First Blog & Fantasy Poker

by Chad Holloway

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Fantasy poker has nothing to do with half naked women playing poker but it's still awesome.

So Unabomber Poker has officially launched! I immediately signed up and created my screen name, “LuckBox07.” You’ll likely find me playing almost every day so don’t be afraid to sit down and take me on. In the meantime, I will be doing a lot of blogging here on Unabomber Poker. My plan is to cover a wide array of topics including happenings in the poker world, poker gossip, Unabomber news and anything that might be of interest to you all. Chances are I will also talk quite a bit about my favorite poker topic. As my “contributor bio” will tell you, I have a passion for Fantasy Poker. I’ve played for the past few years and have written numerous articles on it.

For those of you who may not know what Fantasy Poker is, let me provide a brief introduction. Since 2005, Fantasy Poker has grown by leaps and bounds to join the likes of Fantasy Football and Fantasy Baseball on top of the fantasy sport hierarchy. Like these other sports, Fantasy Poker involves choosing a number of players that will earn points based upon certain criteria. This criteria can vary from league to league and usually include either a player’s finish (the better their finish the more points they earn) or the amount of money earned (the amount equals the number of points that player will earn). These leagues usually run during the World Series of Poker when there is a full slate of tournaments, but recent leagues have been built around the World Poker Tour and European Poker Tour circuits as well. To give you an example, the most popular league during the 2009 WSOP was the ESPN Fantasy Poker League run by Andrew Feldman. The league had eleven players including Daniel Negreanu (who ultimately won having both Jeffrey Lisandro and Phil Ivey on his team), Howard Lederer, Dennis Phillips, Lance Bradley, Chops Preiss, Mark Seif, Bernard Lee, Gavin Smith, Dan Michalski, Gary Wise and Feldman.

In that league, each participant drafted eight poker players that were awarded points based upon the following scoring system:

1 point . . . for making the money

2 points . . . for making the top 50

5 points . . . for making the top 20

10 points . . . for making the final table; then:

1 additional point . . . for 9th

2 additional points . . . for 8th

4 additional points . . . for 7th

6 additional points . . . for 6th

10 additional points . . . for 5th

15 additional points . . . for 4th

20 additional points . . . for 3rd

30 additional points . . . for 2nd

40 additional points . . . for 1st (Double points awarded for all events with buy-ins of $10,000 or more)

I mention this league specifically because it is a template for anyone looking to create their own personal league. There is nothing more fun than getting a group of friends together and playing fantasy sports, aside from destroying them in poker. If you’re unable to find enough people to create your own league, don’t worry. Every time I come across a decent league, I will mention it on my blog so you can check it out. Most of them award great prizes (including seats to the WSOP Main Event) and are free to play so I’m always on the prowl. On top of this, I will touch on different approaches on how to build a successful Fantasy Poker team. Like the other Fantasy Sports, this one has its own world of stats and strategies.