Anatomy of a Live Draft

assumed it was directed at me since I'm the one 'bellyaching' about copying.

Anyway-- up to now was actually enjoying this entire interaction quite a bit, since we all so rarely talk in a group of folks like this.

But hey, its not a party until some uninvited guest drinks too much Kool-Aid goes jerky and starts spouting off.

100 percent agreed, Salty. Hope we can keep this discussion on topic. It's one of the most interesting threads I've read on the boards since...well, since Nev temporarily retired.

Yeah, there are so many ways to skin the cat in this game that the really good managers like Druid and Salty can figure out a way to win without getting all their favorites. And if, say, you get Ruth and Vaughan for your first two picks, you have to be a blithering idiot to not grab all the LH bats you can early. Everyone who has done more than a few live drafts has some sense of what order to take them in. So it's hardly plagiarism.

It's funny that Druid thinks this is a problem, too, since he was a very good chess player in his youth. In chess, everyone copies everyone else's moves, especially when someone dusts off an old opening with a new twist. And it's much worse, now, with the top level players all using engines to find new ideas, which, of course, anyone else (even me) who has the same engine can find, too.

In any case, the top 5 rounds are just staking out positions, the real nitty gritty of live drafts is the middle rounds where the bargains can be found.

What relievers do you take? Hint, you gotta have some idea what kinds of teams your division mates are building.

Who has fallen out of the first 5 rounds that shouldn't have, and how and when can you grab them? Or should you grab them at all if they don't fit your plan?

Especially after round 10 - at that point you need to fill out your team as best you can. Every draft is different, if someone took your favorite top 6 guys out from under your nose, you can still bamboozle him by grabbing the role players he needs to fill out his team.

But the biggest question is, If you see a guy take your favorite top 3 picks with his first 3 picks, why in hell do you let him have #4? Riddle me that, Batman!

But the biggest question is, If you see a guy take your favorite top 3 picks with his first 3 picks, why in hell do you let him have #4? Riddle me that, Batman!

This is an excellent question. The answer is because Ive already gone a different direction.
Picks 1-6 are largely pre determined- occasionally someone will grab maddux there, but not often.
As noted Ive picked 8-11 probably 75% of the drafts, maybe more. SO, I was forced to develop strategies for picking there.

Some things might seem really really obvious-- but people weren't doing them.

One small fun anecdote-- Willie Mays. Yeah, hes often picked 7-10. But for whatever reason, few managers thought to play him other than CF, where perhaps his greatest value is. A few managers even assumed I had no corner (RF) in a couple drafts and thought to make me pay high for one in a trade---even asked who I was playing in RF since I had Mays, DiMaggio and Josh Ham on my roster. This happened at least 3 times- with experienced managers-- not newbies.
Simple right?

Now whats important to me here is Mays value, which in LD the ability to pivot gives you more chances to grab someone else like a DiMaggio in round 3 or 4.

There are tons more small ones like this, none of which are rocket science, but each one lets you do something else.

My point is that its not someone grabbing my faves-- which Ive got-- my draft depends on which directions I'm forced to go, but when someone asks you who your RF is and next week they draft Mays DiMaggio and Ham, Yeah its frustrating as hell-- even when I'm drafting completely different guys. (how bout when you ask em-- they say no its just coincidence?)

PS-- of course if you can get Ruth and Arky id expect you to grab lefties-- or you even go lefty or righty and grab guys that go there, no one should bat an eyelash at that.
or even THIS draft when someone grabbed Hughie in the 7th rd before me where I often grab him-- they clearly did it b/c they were building a small ball team, not copying in any way shape or form.

Not just in my youth with chess. Beat four grandmasters so far in the past two weeks -and not at blitz chess. Chess and copying is interesting to view over the 45+ years I've played competitively. Back in the 60's and 70's there wasn't even much chess literature outside the Soviet bloc and until 1966 not even Chess Informant existed. So if you were a strong grandmaster and you came up with a major innovation it was pretty much yours for about 6 months, until the next Chess Informant was published. Today in the computer age, if you find a strong innovation, the entire chess world knows about it the same day. In this sense chess is like science, there is an extensive knowledge base that exponentially builds upon itself, but you have to have mastered the fundamentals in your field to not get completely lost with the surfeit of burgeoning knowledge. And a lot of chess players spend an inordinate amount of their time and energy studying openings and often lack fundamental knowledge of endgames and even middlegame tactical motifs and strategic concepts. My point, admittedly somewhat oblique, is that copying innovations in chess is just part of the game, but there is often a hidden cost to doing so, one tends to neglect the fundamental building blocks focusing on the trees and not the forest. With strat, blatantly copying whole teams as Mr. Stevens did, doesn't really have a precise analog in chess, so the fact that it happens in chess doesn't really transfer to SOM. In order words, my chess experience with copying doesn't apply to my issues with copying in SOM. Rather, SOM wholesale copying feels to me like someone copying your homework and then getting a better grade than you in a class where they did no work. In the end the cheater loses out because they don't learn and understand, but it is still aversive to have that experience. I think the same thing applies in SOM. I actually don't have a major issue with copying in live drafts, it is just a minor irritant that comes with the territory, given the transparent nature of live drafts. My issue is with some jerk copying a past team of yours and then you losing out on 15 of 25 picks in the auto draft when you are used to only missing a handful of picks. So far I'm 5-1 in that league while Mr. Steven's is only at .500 so it is not a fatal issue, just annoying.

Where do you play, ICC or Chess 24?

ICC. Mostly play 15 0. Play Avrukh's Catalan based repertoire as White, Noteboom and Meran as Black against 1.d4 and the Sicilian Kan against 1.e4. Used to be more of an attacking player in my youth but am stylistically now more like Petrosian and Smyslov, thus my Petrosian name here. As I've gotten older and my intuition has gotten better, I strive for harmony in my positions. However, as Black against 1.d4 I like to mix it up, thus the Semi-Slav based approach. Get a lot of free points with the Noteboom and against stronger players who essay the Marshall Gambit to avoid the Noteboom. Repertoire as Black is fairly narrow, but the openings I play I know well. Prior to adopting the Catalan about 10 years ago, used to score better with Black. Been playing the Kan since the 1969 Petrosian-Spassky WC match.

Thanks.

OK back to the topic. Druid won 2 of 3 in my park in the first of our 8 series. His strategy was simple - bean Josh in his first plate appearance and have him miss the series. Worked like a dream. I am now 1-3 against lefties. I doubt that will continue. Druid's strategy is unreliable at best.

But, like I said, he is the best at this form of the game.

Actually my strategy was to throw both my lefties at rburgh in Dunn. In response he puts 8 right handed hitters in the lineup. Now if you take the average Diamond Dope batting rating of his lineup vs lefties in Dunn vs righties in Dunn you find that his lineup vs lefties in Dunn averages 1.1 batting rating unit better than his mean batter rating vs righties. If it weren't for Josh Gibson, righties would have an average of 2.2 units of BR better for righties. My plan was to put both Sale and Slim on quick hook so that I could bring in righty relievers to face 7 righthanded hitters, Caminiti and Brouthers. Then if he subs for his lefties we bring in our lefty relievers. Win-win there for me, on paper.

AS it turns out, Sale and Jones both pitched complete game wins allowing a combined 3 runs and 8 hits in 18 innings pitched. Sale won 6-2 and Slim Jones won 10-1, Matty lost 5-4 in the final game of the series. Anyway, not bad for an away series in a maximally unfriendly park for my team. When next we play it is in my park and he will not see any lefty starters ever in my park. In my park there is a vast disparity between his lineup vs lefties and his much weaker lineup vs righties. That series should be FUN!

waiting for both of your teams to come slightly east and maybe north?

guess it all depends on where west is.