puzzled by why transfers is locked but that's another matter.

i have a sneaking feeling that the cunning parrot may well be right.

why?

well i can't see any times on my teamsheet, but i think i screwed up and forgot about a scottish 12.30 on saturday and transferred in johnson for i think dosseena (not certain who went out) and have a suspicion that i did this between 12.30 and 12.45 but still got my reward of -2 points

i'm not totally certain but if we can't get the rules maybe as soon as we have one team adrift we can use the transfers to test the transfer system!

any more light shone would be nice, especially some squaks of wisdom from the well informed parrot who has clearly not yet ceased to be

andy

I don't know but I was going to put in Lamps for McGeady ahead of his game against Man City on Sunday but didn't.

There goes 2 goals and 2 assists whilst McGeady comes on for the last 25 minutes tonight.

I'm as sick as a parrot

me again (aye, you lot have got a long season ahead of you )

what's the deadline for transfers tonight then? villa game starts at 3:20, Motherwell , man city and portsmouth start at 6, Everton at 5 past 8 and spurs at 10 past 8.

as these don't overlap could we have Villa players for the early game, then transfer in any others after that? and the same for City and Pompey players if we wanted to bring in everton or spurs?

yours confused, Scotland

yeah i know

maybe someone running multi entries has a team doing badly enough to test it all and in the interests of fair competition let us know

it is a shame how badly gfm have done this year, not explaining your transfer system seems the lowest of the low.

brings unpleasant and painful memories of past times comps where the rules seemed to be changed in order to fit in with programming errors

c'mon gfm if you can't come on here and act like men and explain the transfer system at least clarify it on the times rule page

andy

I'm only familiar with TFF, and if you miss the transfer deadline (first kick off) it still allows you to make the transfer, you just don't score for the game(s) you intended. would this game allow you make the transfers or, as you mentioned earlier, would it "Lock" you out?

hi barry,

whilst there are no full explanations on the times website it seems that everyone is pretty much in agreement everyone can do transfers that have immediate effect.

the confusion is what happens after first kick off (bear in mind this game includes some fixtures played in bonnie scotland). andye seems to have established that if you make a transfer for a game with no overlap (e.g a 1pm, 3pm and 4pm fixture occurred on a sunday) then you could make a transfer for the 3pm game immediately as there is no overlap prior to it. however not the 4pm game as there would be a prior overlap.

i think that the parrot was saying (from what i understood - apologise if i am wrong) was that any transfer is immediate regardless of overlap. e.g. if you make a transfer before a game commences it will take effect then. my guess is that if you had a player in the 3pm game that got injured in the first half and you replaced him with a player in the 4pm game then you would score points in both games.

the problem is we don't know as the rules don't tell you

thanks to andye and graham for their best explanation/guess as to the way the rules work and i apologise in advance if i have misunderstood you.

as i said my explanation above is only based upon what i have seen with my (i think) lashed up transfer of johnson and from graham and andy's explanations.

i don't think there is any lock out barry, unless done by the mods of course

andy

Morning

Just to confirm - a couple of weeks back I had had enough of some dopey Scottish striker so decided to bring in Agbonlahor for the 4 o'clock game . I made the transfer just after 3pm but didn't score any points - I emailed them to query it and they sent this ....

'Thank you for your recent correspondence.

On Sunday August 31st there were 4 overlapping games:

Celtic v Rangers at 12:30pm

Chelsea v Spurs at 1:30pm

Sunderland v Man City at 3pm

Aston Villa v Liverpool at 4pm

When there are 'overlapping' kick offs, such as midweek games that may kick off at 7.45pm and 8pm or games on a Sunday when there could be matches starting at 1.30pm, 2pm, 3pm etc. In this scenario, the transfer has to be registered before the earliest of the overlapping games is scheduled to kick off even if the transfer is for a later game, in this case the days transfer deadline was the 12:30pm game.

Unfortunately your transfers were registered at:

PORTUGESE PARKS - the transfer of Agbonlahor was registered at 3:02pm.'


Cheers

Andy

thanks andy,

i am surprised as i thought i had made the johnson transfer after 12.30, maybe in that case i hadn't (bear in mind i had totally overlooked the 12.30 kick off and was working toward 12.45) i guess it is also possible they missed the 12.30 kick off.

from what you have said it seems that you are more likely to be right than me and it works along tffo lines.

cheers for taking the trouble to post

andy

Ill prob try a 18.00 transfers in one of my really crap teams(as opposed to mostly rubbish) to test out the system! - and ill tell you how I get on!

Didn't realise you were playing this one Bruce

To make a transfer, loan or captain change: Entrants should click the 'transfer player' or 'arrange a loan' player link on the Game site. Entrants will be given the opportunity to change their formation at this point to accommodate transfer and loan players but if they choose not to do so then they must make transfers and loans keeping the same formation. Entrants will also have the opportunity to change their team captain. Transfers, loans and team captain changes are immediate and will score points for a team from the next Eligible Fixture following a valid change. Players involved in matches in progress will not score points until the next Eligible Fixture. Where the kick off times of Eligible Fixtures overlap e.g. 2pm kick off and 3 pm kick off, transfers, loans and captain changes relevant to the later kick off will only be valid to score points in that Eligible Fixture if they were successfully transacted before the kick off of the earlier Eligible Fixture.

The above is taken from the Ts&Cs and looks as though Barry is correct. Seems fairly clear in all fairness

Andy, I think your Dossena to johnson transfer in worked as it should. You got 3 appearance points initially then minus 2 for a goal against, giving you 1 then minus 3 for the booking giving you minus 2 as a score. I think the rules seem clear in the Ts and Cs - see post above. Its immediate transfers with no overlap IMO and there was no overlap between the Liv game and the Port game. Hope this clears things up.
Cheers
Keith

hi keith,

yes of course you are right my example was completely useless as i forgot there was a gap between johnson's game.

when i made the transfer i thought it had to be done by first kick off on the day but with a tffo system you are obviously right that regardless of if i entered the transfer at 12.29 or 12.31 i would still score the points for johnson.

i hadn't re evaluated the transfer on new info received.

thanks for pointing this out - appreciated.

andy

Which Past Comps would they be then,? Are you implying GFM has done this, when?

I think keithy007 has already shown you that it is fairly clearly explained, but ....

If it needs saying again, okay. Think of fixtures as events, a single fixture is a single event. If several fixtures overlap then that is also a single event. The event starts with the scheduled kick-off of the earliest fixture and ends with the end of the last fixture (plus a bit for overrun). Players transferred in, loaned and/or Captained before an event are eligible to score from that event onwards.

HTH.

Actually I was saying the same as Andye ie that overlapped games count as an entity so transfers between overlapped games don't take effect for the later game. However not the first time in life that my words are taken as opposite to what I had meant, but usually it is only women who take the opposite meaning.

I think the past comp being referred to by Andy was The times 06/07 game, which was different to this new one, but a real c**k up as the rules were changed mid way through the game and it was dominated and won by a multi entrant (well done Shaun Goldsmith). That mess was what stopped the Times doing a 'proper' FF game last season and this game is their new attempt this season...and credit where credit is due - so far its looking good IMO.
Only good thing about the Times 06/07 game was that I rode it through and got third prize But it was a lot of work and needed weekly mainenance

Anyway at least we seem to have put to bed this transfer problem

Nice to see a FF god get something wrong Cheers Andy

Thanks Keithy007 for the vote of confidence, and yes I understand there's a lot of history to the this FF game. However, I'd like to make it clear, I've worked for GFM since 1997, I've worked on practically all the fantasy games we've ever run and we have never, ever changed the rules/Ts and Cs to fix bad programming. I am very proud of the people I work with, they are a dedicated, diligent and committed crew who deserve better that to be randomly tarred with 12345678 brush of spite.

I regularly check in on the fiso boards, always have since I discovered them. Where I can I pass on your recommendations and wish lists for the games we've operated. I'm IT based so unless I can convince a marketeer that it was his idea it doesn't always happen, but I try...

GFM did make a major cock up once, the only difference was they did put it right after a little pressure was put on.

The only thing id suggest is some of the more important rules should be displayed in the "how to play" link, and made alot clearer with an easy example.

that way no one can have doubts and need to comment.

yep i think we had already at last established things work along tffo lines not ofl ones.

there was no implication of past gfm errors, the times had usually run their own games and they were the ones there were problems in, which have been well documented .

andy

i'll apologise again, how many women do you know that do that graham

andy

sorry murph, didn't realise you worked for gfm, good of you to monitor the boards and to come on here and express your opinion as indeed the people from clever tv have.

i think ajc has expressed the type of concern re the rules and you can now see from my explanation the problem has been with the times own people running games on at least two and from memory three occasions when rules were changed after the competition started (on the final occasion beyond recognition )

if you want correspondence forwarded between me and gfm just pm me. my only real gripe which unfortunately relates to most of the high profile games you have is that you have limited the entries and then allowed 'obvious' multi entries to take part. for instance most players have 10 teams in the times but i'd be pretty sure some players are running over 100 teams

i appreciate the burden of proof is difficult and that you don't want to make it easy for large multis to dominate the leaderboard but what you have done is to help these people gain an advantage. i can't see an easy solution to the problem although as i have suggested cyki have disqualified people by using a mix of methods.

i believe the correspondence i have had from gfm has been polite and has referred to the difficulty you have in enforcing your rules but has avoided answering straight questions, thus my annoyance with gfm or 'spite' as you like to call it.

i have always thought mistakes happen and it is how you solve them that count and i do feel in this instance gfm have hid under the duvet. that said i readily accept that gfm have run games excellently in the past and when problems have occurred have been one of the best at solving them. i consider clever.tv and gfm (cyki excellent from the little i have seen) the best at running fantasy games. it is therefore good to see that you now dominate the market between you

i do think you have got this one wrong (limiting entry per person then condoning it by saying how difficult it is to sort out) and you then encourage multi entry in competitions run by other organisations that are say single entry as the culture of getting away with it exists. if you or anyone else at gfm wants to speak to me about this or anything else pm me and i will provide my telephone number.

all the best,

andy

Murph
I'm glad we've now sorted this perceived transfer problem and I also don't think the Times will make the same mistake that they made with the 06/07 game again, so all looking good on that front. I'm enjoying this game. I also continue to enjoy CYKI and I'm really pleased that it wasn't changed (in terms of the game itself) this season, as there were some indications it might be, but I think that might be a good case history of you and the organisers 'listening' to what is said and saying if it aint broken etc .
I do though think there is a problem with perceived multis in this new Times game, which might cause some credability problems as the game continues because if rules are going to be made (and I have no problem with limiting entries or not limiting them) then they need to be policed and stuck to. In fact looking at the top 100 I might be one of those that will be pushing on this if my luck continues Well done on this new game though
Cheers Keith

well said keithy,

agree 100% with all you have said.

my only team in the top 100 tends to suggest i having nothing against GFM as i am actually promoting their involvement

good luck when it comes to being in front at the lollipop

andy

Murph....I can only echo the above...I think this needs sorting, sooner rather than later.

John

i could see the problem at the start john and did try to head it off at the pass, however here we are now and it applies to several gfm games

andy

I have to say that I agree with you on this one Andy, I don't understand why this type of rule was included, it's almost impossible to implement fairly and accurately.

Which begs the question, Why have the rule in the first place?

I'll go and look for a marketeer. I know they won't listen but it's worth asking anyway.

i think the problem is murph trying to find a suitable way of running a comp with in some cases a free entry and avoiding someone entering 500 for example and dominating it to make it look silly.

i can understand the problem, but surely there must come a point where you don't want to make more than x number of entries.

my own view is make it single entry like cyki and make it stick. the prob is with cyki having hundreds of teams would be higher maintenance for that game and the rules and scoring make it less useful to have loads of entries. alternatively just allow as many as you like entries (paying games or not), surely less of a farce than things as they stand. another option say 5 free entries and £x per extra entry, not seen that tried before e.g. 5 free teams sign up bonus.

as i said before always happy to have a chat or be used for bouncing ideas off if nothing else

good of you to come back and look at things again.

all the best,

andy

Thanks for the offer, it is appreciated, believe me, I only wish I could get people to listen to what you have to say.

The FF game that puts the players first, not necessarily (to start with) prize money wise, but with good game play and obvious interest in players' needs over and above other interested parties could make a killing. (Excessive profits to be reinvested in said FF game as additional/Increased prize money, Obviously). Suggestions on a postcard please...

It's not really that good of me to come on here, I'll do what I can, but as I've said above unless I can get someone to listen to me I doubt it will have any effect, but hey you never know, we can but try...