The Poker Chronicles

Forgive me for being too lazy to click over to your other blog and look for answers there, but is your site up in a public sense? I didn't find a link in this post and was just wondering if you didn't put a link up here because the site was too exclusive and you didn't want filthy animal poker players stinking up the fresh new web site smell (which is something I would want if I ever owned something the public could come to.)

It seems to me the market is being flooded with these money fantasy sports site. WSEX, Fargas, Dr.Pauly are three I can think of off the top of my head. Does it concern you, with the amount of these coming to fruition?

@mike: yes, http://www.draftmix.com. Sorry about that.

@gobucks: Not too much. WSEX is probably going to have massive trouble getting money to/from customers. Fantasy sports live is a joke. IFS is a lot better, but I worry most about other startups like Rotohog and FleaFlicker.

Matthew,

I've been reading your blog since it's inception, but have never commented. We've run across each other a few times on Stars over the years, but I stay rather low key and you probably don't know who I am. I too have seriously curtailed my online poler playing as I've been too busy with my trading business(commdities, stocks, Forex, and financials). Since I've always put trading ahead of everything else(it's my main business), with these good markets, poker has had to take a back seat. With the market volatility as of late, I get a much bigger bang for the buck in the markets. Plus, all of the failed donks from 'Stars have gravitated over to the Forex market with their little $500 accounts that they lose in one trade.

I just hope you have good luck with wherever the twisting road of life takes you. I have really enjoyed your blog. Please post links to whatever projects you have coming up. I find you to have always been very rational in a world of irrationality.

Jeff

why do you say FSL is a joke? i have played there a handful of times and found it okay, is there something the general public should know?

@jeff: I'm enjoying your blog. I follow the market (it's sorta my spectator sport) but don't trade much. I've had a lot of luck giving friends picks. That's about as deep as I'll get until I have far more spare money and time.

@chris: They don't have live drafts, and the picking from lists has a terrible, terrible interface.

Thanks. You ought to consider give trading a try as you have a very fine understanding of risk. In the markets, I'm a pretty tight player(most normal people would disagree with that), and use a lot of number crunching software to find overlays. I work the percentages 100% of the time, and trading is merely money management, just like poker.

If you ever decide to do some trading, drop me a note and I'll be glad to point you in the right direction.

Jeff

thanks for your reply matt - i was wondering what you thought of FSL because there is a giant cheating ring that goes on there between a certain 'team' of players, didn't know if you were referencing that or not - i suppose it's possible with all fantasy sites but its definitely a problem on FSL

I don't know anything about that. Also, I'm curious, how exactly is it possible to cheat there? Since everyone can pick the same time, I don't really see how one could collude.

In heads-up matches it's impossible. In the 6-player and 10-player matches, the same group of 3-4 players enter every one - with 3-4 combinations of players out of 6 or 10 total teams on any given week, it's pretty easy to place in the money. It's pretty shady but FSL collects the rake, they dont do much else so the guys who are doing it so blatently have no problem getting away with it.

Mathematically speaking that doesn't give them an edge at all. It's not cheating, in fact, it will inevitably cause them to lose. They may place in the money often, but not enough to recoup their buy-ins.