Issue #5 - Part I, August 2013

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 ** Interview with Alex Redovian  **
       (interview conducted by Wolfman, Alex is the creator of the Strat-o-matic.Net Forums & offers
       on-line dice rollers for the SOM Baseball and Football games.)

 (Notes from the Wolfman: There may not be many people who know of Alex's contribution to our community but I can assure you, the on-line forum he began known as Strat-o-matic.net is another very fine one and if you haven't looked at it before you surely must. But what we also want to acknowledge Alex for is the development of an-online system to simulate the three-six sided dice being rolled and a twenty sided.  If you have read the two articles that I have submitted now about my participation in the June Skype tournament, it would not have been possible to play these games on-line without this amazing service that Alex offers to anyone for free. So this is why I thought it was so important for our members to meet Alex. Also we will be utilizing his dice rollers for two of the tournaments at the September convention. Welcome Alex to the Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter.)

 

 Wolfman:  Alex, thanks very much for allowing us to do this interview with you. I always find it interesting to meet other strat players who are so dedicated to the game and take an action to offer a special service to help our community. Ok, here is my first question for you.

Alex, have you always been interested in sports? Did you play any sports when you were younger?

Alex:  I’ve always loved sports, especially baseball.   I grew up in a big sports family and had a glove on my hand as soon as I could walk. I played in to college where my interest and talent ran out.


Wolfman:  As you know our newsletter covers the SOM Baseball Game. So Alex, what is your interest in baseball? Were there any teams or players you followed when you were younger?

Alex:  I’m a huge Atlanta Braves fan.  I’ve followed them since I knew what baseball was.  My favorites were Glen Hubbard, Bob Horner, and Dale Murphy which then turned in to Glavine, Maddux, and Smoltz.  I live in LA now but still watch pretty much every Braves game thanks to the MLB package.

Wolfman:  How did you hear about Strat-o-matic? Which one of the games did you play first?  Over the years have you played in any leagues or tournaments linked with the baseball game?

Alex:  I’ve always known about Strat-o-Matic.  My older brother got his first set of cards the year I was born.  I play in the same tournament every year.  We play a 48 game schedule that we complete in 2 days.  The final day is for 2 rounds of playoffs to decide the Champion.  We have been playing the same tournament for 20 years.

Wolfman:  What special memories or experiences do you have linked to the baseball game - a great game or league?

Alex:  I’ve got a lifetime of special memories and experiences.  This is what makes the game so great.

Wolfman:  Now linked to your website and SOM Forums, I saw there were posts from all the way back in 2008. When did first start your "Forum"? What was your inspiration to do so? How many members do you have now?

Alex: I started the site in January of 2007.  Initially it was just the dice roller and I programmed the forum a year later.  The reason I started the forum was because there seemed to be only one other forum at the time and it was heavily policed.  Lots of posts and threads I had interest in were being censored or deleted all together.  Reasonable debate was always met with “well if you don’t like it, start your own forum.”  So, that is what I did.  Currently we have about 2400 members. 

Wolfman:  I see your forum is divided into different sections, lets speak about this for a moment. Why did you decide to setup the forum for all the different SOM games? How do you view the functionality of your forum compared to some of the other SOM on-line forums? What do you see is unique or special about the Strat-o-matic.Net forums?

Alex:  Everything about the forum is member generated.  We started with one section and then a member suggested we add a few more.   Then I had a member ask if they could have a section for their league and it just kept growing. 

Wolfman:  Now I have personally used the Baseball Dice roller to participate in the Skype On-line Tournaments that are being done (with a draft) by Purestrat - the western division of the Star Tournaments. How did the idea for both the baseball and football dice roller come from? What techniques were implemented to create these rollers so two people could use them simultaneous over the internet? For example, are you a programmer or did you have a programmer do it for you?  How accurate are the dice rollers? Why did decide to you offer this service for free to the SOM Community?

Alex:  Honestly I don’t even remember how the idea came up.  I think I read a thread about card and dice players who were using IM (internet messaging) to simulate face to face but were wishing they could see each other’s dice rolls.  It seemed that every solution had its draw backs with the biggest hurdle being that everything required you to download a program.  So, being a computer programmer I set out to design something that everyone could use.  I wanted it to be completely web based so that everyone could use it from wherever they were.  At the time, there was a new technology emerging called AJAX and it was gaining support from all the major browsers.  With it I was able to design what I needed.  It actual amazes me that the dice roller continues to work as well as it does.  If I could ever get a little free time I would update that code to be much smoother.

The dice roller is very random and very accurate.  Every so often I get an email from someone saying that there is something wrong with the dice roller.  That it doesn’t look right to them.  I try to convince them that our perception of random is very different then reality.  I heard a great radiolab podcast on the subject that does a much better job explaining it.  Here is a link:

http://www.radiolab.org/2009/jun/15/
(skip to the 9 minute mark)

 I wrote this for free because I wanted to give something back to the SOM community.

Wolfman:  Are you happy with the evolution of your forum over time? Are there new updates that you are planning to make to the forum in the future? How can people sign up for the forum? Is there a good way for our members to contact you directly if they have any questions. 

Alex:  I'm very happy with it.  There is an amazing group of members who make the forum great.  At some point I would like to update the dice rollers.  They could be much smoother. 

To sign up  go to http://www.strat-o-matic.net/

It’s free, requires very little information, and is open to everyone.

Wolfman:  Now for each person we interview, we ask if they have any suggestions of tips to help our readers with the som baseball game play that you could share? What do you recommend for our readers to pay attention or use in the creation of their teams and the strategies to win with them?

Alex:  Start with excellent defense up the middle.

Wolfman:  Alex, again thanks so much for stopping by to chat with us. We strongly urge our members to go over and visit your forum and also to check out the dice rollers. Thank you so much for providing such a great place on-line for members of our community to visit and share their stories!!

 


Contained inside this exciting issue of Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter:
 (to view the various interviews, articles, columns and special sections click on the links {underlined}
and this will take you to the appropriate webpage)
 

♦  RETURN TO NEWSLETTER MAIN PAGE

♦  INTERVIEW with JOHN DEWAN, President of Baseball Info Solutions

♦  INTERVIEW with JOE HAMRAHI, CEO of Baseball Prospectus

♦  STRAT THOUGHTS with BRUCE BUNDY, SOM Gamer, Creator of Baseball Card Formulas, Baseball Strategy Advisor, Beta Tester for the Game Company
(Continuation of the monthly column of "Strat Thoughts" developed by legendary Bruce Bundy

♦  1st International SOM On-line Baseball Convention, by the Strat Alliance
-- a more complete discussion of the revolutionary new convention to be offered in
September offering three baseball tournaments organized by the Strat Alliance of Groups!

♦  EARLY SOM CONVENTIONS COLUMN with WOLFMAN SHAPIRO -- editor of
"The Ultimate Strat Newsletter" and 2012 CBA Champion. Wolfman takes us back in
this article to the fifth national Strat-o-matic Convention in 1976 held in Champaign-Urbana, IL, at the University of Illinois as the Wolfman and his buddies organize their third convention. Wolfman will be our guide through the first nine conventions happening through 1980 of which he was present at each one. This particular column now moves into the 1974-1980 era when the conventions moved to Illinois. We will continue to share one new convention in each future issue till all of these early conventions are published. Also as an inspiration for the SOM On-line Baseball Convention this year.

♦  ARTICLE with WOLFMAN SHAPIRO, how the Wolfman performed during the Pure Strat
June Skype Draft Tournament - Part Two of Three Parts (Tournament Game Reports)

♦  COMMISSIONER's CORNER with MARC WASSERMAN -- commissioner of the Cyber Baseball Association (CBA) continues his column about what it is like to be a League Commissioner. In this article he focuses more upon the contents of a good, strong and lasting league constitution.

♦  SOM BASEBALL CARDS with TOM NAHIGIAN - This month we share more of the early SOM Baseball cards from the 1960 and 1961 seasons thanks to Tom Nahigian who has a complete collection of all the cards ever printed. This is the third issue we have shared a few cards from this early time.

♦  RECOMMEND ON-LINE SOM RESOURCES -- On-line Strat-o-matic and Baseball related websites that offer amazing information, special tools and products to improve your game play that we strongly recommend. In most cases, we have had personal contact with these sources who agree with the principle to work together and help promote each other.

♦  BOOKS TO DIE FOR and Become a BASEBALL GURU -- This page is a new page we are adding for the newsletter that is specifically about special books we are finding that either will expand your insights about the game of Baseball, help you in the creation of your current league teams or with your replays and learn more about the Strat-o-matic Base Game and Game Company's history.  At the time of the release of this newsletter we have a special arrangement with Acta Sports to offer our members a 10% discount. We hope to add more books in the future.



 



 Contact Us for Questions or Submissions:

Wolfman Shapiro
 co-Founder/Editor, the Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter
email: wolfman@ultimatestratbaseball.com
facebook: www.facebook.com/wolfman.shapiro
twitter: @StratBaseball4U

To Sign Up and Become a Member of this Newsletter
 http://www.UltimateStratBaseball.com
(this provides direct emails when our bulletins
and next issues come out)


 To Learn more about the SOM On-line Baseball Convention
 (sponsored by the Strat Alliance, September 2013)
 http://www.stratalliance.info