Well, OK, maybe the idea of using the concept of playing games with your kids was a bad example.

I guess when mine was younger and we used to play Monopoly or Risk or something I didn't really care if I won or lost and the main thing was having fun.

(No, I didn't get all pissed off when a twelve-year old beat my pants off in chess. The kid was taking a chess class in school, after all.)

But here, in these games, in which we are not playing for money --- Sure, we're supposed to have fun playing ---

(Hell, I absolutely wouldn't play if I wasn't having fun.

That's why although I entered the Golf Game, and the NASCAR Game, and the Bass Fishing Game with the best of intentions, I stopped playing.

I know almost nothing about golf, and absolutely nothing about NASCAR or bass fishing, and playing those games simply was not fun for me.)

--- But what is there to play for here if not the glory of winning?

And I quite honestly can't see for the life of me why anyone would ever play the game any differently just because there was no money at stake.

Let's look at it from the standpoint of the non-gambler.

I don't think JG or DB or CC or SC or DMC would play the game any differently if there was money at stake.

I believe that they all enjoy the game, all would like to win, and all do their best to make the moves that they think are the correct ones that will lead to them winning.

Even the idea of what we call "going unpredictable" is a perfectly legitimate strategy to employ even if we were playing for money, which is what makes me believe that you are, in fact, playing the ame way as you would if there were money at stake even though you may not realize it.

Here's what I mean; Something I have seen hundreds of times at the poker table, involving two completely different ways of dealing with losing:

One player who is losing will suddenly start to play more loosely than he ordinarily would in the hopes of getting lucky and recouping his losses.

That's roughly akin to being behind in this game and picking a guy like Chacin instead of Schilling.

It's like playing with a pair of fives against a pair of Kings, hoping that your lesser hand will get lucky and beat the superior hand, which occasionally it will.

Meanwhile another player, faced with mounting losses, may start playing even more conservatively than he might ordinarily, hoping to stop the bleeding and begin a recovery.

With respect to the rest of what you said, about "...whatever my reasons, they are MY reasons and in no way should I have to be made to feel that I have to explain all of my moves to you...."

Of course you don't owe me any explanations.

But I was merely bringing up a point about what was seemingly an inconsistency in your strategy.

Hell, we've had discussions like that about strategy in this game among myself and JG and DB (and more recently DMC) for four years already.

Don't you think you got a little bit defensive there and are taking this whole thing rather personally?

I mean, obviously you are not as interested in the game as I am, but if you were you could feel free to ask me anything at all that you wished to about my strategy and I'd be happy to either discuss it all day long, or simply say that I don't wish to discuss it because it would involve divulging certain stratagems that I follow that I don't want to reveal.

But I would never make a George Steinbrenner speech like you did. :p

And I'm gonna say this just one more time, to make sure that you understand exactly where I'm coming from with regard to you and FS:

It's all that stuff about playing the game for the right or wrong reasons, and how winning doesn't matter, and just wanting to play for the fun of it, and how all the other things that got mentioned (in his case grass cutting and flower-basket-hangining, and grilling, and a nice cold beer on a hot summer day) that are more important than fantasy sports, that REMIND me of FS.

Don't get insulted; In no way am I comparing him to you.