Wolfman: What areas in the U.S. does the West Region cover; which tournaments and what type of tournaments specifically? Jim: The West Region covers California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico and through the Rocky Mountains. At this time we are only playing face-to-face tournaments in the LA/Orange County area, Phoenix, Portland and San Jose. The West Region will have 8 face-to-face tournaments plus a season ending West Regional tournament this year. There are three tournaments in Los Angeles / Orange County (The season opening tournament Feb. 27-28, one on May 14-15 and one on August 6-7); one tournament in Phoenix (March 19-20), two tournaments in Portland (one on April 29-May 1 and one on August 26-28) and two in San Jose (one on June 25-26 and one on September 24-25). The season ending West Regional tournament will be held on October 15-16. Wolfman: Do you like your job on the Council? Does it require a lot of time? What are your exact duties? Jim: I really enjoy being on the STPC council. We have a great group of guys on the council and each member of the council represents one of our regions (West, South, Jasper (Midwest), E.A.S.T. (East), PureStrat (Skype with the computer dice roller) & NetPlay (Playing with the Strat computer game). We are all committed to making tournament play fun for all of the STPC members. It doesn't require a lot of my time. We generally communicate via E-mail, but we also have conference call meetings a few times a year and we all meet face to face the day before The Worlds starts. My duties on the STPC council consist mostly on dealing with any issues that may arise during the season and with any possible rule changes or new rule proposals (this is all done together with the other STPC council members). My duties for the West Region mainly consist of setting the tournament schedule for the West Region and communicating the tournament information (location, format, etc.) on the STPC message board. Wolfman: Now Jim, tell us how the point system works in STPC? How do you earn these points? Jim: Players receive one point for each win in the regular season and one point for each game over .500 in the regular season, plus two points for each playoff game won (including bye wins). The winner of the tournament receives a bonus of one point for each entrant in the tournament. The second place-player receives 1/3 point for each participant in the tournament.
If a tournament has more than 28 regular season
scheduled games, the wins and losses are
normalized to a 28-game regular season. If the
tournament winner has more than 7 play-off wins
(including bye wins), the play-off wins for all
play-off teams are normalized by multiplying by
7/x where x is the number of play-off wins the
tournament winner will have (including bye
wins). Jim: Starting in 2016, the National Points Champion will receive $500. This is new for this year. Previously, it was simply bragging rights. The way that the points are tabulated for the National Points Champion are as follows: Take your best three tournament point totals plus your regional points total, add those all up and the National Points Champion will be the player who has the most total points at the end of the season. The one stipulation is that two of your three tourney point totals need to come from face-to-face tournaments and your regional point total needs to come from only the face-to-face regional tournaments (West, South, Jasper or E.A.S.T.).
A player will have a better chance at winning
the National Points title by playing in more
tournaments because that player will have more
opportunities to earn points, but the playing
field is evened out because only your top three
point totals plus the regional point total are
used to determine the National Points Champion.
Jim: Each
region keeps their own points list. This is
separate from the National Points list, but
there is also a cash prize for a regional points
champion too.
Jim: Good
fortune is still the key to any successful
tournament. I just try to build teams that give
me the best possible chance of success. I do
have a criteria I use to rate the individual
cards, but because the flow of each draft is
different, I generally never have a set
strategy when I build any of my
tournament teams. Jim: The early tournaments are usually more challenging because the current card set has not been study at any length yet. The STPC does provide a very helpful draft guide called the APS (average pick sheet) which is updated throughout the year. This is a great tool for a newbie to study prior to drafting any tournament team. (Editors Note: The APS shows on the average when each particular player {via their card} is drafted, in which round and which pick and also rates them based on the number of team for the draft. In addition, STPC will also publish the rosters of the teams that were drafted from each tournament to give newbies an idea of the type of teams created and which ones were the most successful) The STPC also has a computer program called DSIM (draft simulator -- this program offers suggestions on which players are suggested to take in your next pick) that is also a good draft practicing tool. The draft is by far the most important thing in any tournament, so building a strong team will make things less frustrating for any player. The more a player plays in a tournament, the more they will learn, which will generally lead to less frustration. Strat is a frustrating game at times. I can tell you that no matter how good a Strat player is, that player will have his share of bad tournament results too. I always like to equate Strat tournament results to tournament golf. No matter how good a golfer is, they have tournaments where they play poorly and miss the cut. No different in Strat tournaments. Wolfman: Do you find it is more difficult to do well in a face-to-face tournament or more challenging with an on-line tournament?
Jim: Playing
face-to-face and in Pure Strat (Skype with
cards and the computer dice roller) is the same
to me. They are both very challenging. I don't
play the Strat computer game anymore. I've never
been a fan of it and for me the game play on the
Strat computer game does not have the same feel
or fun as the other two formats. Other players
love it, but it's not for me.
Jim: I
will be participating in all three of the
LA/Orange County tournaments and the Phoenix
tournament. My participation in the Portland and
San Jose tournaments will be determined by my
work schedule and any family commitments.
Jim: I
would encourage any Strat players to come out
and play in any STPC tournament that works best
for them. We have a great group of players and
we have tournaments in a lot of different
locations throughout the country. We have a lot
of fun and fellowship playing a game we all love
to play. So whether you want to play
face-to-face or if you want to play via Skype
because you can't always travel to a
face-to-face tournament location or if you want
to play in a tournament using the Strat computer
game (Netplay), then the STPC is the best place
to come and play against the best Strat-O-Matic
baseball players in the world.
Jim: Wolfman,
you would be welcomed to play at any STPC
tournament. We would love to have you join us
some day. Jim: It was my pleasure, Wolfman. My E-mail address is jim.gary01@gmail.com and the STPC website address is www.strattpc.com Wolfman: good luck in 2016 Jim, all the best
Jim: Thanks,
Wolfman. Final Comments from the Wolfman: -- So as I mentioned above, this is the first of six interviews we will be doing with the councilors of the STPC regions this year and that we now have two STPC reporters who will be sharing with us each month, what is happening in the STPC World. We are very excited with these new developments for the newsletter.
Also if you want
to check out all the various tournaments coming
up for the end of February through the end of
May (both live and on-line) you can visit this
page on the STPC website:
Finally, I talked
about this on my first video for the Ultimate
Strat Baseball Newsletter Video Channel on
Youtube ( click
here
) that sometime in the near future, (since
I don't live too far from the 2016 STPC Worlds
Champ, Pete Nelson, here in the Seattle area), I
have challenged Pete to a live (dice and cards)
series following the STPC tournaments rules, a
best of seven game series. So stay tuned
in the next month or so for the results as Pete
is the 4 time winner of this prestigious
tournament. It is now official, the
gauntlet has been thrown! You heard it here
first ... We gave our thanks and gratitude to STPC for also supporting us by letting their members know about the newsletter and open to our crazy ideas to work together!!
♦ RETURN TO NEWSLETTER MAIN PAGE ♦ INTERVIEW with WILLIE MAYS AIKENS, we return with our 2nd interview with ex-Major Leaguer, Willie Mays Aikens, known for being a member of the KC Royals when they went to the World Series with George Brett in the 1980's. We ask Mr. Aiken some new questions and his experience as a hitting coach for the players in the KC Royals minors. ♦ INTERVIEW with MARC PELLETIER, we hear again from Marc about his special system for building winning teams in Baseball 365 for leagues based on the 20XX seasons. In this article he discusses how to pick the right pitchers for your team. Next month in March, our editor Wolfman Shapiro, will enter a 2015 based league using Marc's system. ♦ STRAT WISE with MARC WASSERMAN -- commissioner of the Cyber Baseball Association (CBA) continues his new column sharing various perspectives on SOM Baseball. In this issue he discusses about his visit on "Opening Day", the top 20 cards in the 2015 MLB set and some special new videos on our Video Channel on Youtube.♦ ARTICLE with CHUCK TINKLER (Part III), a continuation of the article by Chuck, one of our members sharing about a real Strat Master that he met in his early days of playing Strat-o-matic
♦
SOM BASEBALL LEAGUE REPORT with WOLFMAN SHAPIRO
--
the editor of "The Ultimate Strat Newsletter" and 2012 CBA
Champion, the "Wolfman" puts out a call to
the members of various Strat-o-matic Baseball Leagues that he
has discovered on the internet to talk about their experiences
with their league. This is the first time we get to speak to a
League Champion, from NASOMA, who we spoke to their commissioner
in our December 2015 issue.
To read his interview, click on the link below: ♦ SOM/MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL WORLD NEWS with WOLFMAN SHAPIRO , editor of "The Ultimate Strat Newsletter" shares two live reports from Strat-o-matic's Opening Day on February 12th, and introduces you to the Strat Tournament Players Club (STPC) Reporters who starting in March will be sharing with us the latest news and insights from this year's series of grueling and testing tournaments this year. Also STPC and this newsletter are announcing a test tournament you can join us - we are seeking members to help us. To read more, visit this latest version of our newsy page.♦ RECOMMEND ON-LINE SOM RESOURCES -- On-line Strat-o-matic and Baseball related websitesthat 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 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 Baseball Game and Game Company's history. We have a special arrangement with Acta Sports, who is a publisher of a number of great baseball books (including Bill James Handbooks) to offer for our members a 10% discount. We will continue to add more books to this page in the future as we uncover other gems our members should know about.
Wolfman Shapiro
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