[patio11]

you have to know all the players

I might suggest cough having the players know you. There's a famous line in Chicago politics: "Don't be sent by nobody" (An apocryphal applicant, on asking for a job at a local politician's office, was asked "Who sent you?" "Nobody." "Kid, one piece of advice: don't be sent by nobody.")

[wglb]

Or, in networking in general, it isn't so much who you know, it is who knows you.