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2/16/2010

Cycling: The Landis Case Gets Even Stranger

It seems that pro cyclists are using the computer skills gained from the ubiquitous twitter profiles and putting them to nefarious deeds in a case that has echoes of the Dale Begg-Smith (who has added a silver in 2010 to his 2006 Moguls gold medal) affair.

An arrest warrant has been put out for disgraced doper Floyd Landis after he allegedly hacked into the computer system of a French drug testing laboratory. Landis tested positive for testosterone in the 2006 Tour De France which was odd in itself, as testosterone is easily detected compared to other methods available at the time (such as EPO). When presenting his defense against these allegations, Landis allegedly used documents which belonged to the French anti doping authorities (obtained through these hacks). An email with a trojan horse virus was allegedly sent from the computer of Landis' coach Arnie Baker, who is also sought by the French authorities. The trojan horse also provided for the removal and change of some documents in an attempt to show incorrect testing procedures.

Landis has fought hard in an attempt to clear his name, appealing to the Court for Arbitration in Sport and spending around $2 million in legal fees. He has had no success, except eating up most of WADA's legal budget. Landis has been unrepentant, and although the ban from his Tour De France doping has expired (in January 2009), he has only been able to get rides with minor teams such as OUCH and Cyclingnzshop.com. This arrest warrant is only valid in France, so with Landis recently only racing minor events, primarily in the US he may choose to simply avoid France and trial. I for one, hope that he faces the judgement, if only for the media circus that would result. For more details, check out cyclingnews or SBS cycling central.

2/10/2010

N00bTeam - AFL Dream Team 101

So you've never played Dream Team before, but your mates at school/work/family are always banging on about donuts and cash cows so you've decided to take up their challenge. What is this Dream Team stuff anyway?

The Very Basics
Dream Team is a game where you (the DT player) select a virtual team of 30 players. Each week you select 22 players from that 30 to score points based on their real life performances. These 30 players must be selected in positions (backs, midfielders, rucks and forwards) with each player having a defined position (or occasionally multiple positions, but we'll get to multipositioning later). The playing 22 will be 7 backs, 6 mids, 2 rucks and 7 forwards and there are 2 reserves in each position. Each player has a price which is based on their average point score from the previous year. The total price of all your 30 players must be below the salary cap of $7,962,500. Sounds simple, right?

Simple Strategy
You also get to select a captain who scores double points and a vice captain who fills the captain's role if your designated captain doesn't play. The easiest thing to do for captaincy is to just pick the player with the highest average. If you want to get more involved, read Calvin's Captains on DTTalk. There is no point spending much money on your reserve players. However, you will want a reserve in each of the main positions (back, mid, fwd) selected as an emergency who will cover any starting players who do not play. Unless one of your on-field players is injured, they will not be in your 22, scoring points. A general rule is to not pick anyone on the bench who is more than $150K. This allows you to spend more money on your point scoring players.

However, you do want your bench players to be playing in order to provide cover for injuries or to improve your trading prospects. Look at young players, especially high draft picks. A player who isn't playing cannot score you any points. Thus, make sure that the players you pick are (1) At least on the fringe of their team's best 22, (2) Not injured (3) Not suspended. You can substitute in a reserve if one of your players has a short term injury or suspension (or is just dropped, because they are shit), but if they are out for more than a few weeks you will need to trade them out.

Trading
Trading well is what separates great from good dream teamers. Sometimes you need to use a trade to replace an injured or non-selected player. But other times, trading can significantly improve your team. First rule of trading: Don't trade before the teams are announced. Teams for the coming weekend of matches are announced at around 5pm on every Thursday. It really screws your team if you trade a player in to cover an injury, and he is immediately dropped.
Player prices vary through the season based on their form.

A young player who started off as a cheap reserve who gets regular game time will increase in price. You can use this to your advantage by trading him out for a different cheap reserve who is yet to go up in price, netting you a cash profit. You can then spend this cash profit to upgrade a mid-range starter into a premium player who has had a few weeks out of form. Player prices change based on their last 3 (non-zero) scores. So when a rookie debuts, you have 2 weeks where he will remain at base price in which to determine whether he is good enough to trade in.

Initial Team Selection
Don't just pick a player because he is your favourite player or plays for a team you like. Every player you select should have the potential to be either (1) a "keeper" who you do not need to trade out at any stage and will knock out consistently high scores or (2) a "cash cow" who will increase significantly in price and be traded out during the season.

A simple way to determine whether a player is worth picking, is to use the "Raines Rule". With the RR you balance the possible risks inherent in picking the player (is he injury prone, old or on the fringe of his team's best side?) with the rewards (what type of average can he achieve if everything goes right, is he going to make a stack of money for you or be a keeper?). If a player is injury prone and on the fringes of his team's 22, with an average short of being a keeper then even if he is severely underpriced, he may not be worth it.

Even with your keepers, look for players who are going to improve their average. This means you will be buying them for less than they are worth, and consequently can have a better team.
This year, if players are selectable in multiple positions you can swap them between those positions if you have another dual position player who is in the other position. This can help you cover donuts or potentially improve your trading prospects. However, a spud who is dual positioned is still a spud. Only use dual positioning as the reason to pick a player when deciding between two otherwise equal options.
Terminology
DT=Dream Team
donut= a score of zero points
cash cow= a player who will go up significantly in price
spud= a dud player who will never score decent points
SC=supercoach (the inferior version of DT)
gun= one of the top players in his position, a superstar of DT
keeper= one of the better players in his position, a player you would be happy to have from Rd1-Rd22
lock= a player who you are certain to have in your team (referring to preseason discussions)
on the bubble= a young player who has played 2 games and whose price will go up after he plays another game. If you want to get him in, do it now
junk time= the last few minutes of a game after the result is decided (a player who scores good DT points in this period is referred to as junking it up)
abc= Ablett, Bartel, Corey. Not in widespread use since Corey dropped his output, but these 3 were 3 of the biggest guns of the past few years

Leagues
If this is your first year, you probably won't beat the 200,000 or so likely players overall. But you can still win something by beating your mates in your league. You can have 3 leagues, which run in a head to head format, where each week (from Rd 4 to 18) you play against a different player. At the end of this, there will be a finals series in the same format as the actual AFL series for both the top 8 and bottom 8 (as separate competitions).

You can use the 'coaches box' chat to exchange jibes with your mates to psyche them out, or for general whining. There is nothing more dull than a quiet coaches box in a league. The Rushed Behind is running a league which is free to join for readers of this blog (or those invited by readers) with the code 192161. Enter this as the code when you join your second league. If you make your own league for your mates, then make sure they all get the code to enter.

Most Important Advice
Have fun!

2/01/2010

AFL Dream Team 2010 is Now Open!

And only 52 days, 17 hours until the first lockout! Click here for the Dream Team site, where you can enter.

The Rushed Behind has a league so enter the code 192161 to compete with the best DT minds in the business. There have been some significant changes to the game this year. In no particular order they are:

-Multiposition players can be swapped between their positions (swap the B/M in your backs for the B/M in your mids)
-Partial lockout for round 1 and split round, where you can make changes after the first Thursday game to your selections who aren't involved in said game
-If you register your team before the NAB Cup, you will be able to see how your team performs in these trial games
-Trading via the watchlist (quicker trading)
-See who is online in your league (code 192161)

Unfortunately, the discounts (given to some players from the standard formula of Magic number*last year's average=price) seem entirely arbitrary.
Having a quick glance gives you examples which just don't add up.
For example, Brent Staker played 6 games at an average of 53.5. He doesn't get a discount.
Adam Cockie played 7 games at an average of 58.7. He gets a 10% discount.
Clinton Young played 5 games at an average of 65.8. He gets a 20% discount.
Danny Meyer played 3 games at an average of 49. He gets no discount.
Ryan Cook played 2 games at an average of 62. He gets a 30% discount.
Brodie Martin played 2 games at an average of 71.5. He gets a 40% discount.
Jaxson Barham played 6 games at 71.3. No discount here.
Shaun Burgoyne played 9 games at 79.6. 10% discount.
Finally, Graham Polak played 2 games after recovering from serious head injuries after being hit by a tram at 34. No discount.

I can only presume that Virtualsports have made an arbitrary decision about which players were out because of injury and who was out simply because they didn't get picked. Or maybe they've made decisions based on making the game 'even'. The only general rule I can determine is that if a player played more than 10 games, they definitely don't get a discount, but below this it is undeterminable.

And finally, Goddard is still eligible as a Back, but is now dual positioned as a Mid also. Thats handy.

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