blonde poker forum

I ran a Euro 2016 Draft Fantasy League and there was some interest about running one for the Premier League season so here it is. If you've never played a draft game before then in Draft Fantasy Football, any one Premier League player can only be owned by a single team in your league at any one time and initial teams are selected via a snake draft.

Details are below, just so everyone is aware this won't be 100% a Blonde exclusive league as I'm giving the option to anyone who played the Euro 2016 league to enter this, which is only fair IMO and only amounts to two people both of whom are connected to poker, be it as players or workers.

With that out the way here are the necessary details:

Draft date: Thursday, 11th August, 8.30pm (online)
Website: https://draftfantasyfootball.co.uk/
How to play: https://draftfantasyfootball.co.uk/howToPlay
Entry fee: £20
Entry deadline: 12pm, Thursday 11th August
League cap: 16 (4 players confirmed so far)

Scoring: Scoring is exactly the same as the FPL game with two exceptions. A) there are no captains...B) there are no bonus points

The league cap is enforced by the website and, quite frankly, 16 is stretching it anyway in terms of having enough players to go round. If we exceed 16 players then we'll have to split into two leagues.

If interested please PM me for bank details/league codes and any questions fire away.

In

Interested, will have a look at the game as i said no fantasy football this year but now im doing that so why not add in a draft as well!

In

in

I did one of these with my mates for the Euros, it's great fun, especially the actual draft and it's not as high maintenance as FPL.

In please.

Did the Euro one and it was great fun and a nice low maintenance addition to the standard FPL stuff.

reconfirming i am in

16 seems too many with a 15 team squads means there would be 240 players in squad but only 220 players start each week so when we are drafting we will all be drafting players likely to be bench warming

12-14 team leagues 180-210 players in a squad gives us all a chance to pick players likely to start so when starts get injured we have players that wont be sat on the bench

It's a fair point. Somewhere around 10 is the ideal size from my experience. Let's wait and see how many sign up and then we'll be able to judge the best course of action.

Yeah 10 sounds better then we all have a 2nd keeper no 1 keeper incase of late injures ect

It's not so much that, but with ~10 active managers it means there are plenty of free agents and jostling for players rather than managers just keeping their initial squad throughout. Makes it more enjoyable.

I'd like to play please

In

If there is room, I'm keen.

Space for another one?

Room for everyone, no one will be turned away.

The more the merrier.

Everyone who has expressed interest should have a PM. Still room for more as we'll split into two leagues should we reach capacity.

I played these in the early 90's.  Would definitely be interested.

Me too used to love playing these

Great idea, yes please

Sent the entry fee, how do we join the league, assume its a code jobby

Hi Brent, will send it to you via PM.

Ideally I'd like to wait until Tuesday to send out the league codes so I can better gage if we need one league or two but given your circumstances of having to autopick I'll PM you the code for league one so you can get working on it.

I like the look of this

In please

Sent via paypal

are we able to send via paypal? if so can you message me the details please

i hate internet banking between the security dongle which i keep losing and the constant phone calls if i buy a cup of coffee on my card in a different pub to normal i try to avoid my back as much as possible

You should a,ready have my PayPal details as they were in the original message I sent, but will send again.

Current interest list/paid list:

Paid: (9)
dino1980
Horneris
David Curtis (non blonde)
David Docherty (non blonde)
Killer River
Powwwwwwww
KP24
Rinswun
Mark_Porter

Interested: (7)
BornToBubble
PokerBroker
Pleno1
Ironside
Mondatoo
C4ught
Sherriff

If we get 14+ players I think we'll split into two leagues of 7+ as although it'll makes the top prizes smaller, it'll make the overall game experience throughout the season far more enjoyable as they'll be more players to go round and more opportunities to pick up free agents etc.

Will send tonight didn't realise payments had started going. 

sent

Sent! 

Would personally much prefer one big league unless 19+ runners as was looking forward to the potential challenge of finding more unknown coups rather than the household names.

8 wouldn't be too different from normal fantasy.

+1

As it doesn't look like we're going to go over 16 runners and the consensus seems to be for one big league, I'm going to PM everyone who's paid the league code so you can go about familiarising yourself with the draft page and go ahead and start putting players on your watchlist if you want to. If you haven't received the code by 8pm tonight then drop me a PM and I'll send it on.

I'll put a plan in place in the eventuality we go over 16 runners.

Updated as of 6:15pm today (if your name isn't on the paid list and you think it should be then let me know)

Paid: (14)
dino1980
Horneris
David Curtis (non blonde)
David Docherty (non blonde)
Killer River
Powwwwwwww
KP24
Rinswun
Mark_Porter
Ironside
C4ught
PokerBroker
BiloxiDesire
Shafty78

Interested: (4)
BornToBubble
Pleno1
Mondatoo
Sherriff

I'm in sorry. Will send stars

I'm definitely in also, will send tmoro, thanks.

When would the Draft be?

Hey mate,

It's in the OP, the draft takes place 8.30pm Thursday night.

Not long to go now!

Important to note there are a few players with different positions to fpl (if you have been going off that for your research like I have). Namely Nolito, Martial and Bojan are listed as strikers on here not midfielders.

Paid: (16)
dino1980
Horneris
David Curtis (non blonde)
David Docherty (non blonde)
Killer River
Powwwwwwww
KP24
Rinswun
Mark_Porter
Ironside
C4ught
PokerBroker
BiloxiDesire
Shafty78
Mondatoo
Pleno1

Payouts:
1st. £125
2nd. £95
3rd. £65
4th. £35

Good luck everyone, may all your picks be monsters.

Please note:

1) You've got 60 seconds to make a pick otherwise it'll take the highest rated player left so keep an eye on other team's picks/how long until you're up.
2) You can make transfers for free agents as soon as the draft is finished. So if you think you've made a mistake picking someone and there's a player who's not been drafted then you can make a switch straight away.
3) The waiver system is a touch complicated but the important thing to note is that it's the inverse of the draft order. So if I get 16th pick I'll be at the top of the waiver queue. There are a number of instances of players being on waivers but for the next few weeks the most important one is that when new players are added to the game they'll be on 'waivers'. So if Arsenal sign Lacazette and everyone bids for him whilst he's on waivers the person who's at the top of the list will get him. This is to even out the luck a bit in terms of what draft pick you get. Once you sign someone on waivers you go to the bottom of the list.

Brilliant looking forward to tonight

how does the draft start? whats page link?

https://draftfantasyfootball.co.uk/afterLogin

Click Draft page or click icon top right corner click draft

What Ray said.

The draft order is automated by the computer. There's a chat function within the draft page if people want to ask any questions/talk smack during the draft :)

vamos

does the draft order come out at 20:30?

Hope it's just getting rolling

Looks like servers are overloaded, I'm getting nothing but a loading page, anyone getting anything?

yeh, gg for me too.

looks like the draft has stalled

draft order

jonathan slater Current Pick
Iron Side Next Pick
Nick Wright
Mark Porter
Stephen Jennison
David Docherty
Mark Stuart
Raymond Norton
Poker Broker
Ollie Noonan
Patrick Leonard
Lewis Morton
David Curtis
Brent Horner
marc carnie
Chris Davidson

Yep stalled

Software frozen on me. On iPad, iPhone and Laptop.

Thanks Iron, site has run fine in the past two drafts I've done. Sorry about this.

we scrap it or?

Surely can reboot?

Just hold tight This may resolve itself soon.

think we should try the draft again at say 21:30 give everyone a chance to get online?

@DraftFantasy - Apologies if your drafts are having issues right now. Servers have been overloaded.

It's running again. Your pick!

Yh

Not working for me.

you mean yours

but i do think we should restart once everyone cant get online not fair if people are getting autopicks in the 1st round while others are getting to pick

Or me, I don;t want to autopick Ibra. FFS.

wont load for me either.

Yh gone again

i was scared of auto picking him but got kane

i think we should aim to restart for 21:30

stephen jennison on the clock

Pretty sure a restart is in order surely?

I've picked

I don't know if that's an option Iron. Brent isn't even around due to playing tennis, logistics might need new league/password etc. If this all shakes out ok I think we continue. If it affects people for round after round. If people aren't happy then we'll look at restarting it, tonight if possible if not then another day.

if its taken 25 minutes for the first 4 picks of the first round, i don't think we can continue till the end here unless it dramatically improves in the next 5 mins. i think gg or postpone?

i would agree, but so far looks like everyone has pciked only autopick might have been johnathan slater who would of i presume gone for aguero anyway

Draft as normal if at all possible. But, looking at their twitter feed their is a scope for redrafts so I think that's the way we'll have to go as this issue doesn't appear to be going away. I'll email them the league ID and see if we can get this reset for later tonight. I appreciate that may make it a late night for some. But getting it done tonight if possible seems better than postponing to another day.

Will keep updating when I know more.

only other day to do it is tomorrow and i wouldnt be able to make it tomorrow till about 9:15

going to leave for 45 mins then and get something done and check back in for maybe a 10pm start.

Ok will keep an eye out

We'll cross that bridge when it comes, we'll try and get this draft done before the season starts but leagues can start at any point so if we miss the first week of matches so be it. It's more important to find a day/time everyone can make.

its just started again but stephen got what looks like an auto pick

on monatoo

First few picks are pretty standard surely?

The disadvantage comes later on in the picks, no?

sorry on mark stuart
then monatoo

Fine with that lets keep going

Stuck on Steven for me

My screen still says Steven Jennison.

frozen again on monatoo

Got to yours on mine Ray

Frozen again.

sorry ray you got vardy

on ollie noonan now

Site gg for me now.

think its wrong time and day for the draft

I can't get in unfortunately. Definitely wouldn't pick Mahrez or Payet here though.

it will be payet

Urgh. Can we get a ruling no here?!

I'll take whatever it gives me I'm not arsed, too impatient :)

Good luck.

I've sent an email asking for a redraft for 10pm BST. If the problems persist we're just going to have to do the draft another time.

Still continue to draft as normal as, touch wood, it appears to be back up and firing. If it's affected too many people we will redraft though.

Yep re draft seems to way forward

If you set autopick but don't turn it on it chooses your auto pick when you timeout.

i am going to carry on drafting till its reset just as a mock draft lol

It'll choose the highest rated player available to pick.

It picked Martial who wasn't the highest rated, he was the player i had at the top of my autopick.

yeah if you time out it will go to your auto pick list  as a back up

wow walker spurs in the first round i didnt see that coming

Mines has totally gone now

Can't get on site with wifi need get home sharp

marhez and komapany so far

Be quicker just making picks in this thread and at least we could all track the picks!

 :D shame it hasn't worked though

True, there are a couple of people without Blonde accounts though and one who's out for the night so is autopicking.

auto picks for johnaton slater

2nd round de gea
3rd round cech

then it auto picks sterling for me FFS

Got yaya rotflmfao

I still can't even get in lol!

i have been kicked off the site lol

I've asked for a reset but I'd say it's not looking good for tonight. Still pick as normal (if possible) but there will be a redraft.

Good look forward to redraft

I've been kicked off too

Monday or Tuesday would be my preference for the redraft as I'm on holiday from Wednesday. Please quote and state which days you can do next week. I assumed Sunday is a no go as this is a poker forum :)

Sunday best for me I'd have to auto pick for the other days but happy to do that,I'm on holiday from Monday myself even though I'm only going to the fringe festival but I'll be out at shows in the evening

Sanogo?

David Docherty here. Will keep an eye on the thread over the next few days. If drafting next week Monday would likely be best for me and I definitely can't do Wednesday or Sunday.

How will the redraft work will we still get points for week 1? 

And what if we dont get out first round pick now.

I think i'd prefer we just go with what we have and then start trading. 

In if Available for a new Draft.

Couldnt make it tonight for 8:30pm.

Monday-Weds (any day) fine with me.

Blockers

The redraft will mean that we start from scratch and it's a 37 game season rather than a 38 game season. I'm hopeful that we'll stay in the same draft order, but if not then hey-ho, it's all random.

Any day aside from tomorrow works for me.

Had to give up today as kept freezing.

i think i am clear both nights

Toure nor quite as bad as sanogo

Monday is good also free Tuesday.

They've reset the league. Monday seems to be better for people, so I've scheduled the draft for Monday at 8.30pm. If you can't make it/don't want to play anymore then no problem, I'll send entry fee back and sorry the site was so crap this evening.

The draft order will be reset and randomised once the draft begins again, nothing that can be done about that.

Ok I'm out Monday night but I'll set mine to auto pick

Any Chance of Joining?

We're full up atm but I'm sure if someone drops out you can be first on the list.

Disappointing scenes last night. Had my flatmate picking for me with a long list I'd given him and he'd managed to pick an unbelievable 5 a side team.

Monday sounds good  :)up

I had mine on autoplck while i was at work also seemed to work out not to bad, as long as you keep clearing the unavalible players its quite easy to keep track. also this speeds the game up alot if you have autopick on, you just have to pick alot of players before it starts to make this work well imo. I am at work on monday also so hopefully this works well again.

All go for tonight?

Yep it's all set up and ready to go at 8:30pm so as long as the site doesn't fall over we should be grand. ForthThistle is in as we've had one drop out.

Good luck tonight hope it goes smoothly I've auto picked mine 😃

are we able to see other teams?

Yes. If you go to the transfers page there's a drop down menu just above the pitch where you can change the team.

Looking to upgrade on Noble in midfield. Got defenders to offer.

how many teams havent got a starting GK?

4 when Karius is back by my count.

are you counting butland in there who might be out for the season or might not be

Nah I didn't, he seemed pretty optimistic about the injury on twitter.
(https://s3.postimg.org/8qnnsh4er/butlanfd.png)

Anybody Fancy Pogba.....

Offer sent.

Jesus Wept.
Need way better than That Raymondo

:P

My whole squad is open to offers! 

If anyone is in need of a keeper then once I know the extent of Lloris's injury I'll be looking to trade Jankupovic for a midfielder.

Hi lads,

I missed the draft last night. I was there for the cancelled one last week and was online the whole time last night, but it didn't occur to me that the re-draft was on mainly because I'm not in the habit of checking Blonde very often.

As a result, I've ended up with a travesty of a side which even with major surgery has no shot of competing over the season. I've got 9 non-starters out of 15, including no starting goalkeepers and 1 starting defender and striker.

I'm hoping to drop out and get a refund, though I'm happy to leave that up to you guys as to whether I should get one or not.

Either way, I won't be putting any effort into the side from here as it's just not going to be worth it. With that in mind, would everyone prefer me to just leave my side as a ghost ship or should I release my few reasonable players (Mahrez, Silva) back into the player pool to be picked up on waivers? Happy to go with the majority.

Cheers,
DD.

4 weeks

Absolutely bizarre decision not to check the forum for 4 days especially considering you knew the initial draft had been cancelled.

Part of the blame lies with me for not reminding David (I reminded the other guy who's not a regular on blonde). I'm happy for his players to go back in the player pool. I realise it's a tap in for the guy who got 16th pick to get Mahrez & that wouldn't have happened under normal circumstances, but had David been online for the draft the entire draft would've been different (he obv wouldn't have drafted Baba Rahman for instance).

We need to make a decision on this by Thursday evening so that if his players are released then they can be picked up on Friday's waivers. I think this needs to be a unanimous decision tbh, if anyone objects then we'll leave the team as a ghost ship. Whatever happens I'll front the £20 to keep the prize pool as advertised.

I don't think its fair for picks 16 & 15 to get Mahrez and Silva, think it makes a bit of a mockery of it.

Happy for the bloke to get a refund and reckon you should take it off the prizes, no reason you should front it just because you forgot to remind him/he didn't check.

But yeah, defo leave it as a "ghost team" in the interest of fair play.

Definitely you shouldn't take the hit when your taking the time to run these comps, I agree with Brent it's a bit strange not to check itt for an update but just let David have a refund since it's clear like you say he wouldn't have picked Rahman etc and it's just meant to be a fun comp which got a bit messed up because of the host site.

Think you should just make the decision regards putting them back in the player pool since everyone won't have chance to reply by Friday.

Neither were top 10 picks though right ? I don't think it's unfair if they get them, don't even think Silva is a snap, maybe I'm a whale though :P

I think it would be best if the top players are all involved in the game.

They might not be top 10ers, but theyre certainly not 16th rounders

As transfer window is still open for 2 more weeks with a few more players expected to come in I am happy for players to be released then people with top waivers have to choose between new players or players in the dead team

This is totally insane. Its just giving people with the high draft order enormous upgrades which totally screws over people who got the earlier picks.

The beauty of the snake draft means fairness has already occured with Pick 1 having to wait an absolute age before he could pick again. You can't do this to him now aswell! I know people are new to this format but I thought you would understand this a bit having played NFL fantasy Iron mate.

So people with a high waiver priority will be left thinking "who shall I pick, Harry Arter or RIYAD MAHREZ", whilst people with waiver priorities 11-16 will be left with the likes of Donald Love and Dean Marney. Just doesn't work.

Gotta be a ghost team.

Decision more likely to be Lacazette or Mahrez right? It's not the same as the NFL due to the transfer window.

Obv but point still remains that the people will lower waiver priorities get screwed over in a way they couldnt anticipate. I know theyd then be a higher waiver priority for the next week but they couldnt get a Mahrez or a Silva then, itd be back to your Marney/Arters.

As the person with the first spot on the Waiver priority, I'm not bothered either way.

What I would say though is that by having the last first round pick you envariably get screwed by fate to a certain degree because of the huge drop in upside between Aguero and a Payet.

Id say theres a huge gulf between Aguero and anybody. Not a huge gulf between Ibra or Alexis (or other 2nd pick candidates) and Payet.

Decision made. The team will remain as a ghost ship & I'll refund David.

A bit cynical bud. The re-draft wasn't at the forefront of my mind over the weekend.

I asked for a refund only because no points have been scored yet. Under no circumstances would I let Nick be out of pocket. My team will be a ghost ship either way but if you want to keep the advertised prizepool my £20 will be staying in.

True, sorry, I didn't realise you weren't a reg forum member at first, should have checked.

I think everyone here would agree Dino shouldn't be out of pocket and you should have the cash back. Just take it equally off the prizes.

Yeh, for sure cash should be refunded and prize pool reduced.

I'll send your £20 back via bank David.

Revised Payouts:
1st. £120
2nd. £90
3rd. £60
4th. £30

No sweat :)

Sorry about the mix up guys and thanks for the invite Nick. Good luck for the season!

How many people missed the draft? I was flying to Barca that night so couldn't make it and been very busy here and not on blonde

Me my laptop had no power.

nice to see i started how i will likely go on just like the NFL fantasy leaving more points on the bench than anyone else

i am open to trade offers for gomez if anyone is without a keeper who is playing every week ?

will need to be a keeper plus a mid/striker

I've really enjoyed this so far certainly a greater challenge trying to pick up players and make a good team

Yeah it's so much harder trying to find players who play week in week out

Agree enjoy the challenge of finding the hidden gems

hoping my savour was picking up Carroll last week

Open to trade offers for Karius or De Gea.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh someone crashed the site must have been because i have lallana and rondon (i think i have anyways) in my line up and site is in shock

You've had a good week then  :)

I wish rest of team was shocking

Was in second place this week but with Coleman and Amanda now out for the season, any chance of a podium is over. Add to that the fact that my first pick was Payet and the goalkeeper I drafted was Burland and it's fair to say I run pretty bad!

I'm in a similar league to this where we auction the players. Am top but have Coleman, Mane and Kane. Beware Josh King, seems you are next on the hit list.

Enjoyed this a lot. Well done Nick, you smashed it and we never got close.

Totally agree really enjoyed this delighted with 3rd place and enjoyed it throughly

Thanks to everyone for playing and well played to those who made the money. Payouts as below:

1st. £120: Bobbins FC - dino1980
2nd. £90: Use the Forster - Mark_Porter (Sent via bank)
3rd. £60: Kolpak Under Attack - Stephen Jennison (kp24??)
4th. £30 nomnomnom - Ollie Noonan (rinswun??)

Stephen/Ollie please drop me a PM with bank details and I'll send your winnings on.

I'll be looking to run it next season so if anyone has any feedback (other than the draft screwing things up) then let me know.

I think the biggest decision is if we need to cap the entrants in any one league at 8-12 teams and split into two leagues if there are more entrants than that. I've played in leagues with six to ten teams before and it does allow for more transfers as there are more players available.

Thanks, it helps when four of your first five draft picks smash it and barely miss a minute of the season!

Yh that's me I'll send bank details over in a bit

Thanks Nick. Gotta be honest, I wrote my chances off at the beginning of April then broke my phone and forgot about logging in thereafter! Thanks for running. I'll drop you a pm!

congrats to the winners

would love to try this with 8-12 teams

Well up for doing it again hopefully will be around for the draft this year

The official premier league game is doing a draft version this season

Yeah, I'll be watching that launch with interest, it's launching a week after the classic game from what I've read.

It'll no doubt be very similar to the game we played last season, but if there are double points for captains that's something that would massively affect the game and mean getting a high pick in the draft would be more advantageous.

Without having seen the mechanics of the game my initial thought is that it'll be simpler to run any draft league next season via the FPL site rather than Draft Fantasy but I'll wait and see and have to talk to Junior/Dazzler who'll be running the classic and h2h leagues on FPL.

True I hadn't thought about the captain effect

For anyone interested in playing the FPL version next season, or how it compares to the version we played last season, there's more info here: https://www.premierleague.com/news/427772?sf96151543=1.

Some key differences/points:

- Leagues between 2-16 players, they say 8 is optimal.
- Same snake draft principle
- Watchlist option for those who can't make the draft
- NO captain or vice captain in FPL draft
- NO transfers between managers in FPL draft
- Only one Waivers deadline each week - 24 hours before the gameweek deadline. E.g if deadline is 12.30pm Saturday then waivers are processed at 12.30pm Friday
- Free agents must be signed 24 hours before the gameweek deadline (on Draft Fantasy I believe you can make transfers/lineup changes up to the time of the first kick off)
- Lowest ranked team is at the top of the waivers list and gets first choice. e.g. if Morata signs for Chelsea on deadline day and everyone put a waivers bid in for him (as they would) the team at the bottom of the league would get him.
- H2H and Classic fornats both available
- Game launches week commencing 17th July.

In conclusion, FPL Draft seems to be a slightly simplified version of Draft Fantasy and I'm minded to run any Blonde Draft leagues through the FPL site.

i am in for any 8-12 draft league ideally 1 H2H and 1 classic (at a reasonable buy in)

Great, once it gets up and running I'll gauge interest. I'm sure there's room for a free league, £20 league and £50 league.

Count me in hopefully draft will run smoother too

In

I'd be in for a free league. Never done a draft before, interested to see how it works. 

Not too late. Drafts will take place the week the season starts. E.g. Between August 6th-10th.

I'd be up for the free league too.

Yea I'll give this a try