Issue #4, June 2013


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** SOM On-line Baseball Convention - Gene Abood  **
      (interview with Gene Abood, Star Board Member conducted by the Wolfman
       head of the Internet Netplay Tournaments for Star and the September weekend)

(Notes from the Wolfman: As we have announced in our bulletin this month in June, we are preparing for a very special weekend with three tournaments in September of this year. Gene is another member of the board for Star Tournaments but he also is the Tournament Director (TD) of the on-line Netplay Tournaments, which uses the Netplay component of the SOM computer baseball game. So we thought it would be a good idea for our readers to meet the Convention TD for this tournament as well as get an idea of how this tournament will be conducted in September. Of course, if you want practice, all of our members are welcome to participate in a Star Netplay tournament before but we hope in August to give people a chance to also play a bit to get use to playing in a tournament this way. We are working for early July to have a full blown website for the SOM Baseball Convention, stay tuned to our newsletter and our bulletins as we will being sharing aspects of the convention from the June issue through the September issue of this year. We welcome Gene to our newsletter.)
 

The STAR Tournament Logo along with Board Member Gene Abood with a photo from his Facebook site showing him with our beloved Creator of SOM, Mr. Hal Richman outside of the game company building near NYC.

Wolfman:  Today we have Gene Abood the head (Region Director) of the Netplay division of the STAR Tournament - which is one of two type of online tournaments STAR offers. In this type of tournament the participants uses the SOM Baseball computer game with the Netplay Software. So Gene, as part of your interview we want to ask a bit about how the Netplay tournament works as this will be one of the special tournaments we will be playing during the September weekend for the SOM On-line Baseball Convention. But first, Gene we would like to welcome you to the Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter. Gene:  Thanks for having me. (Wolfman's Note - Over the years I have had email contact with Gene, so I was kind of surprised to meet him again through Star but Gene is one of the most hard working and dedicated gamers you would ever wish to meet with SOM Baseball and a true champion in his own right as he has won 5 Star Tournaments and is ranked 33rd on the all time list.) Wolfman:  Gene have you always been interested in Baseball, even when you were young? Gene: Yes, I have been a fan for a long time, since the early 70s.

Wolfman:  Did you play baseball (little league, high school and if so what was your best position)?

Gene:  Yes, I played baseball from little league up through my freshman year in high school when I switched to softball. Third Base is still my best position.

Wolfman:  Who was your favorite baseball team and MLB players as you grew up?

Gene:  I have always been an A's fan. When I was young it was Campy Campaneris, Joe Rudi, Sal Bando, and Reggie. In the 80s it was Mark Mcgwire, Jose Canseco, and Walt Weiss.

Wolfman:  How did you discover SOM Baseball and when?

Gene:  I have 2 older brothers who had the game. I started playing with them in 1972, when I was 7 yrs old.  (Wolfman: Did you play in leagues after your discovery?) No, I just played against my brothers for years, at that point, I had no idea there were leagues.

Wolfman:  Can you share any special memories you have of playing SOM Baseball?

Gene:  I used to play against my brother Steve when I was young. Every year we would make all star teams and play a full season. I was always the national league and beat him every year until he got frustrated and tore up our cards! The first time I won a STAR tourney was a little more positive. :-)

Wolfman:  Can you share with our members what is it that you like about SOM Baseball?

Gene:  I love statistics. For me, doing statistics after a tourney is very enjoyable. I have the stats from every tourney I have ever played in.
 
Wolfman:  What is your favorite Strat team (real) or players you have enjoyed playing with?

Gene:  Over the year, I have had some favorite strat players. Andre Dawson, Mark Mcgwire, Grady Sizemore, Matt Holliday, and Andre Ethier to name a few.
 
Wolfman:  Before we ask you how you became involved with the Netplay Star Tournaments which
you are the coordinator for, I would like to ask you if they have any tips for our members related to creating a team in a league or a tournament, or other keys that can help your squad perform well?

Gene:  I recommend you try to make sure you have a flexible team. If two players are similar, take the guy you like better, the cards will know if you don't like them or not. ;-)

Wolfman:  Ok, now moving on to a discussion about your involvement with the on-line Star Touraments; did you participate in the STAR tournaments or other tournaments first before you decided to be in charge of what you call the Star Netplay tournaments?

Gene:  Yes, I have been playing in STAR face to face tourneys since 2002.  (Wolfman: what do you personally like about offering a tournament using the Netplay feature of the baseball computer game? )There are players who, for one reason or another, can't attend STAR f2f (face-to-face) tourneys, so this gives them a way to still participate with our organization and play in a tournament.

Wolfman:  Was this your idea to offer a Netplay tournament; how did the decision to offer these type of tournaments actually happen? 

Gene:  No, this was not my idea. We have been running these tourneys for the last 4 years and I have only been the regional director for the last 2. We ( the STAR board of directors) started these tourneys as a way to attract new players to both on line and face to face tourneys. (Wolfman: How many people have you had participate in the Netplay format?)  I believe the most we have had play in any one tourney was 30. (Wolfman: How often do you hold such a tournament?)  We run tourneys once a month from April through November.

Wolfman:  Are there any rules you use that are changed from the normal Star Rules for the Face-to-Face Tournaments? 

Gene:  For the most part they are the same, but there are certain rules that are different in the computer game. We reset our relief pitching before every series because series can be played in any order. (Wolfman's Note: For the Netplay tournament they usually take a month to finish the regular season which is a four game series against the opponents in your division. ) Our rules are posted on our website at - http://studio303.com/star/  (Wolfman:  What is there about running tournaments of this nature that excites you?)  I like to see new players come in and do well.

Wolfman:  What has been some of the most interesting moments you call during the history of the Netplay tournaments - has there been any so-called special happenings?

Gene:  As anybody who has played strat before knows, anything can happen in this game! We once had a manager, in game 7 of a World Series, be the winning manager, the winning pitcher, and drive in the winning run on a walk off in extra innings.

Wolfman:  What does a potential participant for the Netplay tournaments need to participate in this tournament?

Gene:  Obviously, he needs the strat-o-matic computer game. It also helps if he has an AOL AIM id for communicating during the game. (Wolfman's Note:  Netplay has a way to chat when you play but either something like AOL IM, Yahoo or MSN Messenger or Skype will make the communication easy and flawless.)

Wolfman:  Can you describe exactly what happens when you offer a Netplay tournament?

Gene:  Participants (Gamers) contact me to let me know they are interested. Once I know how many participants will be in the tourney, I use a random dice roller (hamete) to assign positions in the player draft. The draft is conducted in a serpentine manner using stratdraft.com with each team drafting 25 players and a ballpark. After the draft I set up the computer game with the team names and rosters. Once I have completed the updates, the playball file is sent out to all the participants. Game results are emailed back to me (as a computer file created by the SOM game).

Wolfman:  Now Gene, why have you decided to support our joint tournaments during the weekend in September - what is there about this new format that intrigues you?

Gene:  I see it as an opportunity to reach new players, play some strat, and have some fun.
 
Wolfman:  Members: Gene will be in charge of the Netplay Draft Tournament with the 2012 based cards as I indicated at the beginning of this interview, for our September convention. We will be following the rules of Star for this tournament.  When the new website for the convention is ready there will be a page that will provide everything you need to prepare for this tournament.  You may want to consult my article about my experiences participating in the sister internet tournament run by Pure Strat, to see my suggestions of what I did to be ready for the Skype based tournament which will be similar to the Netplay tournament.

If people want to contact you Gene to ask about the current Star Netplay tournaments or have questions about our Netplay tournament in September, what is the best way to reach you?

Gene:  My email is geneabood@optonline.net, my aim id is geneabood. And again the main website for the Star Tournaments can be found at: http://studio303.com/star/

Wolfman:  Thank you Gene for taking time to be interviewed, and we thank you for all your support for our joint tournament weekend in September, which should be amazing!!

(Final Notes from the Wolfman:  As you have read on our main page, working with very good friends and fellow SOM fanatics at Star Tournaments, we are creating a special weekend in September where three baseball tournaments will be offered via the internet.  If you want to sign up now for the free newsletter for the September SOM On-line Baseball Convention or even go ahead and officially register for the small entrance fee, head over to: http://www.stratalliance.info -- sometime in early July we will update this current page to a full website that will have all the information you will need to prepare for September, but also we are available via email to answer any questions. We thank Bryan Albin of Pure Strat for their help to make the new website for the convention possible.)