TooSerious

For those who take it way too seriously

<blockquote>Supercoach Gold – what a rip off. As I knew it would be – just a way to line Uncle Rupert’s pockets.

I pity the poor people who pony up the dosh for this when they can just as easily come here, donate some dosh to Walesy and enjoy a much livelier, more well informed and straight out better SuperCoach community.

Hey Walesy – now’s the time to ask for donations … we can find out how much SuperCoach Gold costs and even if we donated a decent portion of that amount to this site, that would be better than giving money to the evil News Crop empire.

And I’m guessing we’re much more knowledgeable here anyway.
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This comment from Chris88 has got me thinking.

When you consider the amount of work that goes into making software like Supercoach Gold and the amount of time it saves you in the year when it comes to researching and making predictions about your team, $20 is not actually that much to pay. Now... $40 for Dreamteam and Supercoach.. that could be pushing it but its still not completely unreasonable.

The question I have, if that is worth $40- how much is this place worth?

We have an excellent, vibrant community here. I do it for the love of it but, unfortunately, servers dont get paid for with love. At the moment - you get most of the functionality of Supercoach Gold (and some extra tools) here for free, but there are perks for being a donor (including a huge one in the works that will be released before the start of the season.) - But the major thing is that donors are what keeps this place afloat and the bills paid.

At heart, this is a community site. We will always try to accomodate what the community wants in regards to upgrades and which direction we take but that requires the communities support to keep going and keep improving so just consider it before blowing your whole wad on keeping VirtualSports in the black. ;)

If you did want to donate, simply head over <a...
Hey guys what a hectic last couple of hours in the January transfer window and especially coming out of England with some MASSIVE deals done at the elevnth hour. Here are some of the Major deals done

Edin Dzeko Wolfsburg to Man City 27 m (note: all values are in pounds)
Darren Bent Sunderland to Aston Villa Initial 18m bid could rise to 24m based on appearnces and goals
Jermaine Pennant (ex gunner) and from Zaragoza made his loan deal permanent to Stoke City for just under 2m
Ben Arfa Marsielle on Loan at Newcastle also made his loan permanent (currently out for season with broken leg)
Man City players Wayne Bridge and Roque Sants Cruz joined West Ham and Blackburn repsectively on season loan deals.
Aston Villa secured American International Michael Bradley on loan from the states.
Birmingham City secured Tottenhams Darren Bently and Rubin Kazans Obafemi Martins on season long loans
Bolton Wanderes have secured Daniel Sturridge from Chelsea on a season long loan
Chelsea went bang on the last day of the Transfer window Picking up David Luiz from Benfica rumoured to be around the 25m mark and Fernando Torres from Liverpool for 50m
Eidur Gudjohnson has joined Fulham from Stoke on loan.
Liverpool also had a massive last day signing Luis Suarez(Uruguays gun at the world cup) from Ajax for 23m and Andy Carrol From Newcastle for 35 m
Man Utd have bought for life after Edwin Van der Saar with the capture of Anders Lindegaard from Alaesunds for an undisclosed fee.
Stephen Ireland has joined Newcastle on loan after a disappointing speel with Villa.
John Carew has joined Stoke on loan from Villa
Sunderlanded have captured Inter midfielder Sulley Muntari on a season long loan
Stephen Pienaar rejected a move to Chelsea instead joined Spurs for a deal worth 3m
Carlos Vela has joined Albion for the rest of the season for some invaluable first team experience
Robbie Keane has joined West Ham on loan

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Alot of other minor deals but, I have...
Looks like in just a handful of hours, Supercoach and Dreamteam will be open for business for another year!

I for one, will probably be a sad case, constantly hitting refresh at and around the 12am mark- in the hope that I can secure one of the first tids. (Yep, some of us are just that geeky!)

There are so many answers that weve been hanging on for. Salary confirmations, CG loading, Positional changes- heck even the exact rulings around the subs and byes will be nice!

With it opening however, it also means that for a lot of your less-serious coaches (but still serious enough to start researching in February!)- youre probably going to be after some kind of refresher as to whats been going on in the offseason. So Ive knocked together a handy dandy cheat-sheet over the break. :)
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Basically, Ive broken it into 4 sections for each team.
Training the house down- which of course, is people that have been training notably well.
Move to the midfield- Because we all love a player that is training with the midfield group.
Other positional changes?- These are generally interesting because not only do they effect the person in question, they also effect the other players in the parts of the ground they leave or move to.
Injury struck- Obvious, this is a player that has been injured. Context or severity hasnt been taken into account, so make sure you google the players that interest you!




Adelaide Crows

Training down the house
I. Callinan, R. Douglas, B. Martin, R. Tambling, D. Talia

Move to the Midfield?
P. Dangerfield, J. Porplyzia, A. Otten

Other positional changes?
None

Injury struck
C. Knights, D. Mackay, S. Schmidt, S. Shaw, B. Vince

Brisbane Lions

Training down the house
J. Redden, T. Rockliff, B. Staker

Move to the Midfield?
None

Other positional changes?
M. Clark (Forward)

Injury struck...
Alright, what I wanted to talk about today is a little plan I had to help plot out the byes. Now, technically, the ticker, once released next week, will be able to assist you in much the same way as this- But I reckon that by setting this up, you get to see a full list of what could be high-risk and it will assist you in putting together a team from here on in.

Firstly, what Ive done is create 5 new watchlists, Ive called them 4, 5, 6, 16 and 19 and what Ive done, is all the players Im interested in, Ive also added them to the appropriate lists.

By doing that, I can look through my squad- line by line, for any spots I might be in danger of donuting due to over exposure in the lines.

(I can also find a bug that prevents people from displaying properly on two different lists- hooray!)

So Im just going to run through some of what I see as the danger lines.
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Round 4 - Saints, Dogs and Lions

Defence:
With Lake having a terrible pre-season, this line is thankfully make less stressful than it otherwise would have been- but with Goddard, Gilbee, Gilbert, Drummond, Fisher and the potentially underpriced Gram and Adcock - youll still need to be careful.

Mids:
With a fair number premiums in the Saints and Dogs, you should be fairly safe here if youre sane about it. The danger though comes when you look at a couple of Brisbane Rookies that are here. Polec, Green, Beams will all be here abouts on peoples watchlists so youll need to be careful!

Forwards:
Roo, maybe Brown- but I cant see too much affecting you here.

Round 5 - Swans, Eagles and Demons

Rucks:
This round could suprise people with Mumford, cox, Jamar and NitNat all taking a holding. But if youve got Sandi and cover, youll be right.

The Rest:
Theres a suprising amount of decent picks in this list. A lot of them are F/Ms, so with some planning, you shouldnt have any issues if youre going after the likes of Jack, Green, Goodes, OKeefe, Sylvia, Gaff or...
NBA Matchup 13

It is hard to believe that we are at the halfway mark of the season already as some teams have already played more than 41 games.  The season is going so quick and before you know it will be playoff time.

This week was the first week where we welcomed the players from Pikus United and El Bonanzas onto our rosters.   I am sure most teams would have been really happy with how their players performed that they received from the lottery.  David West has been a great pickup for me so far.  Some of our fantasy teams have a taken a hit with injuries this week.  Both Marcus Camby and Tyrus Thomas went down with significant injuries which will see them out for a number of weeks.

The big news of the week was that the Carmelo trade fell through.  I am still thinking he will be traded before the trade deadline but who knows where he is going to go to now?  There have also been rumours floating around that some other big trades may occur before the deadline.  It will be interesting to see which teams think they need to “top up” their roster to improve their chances in the playoffs and which teams will start to rebuild for the next season.

Last week, I mentioned that there was tie in our poll to decide how many points should be awarded to the home team during the playoffs.   There have been no further votes on this poll during this week.  If you have not voted yet, please do so as we still do not have a clear majority.<!--more-->

As predicted last week, there were some huge scores in our league this round.

Matchup 12 Review

Stevo’s Nuggets     933     v     Too Seriouseses     804

I was very happy to get the win considering I had the lowest winning score for this round.  My new recruit David West led the way with 190 and was ably assisted by Wall 184, Dooling 125 and Young 104.  Day 3 of this matchup is where I was able to establish a match winning lead by outscoring Walesy by 120...
Alright, got a bunch of fixes on board. Nutted out most of the ones that are effecting usability, so thats nice.

Of note, weve got anonymous comments turned off now, so goodbye spammers!! (Least until they figure out how to create accounts)

Also, Ive added some functionality to the sidebars. You can now find the following there.

The Twitter Feed- here Ill be updating the latest in fantasy relevant football news, be it injuries, or an offhand remark about how soandso is looking at more midfield time.

Latest Player Updates will display the latest updates that have been entered in by you guys into the site, whether its a profile, news, nickname, or just a comment.

Highest Salary Prediction- as youd imagine, this will change from week to week and will display the latest top-10 movers for next week. In short, its to whet your whistle before drilling deeper into the stats.

More importantly though, it opens the possibility of more of the bite-size widgets that I can put down the sidebar, so if theres anything that youd like to see in there, let me know!

As for when we start writing articles again, thatll be soon- Feel free to discuss whatever in this thread here, or start up a new topic in the forum.

One thing though, I reckon we need to create an RMT thread over in the forum for all pre-season RMTs to go into. If you were here last year youd remember that I really dislike doing RMTs until after the pre-season since until that stage, its about collecting information on players. Once weve got as much info as possible, then its more than worth doing it. Until then though, it just becomes an exercise in jumping on the latest bandwagon and critiquing 100s of different teams with 80% of the teams alike. :)

Funnily enough, break each playing into their own discussion and Ill chat with you til the sun goes down ;)
it’s about time to announce that we have a sponsor for our new competition!


<a href="http://www.bladerunnerpropertyservices.com/"><img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/BLADERUNNER-TOO-SERIOUS.jpg" width="470px">[/url]


Shaun from <a href="http://www.bladerunnerpropertyservices.com/">Bladerunner Property Services[/url] has stepped up to the plate! What’s he offered? Well whilst the good folks at Bladerunner Property Services are out there mowing lawns and otherwise dirtying their hand making other peoples yards look awesome this summer, the winner of our iThink competition could be playing their choice of game console package. Think a new xBox with Kinect package, a slimline Playstaion or a Wii with a variety of games would make your year? Then thank Shaun and get into iThink.


<img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/consoles.png" width="470px">


How to play? Its over the break-
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Here’s what it says on the competitions page:

So what is the iThink competition? Its all about predicting a players average SC/DT score over the season. Reckon Bartel will average 120 for the season? Put it in. Think Stanton will get 110 in DT? Get it in there.

Scoring: If you can predict the correct average, rounded down (SC or DT) for a player over the year, to within 2 points either way; and that player plays at least 5 games- youll score a point. Get both SuperCoach and DreamTeam right for the one player and you score 3 points. Score the most points and you win. (in the unlikely event of a tie, the player who got their final tip in first will be deemed the winner.)
Entering: To enter the competition is easy- simply start filling details below and save. Theres no limit to how many players you can predict for and there are no points taken away for getting it wrong, so it makes sense that the more you enter, the more chance you have to score.
Deadline: The competition will be locked for entries...
Howdy all, as you all will have noticed, there has been quite a significant change to the place over the off-season. So Im thinking its probably a good idea to walk you through exactly whats new and how to get the most out of your new login.

So, the first step is to register a new login. Youll need to do this as part of the upgrade involved blowing away the old logins. To register, simply click over on the Register button just right over here. You don’t have to register to have a look around but to get the most out of the new features and the site, you really need an account. It’s free and awesome so get on it.

Now for the new features. We’ve added a lot to both the community and social side of the site so we’ll attack the social side first.

More on that though, over the break.
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Social Features
We’ve got a really good thing going here with our community so we really wanted to offer some more avenues for you guys to be able to talk about the games or just shoot the breeze.

We’ve got a shiny new forum linked at the top of the page where you can chat about AFL (or other sports) in general, offtopic stuff or go further in depth with a conversation that started up in the comments on the blog.

We also have a couple of ways to interact directly with each other- either through private messages when you ‘Friend’ someone or by posting on someones public board. Messages can only be sent to someone on your friend list, so if someone is being nasty, report them to me and drop them as a friend. If they are posting nasty things on your message board- again, its a public space and we’ll be exercising the banhammer if needs be (although, as per usual, we’d prefer not to so behave peoples! ;) ). I want this place to stay intelligent and friendly, so dont feel like youre bothering me if someone is being an ass.

We’re also launching into three years ago by actually having a Twitter page and Facebook Fan page...
As you may be aware Anthak has handed over the reigns to me to do the write-up for the next few rounds while he is moving to Vietnam.   I hope everything goes well with the move Anthak and that it does not affect the performance of your team which has been doing very well recently.

Onto NBA matters, this week we made one of the biggest decisions of the season so far and that is to draft in the players from Pikus United and Team El Bonanzas.  After much deliberation, it was decided that a lottery system would be used with the lowest “Points For” receiving more entries in the lottery.  Hopefully it should make the competition better as it will improve everyone’s team and also the FA list will get an influx of more players that we can choose from.

The other decision this week we have had to make is how much home ground advantage is worth in the playoffs (not that I am going to make it).  Currently the poll is tied at 3 points and 5 points.  Both options currently have 6 votes each for them.  If you have not voted on this yet, please do so which will enable us to have a clear majority.

This week in the NBA has been a relatively quiet week except for the trade rumours surrounding Carmelo Anthony.  Who knows what is going to happen here?  The Heat have lost 3 games in a row, Spurs have continued on with their good form, the Magic have lost a few games on the road and Nowitzki is finally back in the Mavs line-up.

The next week (Matchup 13) is a very busy week in the NBA.  It starts with a huge 13 games on Tuesday (our time) which happens to be Martin Luther King Day.  We should see some high scores this week as most teams are playing either 3 or 4 games this week.

Please read over the break for the reviews and previews.

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Matchup 11 Review

Stevo’s Nuggets     845    v            Team El Bonanzas     531

I decided very early on in this matchup that I was going to use the...
You guys just cant help yourselves! I leave the house for a day and the release/bug report thread becomes a discussion on SUPERCOACH!

Still, I cant fault your passion! :D Lets move it into here though.

Also, when leaving the house this morning, we noticed a certain extra-thick letter sitting underneath the trampoline out front.

All I can say is Im glad I got it today, not on Friday- else this release might have been delayed- now its just gunna delay the fixes!! :D

viva la 2011