Game Theory in Fantasy Football (FPL) - Types of games
Fantasy Premier League (FPL) is a competitive game, which means that players compete against each other for the first place. There is not a single way to play, or a perfect strategy to win, however understanding the game can help us to take better decisions, and this certainly brings us closer to our goal.
In this series of articles I am going to offer you an analysis of the game from a theoretical point of view, and we will see how this applies to managing your team, I hope this knowledge will be useful and help you to be a better manager.
Game theory is a mathematical field that studies the strategic behavior of agents in situations of conflict or cooperation. It is used to model a wide range of situations, from board games and sports to business and politics.
There are many different types of games in game theory, but some of the most common are:
Zero-sum games: In these games, the sum of the players' payoffs is always zero. This means that for one player to win, another player must lose. Chess and poker are examples of zero-sum games.
Non-zero-sum games: In non-zero-sum games, the sum of the players' payoffs is not always zero. This means that it is possible for all players to win or lose, or for some players to win more than others. The Prisoner's Dilemma is an example of a non-zero-sum game.
Cooperative games: In these games, players work together to achieve a common goal. For example, the hostage rescue game is a cooperative game.
Non-cooperative games: In these games, players compete against each other to achieve their own goals. For example, the game of chess is a non-cooperative game.
Symmetric information games: In these games, all players know the actions and strategies of all other players. For example, the game of chess is a game of perfect information.
Asymmetric information games: In these games, some of the players do not know the actions and strategies of the other players. For example, the game of poker is a game of imperfect information.
Sequential games: In these games, players take turns to make moves. For example, the game of chess is a sequential game.
Simultaneous games: In these games, players make their moves at the same time. For example, the game of rock-paper-scissors is a simultaneous game.
But what this have to do with FPL? Normally games do not belong to a single category, FPL is a non-cooperative, asymmetric information and simultaneous turns game.
What does all that mean 😆 ok let's see an example.
All managers must choose a captain in their team, the captain gets double points, usually managers choose different captains, that makes their score vary (no cooperation). Managers do not work as a team to score points, and not everyone has the same information (asymmetric information), in order to pick players some managers use statistics, others just watch the games, and others use both eye test and data. Finally, everyone has the same deadline and must choose their team before the time limit expires (simultaneous turns). All this has implications that we will see in the next articles.
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Game Theory (FPL) article series: