THE STRAT ALLIANCE On behalf of the three organizations comprising the Strat Alliance including: Pure Strat (western division of Star) The Star Tournament Association Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter We invite you to participate with us in a historic event, a meeting that has not been offered before in the annals of Strat-o-matic: The 1st International On-line Strat-o-matic Baseball Convention October 25th - 27th, 2013 Where: Your Home, On-line This is a personal invitation to the members of the Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter, to help us co-create this amazing and unparalleled event!! www.stratalliance.info

For the past several months we have been sharing about the coming (or the return) of the 1st Annual SOM On-line Baseball Tournament.  We have discussed various version of how we have seen the convention, working with our partners Star Tournaments and Pure Strat.  At first we had looked at doing three different type of tournaments, like we use to have multiple tournaments at the early National Conventions. But then we felt for our first time, this would be too much as it is not as easy to do on-line tournaments verse face-to-face.  Therefore we decided to go with just one tournament during the weekend and since many SOM Baseball Gamers have the computer game with Netplay and know Netplay we would go that route.

However, running a draft, with potential what could be many participants in the tournament, as we proposed to run the internet tournament of Star, would also be problematic and could take many hours. So we know offer to you what we feel will be the most effective way to do the Convention Tournament which creates a more even playing field. This idea was suggested by Jack, who is on our staff and will serve as tech support for the convention. Here it is:

Every One will Play with the Same Team!!

Which Team is This? -- an All Star Team from 2012!!

How Will this Work? -- We will select a team of All Stars from the 2012 Roster, as we will continue to play the tournament via Netplay.  Each gamer will have a chance to pick a roster of 25 players from a collection of about 40 players to make their team. So everyone has the chance to play with the same players.  The settings for the Ball Parks (singles and homers, etc ...) will also be the same. So whether a person is an advanced player or beginner, everyone has the same chance.

Very shortly on the Convention website we will announce the All Star team so you can prepare which 25 players you wish to use. We hope to setup divisions of 8 teams, where over the two days you will play 21 games, a series of 3 games against each of the teams in your division. Depending upon how many participants we have, either top one or two games by record will qualify for the playoffs.  There will be a rule book you will receive that gives you all the details of how we will play the games (how many starting pitchers, limitation on usage of relievers, injuries, etc ...)

To read more about the tournament, visit the tournament webpage on the convention site at:
http://ultimatestratbaseball.com/somconvention2013/tournaments/convention-tourney-allstars-2012-netplay

WILL YOU BE THE FIRST CHAMPION?

PRIZES:

To the winner of the tournament, they will receive a $100 gift certificate we obtain for them via the Strat-o-matic Game Company - your choice to purchase any products for this amount you wish PLUS
a incredible trophy to document your achievement, a copy of Bill James Handbook and to be featured in a future interview for our newsletter.

To the runner up of the tournament, they will receive a $50 gift certificate we obtain for them via the Game Company PLUS a trophy and also will be interviewed for the newsletter.

REGISTRATION:

Easy to do, on the right column on each page of the Convention website is a place where you can sign up. Only $10 for the whole weekend, as we keep it reasonable as we did at the early National Conventions ($1 processing fee to use Paypal). As we are about 3 weeks away now, and so there is time for the Tournament Director to setup the schedule and divisions, we urge you to register soon.
So to signup to this new and historic event go to: www.stratalliance.info

All that is required to participate is the latest version of the SOM Baseball computer game, the 2012 roster (which came with this version) and an internet connection (fast). We will probably use SKYPE, a free program that turns your computer into a phone, to communicate with each other (its easy to use) during tournament play or another chat based program if necessary but everyone in your division can be part of a group in Skype (for voice or chat).

THANK YOU STRAT-O-MATIC:

Although the game company is not a direct sponsor of the convention, obviously they wish our success as they did with the early convention (as they can not be biased to support one group over another).  But they will be helping to announce the convention via their on-line presence. We thank them for this help and in particular to Adam Rosen (see his interview in this issue).

WE ASK OUR MEMBERS FOR YOUR SUPPORT:

We believe in this new format of the convention. With the tournaments played on-line, any gamer in the world can join us from the comfort of their home (assuming the hours of play are reasonable). Not huge expense to travel far away to find other games. We open this tournament up to any person of any level.  With the success of this first convention, which is always the hardest, we hope to make this a yearly event that allows many groups and individuals in our company to work together to co-create an amazing weekend. As seen by the support of our partners, who already offer face-to-face and on-line tournaments, they agree that this expansion will help to offer to more SOM Baseball gamers a chance to experience tournament play.

However, we have not seen the signups we hope - all it takes is 16 participants to create two divisions for a successful event (meaning breaking even only). If you like what you see we are doing via the newsletter, can you not give us some support with this special event.  We have gone through many gyrations of its form to find the right format that will make it easy for anyone to join us.  We would be so honored if you can help us take the convention to the proper level.  Also if you know of other SOM Baseball Gamers, please send them to the convention website.

We really believe the return of the convention, in this form, will pave the way for the future for not only future Baseball Conventions but this format could be used for the other games as well.  So far Baseball has been the main game from SOM used for tournaments but at the National Convention we also had success with Football and Basketball and I am sure the hockey game could be added as well.

So if you are free the last weekend in October, why not become a part of this special event and also give yourself a chance to learn new strategies and tips from the other managers you will play.  Playing in a tournament, if you have never done it before is an exciting experience. And we would be so so grateful for your support.

So Again to Register for the Convention go to: