Auction Draft Database

I’ve long touted that the Auction Draft is far superior than the Snake.  Not in a pretentious “you’re stupid if you snake draft” sort of way…I just believe the auction is simply more fun.

Pick the first T&R podcast episode of any pre-season, and you’ll be treated with a rant from Pete and myself as to exactly why we love the auction so much.  Since we’re already at “dead horse” levels of discussion, I’ll spare you the details.

Suffice it to say that the auction is 1) more intense, 2) more demanding, and 3) more fun.

I compare the auction draft lobby to playing a game of Texas Hold ‘Em with 11 of your buddies while on the trade floor of a New York stock exchange.

 In addition to being skilled in the technical aspects of Fantasy Football (valuation, player knowledge, upside, risk/reward), the strongest of auction drafters also make for very good poker players.  The auction lobby allows managers to not only strategically draft their own team, but to offensively distort and impact your opponents’ draft using the elements of bluff, price enforcement, forced bids, and market flushing.

The best auction drafter (and poker player) is in control of the table.

I am not the best auction drafter. I am a pretty good one, maybe.  But the truth is, it’s hard enough to manage your own draft, budget, and targets.  Who has time (or the multi-tasking ability?) to go on the offense and mess with other managers during the draft?

POKERFACE

I built Pokerface as an attempt to draft better, smarter, and more on the offensive.  There are hundreds of Fantasy fans more talented and spreadsheet-savvy than I, and I tip my hat to the Excel Gurus who have gone before us to make some pretty salty tools for drafting.  Our league Commish’, Peter Ellwood, is one of them.

Unlike many of the tools available, Pokerface is an Access database (not an Excel spreadsheet).  This is for several reasons:

1. I am much more competent in my SQL and database management chops than I am in Excel.
2. As a graphic designer, sometimes I value form way over function.  While I hope this database functions nicely, I also care deeply about the user interface and its “pretty” factor.  Access allows for a much nicer user experience than the cold, hard grids of excel (but hey, if you’re into that sort of thing, no judgement).
3. Speed.  I needed the amount of data chugging on the fly to keep up with the frenetic pace of the auction draft.

I am very excited to have this tool where it is, and I look forward to honing it in further in the future.  If you like it and find it useful, please consider 1) sharing it, 2) providing feedback, and 3) buying me lunch.