TooSerious

Hi all.

Time for Best Buys this week has been a little short in terms of thought given some other articles I thought were worth writing and discussing.

But there are two factors to consider when trading this week.

First is - will a player Im bringing in improve my score?  And if youre fighting for overall honours, how much will it improve by?

Second is - what is the strength of the player I am downgrading to?   Will they become a future cash cow, or a reliable backup.

To make trades without improving your overall score at end of year is (in my view) self defeating.   To make trades too often without thinking of the downgrade target means that you can find yourself (particularly with byes abounding) only one injury away from a donut, or at least a score thats going to give you considerable pain in your league match that week.

This week I aim to go through some of the value picks you can get first, then look at the downgrade targets.  Hope you can join me over the break.

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Value Picks for the Round

Defence:
Decent upgrade options abound.  Thats why people are thinking of giving Duigan an upgrade this week.  Names that average around the 100 mark this year and are in that 450 range are: Adcock, Deledio, Enright, Scotland, Shaw, Newman, Fisher and Gibbs.

No way anyone would have all of these players, so probably worth finding a spot for them.   And if you dont have Goddard, hes worth getting now.  Playing poorly and still churning out scores of the 100 variety.   Of the list above, please remember the bye factor for Shaw, Deledio, Scotland, Gibbs and Newman.   They are either having one this week or in the next few weeks.  Dont forget completely the  guys mentioned who are having a bye soon.  After their bye they become just as good to have.   I think Shaw with his early second bye will be a handy player to have because he lets you settle your side down after Round 13.

Therefore my upgrade targets...

Heres  an article on the leading team currently, The Juddicial System, and how to beat it.

First the team:

D: Deledio, Shaw, Goddard, Heppell, Laidler, Grimes, Duigan (Stanley, Lower, Coad)
M: Swan, Murphy, Curnow, Bartel, Liberatore, Harris (Van Berlo, Ward, Buckley)
R: Cox, Sandilands (Fraser, Curnow)
F: Pavlich, Harvey, J Riewoldt, Goodes, N Riewoldt, Darling, Yarran (Krakouer, Matera, Prestia)

Initially you think, there are some key differences here to the TooSerious standard.   No Judd, Selwood, Rioli, Gibbs.  No Franklin or Pendlebury.   Surprised?  I sure was.

The bad news is, lots of these guys appear to be on the cheap, and this team can get them.   But with Judd/Selwood/Pendlebury that comes at the risk of overloading on Carlton/Geelong/Collingwood in the midfield.   Has the top team gone for a gamble that Murphy and Bartel will beat Judd and Selwood over time?  If so, I think in the long run, he might be defeated (just on those selections alone).  But if those selections allowed him one extra premium, this could give the points/tempo edge needed.

So, some advice to catch up:

Back your quality mids to do a number on these guys.  For Bartel to slip back to the pack.
Query for Goodes/Pavlich/Harvey to last out the year without needing a few breathers, bye or non-bye induced.
Get Chapman in and firing in your team and hope Franklin goes on the rampage.

For some secret espionage work on this team and the rest of the top 10, lets have a look over the break!

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Using the patented TooSerious League function (not sure if its just for donors, but its a classic), we have tried to track the trades from the best teams, in addition to spying on the other teams in our leagues.  Haha, the power is ours.

So, without further ado, heres whats going on with the top teams trading from the tracker function!

1) They have been tracked since round 4, and last week traded out Higgins and Franklin for Goodes and J...

We decided on two trades this week, which allowed us to escape any zeros; however all 11 of our benchers did not play - so we were cutting it fine.

We traded Rioli to Jack Roo; and Irons to Polec. As already mentioned, they helped us ensure our starting 22 all played; however Polec was the sub and didnt do much anyway - but he is doing more than Irons...   so I reckon both trades will be good ones in the long run.

Only other decision we really had to make was our captain: We set Cox as our VC in the Thursday night game, and decided to keep his score as our captain doubleup, which turned out to be alright with Swan scoring 104.

Overall wasnt so good. We scored 1861 in round 6, and lost more ground in the rankings - slipping back to 6,189th.

Over the break are our individual players scores::::::

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<table id="scoringPlayers" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tbody>

<td colspan="2">SCORING PLAYERS



<td colspan="2">



1. <a href="http://supercoach.heraldsun.com.au/player/575">Deledio[/url] (DEF)
<td align="right">119



2. <a href="http://supercoach.heraldsun.com.au/player/110">Gibbs[/url] (DEF)
<td align="right">69



3. <a href="http://supercoach.heraldsun.com.au/player/632">Goddard[/url] (DEF)
<td align="right">96



4. <a href="http://supercoach.heraldsun.com.au/player/202">Heppell[/url] (DEF)
<td align="right">84



5. <a href="http://supercoach.heraldsun.com.au/player/444">Grimes[/url] (DEF)
<td align="right">96



6. <a href="http://supercoach.heraldsun.com.au/player/107">Duigan[/url] (DEF)
<td align="right">42



7. <a href="http://supercoach.heraldsun.com.au/player/331">Toy[/url] (DEF)
<td align="right">72



8. <a href="http://supercoach.heraldsun.com.au/player/180">Swan[/url] (MID)
<td align="right">104



9. <a href="http://supercoach.heraldsun.com.au/player/169">Pendlebury[/url] (MID)
<td...

This article could easily have been titled, why pay $8 for a chook you can get for $2!

Ive been looking under the TooSerious hood, and Im seeing a little bit of analysis of the most popular pages; in particular my interest is in what pages are looked at in the Stats references over the past month.

Ive found it quite strange that the sorting on breakeven is not considered to be the most important sort you can do.   The first one I do each week is on average points per game (ppg).  The second is on break even ascending for the upcoming week.

The stats on numbers of people sorting by breakevens were actually beneath sorts on position (understandable to an extent) and the biggest of all, salary movement descending.

Now I know its great for me to watch who has gone down the most $ value, and yeah there is a morbid fascination at laughing at my fellow coaches in my leagues misfortunes, but its not my most important search.   Every week, I look at breakevens, because its not necessarily the price today thats optimal, but the price in the next few weeks.    More on this over the break (just not too much more!)

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The same logic down the shops says "Why buy the chips packet at $2 when I can get it later in the week for $1.45?"   Or more pertinently the inherently silly things we do to buy petrol on a Tuesday (or whenever we deem the cycle to be at its low point).   The absolute grand daddy example, is why buy a rotisserie chicken from Coles at $8 when at 8pm on a Sunday you can cruise in and chomp on a $2 chook?!

The great thing about breakevens, and about the viewing of stats that detail price movements not just for this week, but individual weeks for the next two weeks, is it helps you to time the ideal week to bring in (and trade out) a player.

So - how do you search breakevens effectively?

First - sort by them ascending - its a simple as clicking on Stats, then the heading for the column Break...

So, Ive recent gotten my hands on a copy of the 2011 edition of <a href="http://premiership-coach.info">Premiership coach[/url], and have been asked to give it a review in exchange for the opportunity to give 5 copies way to you guys. For those you who were here last year, I reviewed the 2010 version of this same game which came with a full review of my first year playing it. Im thinking Ill go the same method again, but point out along the way exactly whats different in this part compared to 2010, and for those that never played 2010, what it is that makes this such a great game.

(more over the break)
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First of all, let me just say, things havent been getting done on TS recently because Ive been pouring my spare time into this thing, Im a big fan- and am certainly happy to see another year of development put into it. From first booting it up, you get the feeling that the product is a lot more engaging than it was last year, the whole game is detailed through a newspaper which posts articles on whats going on around the league- which is pretty nifty. On a whole though, what impressed me most of all was that everything looks a nicer. Its easier to follow along with things, easier to manage the troops and prehaps the biggest on of all, its a lot more bug-free than it was last year! Sure, theres the odd bug that Ive noticed, but certainly nothing that makes the game painful to play.


Anyways, to start the review, I fired up a new career and started out as the fresh faced Matty Dayze, former superstar who was cruelly cut down at the start of his career, only to move into coaching and work his way through the ranks to the head coach of the Fremantle Docters- Yes, Im a docter, whooop whoop whoop whoop. (If you remember from last year, the team names are close to real, but not quite.)


As with last year, we started off with a full draft, I had pick 4, so with my first pick, went the strong choice in Nick Riewoldt. Top 3 picks were, Joel...

Haydn Bunton, Dick Reynolds, Bill Hutchison, Ian Stewart, Keith Greig, Robert Harvey &amp; Chris J...

Yep - Ill put my hand up to say I didnt see it happening, but Juddy looks to be on his way to back-to-back Brownlows - and only the fifth player in the history of the game to win three, with his first clear BOG for the year.  I along with the general TS public have him on 9 to date, but he could be on as many as 12.  Considering he had 9 after  6 rounds last year, and finished with 30, its hard to see him polling under 25 with Carlton winning as much as they are.

So its going to take a +25 year from another player to stop (or possibly join) him come September...with Watson the best chance closely followed by Swannie.

Watson is now elite - in a team that looks set to push for top 4.  I have him on 9 to date, along with Judd and Swan, however he leads the TS public tally with 11.  The three are clearly ahead in most betting markets at this early stage in the season.

This weeks votes + team &amp; overall leaderboards over the break:

<!--more-->[span style="text-decoration: underline">West Coast v Melbourne

TS:
3 - M. Priddis (5 - 16th)
2 - D. Cox (7 - 7th)
1 - D. Kerr (1 - 65th)

Holey:
3 - M. Priddis (5 - 15th)
2 - D. Cox (6 - 7th)
1 - B. Ebert (1 - 67th)

[span style="text-decoration: underline">Carlton v Sydney

TS:
3 - C. Judd (9 - 2nd)
2 - E. Betts (2 - 40th)
1 - S. Mumford (1 - 65th)

Holey:
3 - C. Judd (9 - 1st)
2 - S. Mumford (3 - 24th)
1 - E. Betts (1 - 67th)

[span style="text-decoration: underline">North Melbourne v Port Adelaide

TS:
3 - B. Harvey (3 - 25th)
2 - T. Goldstein (2 - 40th)
1 - H. Hartlett (1 - 65th)

Holey:
3 - T. Goldstein (3 - 24th)
2 - B. Harvey (2 - 44th)
1 - H. Hartlett (3 - 24th)

[span style="text-decoration: underline">Richmond v Brisbane

TS:
3 - D. Martin (6 - 10th)
2 - N. Foley (2 - 40th)
1 - R. Nahas (1 - 65th)

Holey:
3 - D. Martin (6 - 7th)
2 - R. Nahas (2 -...

Looking around the grounds I see terrible score after terrible score- reckon youve done well this week if you break 2k! Its been a horrible shocking week in which premium after premium has just plain failed, failed badly!. That said, for the few lucky coaches that managed to avoid the Goodes, and Roos of the round, theres a lot of ground to be made up.

Full review over the break...

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The SuperCoach massacre started innocuously enough on Thursday night with the Eagles playing host to the Demons, and boy- the Dees just didnt show up, falling 5 goals down in the opening term and finishing the game 9 down. Priddis top scored for the Eagles with a 142SC off 33 touches with Bix Cox securing 131SC of 23. Both options were good value as the captains loophole, and many coaches would have been locking them in Ebert got a very nice 116 while Butler (107) and Embley (101) also broke the ton. Darling is looking a magnificent pick up adding 100SC to his totals and kicking 3 majors, while Grimes top scored for the Dees with a 96. Plenty of dissapointments though, with Gaffs 12SC, Tapscotts 51SC and Green with 48SC hurting there coaches a bit.

So, roll around Friday night- the full lockout takes effect and the pain begins. Mumford top scored for the night with a 159SC off 12 touches and 43 hitouts. Judd scored a 154SC off 33 touches in a game winning performance- definitely good for the 3 brownlow votes here (and while mentioning the brownlow, dont forget to get you tips in before Holeys article! ). A bit of a drop to Betts with the third highest score of 114SC with 4 goals and Murphy whos 25 touches made him 110SC- it did come at a cost though with a shoulder looking to have him out for 1-2 weeks. Could mean a donut for a few coaches. Kennedy rounds out the top5 with a solid 108 off 28 possessions. But after that, we start the bad news- Jacks injury saw him score a 70SC, but also saw OKeefe taking up the Judd tag, turning his early good form into a...

So, since Im doing well in the Sportbet fantasy comp, I figure I need to sit down and get serious about my trading. The first thing I noticed- Boy, its hard to trade without TooSerious on hand! No wonder its so damn popular, Ive gotten so used to using this site to play, Im finding it difficult to go back to a time where I didnt have it helping out.

The second thing I thought to myself, people that are new to these parts just wont know how powerful this tool is, and visualising, or putting together a trading plan could be a new thing.

(More over the break)

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Firstly, I want to cover what make a good trade, well, a good one. For mine, there are 4 aspects to any good trade.

Extra points: This is probably the biggest of all reasons to trade. We trade to make our team better so that it can earn us extra points over the year- Points can be earned either through coverage of a missing player, or through upgrading a playing player to a better one- The second of which also costs $$. A good single trade should probably be earning you 300+ points over the year, 400 if youve done very well.

Freeing up cash: These trades tend to go hand in hand with the upgrade trades. When trading, it can be easier to think of a pair of trades as a single one, and do the figures based on that- for example, this week if I were to trade Krakouer down to a rookie, then Duigan up to Adcock, based on a more sustainable average of 100 for Adcock and a 75 average for Duigan, you get a 25ppg increase per game, over 18 games makes for a 450 increase, plus maybe 50 due to Duigans extra bye- however, over two trades, you can say that each trade has earned 250.

As an aside, that extra week worth of bye is really hampering the growth of our cows! So while the above set isnt "ideal", with extra trades- an early aggressive trade as mentioned above isnt as bad as it seems.

Generating cashflow: This can be viewed in two ways- its particularly important early in the season...

So, who used the Captains loophole to hook up Cox as their Vice last night? A 131, its gotta be a brave man to bet against it- heck, Ive put the C onto Sandi.

But hey, if youre a risk taker, or just didnt get onto Cox lets look around te grounds to see if we cant find something that works.

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Ryan OKeefe vs Carlton

Round 16, 2010: 107SC 24 disposals
Round 16, 2009: 185SC 33 disposals
Round 4, 2009: 95SC 16 disposals
round 16, 2008: 199SC 29 disposals

Notes: Certainlty a contender for the C, he shown that when he gets a lot of it, he really packs a punch.

Brent Harvey vs Port

Round 13, 2010: 152SC 32 disposals
Round 1, 2010: 110SC 23 disposls
Round 22, 2009: 136SC 24 disposals
Round 22, 2008: 139SC 27 disposals
Round 15, 2008: 96SC 28 disposals

Notes: The old guy certainly turns it on against the Power. His current form and form against Port certainly point to a big game.

Drew Petrie vs Port

Round 22, 2009: 119SC 14 disposals
Round 7, 2009: 106SC 16 disposals
Round 22, 2008: 107SC 21 disposals
Round 15, 2008: 91SC 18 disposals

Notes: After his big 149 last week, I had to have a looksee at how Drew goes- its not too shabby, but I dunno if Id go him.

Brett Deledio vs Brisbane

Round 13, 2010: 129SC 33 disposals
Round 7, 2009: 120SC 30 disposals
Round 17, 2008: 124SC 26 disposals.

Notes: Boy, Im glad I have Lids in my squad this week- looking at that form, lock him in for a 120! Not enough to knock off Cox, but pretty damn good.

Brendan Goddard vs Adelaide

Round 22, 2010: 102SC 35 disposals
Round 10, 2010: 148SC 29 disposals
Round 16, 2009: 129SC 33 disposals
Round 2, 2009: 85SC 26 disposals
Round 21, 2008: 146SC 30 disposals

Notes: Goddard tears it up against the Crows, he gets a lot of the ball, and generally scores pretty well for it. The caveat though, all the low scores are scored in Adelaide.

Leigh Montagna vs Adelaide

Round 22, 2010: 103SC 34 disposals
Round 10, 2010: 159SC 38...

Just a quick post to remind you all that the chat is up and running over in the <a href="http://tooserious.net/live_scores.php?page=gameday&id=10250349&process=live">live scores[/url]. Feel free to drop in tonight and catch the game.

And if you play the Sportsbet comp, just remember, they dont have the same partial lockout that Supercoach and Dreamteam do.

Keep an eye out for the captains thread tonight and another one if I can find the time- and catch you all in the chat!