Ed. Scott Emery yobbo@shell.portal.com
Contents of this issue:Letter FROM the editor: A Short One
Pontification: Team Shape pontificated
Features: Varying Players
Fixture flogged
Letter FROM the editor: A Short One
Hi, This will be a short issue of TOW. I have two more issues to put out and then TOW will go on hiatus until something important (like viewsim) comes up. There is probably enough TOW out there to help beginners learn SPARF. After I finish this season's discussion of multi-season strategy there won't be much more for me to say. I will use TOW to archive major developments, or hand it over to someone that wants the bully pulpit. Let's get down an play SPARF!
Scott Emery Livermore Rowdy Yobbos TOW Editor
Pontification: Team Shape pontificated
When I was a young kid I went to see the movie "Billy Jack" in the theatre. It was just the kind of revenge flick that a young teenager really needs. In one of the scenes, ol' BJ is facing off against the snivelling punk antagonist and says approximately "I am going to take this foot and kick you in the head right there and there is nothing that you can do about it". Of course, since it is a movie, he proceeds to do it. That scene has left a lasting impact on me... That is why I am about to discuss the facts of training.
In my first season I made a number of the usual mistakes, including running a 27 man team. I ended up about the top of what we would now call silver (We called it the bottom of silver then, but that is a different story). Yet, the next season, I had this wonderful team that did quite well. While I had pulled my head out somewhat, SPARF is a game where strategic decisions take years to pay off and mistakes kill you instantly. Why did my team do so well? I won't exactly answer this question in this article, it had as much to do with luck as skill, but I will demonstrate why my team had become so much better in just one year.
I want to explore the effect of team size and aging over time. In order to do this, I need to control an *outrageous* number of variables. If you thought that last issues article had a number of bogusness warnings, you ain't seen nothing yet. The main sticking point in crossing season boundries with analysis is that the aging chart isn't linear. Since it has become fashionable to adjust skill levels for position, it is difficult to calculate seasonal skill loss. For these and other reasons I will simplify the training process to the point where it can't really tell you how to run your team, but will be a jumping off point for analyzing specific strategies.
In generating the team aging profiles, I utilize the charts below. Most of the Off-Season Skill Loss data used is based on (un)-inspired guestimation.
Seasonal Fatigue Neutral Training chart (from TOW 4.2)
# of players max total/pair av/player/pair av/player/season (@ 11 pairs)
20 128 6.4 70.4 / 4 = 17.6
21 126 6.0 66 / 4 = 16.5
22 120 5.4 59.4 / 4 = 14.7
23 114 4.9 53.9 / 4 = 13.5
24 108 4.5 49.5 / 4 = 12.6
25 102 4.1 45.1 / 4 = 11.3
26 97 3.7 40.7 / 4 = 10.2
27 93 3.4 37.4 / 4 = 9.5
Table 5: Off-Season Skill Loss
------------------------------
Age
Skill 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8+
100 49 59 64 63 58 50 43 32 26
90 48 58 62 61 56 48 41 31 25
80 47 56 59 58 52 46 37 29 24
70 46 53 55 54 47 42 35 27 21
60 44 48 49 47 40 34 29 25 19
50 41 42 42 40 35 31 26 22 17
40 36 36 35 33 31 28 24 17 13
30 29 28 27 24 21 19 17 14 11
25 25 24 23 21 18 16 14 11 8
20 20 20 19 18 16 13 9 6 4
15 15 15 15 14 12 10 7 4 3
10 10 10 10 10 9 7 5 3 2
5 5 5 5 5 5 4 3 2 1
My first sample team will be a 7 x 3 team... a team of 3 - 0 age,
3 - 1 age, 3 - 2 age, 3 - 3 age, 3 - 4 age, 3 - 5 age and 3 - 6 age players.
At the beginning of season 1:
(3) 0 - 10 10 10 10, (3) 1 - 10 10 10 10, (3) 2 - 10 10 10 10
(3) 3 - 10 10 10 10, (3) 4 - 10 10 10 10, (3) 5 - 10 10 10 10
(3) 6 - 10 10 10 10
At the end of season 1:
(3) 0 - 26 26 26 26, (3) 1 - 26 26 26 26, (3) 2 - 26 26 26 26
(3) 3 - 26 26 26 26, (3) 4 - 26 26 26 26, (3) 5 - 26 26 26 26
(3) 6 - 26 26 26 26
At the beginning of season 2:
(Note that the shape of a "new" sparf team is: 0-10, 1-15, 2-20, 3-30, 4-25)
(With inferior material, we have almost achieved this in one year)
(this is why I did so "brilliantly" in my first year, I stayed young)
(3) 0 - 10 10 10 10, (3) 1 - 26 26 26 26, (3) 2 - 25 25 25 25
(3) 3 - 24 24 24 24, (3) 4 - 22 22 22 22, (3) 5 - 19 19 19 19
(3) 6 - 16 16 16 16
At the end of season 2:
(3) 0 - 26 26 26 26, (3) 1 - 42 42 42 42, (3) 2 - 41 41 41 41
(3) 3 - 40 40 40 40, (3) 4 - 38 38 38 38, (3) 5 - 35 35 35 35
(3) 6 - 32 32 32 32
At the beginning of season 3:
(3) 0 - 10 10 10 10, (3) 1 - 26 26 26 26, (3) 2 - 38 38 38 38
(3) 3 - 36 36 36 36, (3) 4 - 33 33 33 33, (3) 5 - 29 29 29 29
(3) 6 - 25 25 25 25
Notice how the year 1 guys start out the same at the beginning of season 3 as they do in season 2... Anyone who doesn't already know why this is can figure it out with a little staring. So, how many more times to I need to do this before coming to a "stable" team state?...
[ stuff elided ]
At the beginning of season 7: (3) 0 - 10 10 10 10, (3) 1 - 26 26 26 26, (3) 2 - 38 38 38 38 (3) 3 - 46 46 46 46, (3) 4 - 49 49 49 49, (3) 5 - 44 44 44 44 (3) 6 - 34 34 34 34At the end of season 7: (3) 0 - 26 26 26 26, (3) 1 - 42 42 42 42, (3) 2 - 54 54 54 54 (3) 3 - 62 62 62 62, (3) 4 - 65 65 65 65, (3) 5 - 60 60 60 60 (3) 6 - 50 50 50 50
Well, I think I have beaten my point into the ground about teams falling into a "shape" given some rigid rules. One of the rules most likely to be broken is the even apportionment of skill to each player and to each player skill catagory. One may want to get your year 2 "mobiles" pumped up or may want to bring the year zero players "online" as soon as possible. Specializing a player by adding skill unevenly, depending on the general position in the aging chart, will tend to be less that optimal wrt total skill... but may be much better wrt positional playing (see earlier issues of TOW). I suggest that you take the time to graph the aging chart a couple of different ways and come to your own conclusions. You will be able to determine the amount of skill that you want your player to end the season with and work toward that goal.
I will clarify the impact on the field (or obscure it) by calculating the average positional player (app) which is the sum of the top 20 player's skills divided by 80 (4 x 20). Recalling those earlier bogusness warnings, here are some shapes for 6 x 4, 5 x 5 and 5 x 4. 7 x 3 in this notation looks like this:
season 7 x 3: (21 players, est 16/skill/season) begin 0 - 10, 1 - 26, 2 - 38, 3 - 46, 4 - 49, 5 - 44, 6 - 34 end 0 - 26, 1 - 42, 2 - 54, 3 - 62, 4 - 65, 5 - 60, 6 - 50, app: 53 season 6 x 4: (24 players, est 12/skill/season) begin 0 - 10, 1 - 22, 2 - 32, 3 - 38, 4 - 42, 5 - 36 end 0 - 22, 1 - 34, 2 - 44, 3 - 50, 4 - 54, 5 - 48 app: 46 season 5 x 5: (25 players, est 11/skill/season) begin 0 - 10, 1 - 21, 2 - 31, 3 - 37, 4 - 37 end 0 - 21, 1 - 32, 2 - 42, 3 - 48, 4 - 48 app: 42 season 5 x 4: (20 players, est 17/skill/season) begin 0 - 10, 1 - 27, 2 - 39, 3 - 47, 4 - 50 end 0 - 27, 1 - 44, 2 - 56, 3 - 64, 4 - 67 app: 52
As you may already know, the curves above are dependant only on the number of players on the team. It doesn't depend on the number of age whatever players you have or how long you keep players... The 5x4 team is a sure recipe for disaster, the first injury kills you. Remember that cranking in a larger team can almost make it train like a smaller team and leave some players to put in to IC slots when there are too many injuries... Players that would be horrifying to actually play.
One interesting contrast, an artifact of the aging chart, is that a 5 x 5 team peaks at age 3, where a 5 x 4 team (and a 6 x 4 team) peaks at age 4. A quick glance at the aging chart that you made several paragraphs ago reveals the reason why.
Let us make a different curve based on a different generating rule. This rule assumes that you don't want to add any skill to your oldest players, since they will be leaving at the end of the season any way, and want to give all of their skill to the skill 0 players, to get them "online".
season 7 x 3: (21 players: 16/skill/season, 0s double 6s none) begin 0 - 10, 1 - 37, 2 - 44, 3 - 49, 4 - 51, 5 - 45, 6 - 34 end 0 - 42, 1 - 53, 2 - 60, 3 - 65, 4 - 67, 5 - 61, 6 - 34, app: 56 season 6 x 4: (24 players: 12/skill/season, 0s double 6s none) begin 0 - 10, 1 - 32, 2 - 39, 3 - 43, 4 - 44, 5 - 37 end 0 - 34, 1 - 44, 2 - 51, 3 - 55, 4 - 56, 5 - 37 app: 48 season 5 x 5: (25 players, est 11/skill/season) begin 0 - 10, 1 - 31, 2 - 38, 3 - 43, 4 - 43 end 0 - 32, 1 - 42, 2 - 49, 3 - 54, 4 - 43 app: 47 season 5 x 4: (20 players, est 17/skill/season) begin 0 - 10, 1 - 38, 2 - 45, 3 - 51, 4 - 53 end 0 - 44, 1 - 55, 2 - 62, 3 - 68, 4 - 53 app: 56
This puts some interesting twists in the team size comparison. the gap between 7x3 and 6 x 4 widens a little, but 5 x 5 suddenly becomes comparable with 6 x 4... Notice also that in the smaller teams you will be playing some junky players in the first half that only get good toward the end of the season. This will only work well for you if you are one of the top seeds of your division.
This type of analysis is quite unrealistic, It fails to account for many important variables, one of which is the fact that it is hard to evenly apportion skill. What is especially needed is a team evaluation that is better than a mere average of the skill of the potential players. This crude method does reveal why your team gets so much better than your original team and then plateaus. It also provides a solid foundation for further exploration of training strategy. If someone out there can improve on this analysis, and wants to share, I will be happy to publish their results.
>From comment solicited before press time:
Evan Harris:
>Using 21 players as an example was interesting, but I'll never be
>running a squad that small. I had three hospitalisations in the last
>game to age 1 and 2 players who are taking part in a low fatigue
>training policy. While this is the first time it's happened to me in
>three seasons, I'm not a big/brave/silly enough gambler to run a 21
>man squad.
So what did you think about running a 20 man squad? :-) I chose the sizes and distributions that I did because they were easy to conceive and calculate. I also made sure that I was using different, realistic team sizes as well as extremes. Keying off of end of season was a little unrealistic/optimistic so I went back and added beginning of season stats as well.
Features: Varying Players
I pontificated wildly about individuating players. I lost the email. What I can reconstruct was that I proposed that each player would be Good, Average, or Bad in each of their skills. The Good skills would not outnumber the Bad by more than one. The Bad skills would not outnumber the good by more than one. This leaves GGAB, GAAB, GAAA, AAAA, AAAB, GABB as possibilites. The effect of being Good in a skill was that one would get an extra point of skill after being trained X points durnig a training session. The effect of being Bad in a skill was to lose a point after being trained X points in a skill. if X =3 and Barry White was a B A G G, then training Barry as 3 1 0 3 would actually change his skill by 2 1 0 4. This proposal kicked off some interesting discussion.
**********
From: Craig Mapes
Well, I don't know. I like the idea. Some people are going to be better shooters than defenders, and so on. I think that a player with 2 goods and one bad is , well, unusual. MOST athletes are fairly well balanced:i.e. almost every player in major sports is equal. What REALLY makes players different is their desire. An "average" player like Pete Rose( I know I'm going to hear it) was sucessful as a player BECAUSE he tried his hardest. Look at Brad Gilbert. He admits that he isn't the best player in the world- he won by "playing ugly"- his words, not mine.
While I do like the idea, I think it might be hard to implement. Maybe adding a desire attribute (I REALLY am making this difficult) might be able to balance players better.
[This sounds like a aggression stat, which would increase the chance of anything happening, mark, tackle, injury. What do you say Craig? ]
The Brewer of Distractions Craig Mapes da BLACK COMPANY
**********
From: Mel Nicholson
Handedness. The simulator already decides whether a kick or handpass is right or left handed, then promptly ignores that it had done so. I bet I could add in code to handle footedness in a few minutes...if I could just decide what that hypothetical code would do, and how to store/show the the info in the roster.
Height. Several people have suggested a height stat which which act as a plus to "up-in-the-air" type things and a minus to "down-on-the-ground" type things. This also could be implemented pretty easily.
The kind of Feedback I'd like is on whether the above would be considered a "Good thing(tm)" or an "Annoying Useless Pile of Needless Data(not-tm)"
[Ed. note: Please send feedback to kibitz@soda.berkeley.edu, or to me yobbo@shell.portal.com (and I will send it to kibitz :-) ). You can send it directly to Mel, and some feedback is best handled in email, but then the rest of us won't be able to think it over]
Mel
**********
From: cebsw@alinga.newcastle.edu.au (Barry Watkins)
> I remember that someone was objecting to the fact that players
>are 'vessels to pour skill into'. Player "classes" were discussed, where
>a class A player gets a bonus point after a certain amount of training
>and a class D player gets a minus point after a certain amount of training.
>The level to which the "class" of a player is revealed may have been
>discussed.
>
Personally, I'd prefer to add player attributes which have an effect in real life. Say height perhaps.
Every player would have a height assigned to them. It could be done by a formula of 165+(random number between 0 and 30).
The effects would occur in munch's programming rather than on the roster page.
For example: tall players are usually better at rucking and marking. Something in the code could be added so that the chances of a tall player getting a hit out would be higher than a short player.
Short players are usually faster and make good rovers and wingmen. In this case, the code which determines who gets to the ball could include a height factor. In general height is inversely proportional to speed.
Food for thought.
Barry New Sturt Blues
From: David Helmbold
I have been thinking about this also. My ideas are a bit different from yours, and still pretty rough. Thus I will bounce them off you before giving them wider circulation. My ideas may be a more dramitic change than yours, but also addresses the "staleness" factor that people were discussing a little last time around.
My original idea was that each player, in addition to their current skill points would also have "experience points" for each skill. Whenever the player gets trained up (e.g. +4 mark) they would lose 4 experience points in mark. If a player was trained at +4 in a skill but only had 2 experience, they would only go up 2 (and be left with 0 experience). No experience points would be gained/lost by resting (training at -skill levels). Each time a player plays in a game they would gain experience (say 10 points distributed randomly, or perhaps the simulator could determine what the player did and distribute the experience appropriately, but that is probably a lot of work to implement). Thus experience limits how far they can be trained up in a skill, and how much the player can benefit from "tanking" without playing.
This would seem to fold nicely into your idea by dividing 10 or 12 aptitude points between the player's skills. Now, instead of getting experience points randomly when the player plays, they would get awarded experience points in each skill equal to their aptitude in that skill. Aptitude level 5 might be excellent, 4 good, 3 average, 2 mediocre, and 1 poor.
This would make the rookie auction much more interesting because you would have to decide what you need in your rookies: good current skill (to play immediately), good experience (to tank), or good aptitude (to turn into future stars).
A simpler idea might be to have aptitude numbers that limit the amount of improvement possible. Currently the maximum a skill can increase is 5 in a single week of training. This could be interpreted as assigning aptitudes of 5 in each skill to every player. Having aptitude values range from (say) 2 to 6 and totaling 12-20 for each player might be reasonable.
Dave Helmbold
California Redwoods
dph@cse.ucsc.edu
[What follows is my response to Dave, and his to me]
From: Livermore Rowdy Yobbos
One aspect of any systems implementation that should be discussed is how much the manager sees/ how much shows up in scouting reports. Right now SPARF is pretty much a full information game wrt a manager's team and a limited information game regarding an opponent's team and the mystery of the simulator. The biggest limitation on information is the inability to view a game. As the barriers to understanding the "best" way to distribute skill slowly fall team setup is going to become more mechanical. The game becomes a challenge of maintaining an edge through training, through the seasons. A lot of work has gone into getting the most out of a season's training and the next big article is how to game the age tables...
So what (I think) we are doing is finding the necessary chrome to replace the mystery of SPARF which is slowly fading. One of the dangers of entering this part of the cycle is raising the price of admission beyond the reach of the newcomer. I recall that (Steve? ) was complaining about all of the shiny chrome on [UEW]EFL. SPARF was a welcome relief for (whoever it is I am paraphrasing). I want to see whatever it is that is implemented interface cleanly and (hopefully) potentiate with the existing SPARF architecture.
I have two objectives wrt training. I would like to individuate players and I would like to discourage "crankers" as a short term strategy. I think that "cranking" has a place for the manager that needs to turn around a team as badly off as the Tasmanian Devils were, but I am using it to produce players on a regular basis and I don't think that that is appropriate/realistic.
I like your "experience" idea. It encourages people to play players (rotate them in and out). It is something of a positive feedback loop in that my mobiles will always play, always get experience, always be able to run in small training groups. This may be appropriate, but... The point where I have a problem is where (suddenly I have deja vu) do the training points get taken away from when the player doesn't have enough experience. Should the manager have control over that... What is the algorithm to determine where the player "plateaus". There is a loss of control by the manager (or the training interface needs a radical rewrite). Does this replace the evaporating mystery?
"Experience" does discourage crankers... Makes them bloody well impossible! As I have stated before, I think that there is a time and a place for crankers, so killing them off entirely isn't what I have in mind. The other ding against "experience" is that in raw form (experience distributed by random number generator) *and* in your suggested modification (experience distributed by, well, experience) it fails to individuate players.
Let me take a moment to say that I don't like the implementation that I set forth of the advantage accrued by GAB ratings... an extra point on intensive training is not quite the right incentive to individuate. The other downsides on my idea are that it is not skill neutral which tends to unbalance the aging chart (though I tried to minimize the effect) and that it does nothing to discourage crankers, it rather encourages them...
Your final, simplest, idea is a good one. Varying the amount of positive skill change allowed dependant on the GAB rating is easy to understand and code and individuates the players. It suffers the same problem as mine (though I think it is better) in that it doesn't discourage crankers.
I have a counter proposal to your last idea. Suppose that the maximum positive change in skill varied depending on whether the player was in last week's (or this week's, if it makes mel's job easier) lineup. (Presuming last week's lineup is the variable) A player who played last week would have a cap of 7 for a Good skill, a cap of 4 for an average skill and a cap of 2 for a Bad skill. A player who didn't play last week would have a cap of 5 for a Good skill a cap of 3 for an average skill and a cap of 1 for a bad skill. While the caps could change (I suppose that a cap of 5 for a played average player is more appropriate) under these values the best possible player under the limitations I proposed in my last email GGAB when played have a maximum total change of 20 and when unplayed would have a maximum total change of 14. The worst possible players GABB and AAAB when played would be able to change 15 and 14 respectively and when unplayed would be able to change 10, but those 10 would be severely restricted... I propose that any attempt to train beyond the ability of the player be allow, but that the result be truncated and a warning sent to the manager. This would reflect the coach's attempt to train, the individual's inability to improve and the coach's perception said inability. It would also allow more flexibility to the manager on how he wants to spend training.
Scott Emery
**********
From: David Helmbold
After sleeping on your message, I decided that any positive action requires that it be easy to update all the current players. Thus the training cap idea is probably the best; where each skill would be number-modifier where the number is treated as now and the modifier indicates maximum training.
I get very confused as to the ordering of great/excellent/outstanding/etc. so I would suggest things like "!" for excellent, "+" for good, nothing for average, "~" for mediocre, "-" for bad, and "=" (double minus) for terrible.
Any training given above the limit is lost.
Existing players can be all + (lowering the limit to +5 is not such a big change, I think), or maybe each gets 2 +'s chosen by the manager.
Dave
**********
In closing, I would like to say a couple of things. I agree that (G)ood, (A)verage, (B)ad is confusing and should be replaced. I don't find the punctuation method any more intuitive, but I could learn to like it. I don't have any firm opinion on the number of levels that should be used (I pontificated 3, GAB, Dave opined 6, !+ ~-=) but any player that has *any* skill which can only be trained up +1 should not be in the regular draft! There may be room for such a loser in the scab market (emergency replacement players). I would like to leave you all with one question... If we go with a skill quality rating scheme like the one that is being kicked around here, how shall the inherent quality be reported? In the roster? In the draft? In the scouting reports? Trial and Error (boy, wouldn't that be cruel)?
Features: Fixture flogged
The topic has been broached, so NOW is the time to voice what you think.
Here is what I plan for next year's schedule:
G-1 9-2 3-A 4-B C-5 6-D 7-E 8-F 1-F G-2 3-9 4-A B-5 6-C D-7 8-E D-1 E-2 3-F 4-G 9-5 A-6 B-7 C-8 1-E F-2 G-3 4-9 A-5 6-B C-7 8-D C-1 2-D 3-E F-4 5-G 9-6 7-A B-8 1-B 2-C D-3 E-4 5-F G-6 7-9 8-A 1-9 A-2 B-3 4-C 5-D 6-E 7-F 8-G 1-A B-2 3-C D-4 5-E F-6 7-G 8-9 8-1 2-5 3-6 4-7 9-G A-D E-B F-C 7-1 2-8 3-5 6-4 9-F A-G D-B E-C 6-1 2-7 8-3 4-5 9-E F-A G-B C-D 5-1 2-6 7-3 4-8 9-D E-A F-B G-C 1-4 2-3 5-8 6-7 C-9 B-A D-G E-F 1-3 2-4 5-7 6-8 B-9 A-C D-F G-E 1-2 3-4 5-6 7-8 A-9 C-B E-D F-G
Send your comments to yobbo@shell.portal.com for the upcoming ToW.
(Note: The above is still negotiable)
Mel
And in no particular order:
>From cmapes@uop.cs.uop.edu Tue Apr 25 20:43:57 1995
Personally, I would prefer to return to an eight team division. I like the idea of playing a team twice, home and away. I think that it makes for a more interesting season, as well as a more competitive one. It is difficult to form rivalries with teams one faces once a season. I personally like the idea of being able to "get even" with a team to whom I lost to once.
Craig Mapes da BLACK COMPANY
>From cebsw@alinga.newcastle.edu.au
As a team currently ranked 16th, the above is no better than this years schedule. It is a *slight* shuffle, but basically the 16th ranked team still has to play the hardest teams, almost in order, first with the easier teams last.
Barry New Sturt Blues
>From timothy@lamar.ColoState.EDU Sat Apr 22 07:44:51 1995
The only thing I see about the schedule that I don't like is playing EVERY game against the bottom half first, then EVERY game against the upper half at the end. I wouldn't mind seeing a couple of weeks in there mixed, like taking game 4 and switching with game 12 or something. I know the idea is the best teams will cruise and have 2 months of season to prepare for the 'other' best teams, but I think it'd be good for my preparation as the #7 team to play somebody like #3 or 4 in week 3 or 4, to measure my progress thru the pre- and early season training.
Plus, if you're the #12 team (or C team), you start the year with a nearly guaranteed record of 1-7. I think that's why some teams lose interest; it's hard to get excited when you sit at 1-7, you know?
My recommendation : Keep the given pattern as the generic algorithm for every season and then switch, or flip, 2 pairs of games, like rounds 4 and 12 and rounds 6 and 10, so not every blockbuster important game is at the end and not every mismatch is at the beginning. For the 7th place team, that would make the schedule EDB3, not EDBC. Both the 3 and 7 teams can judge their progress against a higher foe, plus, C gets the schedule of 568G, not 5687, so C and G get a breather.
Anyhow, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
>From r.alphey@dce.vic.gov.au
I don't have a problem with the scheduling as such, but the fact that teams are seeded in the draw. No "real" competition (that I know of) has a non-random fixture.
Why not assign the teams to their letter/number randomly? That way the season becomes less predictable, rather than the current progressively harder/easier as it is now...
>From yobbo@shell.portal.com With the new simulator algorithm, games later in the season *should* be closer (injuries even and less than train). The SPARF engine is based on ratios and these ratios get smaller as training progresses (team size similar). If I am outpointed by a team (Sluggers) I want to face them as late in the season as possible (I nearly get my wish this season). Of course the fact that they are running a slightly smaller team that I am will probably reduce the advantage of the late play. I may have to resort to tactics... The point is, late play gives an advantage to the underdog. Govern your redesign of the ladder accordingly. Scott Emery [Ed. note: arrogant isn't he]