TooSerious

Hey guys, weve had technical difficulties this week, namely, my laptops motherboard has died- and Dell in all their awesomeness, has bumped my repair back to next week- for shame mister Dell, dont you realise I have speed issues I need to be fixing?! (And on the speed issues- first up, sorry everyone, were getting hit with some unprecedented traffic of late, everyone looking up their upgrade trades at once- whoda-thunk!? - Ive got a couple of tweak which should optimize performance, but until then, get your research done early, or late at night, cause at the moment, its like TS lockout- everyday!)

So, what to do about captains, well, it appears that Jasmine has gone MIA on her recent adventure, which is very unfortunate as we dont even have the perma-captain to fall back on this week!!
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So, what to do- of late, Ive been doing my darndest to fill in, but this week Im afraid time has got the better of me- so what I am going to do is link to this <a href="http://supercoachtalk.com/good-afternoon-ladies-gentlemen-this-is-your-captain-speaking/">poll taken by the good folk over at SupercoachTalk[/url]

Taking a look there, we can see that Sandi is by far the favourite, and thats not surprising- Playing the hot tick of Richmond with his already hot average sees him be a get looking pick.

Selwood takes out the #2 spot, but to be fair, it is a Chappy-less pole, so I reckon those two would split the votes, again, against the Kangas, they should be good- Looking at the ticker though, while North have been doing a lot of losing of late, that hasnt neccessarily been translating to giving up a lot of points.

Third on the list is Chris Judd, coming off his big game last week, up against a struggling Saints outfit should certainly put up some good numbers this week.

Personally, Im still tossing up between Sandi and Chappy- with a sidethought of Franklin going to Hollywood against the Power- though he hasnt really shown a lot against them in the...

So, its round 7, Collingwood is having the bye, A couple of big forwards in Rioli and Higgins are out, while a couple of new rookies in Smith, Puopolo and Pedersen are all getting a look in.

Sorry about the performance issues over the last week, its been just as horrible for me! Hopefully well be able to get it fixed next week- Once I get my laptop fixed (Yes, Dell has pushed my repair back to next week, so yanno- if theres any Dell competitor that wants to engage in a game of one-upsmanship, drop me an email. )

Now, while the servers have been running poorly, once lockout finishes and the researchers all finish their research, the servers should be back to normal and the live chats will work as they always have.

Therefore- catch you all in the <a href="http://tooserious.net/live_scores.php?page=gameday&id=10250359&process=live">live chat![/url] You can whinge at me about the response times if you want

Lucas Beat the Best article the other day seems to have generated a fair bit of discussion around the traps regarding how many trades one should have made by this stage of the game much of which, in turn, has brought on a bad case of nerves on my part, 7 rounds in and 6 trades down.

A prevailing thought Ive come across is that by trading hard early, those who are near the top of the rankings are selling themselves into trouble later on in the season as injuries kick in and trades are getting thin on the ground and, on the flip side, people who havent traded yet are wasting opportunities to cash in.

This got me wondering, speculation and perception aside, is it a winning strategy to conserve trades or has history favoured the bold?

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Buster Gonads and Blue thunder most helpfully for my purposes, wrote down the stories of their seasons <a href="http://tooserious.net/2009-review-year-of-the-gonad-go-you-good-thing#comments">here [/url]and <a href="http://yscc.com.au/blog/archives/2011preseason/the-year-of-blue-thunder/">here[/url]. Ive pulled out their trades and broken it down so not only can we see how many trades they made and when but we can see them as a % of total trades throughout the year for the purpose of being able to directly relate the figures to this year.

<a href="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Trade-history2.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3026" title="Trade history" src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Trade-history2.png" alt="" width="429" height="490" />[/url]

For those not interested in doing the math, this year with 24 trades at our disposal-
7 trades = 29%, 6 trades = 25% and 5 trades = 21% which means even with Impromptus trade like a fiend philosophy, hes still had 6% less trades than Blue Thunder last year at this point.

I just thought itd be good to throw it out there in terms of helping to plan trades and to help judge how were all...

Wow, it kinda feels like last week again, Rioli out, Higgins out- heck, just watch, there will be another shock forward out- Im sure!

Anyways, fill in the teams as they come through.

Also, while youre waiting, checkout the first copy of the <a href="http://tooserious.net/TSNewsletter.php">New TS newsletter[/url] - Sure its rough, and filled with GIANT FILLER ADS - (Feel free to click on them and buy booze by the way!) - but theyll be changed when we get it live.

Actually, this reminds me though- in the not too distant future (ie- when my computer gets fixed) - you guys are gunna be hit by a nag screen - only once - to sure up numbers for the ol newsletter, so if you like what you see, give it a tick and sign up- there will definitely be much more added to it!

Teams are over the break (Thanks Bearfly!)
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PORT V HAWTHORN

Port
F - Ebert, Westhoff, Motlop
HF - Broadbent, Schulz, Gray
C - P.Stewart, Boak, K.Cornes
HB - Pettigrew, Chaplin, Pittard
B - Logan, Carlile, Trengove
R - Brogan, Hartlett, Rodan
I/C- Pearce, D.Stewart, Hitchcock, Phillips
Em - Salopek, Surjan, Lobbe
In - Pearce, Boak, D.Stewart, Schulz, Phillips
Out - C.Cornes, Surjan, Thomas(Back), Banner, OShea(Shoulder)
New - Simon Phillips

Hawthorn
F - Bateman, Roughead, Burgoyne
HF - Shiels, Franklin, Savage
C - Young, Mitchell, Ellis
HB - Birchall, Gibson, Ladson
B - Puopolo, Gilham, Guerra
R - Renouf, Hodge, Sewell
I/C- Lewis, Whitecross, Hale, I.Smith
Em - Schoenmakers, Murphy, Cheney
In - Whitecross, I.Smith, Puopolo
Out - Rioli(Hamstring), Suckling(Knee), Bruce(Knee)
New - Isaac Smith, Paul Puopolo

WESTERN BULLDOGS V SYDNEY

Western Bulldogs
F - Grant, Minson, Giansiracusa
HF - Ward, Jones, Hill
C - Cross, Boyd, Sherman
HB - Gilbee, Williams, Murphy
B - Picken, Markovic, Morris
R - Hudson, Cooney, Griffen
I/C- Stack, Moles, Wallis, Skinner
Em - Addison, Djerrkura, Schofield
In - Giansiracusa,...

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 -...