It’s been a long while since I posted something here in HTmy, life wasn’t like 5 years back when I just started playing Hattrick or a few years back when it comes to setting up HTmy.

Of late, I’ve been really busy with my schedule – it’s not an easy task, having a company to manage while attempting to maintain multiple blogs (Tech, Food, Events Listing, Personal and Hattrick).

So I thought, maybe I should write an article on how to cater to busy schedules.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been on the road for a while, thankfully flying on a plane rather than stretched on my back the victim of road kill. The silence is of course deafening, especially to my loyal readership of 2!

Back to the topic, I’d like to share about my experience playing attack on wings or AOW (which sounds too much like my groan of pain after being upset by cipan a few weeks ago!). For a wing trainer, it is a matter of when rather than if our wing attacks exceed our central offensive ratings. AOW gives us the option of increasing our attack composition along the flanks. Now while I usually prefer to sacrifice one wing and play one of my strikers normal, AOW is actually an interesting strategy to employ, especially when up against a team with weaker wingbacks. My reason for sacrificing one wing has to do with unpredictably rather than focusing on a particular chink in the opposition’s armour. Still, I have employed a full fledge AOW to good effect before.

Note than AOW does not increase your overall chances nor does it strengthen the wing attacks; it merely attempts to distribute the attacking instances with a higher weightage for the wings. The downside however is the reduction in central defence ratings and not, contrary to popular beliefs, adversely affecting midfield possession.

In closure, let me just highlight the mighty exploits of Accidental Mel. Having started the game a little later than me, he has exceeded all expectations by reaching the Piala semis. I have a feeling he may go all the way and that would be a great feat for a fellow winger trainer. For all survivors in the last 4, I take my hats off to you and may the force be with you!

Left, Left, Right, Left.

Right, Right, Left, Right.

Hang on, this is hattrick?

Well, I got this from the former Hattrick Masters winner, of which I can’t recall the name, as he posted in the Global Conference something like “As in masters no one team can afford to lose in midfield and Central Attack, its all like dancing of where we need to guess whether to attack on the left or right.” How enlightening, as it is widely believe that Central Attack contribute approximately 40% of all normal chances while the other two side contribute 25% each and Set Pieces 10%. Therefore it is understandable how Central Attack would be causing great peril for those who ignore it. In order to win or at least be competitive in midfield, therefore requires team to utilize its wingers post or at least one of them to be played as inner midfield or at least playing winger towords middle. Thus only one side attack can be utilize in addition to the upmost important central attack. In response, many team also sacrifice 1 side of their defence, that is, by playing 2 central defender to protect them from central attack.

How does this help? Well, if we match our opponents midfield, taking 10 normal chances, we will get 5 chances, of which most probably 2 to 3 will come from center, 1 to 2 from left and another 1 to 2 from right. Therefore ignoring 1 side defense will risk you of conceding 1 to 2 goals. Make sense? Maybe, if the set-up confidently allows your offence the high chance to score 2 or more goals, of which a great central attack and 1 side attack allows!

Ofcourse, AIM and AOW are supposed to modify the ratio, especially since HT announced that they have fixed the AOW’s bug, but the reduction in Central Defense (AOW) or Side Defence (AIM) make them less attractive.

I must say that I have been amazed (and still wonder) on how our former U20 coach toong managed to get most of his guesses right during his U20 matches, something I have yet able to do in the NT…

So keep them guessing…… Left or Right?

Genuine Thai Tom Yum and shrimp cake can really send me up to culinary heaven. Unfortunately Aro King’s sms brought me down to earth in a resounding thud (!)… simple read “you lost 0-2…” Remind me to bar his calls and sms whilst overseas… okok, thanks for the update bro. Like a good neighbour, Lam knew that I was on business trip and was merely keeping me updated (and ruining a perfect meal at the same time!)

The lost to Scorton Rovers was not unexpected. In a world of equals, his team was simply more equal than mine on each seven areas of ratings. Added to this was the fact that my first choice striker and set piece taker was in HT hospital and my magical playmaker was suspended from the game after accumulating 3 yellow cards, which meant that he was literally on “sale” as the game was on. Why? Well, that’s what today’s diary is going to be about.

Tālivaldis Kaktnieks was purchased at the end of last season as part of my preparation for my new series. I failed to realize however that he was close to celebrating his birthday and that his previous owner had still been training him – hence his salary increased by almost RM 200,000/week. This meant that I had surpassed my salary cap by some measure. Even more worryinng was the fact that my see-saw performance and need to periodically PIC hurt my gate receipts, compounding my financial management. Once I realized that I would be KOed from the competition, the decision to sell was easy…

You see, I am a firm believer of wage optimization. If you take the trouble to use alltid (www.alltid.org), under the “main page for” your series, on the left hand menu under sub-section “teams”, you will find an item called “Per rating”. Click on it! You will find a salary per hatstats ratings table that measures your wage efficiency. This shows how much you are paying to acquire your current ratings and needless to say, the lower your salary per rating, the better – as the table suggests.

Of course there are other important factors like the relative strength of the teams in your series and national team interests, but generally speaking, the lower your salary per rating, the better your financial growth (OK, I concede that demotion does little for growth… that’s why it’s called the economics of HT)

I am a firm supporter of wage efficiency and despite the level of competition in my series, I am committed to making this work. So in a way, getting KOed by Scorton Rovers (the rogue!) may be a good thing as I find myself back on track to grow and hopefully not get demoted!