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Subject: Thoughts for 2005 GuruGolf
Posted by: Guru
- [330592710] Sun, Oct 03, 2004, 20:14
A few random thoughts about next year's version of Gurugolf.
Thought #1: I think I'll reduce the cost of extra trades. Currently, the first extra trade per week costs $100, and the second costs $200. I think better levels might be $50/$100, although I'm also considering $50/$50 and $100/100.
Reason: Trade conservation seems to be a desired part of the game for many. But the cost of diverting from the "forced" picks some weeks seems too high. Differentiating should not be so expensive.
Thought #2: I wonder if I should have selected the Southern Farm Bureau Classic as the tournament for this past week, instead of the WGC-American Express.
Reason: I went for the WGC-Amex because it had the top golfers. But it does not have a cut, which is an integral part of the game. The Southern Farm Bureau Classic would have had the traditional cut elements, and it did not have such a bad field.
I'd appreciate your thoughts on these issues, as well as any others. I'd obviously like to improve next years game if there are opportunities to do so. |
| 1 | DWetzel
ID: 30353118
Sun, Oct 03, 2004, 20:33
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Agree that trade conservation seems to be an issue. I know I've gone well out of my way to not pay for any trades so far (getting close though!). Cheaper trades would make me somewhat more willing to get into a position of buying. The problem with golf is, not knowing potential players more than a week or two in advance, you're almost forced to conserve trades whenever possible.
I wonder if a 5 man roster, with 4 active each week, would alleviate the problem a bit? That way, you could have your "favorite" golfers and hold them through off weeks. I have no earthly idea how that would work in terms of a salary cap, though.
Re: point number two... it's too bad there's no cut at the AMEX, but I still think that's the tournament to go with.
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| 2 | footwedge
ID: 39832713
Mon, Oct 04, 2004, 09:35
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I think your ideas are good. While trade conservation is important it should not be so important as to force everyone into the same or similar rosters because only a few golfers are known to play the next three straight and everyone has them.
#2 I would prefer the Farm Bureau since most golfers don't play the week before or the week after an overseas tournament. Also it tends to be more high dollar golfers which few can afford more than one of them.
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| 3 | Liters
ID: 42642917
Mon, Oct 04, 2004, 17:19
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I agree with both of your thoughts. The price for additional trades currently is to high in relationship to the players increases. Also part of the original game was the cut. Also I know I will be in the minority on this one, but with the original small world game there was daily updates based on the buy and sell of players. There was a large risk reward by selling early and buying early hoping to be in front of the buying wave to enable you to obtain the $$ for your research and pull the trigger before anyone else. What I 'm getting to is that I think the price increase based on the current method does not allow a high enough reward to be able to buy many of the top players, with the average person making less then $1,000,000.00 for the season. I would totally agree that TSN's method is currently extremly off with being able to make a millon each week.
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| 4 | philflyboy
ID: 58351618
Mon, Oct 04, 2004, 18:13
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I have to agree with Liters in that I don't think we had enough gains throughout the season. I like the idea of rewarding the players who played well and reducing the value of players who played poorly. I would like to see the ratio for gains raised a little. I don't think it has to be alot but the way it is now we do not have a chance to make enough to afford all star rosters even by the end of the season.
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| 5 | Balrog
Dude
ID: 02856618
Mon, Oct 04, 2004, 18:39
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If you set the price for buying a trade/golfer too low, it will be possible to make the cost of the trade back if the golfer you pick up does well. i.e. no roster value penalty. This is fine. The problem is you don't want to make it too easy to make the money back, otherwise buying the trade will be a no-brainer.
I'd say the price for the extra trade should be at least twice the average golfer's price gain for an average tournament (gain, not change). That way, you have to pick someone exceptional to make both money and points with the trade.
Disclosure: I'm a fanatical trade conserver and believe all players who run out of trades should be punished severely. :)
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| 6 | Motley Crue
ID: 181650
Mon, Oct 04, 2004, 18:42
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Me too, Balrog! Me, too.
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| 7 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Mon, Oct 04, 2004, 20:27
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Remember that the current season started in June. Next year, when it starts in January or February, we'll have an extra 20 weeks or so of price gains, effectively doubling the length of the season.
I wouldn't want to increase price sensitivities so that most teams - or even average teams - would be able to buy the top 4 golfers by the end of the year.
Total value gains this past week were not as great as in recent weeks. This was primarily because the most popular players - Kelly, DiMarco, Cink, Riley - didn't perform very well. Should those rosters be rewarded because they were popular buys, or should they suffer because they bought golfers who didn't perform up to expectations? I think we'd all agree the latter makes sense.
I'll obviously want to revisit the whole price sensitivity issue at the end of the year, but so far, I'm not inclined to think that gains are too low.
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| 8 | Barrington
ID: 502516
Mon, Oct 04, 2004, 22:04
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I like some of the ideas above - just need to think them through a little more.
I would go for the idea of NOT choosing the no-cut tournaments as all the Firday afternoon suspense is missing and best ball scores tend to all hover around the same number.
Is there any reason to suggest that lower priced golfers who do well might have a slightly higher weighted gain - encouraging more differentiation. One problem that sometimes occurs is that rosters get to be awfully similar because the better golfers tend not to play back to back. Maybe the idea of a five man roster with a bench player makes sense.
Or how about a cap on the number of teams that can own a player - selection on a first come basis - that would force differentiation and indirectly reward early traders that take a chance.
Just wanted to throw ideas out and see how they sounded.....
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| 9 | Motley Crue
Leader
ID: 439372011
Tue, Oct 05, 2004, 08:34
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The problem with trying to incentivize buying cheap golfers is it's really a crap shoot deciding which $500-$800 golfer is going to play well that week. Those guys are inconsistent as hell and they mostly stink relative to the big guys. That's why their prices are so low to begin with. Who is going to pick a guy that misses the cut more often than he makes it?
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| 10 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Tue, Oct 05, 2004, 10:00
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Cheaper golfers who do well defintely gain more. In fact, if you sort the price list by the total gains over the last several events, the ones near the top are almost all under $1000 in price. If you can pick cheaper golfers who make the cut, that is the best road to riches. Expensive golfers tend to make more cuts, but they also don't gain much $value.
One concern I have with a bench slot is that you could consistently use it for a minimum priced player, and thereby put 4 higher priced golfers in the lineup. That might even be the optimum way to use the slot.
Putting a cap on the number of teams that could own a player also has nettlesome issues, especially as long as I allow virtually unlimited teams. Someone could set up a bunch of teams simply to corner the market on a few top players.
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| 11 | JeffG
Leader
ID: 1584348
Tue, Oct 05, 2004, 14:25
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It is a great game, but here are some random ideas and comments.
Cost of extra trades. Part of the challenge is figuring out how to assemble a team where we need to keep a few golfers for multiple tournaments. I like the fact that we can bail out and use this option if we need to make more trades, but it should not be used as a frequent strategy. My suggestion is a little extreme. Permit NO EXTRA TRADES at all, but give everyone 10 trades in the bank at season's beginning, and then allot 2 extra per week. If a team has to go a week with 3 golfers, so be it.
WGC event vs the same week's PGA event. I think that the tournament with the better field should be used. More visable.
No Cut events. Just because the tournament has no cut, does not mean guru-golf cannot. How about setting up your own cut rule for these events. If the player does not make the guru-cut gurugolf will not count those golfers round 3 and 4 scores. Of course, this is a little artifical since the golfer is not playing round 2 like he has to come in under a score. Just throwing it out there.
Late scratches. I always check my team right before the freeze just in case someone drops out, but how about allowing for a 'provisional golfer' each week. We select this player, and if one of our golfers scratches, when the rosters freeze, the system automatically generates the trade (provided there is enough money). We can choose to have no provisional golfer for a particular event if we like.
Making future tournament selections. A few times this year, I was out of town on Monday through Thursday, and luckily found someone to baby sit my team. I do not have any ideas, but perhaps someone can think of a suggestion for allowing us to post our 'trades' ahead of time for the next tournament.
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| 12 | sarge33rd
ID: 099513
Tue, Oct 05, 2004, 15:30
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I for one, would prefer using those tournaments with a cut involved. Even though I almost never have 4 going on Saturday unless it's a no-cut tourney, that cut is a crucial part of the game. I dont care for an artificial cut, since for ex this past week, we had a relatively small field to begin with. Eliminating a portion of that field even while those golfers still tee off, seems contrary to the very spirit of fantasy sports. (IOW, let the PGA be the bad guy and tell us our team M/C, you dont want to have to do that Guru. lol)
Free trades, buying trades...
Fact is, alot of info is out there, if one cares to look for it. (and spend the time and a coucpcle bucks here and there.) I used to call tourneys maybe 3 or 4 weeks ahead and read off a list of 12 to 15 guys to see if they had made any early commits. Havent done this in a long while though since I've been out of work for so long.) Point is, if a manager wants to differentiate, the info is there for the taking, the manager just has to want to go get it.
I havent had to buy any trades yet and hopefully wont have to. However, I believe that buying trades should be an almost painfully expensive undertaking. Else it becomes too easy to use too frequently for the spirit of the game. Also, with the game planning to start in January next year, we will have the full West Coast Swing and Florida Swings with which to bank a few trades. We are for the most part I think, all of us abit familiar with who tends to play through each of those 3 or 4 week runs. Ultimately, I'd be in favor of leaving it as is.
Bench Player
I've always been in favor of this, a 5th bench player who automatically moves in if one of your players w/d's post freeze. I know that during one of our mini versions I ran while playing SW/TSN a few years back, I provided for a bench player however that player was with the caveat of having to be priced no higher than your otherwise lowest priced golfer. He did not count against your roster value nor against your funds available, but you could not for ex name a $1500 D Love to the bench slot while sitting with a $900 player on your roster. (Cash available had no impact/bearing here. If you had a minimum priced golfer on your roster, your bench player HAD to be minimum priced as well.) This player came in with no trade cost, if someone w/d. A rostered player missing the cut did NOT activate the bench player.
All in all Guru, I think you've done a damn fine job with this game and you are to be commended for the obvious time and effort you put into it!
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| 13 | culdeus
ID: 2949316
Tue, Oct 05, 2004, 15:38
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FWIW my golf interest begins at the Masters and ends at the PGA. Maybe having one dream season instead of splitting it up TSN style into two less interesting seasons will help.
I think my interest waned very early when I figured out the player schedules just weren't out there as in years past.
As crazy as it sounds I would pretty much only play a game where there were unlimited trades now with no cost and no penalty period. While a radical concept it is more inclusionary as people are not focusing as far out as possible on future schedules and getting roster sameness. While an advantage us gurupies had in the glory days in TSN, this is lost in this game IMO. I know this board is so focused on using/conserving trades (and discussions spewing forth from that) that this can never take place, but I thought I'd throw it out there.
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| 14 | HooeyPooey
ID: 28719421
Wed, Oct 06, 2004, 21:51
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I might as well share my thoughts, since I played the game without any interest in golf, LOL. I think the price gains were fair, and now with the player history feature added recently, I think it's easy enough to spot bargains and decide which players to pick up. The one thing I didn't really like is I felt trades were only really useful for swapping out players that weren't playing. It seemed like most every week I was forced into trading ~2 players that weren't playing, which meant I never had an opportunity to trade a player that was slated to play in the current tourament, (without spending available cash.) Granted I didn't attempt to research for trade conservation, but I did attempt to choose players who seemed to play regularly. I feel my biggest mistakes were two weeks where I only had 3 players playing. I believe one may have been accidental or due to player withdraw, and the other was intentional because I only had 2 trades with 4 players not slated to play and at the time I didn't want to spend $200 for the 4th trade, though looking back I definately should have for a few less strokes.
I like the idea of a bench slot if it provides more opportunities to make decisions other than those almost entirely related to swapping out active and inactive players. However, I don't feel the bench slot should be factored into roster value for the reason Guru stated above. The way I would structure it, you maintain your 4 active players within your available cash, as before. You would not be required to have a bench player for a valid roster. If your bench slot is empty, you may place any player not currently on your roster in it without affecting available cash or trades, or you may place a player on your current roster there, freeing up available cash to buy a new player from the field. If your bench is not empty, you may swap an active player with bench player without using a trade provided the price difference in players would not cause you to exceed your available cash. In order to release a bench player, it would cost a trade. The bench slot would more or less be a player you could trade for without costing a trade, however the financial implications would still apply as if it were a normal trade.
I also like the idea of having the possibility of a bench player auto-activated as a sub if one of my active players withdraws. In my suggested scenario, this player could only be auto-activated if switching with the withdrawn player does not cause you to exceed your available cash.
In any case, I found the game entertaining without requiring too much involvement. I average 10 minutes or so a week setting my roster and am probably lucky to currently be in 9th, but it's held my interest. Thanks Guru! :)
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| 15 | Rex Davidson
ID: 37492717
Thu, Oct 07, 2004, 11:33
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As to the cost of trades, I think it's fine. If anything, it should be increased not decreased. Differentiation is definitely a good thing but it isn't going to come from the high priced players. It will come from players priced under $1,000. Based on this week's prices (Las Vegas), there are 141 teams (58% of 243) that can afford 4 players from the top ten in price. A total of 212 teams (a whopping 87.2%) can have all players from the 14 at $1,000 or more. I think it's too many and would likely be even more pronounced had the game started in January. IMHO, cheaper trades will encourage trading up to the higher priced players resulting in less lineup differentiation.
I'm for using the tournament with the strongest field, however there is a good argument for using the tourney with a cut. Also, since the "B" tourney is usually missing the top names, we might see greater differentiation.
In either case, I would suggest price changes for both tourneys for those weeks. If Furyk, Allenby and Riley fall in price for a poor finish in a very strong field, then Funk and Triplett should have price increases for strong finishes in weak fields. I think this impacts just 3 tourneys - BC Open (Jul), Reno-Tahoe (Aug) and the S Farm Bureau so overall the impact is minimal.
Some have suggested a reserve player. If having a cut is an integral part of the game then why give everyone a free replacement? I try to take a scrambler or hot player who can rack up a lot of birdies but are somewhat inconsistant. This week I have Ted Purdy, Carl Pettersson and Ryan Palmer each on a different team. These guys miss more cuts. It' a risk and reward move ... sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Free replacements take away some of the strategy of this approach. (This is, of course, purely selfish. I don't want everyone doing it!)
In any case, kudos to Guru for a good game. If there are changes to be made, I hope they increase the strategic element not lessen it. There's little enough strategy in golf games to start with.
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| 16 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Fri, Oct 08, 2004, 11:42
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After reading through the various ideas on bench/provisional players, I'm intrigued by the concept, but wary of the complexities. If I add something along this line, it needs to be simple to understand and to administer.
Here's an idea that I'm mulling. Each week, you are able to designate one non-roster golfer as a provisional golfer.This golfer would autmatically be added to your roster if one of the golfers in your foursome withdrew after the preliminary field was announced.The system would automatically generate a trade out of the withdrawn golfer, and into the provisional golfer, provided that funds were sufficient.If more than one golfer withdraws, the cheapest golfer would be the one sold, as long as that transaction was affordable.To be eligible to be replaced, a golfer must have been in the GuruGolf field listing at the beginning of the week, and must fail to complete the first round. If a golfer completes the first round and then withdraws, there is no substitution.The automatic substitution of a provisional golfer counts as a trade, and is executed as though it were done immediately prior to the freeze. If an extra trade must be purchased, it will be.The designation of a provisional golfer is optional, and must be re-specified each week.
This feature would allow you to protect your roster against a late withdrawal, and could be especially useful if you make your roster moves early in the week with no opportunity to check back before the freeze. Perhaps the criteria should be that a golfer eligible for substitution does not start at all, instead of that he does not complete the first round.
I think that something along this line would be feasible from a programming standpoint without a significant impact on the existing system.
As an example, one of my teams this week included David Peoples. As it turns out, he did not start. Had I selected Tim Petrovic as a provisional golfer, the system would automatically execute a trade, selling Peoples and buying Petrovic, as long as that team had sufficient cash available to do the trade (including any potential cost of an extra trade). If sufficient cash is not available, nothing happens.
This isn't a perfect solution, but I think it satisfies my criteria of simplicity of understanding and administration. Any thoughts?
(Of course, we are talking about next season, not this season!)
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| 17 | sarge33rd
ID: 099513
Fri, Oct 08, 2004, 12:02
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works for me Guru.
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| 18 | HooeyPooey
Sustainer
ID: 41115208
Sat, Oct 09, 2004, 21:01
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looks okay :)
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| 19 | FRICK
ID: 268522714
Tue, Oct 12, 2004, 10:53
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Guru, could you please add a link somewhere on the Standings page or individual scoring page to the login screen. I have the standings page bookmarked and if I want to go to the login screen I have to back to rotoguru.com.
Thanks
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| 20 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Wed, Oct 13, 2004, 08:34
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The word "GuruGolf" is now linked to the login page on both the standings and scoring recap pages.
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| 21 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Mon, Nov 08, 2004, 09:09
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I'll have to study the overall price change pattens for the season, but I think I will be cranking up the price gain potential a little for next year. I may do it more at the top end (i.e., boost the gains for the top 10 golfers each week), rather than making an across the board bump in sensitivity.
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