When gambling, it is imperative to be honest with yourself, whether it be Poker, Fantasy Sports, Betting Horses, Sports Betting, Casino Games, etc..........know why you are betting and embrace it. If you are betting for a profit, know how to beat the games you are playing and implement the proper analysis and execute proper bankroll management.............If you are betting for recreation, know how much money you can lose and also know that it won't effect you emotionally and make sure you withdraw the amount of enjoyment you seek.
I have a friend who claims to be a winner in sports betting, mind you, he may actually be a winner (although I highly doubt it), but he makes all of the wrong moves and every wager he makes sounds like he makes it for -EV reasons..............the other night he bought 3 points in an NBA game from +7.5 to +10.5. He doesn't understand edges, bet sizing, or any methods of generating a profit, he really doesn't even bet on more than one book. These are all the moves of a person who is betting for recreation..............which is fine, and if you can afford to do it, more power to you.............but just be honest with yourself and realize, I have money to burn, I like to put money on a game to have a little action and be done with it.
Just remember, if you think you can just look at a game and bet it with no research or analysis, don't you think lots of people would do this and don't you think the sports books in Vegas and offshore would be going broke.......YOU CAN'T and THERE NOT.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Positive Expected Utility - Emotional Hedges
I am not a believer in emotional hedges, but I do believe in +EU (or Expected Utility). Utility is an economic term and measures the non-tangible value received from a decision. An example is you may like living in a city with a lot of sunny days because it effects your mood positively while forgoing living in a city where you could earn more money.
I have lots of friends that make emotional hedge bets (a hedge is a bet that may or may not be +EV {expected value}, but will help to minimize losses).
Ex/The beloved Chicago Bears have a Monday night tussle with the hated Green Bay Packers, you want the Bears to win so bad.............so you take an emotional hedge bet and bet on the Green Bay Packers to win the game..................what does this do? It effectively comforts your emotional loss (if the Bears lose) with an emotional win (cash).
Try it sometime if the thought of your beloved team is too much to bear, just remember these bets can only provide comfort and are not a sound way to make money.
I have lots of friends that make emotional hedge bets (a hedge is a bet that may or may not be +EV {expected value}, but will help to minimize losses).
Ex/The beloved Chicago Bears have a Monday night tussle with the hated Green Bay Packers, you want the Bears to win so bad.............so you take an emotional hedge bet and bet on the Green Bay Packers to win the game..................what does this do? It effectively comforts your emotional loss (if the Bears lose) with an emotional win (cash).
Try it sometime if the thought of your beloved team is too much to bear, just remember these bets can only provide comfort and are not a sound way to make money.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Merry Xmas
Merry Xmas all............if you can get a couple of minutes away from the family and the turkey, Full Tilt is offerring 3x points for the holiday, so play some hands and earn yourself a terrible hat or t-shirt.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Fantasy Sports - Nothing Trades
This is a quick hit, but a point rarely mentioned.
A Nothing Trade would be defined as a trade that doesn't necessarily improve either team, but moves players (sometimes of the same position) and same relative value (generally both categorically and absolute) to other teams.
The reason to make these deals is more in the way of creating trading partners.................this is important, because when you do need something down the line, you have an open line of communication with the other team and can more easily create a deal.
I have considered making these types of deals with new teams in my league, mainly just to try and get them dealing. I think leagues function better when there is some trading going on, some ability to inneract with the other teams. If the league is strictly based on pickups and the draft, you really don't have a league that is fluid and therefore you probably aren't getting the most out of your league.
Consider making a nothing trade with another team, just see how it goes, and maybe you'll make them very happy with a new player of similar value, and later you can get a deal done that might help you get something you need.
A Nothing Trade would be defined as a trade that doesn't necessarily improve either team, but moves players (sometimes of the same position) and same relative value (generally both categorically and absolute) to other teams.
The reason to make these deals is more in the way of creating trading partners.................this is important, because when you do need something down the line, you have an open line of communication with the other team and can more easily create a deal.
I have considered making these types of deals with new teams in my league, mainly just to try and get them dealing. I think leagues function better when there is some trading going on, some ability to inneract with the other teams. If the league is strictly based on pickups and the draft, you really don't have a league that is fluid and therefore you probably aren't getting the most out of your league.
Consider making a nothing trade with another team, just see how it goes, and maybe you'll make them very happy with a new player of similar value, and later you can get a deal done that might help you get something you need.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Game Selection
I wrote a series of blogs which I will repost here called "Things that aren't in Poker Books"
The following talks about game selection
Today's entry is on game selection......................most writers give you the stock answer on game selection, FIND A GOOD GAME, I am not sure what that means, so, since they didn't tell me, I will tell you.
Game selection depends on quite a few different factors...............Type of game, Your style, your mood, ante structure, time of day............etc...............
Personally, I consider myself at least moderately competent at a bunch of games, so I need to take all of these items into context when selecting a game.
Type of Game - If you are playing big bet poker (PLO, NLH, etc) you may want a loose passive game to allow you to control the action, even tight passive could work, if you are someone that likes to take control of the table and raise and reraise a lot, If you are playing limit poker, you may might want a loose aggressive game, that builds gigantic pots to allow your ability to understand the math of the game to take control.................
Your style - You ideally want a game that is the opposite of your style, this seems like common sense, but a good game to you, might be a horrible game to me...............example, if you are a loose aggressive player, you might not want a stud hi game like I played the other night on FT, in which the $1/$2 stud game had several pots over $40, you would ideally like the Stud 8 games on Stars that I sometimes frequent which allow enough stealing opportunities to be basically freerolling when you do have a contested pot. If you are a very tight player, a big bet game that is loose might be ideal, so that you can wait for quality hands and still get a lot of action
Your mood - This is rarely taken into account, but it can save you lots of money, everyone has sat down at the table and either felt really passive or really aggressive when they sat (regardless of their normal style), so sitting at tables that are the opposite of your mood is a very smart idea.......................I remember feeling really aggressive and sitting at a $1/$2 Stud8 table on Stars with a 24% 4th street %, which is really low for this level................I sat down and ran over the table and when I did make a hand, I got action because I was the crazy player..............very nice session................on the other hand, if you are feeling really passive, an aggressive Omaha 8 Limit table might be good, you can sit, wait for a huge hand and let the aggressive players build a pot for you
Ante Structure - This should be taken into account along with the items mentioned above...........I will give an example, if i jonesing to play stud, I have 2 options, the $1/$2 game on Stars which has a $.10 ante and $.50 bring in or the $1/$2 on FT which has a $.20 ante and $.25 bring in.................so, if I am feeling loose and gambley, I play on Full Tilt, due to the larger initial pot in a 8 handed game and my larger investment per round, if I am feeling really tight and only looking to play big paired hands then I go to Stars, it is important to know the difference
Time of Day - General rule is that mornings and afternoons are filled with people that are not intoxicated and generally play very nity, the night time (for me, especially the 3 hours after work in the US) or even the weekends are very loose and lots of times you will be playing with people who are having a few drinks to unwind.................see which spot you prefer
All of these factors should be considered when picking a game to play...............more on game selection at a later date (including tournaments)
The following talks about game selection
Today's entry is on game selection......................most writers give you the stock answer on game selection, FIND A GOOD GAME, I am not sure what that means, so, since they didn't tell me, I will tell you.
Game selection depends on quite a few different factors...............Type of game, Your style, your mood, ante structure, time of day............etc...............
Personally, I consider myself at least moderately competent at a bunch of games, so I need to take all of these items into context when selecting a game.
Type of Game - If you are playing big bet poker (PLO, NLH, etc) you may want a loose passive game to allow you to control the action, even tight passive could work, if you are someone that likes to take control of the table and raise and reraise a lot, If you are playing limit poker, you may might want a loose aggressive game, that builds gigantic pots to allow your ability to understand the math of the game to take control.................
Your style - You ideally want a game that is the opposite of your style, this seems like common sense, but a good game to you, might be a horrible game to me...............example, if you are a loose aggressive player, you might not want a stud hi game like I played the other night on FT, in which the $1/$2 stud game had several pots over $40, you would ideally like the Stud 8 games on Stars that I sometimes frequent which allow enough stealing opportunities to be basically freerolling when you do have a contested pot. If you are a very tight player, a big bet game that is loose might be ideal, so that you can wait for quality hands and still get a lot of action
Your mood - This is rarely taken into account, but it can save you lots of money, everyone has sat down at the table and either felt really passive or really aggressive when they sat (regardless of their normal style), so sitting at tables that are the opposite of your mood is a very smart idea.......................I remember feeling really aggressive and sitting at a $1/$2 Stud8 table on Stars with a 24% 4th street %, which is really low for this level................I sat down and ran over the table and when I did make a hand, I got action because I was the crazy player..............very nice session................on the other hand, if you are feeling really passive, an aggressive Omaha 8 Limit table might be good, you can sit, wait for a huge hand and let the aggressive players build a pot for you
Ante Structure - This should be taken into account along with the items mentioned above...........I will give an example, if i jonesing to play stud, I have 2 options, the $1/$2 game on Stars which has a $.10 ante and $.50 bring in or the $1/$2 on FT which has a $.20 ante and $.25 bring in.................so, if I am feeling loose and gambley, I play on Full Tilt, due to the larger initial pot in a 8 handed game and my larger investment per round, if I am feeling really tight and only looking to play big paired hands then I go to Stars, it is important to know the difference
Time of Day - General rule is that mornings and afternoons are filled with people that are not intoxicated and generally play very nity, the night time (for me, especially the 3 hours after work in the US) or even the weekends are very loose and lots of times you will be playing with people who are having a few drinks to unwind.................see which spot you prefer
All of these factors should be considered when picking a game to play...............more on game selection at a later date (including tournaments)
Monday, December 15, 2008
Captain Obvious - Some Low Limit Poker Idears
I have a friend that hates the way I play poker, he tells me, you play the hands so obviously and so straightforward, but everyone still pays you off.....................I read a lot of poker books that tell you to vary your play, mix up your play, blah, blah, blah....................this advice is only good in very specific situations that include 1) You are playing with the same group of people on a regular basis 2) They are good thinking players that pick up on patterns of hand play 3) You know how to play hands differently than optimally and still make money......................most of us do not run into these 3 things falling right in line........................the solution. Play every hand, the best way that it can be played, no matter how transparent you think it looks.................I remember early in my poker career, trying to play lots of hands tricky or to vary my play with the same hand......................Soon, I realized, that 1) I was playing a lot online and rarely knew my opponents 2) In my home game only about 5% of people would even notice I played a hand differently 3) my trickiness was not optimal and was losing me money................
This is when I came to the realization, that I should just play every hand optimally (or what I thought was optimal), that meant, if I flopped top 2 pair in Limit Holdem, I lead right out, no checks and mysterious check raises, just lead right out......................if I have split aces in stud high and a J raise and a K 3 bets, my split aces cap, no playing too tricky, just play it the best possible, you have the best of it, get more bets in................................this is not to say I don't play hands tricky, sometimes that is the best play, like flopping quads in PLO, it is best to play this hand slow and let someone make a fullhouse, so you can stack them.............................this is even more important with bad hands, just fold, no tricky bluffs or ridiculous 3 bets, just make the best play, which is usually folding.
Remember in low limit games, playing the hand the best way possible is always the goal, leave the donk that doesn't know any better to be tricky and then you can use it against him.
This is when I came to the realization, that I should just play every hand optimally (or what I thought was optimal), that meant, if I flopped top 2 pair in Limit Holdem, I lead right out, no checks and mysterious check raises, just lead right out......................if I have split aces in stud high and a J raise and a K 3 bets, my split aces cap, no playing too tricky, just play it the best possible, you have the best of it, get more bets in................................this is not to say I don't play hands tricky, sometimes that is the best play, like flopping quads in PLO, it is best to play this hand slow and let someone make a fullhouse, so you can stack them.............................this is even more important with bad hands, just fold, no tricky bluffs or ridiculous 3 bets, just make the best play, which is usually folding.
Remember in low limit games, playing the hand the best way possible is always the goal, leave the donk that doesn't know any better to be tricky and then you can use it against him.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Fantasy Sports - Thinking Outside the Box
In previous posts, I have written about using data analysis and arbitrage (in the non-traditional sense), and how it is talked about in Moneyball and various other books I have read, and how it can effectively be achieved in drafts in fantasy sports...............I have proven this time and again and so have some of the people who I work with. But I had an interesting discussion with my brother (who is usually my arch competitor, but sometimes collaborator in these leagues) about deal making in fantasy sports, the jist of the conversation was that you should make deals sometimes just to make deals, take the bottom runge of your roster and try and trade it for a similar player on another roster, just use it to open the lines of communication, just use it to get the other team comfortable with making trades with you. I thought about this and realized how this is a really good idea,.............but at the time I was told this, I really didn't join another thought, that was told to me by a different owner............another owner told me of performing pure arbitrage (flipping one player who you have just acquired for another asset and making a profit, ie, trade player C for player B and then trade player B for player A from another team)............this owner told me that it is almost impossible to immediately flip someone, because you have to think that they would've just made a direct deal with the other owner. At the time, being someone who thinks markets are at least semi-efficient, I thought this to make perfect sense.......................but then I got to thinking about it and realized this thought is severely flawed, for several reasons.........
1) Owners may not value all commodities equally. Being someone who uses data to calculate absolute values, at least for the first 2 months of a baseball season, barring major injury or major change in playing conditions (ie playing time severely cut or increased), I have a static value for each player, BUT, this might not be the same value other owners place on a player, so in my mind, in the trade highlighted above where player A may clearly be the best available player, the first owner I deal with might think player C is the most valuable and he may also think player B from his team is more valuable than player A from another team.
2) Not all owners are aggressive in dealing, I have a few owners in my leagues that NEVER offer trades, I mean NEVER, unless it is a draft pick trade, they don't really offer trades, they get their ESPN Insider subscription, read a few sleepers, draft their same old starting pitchers, fill it in with guys who had great fantasy value about 5 years ago and they are finished, never to be heard from again.................but, if you can get ahold of a player in a deal that they really love, you can flip that player immediately for instant value.
3) Personalities, in fantasy sports you are dealing with other owners and their personalities come with them, and possibly the two teams that should've made the deal, don't for some reason other than the fact that the deal makes sense............
So I have taken both bits of advice and decided to make some deals of equal value, just to get the communication lines open...............more on this later.
1) Owners may not value all commodities equally. Being someone who uses data to calculate absolute values, at least for the first 2 months of a baseball season, barring major injury or major change in playing conditions (ie playing time severely cut or increased), I have a static value for each player, BUT, this might not be the same value other owners place on a player, so in my mind, in the trade highlighted above where player A may clearly be the best available player, the first owner I deal with might think player C is the most valuable and he may also think player B from his team is more valuable than player A from another team.
2) Not all owners are aggressive in dealing, I have a few owners in my leagues that NEVER offer trades, I mean NEVER, unless it is a draft pick trade, they don't really offer trades, they get their ESPN Insider subscription, read a few sleepers, draft their same old starting pitchers, fill it in with guys who had great fantasy value about 5 years ago and they are finished, never to be heard from again.................but, if you can get ahold of a player in a deal that they really love, you can flip that player immediately for instant value.
3) Personalities, in fantasy sports you are dealing with other owners and their personalities come with them, and possibly the two teams that should've made the deal, don't for some reason other than the fact that the deal makes sense............
So I have taken both bits of advice and decided to make some deals of equal value, just to get the communication lines open...............more on this later.
A Note on Fantasy Sports Blogs
I will be providing a lot of ideas on fantasy sports, but I will not present much math or proprietary stuff like research, this is the type of stuff you will need to do on your own.............i will provide lots of ideas, but little actual execution, but if you read between the lines you will be able to grasp all of the concepts without the underlying maths.
Good day
Good day
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Vegas Drink Equivalency
Do you like to go to vegas? Do you like to drink alcholic beverages while gambling?
The link beneath is a Mr Delicious special, it shows the amount of drinks one needs to consume, per hour, by game, in order to break even with the casinos. If you are a low limit gambler, getting your max from the drink cart is key, because it is very likely that you are NOT going to get comped to go to N9NE or Delmonico's or even the lousy buffet at the Excalibur.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=per1zePUZBtBOnc3V5gh4bA&hl=en
The link beneath is a Mr Delicious special, it shows the amount of drinks one needs to consume, per hour, by game, in order to break even with the casinos. If you are a low limit gambler, getting your max from the drink cart is key, because it is very likely that you are NOT going to get comped to go to N9NE or Delmonico's or even the lousy buffet at the Excalibur.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=per1zePUZBtBOnc3V5gh4bA&hl=en
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Learn (ReLearning) Fantasy Sports
I have been playing fantasy sports (mainly football) since the 1990's, back then the game wasn't as tough as it is today, or should I say, I perceived the game as very easy, when in fact it was not.
Fast forward to 2007, and I have played a lot of fantasy sports, doing considerably poorly and entering my 3rd year of fantasy baseball, in which I have 2 7th place finishes out of 8 teams.................this is when a watershed moment occurred in my fantasy sports career................it was actually the combination of 2 separate conjoining ideas that spawned the epiphany.......1) Moneyball Michael Lewis' excellent book got me thinking like a true GM, it was the first time (since I first read the book Fortune's Formula) that I had heard the word Arbitrage...........(arbitrage is basically securing a profit based on market ineffeciencies)........2) I had gotten deeper into poker and started to study gambling a little more diligently, the term +EV had recently popped up into my thick skull and I could not rid myself of it................the combination of the two got me thinking that Fantasy Sports are just gambling, with +EV situations (ie, opportunities to draft better, and win money in leagues)...........I realized that in fantasy sports (which is different from actual sports) drafts are the majority of the league...............sure, very occassionally, a team makes a great trade or pick up that propels them to a championship, but most times, the championship is won on Day 1, the draft. The funny thing about this most obvious idea is that almost nobody subscribes to it.......................even today, all the mags you read and ESPN (which sux by the way, but we'll get to that later) and the fantasy sites, etc, all tell you it is a long season, makes moves, stay up to date with your team.................all of this has some relevance, but you realistically need to win the league (or at least get into the money paying positions) on draft day..........................
HOW THE FUCK WAS I GOING TO DO THIS?????
Luckily for me, I had played a lot of poker, and I know people based on this fact, people who like to gamble..................plus, the first league I would try this in, I knew the cast of characters, making it easier.......................also, I had some people to bounce ideas off of.............well........not exactly I guess, I didn't really want people to know my ideas indepth, but I wanted to know theirs. See, one important aspect of gambling is that you take advantage of whatever edge an opponent provides you...........I play in a poker league and routinely, most of my opponents play too many hands, so the edge they give me is that they play weaker hands than I do, so when I do play, I can get lots of money in the pot, with a superior hand...................I felt some of the same types of edges would exist in fantasy sports. I, also am of a train of thought that the people winning fantasy leagues (or any game for that matter) are generally NOT LUCKY, they usually have a strategy that is superior to the other players and whether any of the parties realize exactly what that is, is irrelevant, the only point is that these strategies work. I digress.................so, my first plan was to study previous drafts from this league, as well as listen to anything that anyone (who has done this longer than me) had to say about fantasy baseball.............I studied not only the good teams (which I studied more carefully), but I also studied the teams will poor results, that I felt had knowledge of the particular sport (I could've studied myself in football to come up with the same ideas). JP (the person who runs and routinely wins this league) was nice enough to share all of the old drafts and other items with me, as well as act as a sounding board for some general ideas I threw around (some of which I felt might not be right)................see the idea of my study of this particular case was not only to see what the good teams were doing to win (that was the easy part), but to see where teams weaknesses were and how to exploit them................like in poker, or any gambling game, you need to find an edge.............in most poker games, you can find a few soft players who pay you off too much, or you can find players playing a game they are weaker at (trust me, I won many Pot Limit Omaha tourneys playing against clueless No Limit Holdem players).............
SUBJECTIVITY
After my study, I realized that subjectivity was the main culprit for certain people. These people are knowledgable about their sport, but they have selective memory and tend to believe rumors too readily.....................they won't pick a player because they had a bad year in which they were on this persons team (Don't get me started about Fred Taylor, yes, I am a member of Subjectivity city, or at least I was)................I realized that the worst thing you could say in fantasy sports is "I LIKE", because I LIKE is an irrelevant term................just because you like something, doesn't mean it helps.............I LIKE french fries, but they are about the last thing I need with my currently expanding waistline. Even better is I DON'T LIKE..............I don't like him, because he isn't this, or he isn't that, totally disregarding basic principles of fantasy sports. In order to beat others at fantasy sports, I needed to get rid of Subjectivity and move in with his arch rival objectivity
OBJECTIVITY
Once I realized that totally being objective was the right way to go, I could come up with a better understanding...................I had a meeting with my league partner Jon, about 1 month before the season started, our meeting was to discuss our first round draft pick, of which we had a list of about 10 people to consider............we broke down each player diligently, and figured out who would be best for us, given the many mock drafts we had done and given.................(OH, I almost forgot..........the child of objectivity for me, was statistical analysis, I think the Moneyball nerds used a bit of that)................and using my statistical analysis, we came up with a name, that particular year, the name was Chase Utley................that is hardly significant, what was significant was that we discovered something very important that day, something that should drive people to play fantasy sports better, but I am sure does not.....................when playing around with our database schedules, I mistakenly slide the column over the names...................in other words, just a position, a data line (which was an average of several projections) and a relative league value (remember every league is different, rules, amount of players, teams, etc, which is why fantasy magazines are complete garbage, but that is another tangent)............our players were nameless.................I can't remember who said it, but we agreed that the way to win leagues, is to draft without bias of the names and to take advantage of those who look at the names..................between our data analysis and totally blind (well not totally, but basically) name drafting, a system was born, we would take relative value, all throughout the draft and live with the results.....................this did two things for us.................1) It helped us to take advantage of the ever fluid market which is a fantasy draft..........players values are jumping all around throughout the draft, you see really good picks, really bad picks, you see solid values, huge gambles and the like............our ideals would allow us to take advantage of any situation that occurred. 2) We would never get trapped into a particular style, or get pushed out of one..................I have played in leagues with guys who decide, their strategy is to do A, B and C, unfortunately, everyone grabs the A's, the B's end being not as good as you thought, and the C's are so plentiful that the same caliber of player you drafted in the middle rounds, goes at the end as well.............a poor recipe.
I still remember the first draft that we used data analysis and our fluid market style.................not one person in the room (besides an onlooker) thought we had a snowballs chance in hell at putting together a good team..............anyone playing fantasy baseball in 2007 would realize that Sheffield in the 10th, Sabathia in the 12th and Beckett in the 18th are picks that help you win money.................but that is after the draft, at the time, we were grabbing up VALUE.
I'll have more fantasy sports theories and styles in future articles
Fast forward to 2007, and I have played a lot of fantasy sports, doing considerably poorly and entering my 3rd year of fantasy baseball, in which I have 2 7th place finishes out of 8 teams.................this is when a watershed moment occurred in my fantasy sports career................it was actually the combination of 2 separate conjoining ideas that spawned the epiphany.......1) Moneyball Michael Lewis' excellent book got me thinking like a true GM, it was the first time (since I first read the book Fortune's Formula) that I had heard the word Arbitrage...........(arbitrage is basically securing a profit based on market ineffeciencies)........2) I had gotten deeper into poker and started to study gambling a little more diligently, the term +EV had recently popped up into my thick skull and I could not rid myself of it................the combination of the two got me thinking that Fantasy Sports are just gambling, with +EV situations (ie, opportunities to draft better, and win money in leagues)...........I realized that in fantasy sports (which is different from actual sports) drafts are the majority of the league...............sure, very occassionally, a team makes a great trade or pick up that propels them to a championship, but most times, the championship is won on Day 1, the draft. The funny thing about this most obvious idea is that almost nobody subscribes to it.......................even today, all the mags you read and ESPN (which sux by the way, but we'll get to that later) and the fantasy sites, etc, all tell you it is a long season, makes moves, stay up to date with your team.................all of this has some relevance, but you realistically need to win the league (or at least get into the money paying positions) on draft day..........................
HOW THE FUCK WAS I GOING TO DO THIS?????
Luckily for me, I had played a lot of poker, and I know people based on this fact, people who like to gamble..................plus, the first league I would try this in, I knew the cast of characters, making it easier.......................also, I had some people to bounce ideas off of.............well........not exactly I guess, I didn't really want people to know my ideas indepth, but I wanted to know theirs. See, one important aspect of gambling is that you take advantage of whatever edge an opponent provides you...........I play in a poker league and routinely, most of my opponents play too many hands, so the edge they give me is that they play weaker hands than I do, so when I do play, I can get lots of money in the pot, with a superior hand...................I felt some of the same types of edges would exist in fantasy sports. I, also am of a train of thought that the people winning fantasy leagues (or any game for that matter) are generally NOT LUCKY, they usually have a strategy that is superior to the other players and whether any of the parties realize exactly what that is, is irrelevant, the only point is that these strategies work. I digress.................so, my first plan was to study previous drafts from this league, as well as listen to anything that anyone (who has done this longer than me) had to say about fantasy baseball.............I studied not only the good teams (which I studied more carefully), but I also studied the teams will poor results, that I felt had knowledge of the particular sport (I could've studied myself in football to come up with the same ideas). JP (the person who runs and routinely wins this league) was nice enough to share all of the old drafts and other items with me, as well as act as a sounding board for some general ideas I threw around (some of which I felt might not be right)................see the idea of my study of this particular case was not only to see what the good teams were doing to win (that was the easy part), but to see where teams weaknesses were and how to exploit them................like in poker, or any gambling game, you need to find an edge.............in most poker games, you can find a few soft players who pay you off too much, or you can find players playing a game they are weaker at (trust me, I won many Pot Limit Omaha tourneys playing against clueless No Limit Holdem players).............
SUBJECTIVITY
After my study, I realized that subjectivity was the main culprit for certain people. These people are knowledgable about their sport, but they have selective memory and tend to believe rumors too readily.....................they won't pick a player because they had a bad year in which they were on this persons team (Don't get me started about Fred Taylor, yes, I am a member of Subjectivity city, or at least I was)................I realized that the worst thing you could say in fantasy sports is "I LIKE", because I LIKE is an irrelevant term................just because you like something, doesn't mean it helps.............I LIKE french fries, but they are about the last thing I need with my currently expanding waistline. Even better is I DON'T LIKE..............I don't like him, because he isn't this, or he isn't that, totally disregarding basic principles of fantasy sports. In order to beat others at fantasy sports, I needed to get rid of Subjectivity and move in with his arch rival objectivity
OBJECTIVITY
Once I realized that totally being objective was the right way to go, I could come up with a better understanding...................I had a meeting with my league partner Jon, about 1 month before the season started, our meeting was to discuss our first round draft pick, of which we had a list of about 10 people to consider............we broke down each player diligently, and figured out who would be best for us, given the many mock drafts we had done and given.................(OH, I almost forgot..........the child of objectivity for me, was statistical analysis, I think the Moneyball nerds used a bit of that)................and using my statistical analysis, we came up with a name, that particular year, the name was Chase Utley................that is hardly significant, what was significant was that we discovered something very important that day, something that should drive people to play fantasy sports better, but I am sure does not.....................when playing around with our database schedules, I mistakenly slide the column over the names...................in other words, just a position, a data line (which was an average of several projections) and a relative league value (remember every league is different, rules, amount of players, teams, etc, which is why fantasy magazines are complete garbage, but that is another tangent)............our players were nameless.................I can't remember who said it, but we agreed that the way to win leagues, is to draft without bias of the names and to take advantage of those who look at the names..................between our data analysis and totally blind (well not totally, but basically) name drafting, a system was born, we would take relative value, all throughout the draft and live with the results.....................this did two things for us.................1) It helped us to take advantage of the ever fluid market which is a fantasy draft..........players values are jumping all around throughout the draft, you see really good picks, really bad picks, you see solid values, huge gambles and the like............our ideals would allow us to take advantage of any situation that occurred. 2) We would never get trapped into a particular style, or get pushed out of one..................I have played in leagues with guys who decide, their strategy is to do A, B and C, unfortunately, everyone grabs the A's, the B's end being not as good as you thought, and the C's are so plentiful that the same caliber of player you drafted in the middle rounds, goes at the end as well.............a poor recipe.
I still remember the first draft that we used data analysis and our fluid market style.................not one person in the room (besides an onlooker) thought we had a snowballs chance in hell at putting together a good team..............anyone playing fantasy baseball in 2007 would realize that Sheffield in the 10th, Sabathia in the 12th and Beckett in the 18th are picks that help you win money.................but that is after the draft, at the time, we were grabbing up VALUE.
I'll have more fantasy sports theories and styles in future articles
This Blog
Hi all, as this is my first foray into bloggings on the interwebs, I want to give you a quick summary of what this blog is about. I will be posting on all things gambling, whether it be poker, fantasy sports, casino games, sports betting, prop bets, backgammon, etc............I will do it from the standpoint of a low limit recreational player, trying to eek out some beer money and having fun doing it.
If you want to learn a few things about gamblings, this is the place for you.
If you want to learn a few things about gamblings, this is the place for you.
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