Ratings Guide Curse

Decided to go out and purchase the ratings guide for the first time ever for this seasons card set looking forward to it helping my game. Three events in for the championship and the guide has gone into the bottom of my junk drawer as I am having my worst year ever playing this game. Think I am better off using my own system, never made the final cut for the championship but my teams were always competitive and had winning records not the bottom dweller they are now lol.

Glad to see you are staying a complete player. Evaluating the players cards is an integral part of being a strat player, always has been. Players who let outside ratings guides evaluate players for them can still be excellent partial strat players...the strat equivalent of David Ortiz. However, they are no longer complete strat players.

Thanks l.strether, I have never before used any outside help as it were before but thought I would give it a try this season but have found out the hard way my evaluations of players is the way I should of stayed. Live and learn!!

I can see the ratings guide as being a nice way of saving time as opposed to hand-counting all the those outcomes, but never saw it as more than that. I have seen a few systems that purported to rate players using just that data. I have also see a few websites that offered some insights, but honestly, the best 3rd party help I have ever gotten came from these boards. The rest comes from playing the game over the most of the last 37 years, and trial and error.

I can see the ratings guide as being a nice way of saving time as opposed to hand-counting all the those outcomes, but never saw it as more than that. I have seen a few systems that purported to rate players using just that data. I have also see a few websites that offered some insights, but honestly, the best 3rd party help I have ever gotten came from these boards. The rest comes from playing the game over the most of the last 37 years, and trial and error.

The ratings guide is a way of saving time instead of evaluating players for yourself, although you don't need to "hand-count" to read cards for yourself. However, in "saving time" by using a ratings guide, a player is letting someone else evaluate the cards for him. Therefore, he is not a complete strat player.

In both the board game and SOM, a complete strat player does these four things:

1. Evaluate player cards
2. Organize a team
3. Manage his team's games
4. "Run" the team's seasons through GM-type moves

A player using an outside rating guide is only doing 2-4 and is not a complete strat player. Evaluating players is one of the most important parts of the game, if not the most important part. So, players using outside rating guides may be solid partial players, but they are not complete strat players, and they did not win their championships on their own.

Many of us, online and in cd-rom leagues, still value being complete players and winning our championships on our own. Those using outside ratings guides apparently value winning itself or saving time even more.

The professor has spoken. Burn your ratings guides.

The professor has spoken. Burn your ratings guides.

Uh oh, looks like a ratings guide user is a bit defensive about using them. What I said was perfectly rational and true, Steve. If you disagree with me, then be adult and polite--as you usually are--and tell me how I'm wrong. At this point you've just shown you can't.

And, by the way, why your immature scorn towards my being a professor? Teaching young adults in college to help prepare them for their careers is hardly worthy of it. So call me "the professor" as much as you like; I'm proud of being one. I only hope your job gives you as much reward as I get from mine.

The ratings guide does not "evaluate" players. It merely provides the data from the cards.

I will agree with that evaluating cards might be the most important part; I would take it that last step and say it is the most important part of the game. I also consider it the most fun. But if the guide's authors did the work of counting the HR chances for a HR 1-5 on 2-11, on 2-12, and a 1-7 chance on 3-6, all they have done is save me time doing the math myself, not whether the player is a HR threat or a mediocrity.

The ratings guide does not "evaluate" players. It merely provides the data from the cards.

I will agree with that evaluating cards might be the most important part; I would take it that last step and say it is the most important part of the game. I also consider it the most fun. But if the guide's authors did the work of counting the HR chances for a HR 1-5 on 2-11, on 2-12, and a 1-7 chance on 3-6, all they have done is save me time doing the math myself, not whether the player is a HR threat or a mediocrity.

The ratings guide absolutely evaluates players. Statistical analysis of player cards is a huge part of player evaluation. When ratings do their statistical analyses, they tell managers the optimal players to choose so a manager doesn't have to do so himself. So, telling managers which players are the best statistical options is evaluating players, and it is what complete strat players do on their own.

Almost none of us used outside ratings guides when we played the Strat board game as kids. We evaluated the players cards on our own, as we should have done. It made evaluating players on our own part of the Strat skill set, as I mentioned in an earlier post. That was also the way it was on online SOM at the beginning. As I said before, now some managers value winning itself more than winning on their own and being complete strat players, so they use outside ratings guides.

You apparently use an outside ratings guide, yourself, to evaluate players. As I said before, that doesn't keep you from being an excellent partial player. But, as you yourself said, evaluating players is the most important part of the game. So, by using an outside ratings guide, you cannot be a complete player who succeeds at the most important part of the game on your own.

I used to publish my own Strat ratings guide.