It's not all about the winning?
You don't have to pick the winner to be a winner
By Brian LynnIt's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.
Yeah right! Tell that to a bunch of competitive bass fishermen and BASS Fantasy Fishing managers. However, as much as we may like to think that some sissy who never won anything came up with that saying, there is some truth to it.
While it's always nice to pick a winner, in fantasy fishing it's not imperative that you pick the top angler in a BASS tournament in order to win yourself.
True, eight of the Top-10 fantasy teams did have Takahiro Omori on their team, but guess what? The #1 team in all of fantasy fishing did not.
Brendan Matthias' aptly named, Matthias entry, stood atop the leaderboard when the fog of the first BASS event of the year finally cleared and the last fish of the tournament was weighed in. Scoring 571 points, Matthias entry edged out Jason Cheney's team, Holy Crap I'm #2, by a mere 10 points.
While Holy Crap I'm #2 used the power of Toho winner Takahiro Omori and runner-up David Walker to land the second-place spot, Matthias entry opted to forego the Bassmaster Classic champion and anchor his winning team with Walker, Ron Shuffield and Jeff Reynolds. Matthias entry rounded out his team with Rick Morris and Kenyon Hill, while Holy crap I'm #2 went with Skeet Reese, Jeff Kriet and Homer Humphreys.
Yes, it does help to have the tournament winner on your team, but it's more important to have as many of the top-six anglers on your team as possible. Of the Top-10 teams on the leaderboard, all had two or more top-six finishers.
While, It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game, may technically be correct, by not picking the winner of the tournament you're making things very hard on your fantasy team. Of the Top-10 teams, only #10 (along with #1) didn't have Omori on their team at Toho.
The bottom line? Yes, it's possible to win in BASS Fantasy Fishing without picking the winner of the tournament, but you better be good, or lucky, enough to put at least two or more top-six finishers on your team.
Props go out to Bendan Matthias for doing just that.
Also, congratulations to the rest of the Top-10 finishers:
#2, Jason Cheney, #3 William Hale, #4 William Stephens, #5 Paul Tapanila, #6 Joel Marinucci, #7 Robert Bartley, #8 Sean Nichols, #9 Todd Alberding and #10 Dave Gagnon.
