(Wednesday, February 24, 2010)
Shea Lopez
When picking your surfers it's important to think about the heat draw and seeding. Surfers seeded 17-22 are usually a good value and very talented. However in the first round they will face a top 5 surfer and in the 2nd round they often surf against a fellow 17-22 seed. If you load up on surfers in this range it is hard for them to make it to round 4 and beyond.
23-32 seeds are usually fighting for their WCT lives. Finding surfers in this range who are well suited to the venue and swell forecast can pay off big time.
Bottom of the barrel and wildcards. Loading up on high dollar surfers forces you to place faith on guys who rarely make even the third round. Another fact is if they do make a heat and your team is top heavy, then they most likely knocked one of your big dogs out. Wildcards make a bigger impact than those last few WCT surfers.
I'm not going to talk about the top 16 cause obviously that's who makes the majority of heats and the seeding favors. Look at each event for surfers that have an advantage. It could be local knowledge, type of wave, or swell forecast.
