Purestrat online Tournament: Draft 2012 with Skype

Requirements to Participate in this Tournament

(This first section will discuss exactly what you must have, in order to fully participate in this tournament. Some of the items listed below, we can send you scanned images that you can print.  For example you might have ordered the 2012 based SOM Baseball cards but you don’t have the other game components and charts. We apologize for all the information given on this page, but we wish to make sure everyone has a fair chance to do well in this tournament and if you give yourself time to study and prepare you can.)

1. 2012 based SOM Baseball Card Set – you must have a copy of all the major cards printed from this year’s set – for this tournament the fringe players will not be used as either the hitters won’t have enough plate appearances or the pitchers won’t have enough innings.  But you must have all the teams as when you play the games over Skype, you will looking at the cards for your team and your opponents.

2. Skype internet software program – this turns your computer basically into a video telephone.  Although you will not use the video capability (as it slows down the quality of the transmission) you minimally must have a microphone (a port or built in) for your computer and speakers or headphones. We recommend if you have a headset with a microphone and headphones works the best. You will be constantly speaking to your opponent during the play of your games. Most people who are familiar with the computer game, know about the Netplay option, that allows you to play an opponent through the computer game via the internet, but the Skype option, once you are use to it is also a good way to do an on-line tournament. It is like playing a person live with the table game or Dice and Cards as many gamers call it.

Now, to get a copy of Skype (which works for all major PC operating systems) go to www.skype.com – here you will be able to download this program and also get help to set it up.  At this time we do not have a booklet to share but we will tell you the basic features to master (you may want to practice weeks ahead of the tournament and you can check with us if we are on-line to help).  After you install the program you will be asked for a nickname, this nickname or via the email you register, is how other people will find you to become a friend so write both down.  In Skype, it will show you all the people who have accepted your invitation to be friends and whether they are currently on-line or not.  Not only will you need Skype while you play each tournament round but for this tourney you require Skype during the draft and to also talk to the Tournament Director.

Using Skype, the basic features are: a blue colored button to chat with someone (also will be needed); a green button to call someone and a red button to hang up. Once you have made the call, you are able to speak to the person hands free. We do not have a Skype account setup for the convention so for now you can look for Wolfman Shapiro, he is on-line a great deal and his Skype nickname is joshaushapiro17.

3. Super Advanced Charts for Fielding and Strategy – If you do not have all of the super advance fielding and strategy charts, we have a PDF file consisting of two pages that you can download and print which Pure Strat and Star Tournaments use in their tournaments. To obtain these charts in a PDF format, {right} click on the link below and see this file to your computer, click on:  STAR FIELDING & STRATEGY X-CHARTS

4. Pitcher’s Hitting Cards – In this tournament the pitcher will always hit, there is no DH. Therefore, if you do not have the Pitcher’s Hitting Cards, we have two jpg files that have an image of the 8 Pitcher’s Hitter cards.  To obtain these two image files {right} click on the links below:

Pitcher Hitting Cards 1-4 (JPG)  Pitcher Hitting Cards 5-8 (JPG)

5. Recommendation – We recommend that you write down the three dice rolls that represent when a player on the field can make a one base, two base or three base (in the outfield) error on the player’s card (hitter or pitcher) or have a chart of such error rolls. This will greatly speed up the game. Obviously if you have not already done this – once you have your team drafted, you will be able to do so.

6. On-line Dice Roller – so that you and your opponent can both see at the same time, two die, three dice and the twenty sided is rolled, Pure Strat, the Tournament Director (TD) of this tournament has chosen the dice roller offered by www.strat-o-matic.net . In the tournament manual will be a description how to get a login and password to this site and how to setup a game (with a game number) for you and your opponent. You are able to see visually the roll of these various die when you click to roll. This is all done through your browser.

Procedure to Play in this Tournament

(Now that you know everything you must have, here is a description of the procedure of what will take place to help you create your team and how play will go over the internet during this tournament offered by Purestrat.

1. Setting up the Draft Order – The TD will contact you by email to setup a time to conduct the actual draft to of the team you will play with during the tournament. He will explain what you must do to determine what position you will pick in the draft. After you follow this procedure given by the TD you will now know which pick is yours and you can plan how to do your draft. (Note – see Wolfman’s article about how he prepared for the June Skype Pure Strat Tournament he participated in which will be listed under the article section shortly, that he wrote for the Ultimate Strat Baseball Tournament – this article can be found under the article menu.)

2. The Actual Draft – At the agreed to time to conduct the draft, you will meet on skype with all the members of your division (as you can have a group audio skype call) and will have one minute when its your turn to make your draft pick.  The Team you will build most consist of:

— 25 players including two players for each position on the field, 4 starter pitchers (3 days of rest), and you all will also select a ball park.  Further, for a hitter to be eligible to be picked, he must have 300 plate appearances (PAs) except for catchers which the requirement is 250 PAs.  Also for a player to be eligible at a position, the position must be on his card. He is not able to play a position not shown on his card unless you run out at a specific position in which case the replacement will be rated the worse possible fielding number (5) and error rating to replace them.

For the pitchers, a relief pitcher must have at least 40 innings to qualify and a starter requires at least 125 innings.  Again on the pitchers card, he is only eligible to start or relieve if so stated on the card. Note, the selection of the Ball Park will be a representative of the strengths of the team you draft so pick wisely.

3. Your Starting Rotation must be announced in an email to all members of your division before the tournament starts what your rotation will be for each round.  Prior to your draft you will also have received via email from the TD, the complete schedule for the whole tournament.  If you have a pitcher who can start and relieve, please consult the official rule document below, about his rest.

4. This Tournament is a 4 game series per Round.  You will play in about a month’s time, every opponent within your division one four round series where you will be the home team twice and the away time twice. At the end of the initial part of this tournament, it might be necessary to play a power round, which matches the teams close to each other in standing (your record is your collective wins and loses through all the rounds) to play an extra round.  After all games have been played – the top teams qualify for the playoffs and within the playoffs it is single elimination with a seven game series till a winner is found.

5.. Length of Tournament & How Many Participants – Depending upon how many people sign up for the tournament, will determine how many games are played and if there is more than one division. But usually it takes a month to play all the teams in your division and determine who qualifies for the playoffs by total record.

———-

So if you could visualize yourself actually playing in this tournament you would have the players cards for both teams in front of you; the computer screen is in front of you allowing you to speak via skype with your opponent and to use the on-line dice roller and the various fielding and strategy charts are also handy with the rule book (which we strongly recommend your print).

Documents that will Assist You in the Tournament

1. The Tournament Rule Book – although we have not had Pure Strat approve this book yet, the one available for you to download here, is complete as far as how the players and used and the SOM Baseball rules. We offer it so you can begin to prepare and if you have signed up for the free newsletter we will let you know when the final rule book is available. Receive the Tournament Rule Book (click on the blue link to the left to get the rule book).

2. Special Tables and Report from Star Tournaments used for the Pure Strat Skype Draft Tournament. We will offer some of these document here on our website but for the moment you can get copies by going to the Star Tournament site at www.startournaments.com under the section entitled APS, Drafts and Eligible Players:. The document we suggest you download and study (as well as print out are):

Average Pick Sheet – this table shows the average pick in the draft when each player was taken. For example for the 2012 Card Set, the Average Ten Picks of players are: Trout, Cano, Votto, McCutchen, Medlen, M. Cabrera, Stanton, Y. Molina, D. Ortiz (find this document on the “Resource Page” by clicking on the Resource Menu above …)

— a supplemental or different version of this sheet is the Average Pick by Position which shows you the players rated by when they are picked by position played. This version gives you an idea of which are the top players for each position as sometimes a player will be picked out of their normal position like a great hitter (find this document on the “Resource Page” by clicking on the Resource Menu Above …)

Eligible Players – a list of all the players that can be used in the tournament.

Draft Summaries – a summary from prior tournaments what each participant drafted. This is very helpful as it gives you an idea what type of teams have been drafted and you can see which teams had the most success.  You may notice a pattern amongst how the winning teams were constructed. (find this document for one tournament in 2013 on the “Resource Page” by clicking on the “Resource Menu” above ….)

Player Winning Percentage – this table shows by player, which players were part of the most successful winning teams (percentage of winning).

We don’t want this tournament to sound complicated, but Star Tournaments and Pure Strat provide these documents to help new players get a feel for what type of teams have been drafted before in previous tournaments and when certain players are picked. Many players of these tournaments have found the various reports (in a spreadsheet form) very helpful and if you take the time to review these reports you will understand why. But note, that are a number of versions of some of the reports based upon how teams are in a division.  To make it a bit easier for our participants we will add some of the reports on the Resources Menu.

3. DSIM Program: This is a program was developed by Stan Suderman, one of the board members of Star which runs under DOS and older Window versions, that can be used during the actual draft to offer suggestions of which players to pick; give feedback on the strength of the teams being drafted or which you can practice with and do dummy drafts. It uses the Average Pick System based on prior drafts from other tournaments to decide when is the best time to take various players. If you would like to check out this program, you can download a copy from:

http://studio303.com/star/dsim/dsim160.exe

4. The 2012 Ratings Booklet and Spreadsheets – The Game Company offers for the 2012 based set, a booklet that you can obtain that lists all the players and ratings on every capability they have.  But the real treasure is to also receive the Excel spreadsheets so you can sort the players by the best players with say ONBASE vs. left handed or right handed pitching, or who has the most chances for a HR vs lefty or righty pitching plus Ball Park Homers (shown on the cards as Diamonds).  Conversely you can do the same type of sorts for your pitchers to see who has the best starter or relief cards and which pitchers are reverse starters or relievers.

( Note: to get the latest version of all the documents shared in this section, feel free to go to the Star Tournaments website at: www.startournaments.com )

To read an example of how to use all of the reports and tools to build your team, we recommend that you read the report shared by Wolfman Shapiro who participated in the June 2013 Skype Draft Tournament.  He explains in great detail the strategy he used to build his team, which for his first time in the Purestrat league he finished second in his division and qualified for the playoffs. To read this report (which will become an article on this website shortly) from the June Issue of the “Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter”, head over to:

http://www.ultimatestratbaseball.com/USBN-6-2013/Wolfman-does-Purestrat-P1-June2013.htm

How to Sign Up for a future Pure Strat Skype Draft Tournament:

You can contact Purestrat by visiting their website at: www.purestrat.com
(If you have any questions, ask to speak to Bryan Albin, the main coordinator.)