its free, but it looks compliacted, although they are making out the website will be full of stats and updated daily

Got the guide accidentally....

It won't suit the professional fantasist as prizes are awarded by lottery of all monthly superleague winners
It won't suit the average casual office or factory fantasist as the game is extremely complicated and involved - even reading and understanding the procedure and scoring is a mammoth exercise, It will also be a major task to organise a superleague.
It won't suit the typical british fantasy football player as it is based on u.s. style fantasy games with american terminology and concepts.
It won't suit individual players who don't have 5-10 colleagues to play it with as the collective interaction is key to the game

but it is free and won't be dominated by multi-entries. So it will suit?

It's not complicated it's just different to the norm for fantasy football. The average casual office and factory fantasist in America play this style of fantasy game for baseball , NFL, Hockey and basketball so I don't see why it should be any different here. It's just basically a rottisserie 5x5 game along the lines of standard fantasy games for American sports. 5 scoring categories for offence and 5 for defence.

It will only be a mammoth excercise to set up a league(not sure what you mean by superleague) if you haven't got 9 friends for a private league and I would recommend a 10 team league max to ensure there is reasonable depth in the out of contract players. If you have no friends then you can join a public league so it will suit anyone who wants to play and interacting with 9 strangers is no problem, really.

It doesn't use american termonology, in fact they seem to have made a deliberate effort to avoid it. Hence Out of Contract instead of Free agents, Player allocation instead of draft ( pity there isn't an online live draft option which is great fun instead of automatic draft from rankings) and transfers, naturally instead of trades.

The game suits me fine, as I'm used to playing fantasy baseball. It will suit anyone who likes the idea of being the only manager to have Rooney or Terry etc on their team in their league.

If anyone needs any help in understanding how it works then pm me and I'll do my best to explain things and honestly it really isn't difficult.

Thanks D&C. Nice summary.

A Fiso league has been set up and there are some more details on here

http://www.fiso.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26762

Spent 2 hours ranking players for the new times ff game, then foolishly created 3 more teams and discovered that all the players require ranking again for each individual team! What a pain in the ... (looks like it could be an enthralling game though)

Good point, use the contact facility to give them feedback, they appear to be on the ball so to speak as I've had very quick responses from them.

There should be a facility to enable custom rankings to be exported to your other teams including across leagues. This is standard in Yahoo roto baseball, NFL leagues etc.

Interest is picking up in this game and the League

I will close the League at 11pm on Friday in time for the automatic allocation of players at the weekend.

This gives each player almost a week to arrange their squads for the start of the season

Please note there is an opportunity for each player legitimately to have 4 teams in the League.

Unless anyone objects I am planning to have 2 teams in the same League to 'double the fun' of the game.

Please feel free to add more than one team or let me know if you would like to play in this League.

It is a different type of game and might add a different dimension to your Fantasy Football season...

Just be aware that if you do this there is the possibility that managers can stack one of their teams by transfering players between his teams. I would suggest that if you are going to allow managers to have multiple teams in the same league then you have an additional rule that you cannot transfer players between your own teams.

Transfers can be a touchy subject at the best of times when unfair or unbalanced deals are done so I see this as an area that needs some attention by The Times. The 2 leagues I've been involved in setting up consist of UK baseball fans that are experienced roto players and they would definitely not countenance managers having multiple teams in the same league.

No doubt the strengths and weaknesses of the game, as it is currenty set up, will become apparent as the season goes on and hopefully lots of players will give them feedback to enable an even better game next year.

Good luck with your league, I'd be interested to hear the experiences of this game as the season passes from people who have not played roto games before.

I personally feel that having two teams in the same league will have an adverse effect, as it becomes more about beating the system than knowledge of football.
I can understand if you are going for the 'big prize' and you want to maximise chances.
So since you are asking, I'm against duplicate teams in the same league.

Yes, so long as we have enough managers to start a league (think the minimum is five) i'd have thought this game doesn't really work as a multi-team game.

BTW does anyone have a copy of the guide from Saturdays Times they want to sell me?

Hi All,

From the following correspondence (despite them not following the rules ) it looks like the current 10 members of the League are locked in......

Nigel,

We apologize for the inconvenience. Once a league is filled (for
example if the maximum number of teams is originally set at 5) it is locked
an no more teams can be added. The website won't allow it to happen.

Since your league has met the original quota, it is locked and you will
need to create a new league in order to have 9 teams involved.

Once again we apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your
email. If you have any other questions please let us know.

Thank you

--
Play The Game


To: <email@playthegame.timesonline.co.uk>
Subject: Times Online Fantasy Football Challenge: Feedback

>I am sorry that is not what the rules say.
>
>They say that you can change Leagues up to 24 hours
>before player allocation - which takes place on Monday
>
>Please can you adjust the required number of League
>members or switch my team to another League and change
>the Fiso League numbers to 9.
>
>I would be grateful if you could expedite this as I
>think it must still be possible.
>
>Please can you advise
>
>Regards
>
>Nigel
>
>
>
>--- Play The Game <playthegame@stats.com> wrote:
>
>> Nigel, once a group that is created fills up to
>> capacity you can't add/remove members anymore.
>>
>> It locks down to prepare for the allocation day.
>>
>> You can always create another team and control who
>> you send the password too
>>
>> --
>> Play The Game


Firstly, apologies for this as it means 'I' now have 2 teams in this League.

The team I have spent less time on is 'Don't Call Me Babel' and it is the fate of this team that we need to agree

1 Option 1 I retain and play this team for the season. Please be assured that whatever happens I will not be harvesting this team to transfer the best players across to my other team.

2 Option 2. This team and the players allocated to it lapses and is not managed.

3 Option 3. Once players are allocated we undertake a procedure of allowing all managers to take players from this team in an agreed procedure.

4 Option 4. We manage this team as a combined effort and make collective decisions about squads and transfers.

I am happy to be advised as to the best course of action and will not have a vote in the options.

It would be good to have things resolved by 7.00pm tomorrow as the allocation will take place on Monday.

Please feel free to let me know your thoughts.

Apologies again for any inconvenience.

You could be like the Man U or Chelsea of the league with third party involvement! Reckon you should play the two teams as normal despite my initial reservations. It says that transfers need to agreed by 50% of the other teams, so we can just keep an eye on you

Automatic Allocations have taken place

Let the games begin

Good luck to everyone in the League

Excellent - allocations done.

I have found it very interesting seeing how my team looks from a 10 team allocation compared to the 20 team league I am also in which allocated on Saturday.

Firstly, and not surprisingly, I am pleased with my team as it contains more of my high placed choices. Secondly, it is very interesting to see the players who have not been allocated.

This should be good - good luck everyone!

I have never seen such a load of overcomplicated wazzocks!

Too difficult for you then is it?

Me too


Struggled with transfers, just waiting on wft happens with scoring.

any ideas?

What about this for a squad;

P. Cech0
E. van der Sar0

J. Yobo0
C. Samba0
Alex0
W. Bouma0
G. McCartney0
G. Bale0
M. Richards0
B. Sagna0

T. Cahill0
G. Barry0
T. Rosicky0
F. Malouda0
F. Ljungberg

D. Drogba0
Y. Ayegbeni0
C. Tevez0
A. Johnson0
R. van Persie0

But the problem is nobody in my league made any transaction so far.
Looks like I'm in the ghost league,nobody plays this game.
So,It looks like I've just waste my time ranking players and picking them for first 2 days.
It's not only wasting last a few days thinking about this game,I guess my whole season is over now.
Yes,I agree with others that this is the most stupid FF game I've played.

Will try and post here weekly

10 Teams means a Maximum Score =100


Fiso League at 13/08/07

Y'all be bad 69.5
Pyrford Power 62.5
superpretzels 62.5
The Hand Of Dodd 57.5
browny's rudeboys 56.5
Magflyers 52
Sky Blue Penguins 51.5
Bijoux 50.5
Jimmys Jewels 3 49
Don't Call Me Babel 38.5

KrispDaFunk = You Da Man after he takes an early lead in this game. Some useful transfer activity has helped plus he seems to understand the rules (which is no mean feat in itself)

Having two teams does not seem to have helped your Chairman as I have made a rather slow (ahem) start. Who would have thought Spurs would lose at Sunderland

Browny looks menacingly placed but how will he cope with losing Rooney for two months.....

I told you it was crazy. I did the same thing, wasted time ranking 400 players... for more or less nothing... but carried it through as wanted to see what kind of team I would end up with. I'm in first after the first week but who cares when you're playing against ghosts?!

You only get entered into the draw for a prize each month if you are top of your league... but you get entered regardless of whether you are top of a league with 5 players or 20 players!!!

I think most people will have already given up playing or will give up soon when they realise it's all a big waste of time when nobody answers your transfer requests! Even the points scoring mechanism is crazy!

why oh why oh why

The points scoring is a standard Rotisserie system as played by around 20 million fantasy players in Baseball, NFL, Basketball and Hockey leagues every year in America alone. It's not crazy it's just different to what you are used to in 'normal' fantasy football leagues.

If you think that the other people in your league are already discouraged then point them to this forum where I've done my best to help explain this type of game. For Heavens sake we've ony had 1 weeks games.

It is extremely rude of people not to reply to any transfer offers you make, the least they should do is say no. If people are not interested in transfers at all then they will miss out on one of the fun elements of the game, negotiating deals to improve their team. Keep pestering them, including sending them emails and posting on your message board, sometimes in the best of leagues you may have to make yourself a nuisance to get people active.

Maybe it is simply a case of people wanting to see how it goes for a few weeks so they have a proper feel for the players they have and getting used to the scoring categories,

Anyway, good luck and I hope things pick up.