You're Getting Older...

On Saturday I spent the whole day in Denver, playing volleyball at Wash Park and at the Green Day concert (both awesome). On the day I took in one glass of beer, no other alcohol, and no drugs.

2010 NFL Preview Part One: Fantasy Primer

Draft Do's and Don'ts
Matthew Berry's 2010 Manifesto

Last year at this time I outlined “The Strategy” for fantasy football drafts. The Strategy was based on the disproportionate value of running backs in fantasy, their relative shortage, and the opportunity cost of selecting quarterbacks and wide receivers in place of them early in the draft.

Running back is still the crucial position in fantasy football, but the landscape of NFL running backs is changing quickly. Most teams used to feature one primary running back for most of their plays. Now most teams feature a two-headed monster or platoon. As a result, there are more running backs putting up decent fantasy numbers and fewer putting up big ones.

Meanwhile, the wide receiver position hasn’t changed much. Thus, many of the same second-tier WRs who used to be less valuable than the second-tier RBs are now more productive. The same goes for tight ends and QBs. No longer is “The Strategy” appropriate. You will be able to find serviceable running backs late in the draft or even add them off waivers during the season.

While the overarching strategy of fantasy football drafts may be dissipating, the importance of shrewd interior tactics is increasing. Drafting wisely is all about understanding the “bubbles” inherent in predicting fantasy results at the different positions. The “bubbles” are the gaps between tiers of predicted value of the players. For example, there are five “sure-thing” QBs entering the season:

Drew Brees
Peyton Manning
Aaron Rodgers
Tom Brady
Tony Romo

If you wind up with any of those guys, you’ll be feeling comfortable with your quarterback. After this, there is a bubble. If you don’t get one of the top five, you might get one of these two:

Matt Schaub
Philip Rivers

QBs who should put up big numbers but have asterisks attached. After this you are straight-up gambling on unknown quantities, and will go into the season feeling a little queasy about your quarterback situation.

Five guys who could be strong, but could flame out:

Brett Favre
Jay Cutler
Kevin Kolb
Donovan McNabb
Eli Manning

Five with potential who you wouldn’t feel comfortable with in your opening day lineup:

Joe Flacco
Carson Palmer
Matt Cassel
Kyle Orton
Matt Hasselbeck

Five young guns with sleeper potential:

Matt Ryan
Matt Leinart
Alex Smith
Vince Young
Jason Campbell

And one total asterisk:

Ben Roethlisberger

Everyone else should be avoided after this point, though a couple could emerge and serve as emergency starters as the season progresses.

At running back, there appear to be seven “sure-things” entering the season:

Adrian Peterson
Chris Johnson
Maurice Jones-Drew
Ray Rice
Frank Gore
Michael Turner
Steven Jackson

If you want to win your league, nabbing one of those seven would be a good place to start.

There are five other “feature backs” who could easily wind up with monster seasons:

Cedric Benson
Rashard Mendenhall
Shonn Greene
Ryan Matthews
Ryan Grant

And then a mysterious crew of guys who have potential but might wind up losing carries and touchdowns to teammates:

DeAngelo Williams
Matt Forte
Jamaal Charles
Beanie Wells
Joseph Addai
Pierre Thomas
Ronnie Brown
Jonathan Stewart
Felix Jones
Jahvid Best
Clinton Portis
Knowshon Moreno
Jerome Harrison
Steve Slaton
Arian Foster
LeSean McCoy
Justin Forsett
Michael Bush
Reggie Bush

There are just three “sure-thing” WRs – though some might argue Andre Johnson is the only guarantee here.

Andre Johnson
Greg Jennings
Roddy White

Then six guys who could easily wind up with the best numbers, but have some minor baggage attached:

Reggie Wayne
Calvin Johnson
Randy Moss
Larry Fitzgerald
Miles Austin
Marques Colston

With just nine Tier I and Tier II receivers on the board, their value becomes paramount. Not everyone in your league will have one of those top guys, and those who don’t will be gambling from the beginning.

After those first nine it again becomes muddled:

DeSean Jackson
Steve Smith (Panthers)
Steve Smith (Giants)
Brandon Marshall
Mike Sims-Walker
Michael Crabtree
Dwayne Bowe
Anquan Boldin
Chad Ochocinco
Donald Driver
Hines Ward
Pierre Garcon
Mike Wallace

I believe shrewd drafters should pick their tight end – and that is singular, you shouldn’t be drafting two tight ends – late in this year’s draft. The position is deep, particularly in the second tier. I will be happy to go into the season with a Miller or Carlson. There is no reason to get a tight end early – unless you go for Clark or Gates or think Vernon Davis is still improviing – when you can wait and get a Tier II guy late in the draft. I have TE broken down like this:

Tier I

Dallas Clark
Antonio Gates

Tier II

Vernon Davis
Brent Celek
Tony Gonzalez
Jermichael Finley
Jason Witten
Zach Miller
Kellen Winslow
Visanthe Shiancoe
John Carlson

Tier III

Chris Cooley
Owen Daniels
Dustin Keller
Heath Miller

If you pick a defense or kicker before the last two rounds, you are a fool. You have a better chance predicting Patriots running back totals than predicting defensive fantasy stats. Your mid-round energy is better spent mining sleepers. General rules for both defenses and kickers: pick them from good teams, and substitute liberally based on matchups during the season.

Preparing a spreadsheet for your fantasy draft will greatly aid you in the drafting process. You will be aware of how each roster is filling out, and in which position each drafter is deficient. This will help you estimate when each bubble is going to burst. You can then attack the bubbles before they dry up.

My spreadsheet has three pages. The first is a ranking of all relevant players “on my board”, broken into fourteen tiers. The second has four columns, QB, RB, WR, and TE. All the players on my board are ranked in these columns. The third is a blank roster for each of the teams in my league, with two QB slots, four for RB and WR, one for TE, DEF, and K, and three Other. As the draft progresses I will be crossing off names from the first two pages and filling them in on the third. The third page makes it easier to predict what position my opponents will be drafting; combined with the first two pages, it gives an idea of what sort of player will be available when my name next comes up in the draft.

Another link I will have open on draft day is a complete NFL schedule. You don’t want to obsess over this too much, but it can be helpful when making borderline decisions. Pay special attention to week one and whenever your league’s playoffs are scheduled. Santonio Holmes might be a tempting late-round grab, but he will be playing in Pittsburgh Week 15 and Chicago in Week 16. And anyone planning on “The Roethlisberger Strategy” – drafting Big Ben late and stopgapping in the meantime – should carefully study the first-month schedule of those prospective stopgaps.

My 100 Favorite Songs: Addendum

Two comments dominate these favorite songs posts. The first is, roughly, "Moon, we are so sick of this garbage, I want you to die, please post something else."

The second is "What happens if a song becomes one of your favorites during the time (it has now been over two years) it takes you to post the list?"

The answer, haters, is this.

The Killers - Losing Touch

WPT Legends of Poker

The river was rather unkind to me today, and the turn wasn't much better. I had soft tables and playable cards, but my hands were rarely best by the time all five community cards were on the table. I busted in time to play the Sundays tomorrow and make my flight home Monday.

WSOP Recap Part Three: The Poker

I love the World Series of Poker. I feel very comfortable playing in those cavernous rooms at the Rio. I love the huge, weak fields. I love getting up every day and playing in a massive poker tournament. Despite the relatively fast structures and shallow stacks, I really enjoy playing the “donkaments.” There is palpable energy at the World Series, the summertime mecca for thousands of poker players of different nationality, skill, and bankroll. I have a very high cash rate in the smaller buy-in tournaments over the last five years, and I know that if I keep playing them eventually I will make a final table along with the accompanying big score.

The higher stakes have never gone well for me at the WSOP. My first WSOP cash came in a 2006 $5k event in which I blew a shot at a massive score. I have not cashed a WSOP tournament of more than $2500 since. I have posted an embarrassing 0 of 6 record in the Main Event, and none of those were done in by particularly bad beats.

My failures in the bigger events have been a result of some ill-timed bluffs, weak play amidst tougher competition, but also lots of bad luck. I really revved up the engines for the 5k, 5k 6-max, and 3k this summer, but took some brutal beats in the 5ks and ran an impatient bluff in the 3k. After a disastrous Main Event, I rallied in the Venetian 5k before losing a critical postflop race to the eventual champion.

Overall I would give my play a C. I rarely played poorly, occasionally played very well, often ran badly, rarely ran super hot, and misplayed 5 to 10 hands I have no business misplaying at this stage of my career. Those mistakes turn my stomach, but I take some solace in the knowledge that many of the game’s best still make similar mistakes.

It’s no secret that I am an unspectacular tournament player, despite making tournaments my craft over the last couple years. I no longer harbor fantasies of one day being one of the best. But I know there are many, many pros (and amateurs) who have made almost incomprehensible scores in the blink of an eye. I follow results closely, probably too closely considering the variance attached. I take great inspiration (and frustration) from watching my friends and colleagues. My close friends Jason DeWitt and Joel Patchell both made six-figure scores, but the most inspirational score for me was when Jon “sketchy1” Eaton got heads up with Ryan Welch for the bracelet in the 3k Triple Chance.

Earlier in the year, as I was rebuilding my tournament game, so was the sketchy1. I spent some time traveling with Jon, Paul, and Matt Stout at the beginning of the year. I felt like all of us had rededicated ourselves to the game to start 2010, and we shared a common mission. Paul and I found success early on; Jon and Matt have been on fire over the last few months. Jon’s massive score in the 3k was a beacon, a sign that The Big Score will doubtlessly come to those who work hard and keep their nose to the grindstone.

Jon’s tournament results are an inspiration to me, as are many others. It is really something to consider some of these profiles, which highlight tournament variance in different ways. Some favorites:

10. Jonathan Little (dichotomous WPT/WSOP success)

9. Chris Overgard (4 consecutive main event cashes from a Boulderite I have never met)

8. Michael Martin (European domination)

7. Gavin Griffin (begs the question if he is a great "closer" or just lucky...much like the old argument in sports whether or not "clutch" exists)

6. Shaun Deeb (the poster boy for transition difficulties from online to live play)

5. Darvin Moon (lightning)

4. Liv Boeree
3. Jordan Smith
2. Ylon Schwartz
1. Joe Bartholdi
(the ultimate inspiration: longtime grinders who made The Big Score)

The trouble with this nose-to-the-grindstone theory is that I don't keep grinding hard all year long; after the WSOP I always find myself losing interest in poker, doing other things, and falling behind the ever-steepening curve. The game is getting tougher and tougher; at times I feel like a noose is tightening around my neck. I don't really have the passion to log a lot of hours playing no limit hold em (tournaments or cash) like I used to. In fact, the most fun I had playing poker at the WSOP was in the two non hold-em tournaments I played, the $1500 Deuce and the $1500 Stud/8. I have always felt my skills were better suited to the mixed games, but have never put in the time to really improve them. There is always so much more money in NLHE tournaments, it's hard to find a financial impetus to learn the mixed games. The WSOP, WCOOP, and SCOOP are really the only places you can find sizable mixed game tournaments. Still, I would like to put in a lot of time this fall practicing the mixed games, and already found two FTOPS cashes in non-NLHE events (out of three I played).

Still, there is nothing more appealing to me than traveling somewhere to play a big buy-in no limit hold em tournament. I am starting to plot an aggressive fall travel schedule which could include any of the following destinations: LA, Vegas, Berkeley, St. Louis, Louisville, Columbus, Atlanta, Tampa, Miami, London, Vienna, Barcelona, and Prague. There is still some pop left in this bat. Tonight I am headed to L.A. for the $5k WPT Legends of Poker.

twitter.com/gnightmoon

He's Heating Up

Today was even better.

Closer to Fine

Today was the best day I've had since a Vegas peak six weeks ago. The WSOP hangover may finally be over. Special thanks to Julie Viox, Griffin House, and the Manosaurus Ball Rippers for their help today!