A short list of questions that turn a finished fixture into your next research input. The checklist runs in five minutes; the habit is worth more than the time.
The cheapest research in fantasy is the match you just watched. The post-match review is the desk pass that turns observation into input for the next captain decision. Most readers skip it; the readers who do not, win more often than the average over a season.
The post-match review takes five minutes per fixture. The habit is one entry per night in a single notebook or note-taking app. The format is the same every time: a single line per question, dated and signed.
The post-match review feeds the next fixture's captain decision through three channels: role math, venue history, and differential lists. Each channel has its own update cadence.
The desk applies the same habit to its own reads: every published captain scenario is reviewed against the actual fixture outcome, and the learnings feed the next scenario.
The first pass looks at the result itself: who won, what the margin was, and whether the result matches the pre-match scenarios our desk published. The second pass looks at role-by-role: which fantasy XI picks earned their captain multiplier, which differential paid off, and which anchor selection under-delivered. The third pass looks at conditions: did dew, pitch behaviour, or toss impact the contest the way we expected, and what does that tell us about the next fixture.
None of those passes are designed to make a single match into a lesson in hindsight. They exist so the next read is sharper than the last one. That is the editorial job of a fantasy analysis desk — not to call every outcome, but to keep refining the model so the scenarios get closer over a tournament span.
This checklist was built by walking back through the desk's published captain scenarios for the tournament in question, comparing each scenario to the actual match conditions, and noting where the model was right, where it was wrong, and where the result was noise rather than signal. The goal of the checklist is not to validate any single prediction — it is to surface the categories of error so the next prediction is sharper.
The three passes mirror the desk's own pre-match workflow. Pass one is outcome-aware: did the result match the headline scenario. Pass two is role-aware: which role categories over-delivered and which under-delivered, and whether that aligns with the pre-match read. Pass three is condition-aware: did dew, pitch behaviour, or toss create a second-innings swing large enough to make the pre-match role read irrelevant.
Readers who apply this checklist to their own contests will find that the value is not in the verdict on any single match — it is in the pattern across ten matches. A captain model that gets seven out of ten scenarios right across a tournament window is sharp; one that gets three out of ten is not.