FTL Update 22.Dec

At the approximate half-way stage of the season, it's rather neat that the number of selections to date in the FTL is close to 5,000. Chelsea's win at Stoke City last night wrapped up the weekend round, and the big winner was Draw Picks who picked up six draws from nine selections for a profit of 11.17 points. The silver medallist for the round was Rubicon who made 10.47 points, and Jamie A completed the podium with a 9.23 point profit, and propelled himself into third place. Rubicon leads the monthly December competition up 14.19 points, followed by TFA Draws up 10.29.

The profitable December entries are:

The big losers were Mountain Mouse with nine losers from nine selections, but who remains (just) in profit overall. Next worst was Sjosta who dropped another 5.87 points while Bounty Boy Football Elite dropped from second place to 8th with a loss of 5.08 points.

Of the remaining Bounty Boys, only TFA Draws made a profit, picking up 1.87 points. Football Investor lost 1.03 points, while Skeeve lost 1.97. The combined bounty liability is currently £1,275.

Overall the selections combined were up 2.50 points on the weekend, and the number in profit is still an impressive 20. Fairfranco extended his lead, despite dropping another 1.66 points as his December losses climb to 14.61.

The entries up by double figures are:

Behind the leader, the next seven are very close with just 2.26 points separating 2nd from 8th. Idle were Trend to end, Randolph and Club Havana. Rather surprising, to me anyway, is that the Bundeslayga system leads the table based on ROI%.

In the group within ten points of zero either way, we have:

The XX Draws and XX Unders converged as the former gained 7.77 points, while the latter dropped 3.40 points. The only other profitable entry here was TFA_Raz, up 3.66 points, while the others all lost points or were idle (Betcast and Abromo).

The remaining nine entries down by 10 or more points is comprised of the following:

As mentioned earlier, Rubicon had a stellar week, his best of the season, while Cassini Value finally found some success picking up 3.59 points. These were the only profitable entries in this group, with the others all losing points or idle (Daily 25, Ian Erskine and Paul Watson).

With many leagues taking a break over Xmas and the New Year, things may be relatively quiet in the FTL for a couple of weeks, but England has a very full schedule over the holiday, so perhaps not.

I did have one request last week to include a 'lost' entry from the weekend of November 15th in the results, and initially agreed as I thought it was an error on my part, but as I was looking at the schedule for the holidays, it dawned on me that the reason they were not included in the first place was because they arrived long after the Friday midnight deadline. While the entrant in question is trustworthy, and I have no doubt that no trickery was afoot, in the interests of fairness, the rules need to be applied the same for everyone.

For the holidays, there will need to be a slight change to the normal schedule, so for games tonight, entries must be in before kick-off.

For the Boxing Day games (Friday, 26th December), entries must be in by 12:30am that day.

For games on Saturday, 27th December, entries must be in by 12:30am that day.

For games on Sunday, 28th December, or Monday 29th December, entries must be in by 12:30am on Sunday.

For games on Tuesday, 30th December, entries must be in before kick-off.

For games on New Year's Day, entries must be in by 12:30am that day.

And finally, for games on the weekend of January 2nd thru 5th, entries must be in by 12:30am on the Saturday (3rd) or by kick-off as normal.

After that, life returns to normal.