Fantasy Football - 3: Picking The Defense

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Lab Record Type Section

Introduction

This post is part 3 of a series of number crunching posts I intend on doing on some EPL Fantasy Football data I have. I focus on selecting the defenders in this one.

Part 1 has the main introduction and some other relevant details and assumptions and things like that. It also has the Dream Team of the Year and Weekly Dream Teams which I shall be referring to frequently.

Fantasy Football - 2: Picking The Goalkeepers

Edit on 4th Aug - Some of the numbers were slightly off in the rotation analysis. Fixed it. Overall conclusion not impacted though.

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Lab Record Type Section

Introduction

This post is part 2 of a series of number crunching posts I intend on doing on some EPL Fantasy Football data I have. I focus on selecting the goalkeepers in this one.

Part 1 has the main introduction and some other relevant details and assumptions and things all that.

I notice that Lloris' jersey seems to be switched with Begovic's and that Ruddy's jersey is a QPR jersey. This is because the premier league has somewhere update them in such a manner. It is too much pain to manually correct it so  skip it and concentrate on the numbers.

Fantasy Football - 1: Team Composition

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Lab Record Type Section

Motivation
I'm bored

Introduction

This post is part 1 of a series of number crunching posts I intend on doing on some EPL Fantasy Football data I have. I picked an easy one to begin with by picking team composition but hopefully the boredom will last through to something more interesting.

Those who know what fantasy football is may skip this paragraph - Fantasy football is a way for single men to distract themselves from their singledom. Each bachelor gets to pick a football team from amongst the players participating in the league/tournament. Each player has a price and you have a fixed budget (£100m in EPL) within which to accommodate the entire team. Prices go up and down during the year based on the player's performances and the demand from the bachelor community. As the players play the actual matches, they earn points depending on their performances on the pitch. At the end of the season, the points are totaled and the bachelor with the highest points wins. After another two months, when the next season starts again, all the bachelors pick a new team for that year and the cycle continues.

This webpage lists the rules and how the points are calculated.
If you are single, then this is what you're looking for.

Vancouver, Canada

My Asian friend was not very impressed,
"I've got biggel fish to fly.", he said

FIFA World Cup 2014 in Pictures

Brazil team dynamics post semi-final 7-1 loss

Santorini, Greece

Santorini is one amongst a group of islands to the south of mainland Greece. The archipelago used to be one big island until a major volcanic eruption around 1500 BC shattered it to pieces and formed a volcanic caldera (a large crater caused by the violent explosion of a volcano that collapses into a depression). The eruption and the ensuing earthquake and tsunami also destroyed the ancient Minoan settlements, and is one of the theories behind the legend of Atlantis.

Paris, One Day Window Tourism

I think I'm creating a new phrase here so first and foremost, let me define it  -

Window tourism: noun, going to all the regular tourist attractions but not going inside any of them, only seeing them from outside and moving on. Analogous to shopping and window shopping.
Usage: "The queues in Paris are so long, that I only had time for some window tourism."

Now that that's out of the way -

I had a day in Paris.

I really wanted to go through the Louvre and had pretty much decided that I'm going to spend the entire day inside but then I chose otherwise at the last minute. Firstly, the Louvre is huge and one day is not enough to go through the entire thing. Secondly, even though I enjoy a museum, I cannot differentiate between a Michaelangelo and a Raphael so a hectic day inside a museum might not be as rewarding as it might seem like. Moreover, I like to get a feel of a city and inside the Louvre would be the culture snobs and schoolchildren, but the rest of the city would be outside.

Raphael, bottom. Michaelangelo, left.

Long Ball Short - 2

Some of these may also appear on the slightly incorrectly named football blog, BigFourza.

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29 Jan 2014

Full story

Long Ball Short

Some of these may also appear on the slightly incorrectly named football blog, BigFourza.

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25 Jan 2014

Waiting for Mata's helicopter
Full story

The Emperor’s Clothes

Assume AE wasn't talking about flavoured contraceptives.
Image sources - KL, AE

 
Once upon a time, at a historic worldwide convention, all ancient civilisations unanimously agreed that mating dances are lame and prone to misunderstanding. Imagine a situation where, let’s say, a Persian traveller (P) is proposing mating to a South Indian (S). S asks whether P is of the right caste. P misinterprets S’ question as a positive response, even finds it a little sassy, (which is how P likes it) and swoops in. Melee ensues, all because none of parties knew that the South Indian questioning gesture is the same as what most parts of the world use to wish good luck.