[FPL Gameweek 11] On risk assessments, and Warren Buffett's farewell

Which punt do you prefer?

• A punt that has 10% chance of winning but with a 10X payout
• A punt that has 50% chance of winning with a 2X payout.

The expected returns are the same, so it's really a question about your risk profile/appetite.

Last week, we didn't see any profitable plays overlooked by the FPL community (our usual favourite topic), so we highlighted punts that were "not better per se" (i.e. it won't give you an advantage) but still "a valid differential approach for those interested in the ride" i.e. for those who are risk-hungry.

The results were unsurprisingly messy given the complicated factors:

1. The mid-risk / mid-reward call: We assessed that Joao Pedro's form has not truly recovered, but he scored a goal nonetheless. In contrast, Enzo Fernandes (our captain) had better attack stats but blanked. In our view, Pedro's positive returns are attributable to (a) short-term volatility and (b) Wolves' poor quality compensating for Pedro's quality. This means Pedro continues to face a high risk of blanking in next week's visit to Burnley.
   
2. The high-risk / high-reward call: We suggested not to captain Haaland, who ended up with a low-ish 4 points but could have hauled if he converted his penalty! And others argued that the match could have swung the way if Van Dijk's goal had stood. Either way, all this captures the high risk/reward nature of the call. There were few good "popular captain" alternatives too, which limited the upside - congrats if you captained Saka!
   
3. We footnoted last week that we would bench Semenyo who similarly missed a penalty and blanked.

We are overall satisfied - as a publication, it's actually ill-advised to recommend risky/unpopular moves but we wanted to play in this space because (a) it is harder, (b) forces us to be more rigorous and deliberate in our thinking (c) it offers food for thought / a sounding board.

It was a weirdly bad week for many, almost as if there were more green arrows than red arrows (which is a possible outcome as the number of red/green arrows need not be the same).

Our 34-4 points now places us at an overall rank of around 843,000:

Our main learning takeaway comes from elsewhere: to pay closer attention to players' minutes for cup/europe matches: Fantasy Football Scout correctly flagged Reece James as a bench risk as he played two consecutive full matches prior to Wolves (they were previously correct for Pedro Porro too), and true enough he didn't start.

On that note, here's a recent quote from billionaire Warren Buffett in his final letter to shareholders before retiring as his company CEO:

What's your learning point from the gameweek? And what were the hypotheses you refined this time around, and what are you still reviewing?

Enjoy the international break and look out for our deep dive (on the triple captain chip!)