If Alex re-enters a tournament just think of it as two different players both called Alex Goulder entering the same tournament, with one of them late regging or choosing to play a different day. The fact that it is actually the same person makes no mathematical difference at all, at least not in terms of 'edge'. Those who are saying stuff like "re-entry give bigger edges to the pros" are not understanding things correctly.

However, they are not totally wrong... and there are a few ways in which a re-entry option could lead to some sort of edge for Alex. It may make Alex play with more confidence in certain spots, and thus play better poker. For example, he is in a very close spot that if he gets right he will gain a big stack but if he gets wrong he will be busted. Maybe from an EV perspective this spot calls for him to make a big hero call. But Alex is not a perfect playing poker machine, he is a human being with emotions, feelings etc. One of these emotions could be that he does not really want to bust the tournament early, especially if he has travelled to get there etc. So he might be tempted to make a cautious fold in a spot where a hero call is the correct play. To preserve his tournament life, wait for a better spot etc. This would be him playing worse poker than his absolute A-game. If he knows he is able to re-enter the tournament if he busts then he will be more likely to make the correct but high variance play. In other words, re-entry allows those with the ability to re-enter to have an advantage over those without this ability since they are able to be a bit more cold-blooded in their decision making and do not feel as many outward pressures on them.

I do think the above is a legitimate argument that re-entry ability can give a very small additional advantage to a skilled player. He will be able to make optimal decisions a little more easily in certain high variance spots. However, IMO the effect of this is going to be pretty damn small in the great scheme of things.

That said, there are other arguments against multiple re-entries that IMO are much more important than the 'it gives the pro players a bigger edge' line. The biggest one is simply that it makes the tournaments much tougher (for everyone!) because it upsets the rec/pro balance. Pros (or non-pro good players) are presumably more likely to re-enter a tournament than recs or weak players. If we have a 50:50 rec/pro balance in a pure freezeout then half the entries will be from pros and the other half from recs ldo. If this tournament becomes a muliple re-entry then you might end up with something like 65 rec entries and 100 pro entries. i.e. the % of pros in the field has increased. This does NOT mean that the "pros have an edge" btw. But what it does mean is that everyone's expectation in the tournament is reduced, since the field has become tougher. So EVERYONE loses out in terms of overall EV through a tournament being a re-entry instead of a pure freezeout.

As regards more practical considerations, well I suppose it can work both ways. Of course there will be some guys who travel a long way with only one bullet and get upset when they get busted first level to a guy who is punting his stack since he can re-enter. On the other hand, there will also be players who are very relieved that they can re-enter after losing a massive race, since they have travelled a long way to play and would hate to be out of action after one hour given that they have planned their whole day/weekend around playing the tournament.

BTW, anyone who is complaining that "re-entries are a bad thing because they allow people to punt/play badly and they might outdraw you with their bad play" needs to stop right there and think a bit harder about what they are saying. This is a huge argument in FAVOUR of re-entry!

In the end it comes down to balance. Multiple re-entry allows huge prize pools to be generated which creates an excitement and buzz around DTD. But on the other hand, it makes the tournaments tougher with a worse rec/pro balance. My personal opinion is that the long-term health of the games would be best served by reducing re-entries as much as possible. But that is only my own opinion.

And I am pretty sure there is a good chance your credit rating will be affected with the missed payments, so make sure natwest compensate you properly and get it wiped clean on your behalf.  

Oh dear Well obviously I hope you are wrong about this! I have been doing some googling and it seems that usually when a direct debit bounces it is automatically re-tried 7 days later, and if it goes through fine on the second attempt then credit rating is not affected. If this is the case (obviously it might not be) then as long as I scramble and get all the direct debits set up ('manually' over the phone) at my new bank tomorrow then all should be good. But of course I cannot be sure about this.

Once I have tended to the immediate concerns (making sure all my bills are paid for September) then I will of course make enquiries about whether my credit rating has been affected. And if it is affected in any way then I am going to go medieval on Natwest's ass!

Despite the fact they have no legal obligation to tell u why, they can't treat u like shit. Raise a formal complaint and if they don't give u a satisfactory outcome go to the ombudsman.

Hardly treating customers fairly! Defo put in a complaint ombudsman if no satisfactory responses

Yeah I am for sure going to make a formal complaint to Natwest and/or go to the ombudsman. I would not have bothered until the phone call I got on Friday informing me that my direct debits were all going to bounce. But after that I decided that, as soon as I have done the fire-fighting necessary to sort all the direct debit bounces out, I am going to devote a lot of time to getting revenge on Natwest - and at the very least get some token compensation. They'll probably offer me like £100 as a goodwill gesture or something, so not really worth my time tbh. But I am so annoyed I am going to do it anyway.

Sorry guys, I cannot resist writing a bit more of a rant about banks...

During one of my phone calls to the Natwest I was told that my account was due to be closed on 21st September. Now, the way all my direct debits are set up is that they all go out in the first week of the month, mostly on 1st of each month. So, once I found out my account switch had not gone through, I decided to let the direct debits ride in the Natwest account until the second week in September. That way all my bills for September would get paid with no issues, and then in the second week in September I would begin the process of ringing every company and setting up new direct debits with the Yorkshire Bank. Seems like a sensible decision, right?

Then this Friday (28th August) at 4.30pm I got a phone call from someone at Natwest.

"We made a mistake when we told you your account would close on 21 September. Actually your account is due to be closed at the end of the month. I cannot tell you the exact date, but it will be within the next few days."

This was 4.30pm on a Friday before a bank holiday weekend. And right at the end of the month, i.e. just before all my direct debits were due to go out! And because it was bank holiday weekend I could not do anything to get it sorted.

So this means that from tomorrow every single one of my direct debits is going to bounce! Mortgage payment, all utility bills, mobile, sky... everything! And I cannot do anything about it at all. And they only told me this at 4.30pm on a Friday going into bank holiday weekend. They've proper fucked me lol.

Basically this means that I am going to have to spend tomorrow and Wednesday sorting this out, and also that I must hope that my credit rating is not fucked because of it. It will probably be okay, just a massive ballache. But it is not guaranteed to be cool at all, and I am completely steaming at the Natwest.

I had my HSBC account closed down a few years ago - and they told me it was because of the amount of transactions going through.

"You are using your account like a business account, and we charge people for business accounts"

"I don't mind paying, can I have a business account please?"

"You don't have a business, so no"

"Marvellous. Thanks for that"

So I moved to Natwest. Things were going well with them for a few years until they recently wrote to me telling me they were also closing my account down. I went into my branch and spoke to the manager who was about as unhelpful, dismissive and rude as possible. I asked her to find out why my account was going to be closed down.

"Natwest is not legally obliged to give a reason for our decision"

"Yes I know, I have already been on the financial ombudsman website and read that. However, I would still like to know the reason. Could you try to find out for me please?"

"Natwest is not legally obliged to give a reason for our decision"

"Yes you already mentioned that. I am not legally obliged to hold a door open for a stranger, but I usually try to help people out. Perhaps you could also try to help me?"

"I am not prepared to discuss this matter. We are not legally obliged to give a reason for our decision"

It was not a meeting of minds.

So I decided to open a new account at the Yorkshire Bank. The bank manager was very cool and helpful. She told me that I could use their switching service, which would mean all my direct debits (every bill is paid for this way so there are LOADS of them) would get transferred over from my Natwest account to my new Yorshire Bank account. This sounded brilliant since it would save me about 8 hours having to phone up every company and setting up new direct debits. She also told me they would give me £150 free money for switching accounts in this way. We set it all up the same day and I was told the account switch would go through exactly 8 days later, and I did not need to do anything. I was very happy.

The next week I got a letter from the Yorkshire Bank, and then a call from the manager, telling me that Natwest had blocked the account switch and that therefore they were unable to proceed. I was advised to contact Natwest and find out what the issue was. So I went into Natwest again and spoke to the manager. She was rude and dismissive again, refusing to go out of her way to help. All she did was to give me a phone number to call to discuss it. It was an 0800 number so I was obviously rather sceptical that this would get me through to anyone other than a young kid in a call center who could not help me at all. But she said, "No, no... that number will get you straight through to the account switching team and they will help you".

I phoned the number and of course got through to a poor kid in a call center who clearly wanted to help, but obviously had no power to either find out any information at all, nor to make any decisions. He said he would transfer me directly to the person who makes the decisions. I was on hold for 25 mins and then got through to a competent and confident sounding lady. Turns out she was neither competent nor confident and she was unable to help me either. The only bit of relevant information she gave me was that my account switch had been blocked because Natwest policy is not to allow account switches to go through if they have already marked that account for future closure. This seemed ridiculous of course... if they have told me my account is to be closed why would they block me from having all my direct debits transferred in the easiest manner possible? I pointed this out to her and asked her to make it so that my account switch would be allowed to go through. She told me she was unable to do that, she had no decision making power at all. I requested to speak to someone who DID have decision making power. She said, "Sure, I will transfer you through now". I said, "That's cool. But first, can you please give me the number you are transferring me through to... just in case we get cut off". "Of course, " she said, "the number is 0800..." ... and proceeded to read out the 0800 number I had been originally given. She was going to transfer me back to the same place that had put me through to her!

That is only half the story, and it gets much, much worse. But I have ranted enough. Sorry for the tl;dr nature of this rant.



Cliffs: Banks suck.

If I am going to open a Unibet account do I need to open it through an affiliate to get RB, or is the RB just an inbuilt reward program like Stars etc?

Yes I agree Tal. This has been a super exciting tournament with some amazing games, especially the Aronian game you mention. Aronian has been in a massive slump for over a year, but he is suddenly playing absolutely brilliantly. If you

Amazing first two rounds at the Sinquefield Cup. Insane time scramble between Caruana and Carlsen. Watch the last few mins of this very tense game here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=15102&v=dNgXqOLM7CE

Okay cool, ty for clarifying. My team as it stands is crap (I have never done FF before and picked my team when I was completely clueless as opposed to just almost completely clueless), so I am just going to go ahead with using the WC now I think.

BTW, this FF is really addictive isn't it? I am only in a couple of leagues and have no money at all on them. Yet I am already spending ages thinking about it! With my inclination to get obsessed with things, perhaps it might have been a good idea not to have got into this...

Wait... what? So I should not be using my WC now either?

Yeah as regards the two players from West Ham and Swansea issue... my provisional plan is to replace either Sakho/Gomis with Diouf after this week. Pinnacle of a pretty impressive looking Stoke attack, especially with the Shaqiri signing... and a good fixture next GW. Seem a reasonable plan? And also, is it okay strategy to be making WC choices with next week's transfer plan in mind, or is that fishy thinking?

New version, very different... tried to take your advice (and that of others) into account:

Click to see full-size image.

Remodelled defence, removing Azpi. Going for a two 'premium' and three cheap rotaters strategy in defence with Sagna and Shaw always starting and then choose one of the other three cheapies. Sagna gonna be a reg for next month due to Zabaletta being injured, so chose him over Kolarov to save a bit of money (even though Kolarov has been looking good getting forward so far).

Albrighton is my bench player (although he is gonna start I assume so still a decent sub if needed) and he is only 5.1m... so not TOO much money on the bench?

No Southampton representation. I could choose to have Mane instead of Depay, have Rooney up front instead of Sakho or Gomez, and replace Sanchez with a cheaper midfielder. This would mean I have both Southampton and ManU represented in my squad and have two premium forwards. But on other hand, I might have sacrificed my midfield too much to accommodate Rooney?

Atm I have two Swansea players. Ayew seems to play as a second striker but is ofc classed as a midfielder which I assume is a good thing? Don't know if it is good to have two attacking guys from same team, bit of a gamble?

Hey nuros and silkworm, thanks for advice! Really appreciated.

As regards the captain issue and premium player issue... I could replace replace Depay with a midfielder up to 6.6m and use excess money to have Rooney as a forward (Rooney is in my team now before the WC use). This gives me two potential captains and two premium players. It also keeps ManU represented in my squad (since they play my team NUFC tomorrow this seems necessary!). Then I would be rotating 5.8m and 6.6m players which is a little better, right?

There are not that many decent midfielders for 6.6m or less though. Barkley, Cabaye, Navas, Montero, Kouyate, Albrighton are all possible options - and some of these are substantially less than 6.6m which would give me a little spare in the bank for wiggle room in the future. What you reckon? All options seem to have issues (e.g. bad fixtures coming up, or over-representing one team in my squad, or may not play regularly, or not very good but just had good start to season etc).

Just had friend tell me I am making a huge mistake playing WC early, and it should be saved till later to crush double game weeks. Is he correct in this, or is early WC use a valid strategy?

Using my WC this week. Here is my provisional squad, I have not confirmed it yet. Any comments/suggestions to help a FF first-timer before I take the plunge?

Click to see full-size image.