Chip windows and expiry

The season is split in two. Every chip is granted once for GW1 to GW19 and again for GW20 to GW38, so a season has two Wildcards, two Free Hits, two Bench Boosts and two Triple Captains, not one of each.

The deadline that catches people

An unused first-half chip is gone at the GW19 deadline. It does not roll over into the second half. The second-half copy is granted regardless of whether you played the first one, so sitting on a Wildcard through GW19 does not earn you a third. It wastes one.

Only one chip can be active in any gameweek, so a Bench Boost and a Triple Captain cannot share a double gameweek. Planning those two around each other is most of what chip strategy is.

What the chip page ranks

Each chip is scored against the gameweeks left in its own window, using the same projection everything else on the site uses:

• Bench Boost wants the week your bench projects highest, which usually means a double gameweek where all fifteen play twice, not merely a good week.
• Triple Captain wants the single highest projected captain score, so it favours a premium with two fixtures over one with an easy single.
• Free Hit wants the widest gap between your actual squad's projection and the best eleven available that week. That is typically a blank gameweek.
• Wildcard has no single-week payoff to rank; it is scored on the run of fixtures after it rather than the week itself.

Where it lies

• Doubles and blanks are only known once FPL schedules them. Before the fixtures are confirmed, a "best week" ranking is comparing normal weeks to normal weeks and the ordering will change.
• It assumes your current fifteen. A Bench Boost recommendation five weeks out is scoring a bench you will have transferred by then.
• It does not know your rank. Chips are a rank tool as much as a points tool. Playing one the same week as everyone in your mini-league gains you nothing, and the page cannot see that.