The Daily Grind - Daily Fantasy Contest News: Week 14

Photo: Rich Barnes, USA Today Sports

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There is absolutely no question that the biggest area of growth right now in fantasy football is with the explosion of Daily Fantasy Contests.  With several top sites out there already and more entering this space each day, Footballguys is expanding the coverage in this arena to give Footballguys Insiders exclusive coverage of the latest news and information of Daily Fantasy Football.

Over the course of this football season, we will talk about numerous aspects of Daily Fantasy Football.  From articles on these sites, strategies to win daily contests, bankroll (money management) strategy, different league and game types, signup and reload bonuses, players to target each week and even contests that look to be undersubscribed ("overlays"), we will cover it all.  Welcome to the one-stop shop for Daily coverage.

Please note that even though the NFL has weekly Thursday games and DFS sites have contests that start on Thursdays, in general we will be looking at the majority of the contests and DFS games that do not begin until Sunday.  Our weekly coverage does include Thursday DFS information if you are looking to get a jump on the DFS action for the week with the first game on Thursday.

DFS LESSON OF THE WEEK - MINDSETS

This week I wanted to talk about mindsets.  What I mean by that is the frame of mind you should be in – or have to be in – in order to build the right type of DFS lineup.  The mindset in building a cash game lineup (50/50, head-to-head, or 2x (“double up”)) is different than building a lineup for a GPP tournament.  That is very important to understand, and it is something easily overlooked by newer DFS players.  I still remember when I first started playing DFS, I would build teams for 50/50s and double ups as I knew that was a safer way to play as I was first dipping my toes in this uncharted water.  When I would look back and see how I did some weeks, I started to notice that sometimes the lineups I built would be good enough and score high enough to land in the money zone for the big tournaments.  That led me to believe that I should just go ahead and put that same lineup in tournaments on the chance I could “hit it big” and get an extra payout.  By limiting the tournament play to just a few and much smaller amounts than my 50/50 and double-up play, I thought I was being smart about it and opening up some upside for my bankroll.   Now I know that this approach – even though it seems right – really is not the right way to go at all.

Despite the possibility of your 50/50 or double-up lineup doing well enough in a given week to get a payout from a tournament, that is not the right approach to tournament play.  Looking back at it now I realized that what I was doing was post-game analysis and thinking that sometimes my entry would be good enough for a return in a tournament, but that is Monday morning quarterbacking.  In reality, the two types of games require two separate and distinct approaches to lineup construction, which leads me back to the topic of two mindsets.   Once you understand this, it becomes much easier and clearer to understand.  Ask yourself this question about both types of games:  “What is the object of this type of DFS game?”  For a 50/50 or double up, the answer is to finish in the top half (50/50s) or top 45% (double up) of the entries.  It does not matter if you finish first out of 100 teams or 40^th – you get the same payout either way.  

Now let’s go back to that question for GPP games.  What is the object when you submit a team for a tournament?  The answer is completely different than for a cash game.  For tournament play, the goal is to finish as high in the standings as possible because the higher your finish, the bigger the payout from that contest.  The goal is two-fold – finish in the money and also finish as high up in the standings (and earn more money) as possible.  That’s a huge difference.  Just because your 50/50 team might have made the money (Top 10-25%, depending on the tournament), that does not mean it was the right kind of team to enter in such a contest.  I cannot emphasize this enough, so I will break it down even further with discussions of what a cash game lineup should be about vs. a tournament lineup.

For a 50/50 lineup, the goal is to finish in the top half of the contest.  So if there are 100 teams, you goal is to finish in the Top 50.  It does not matter at all whether you finish first or 50^th, just as long as you stay in the Top 50 - the payouts are exactly the same for all of the Top 50 finishers.  So now your mindset has to go towards building a lineup that has good performance and minimizing the risk (or downside) of the players you choose to put in that lineup.  It does not matter whether you have a running back or a wide receiver from the same team – all you want are players that are consistent performers that should, on average, post respectable fantasy totals that should make the player worth roughly double his pricetag (a general guideline for a 50/50 is twice their salary).   A respectable score is the goal, not a huge number that puts your team way out front.    With this in mind, it might actually be beneficial to have a running back and a wide receiver from the same team, with the thought process being that the odds are pretty good that one of them has a good day and the two players as a combination will net out to be good value plays.  Consider the example of Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell.  If Bell scores twice, odds are low that Brown does the same, and vice versa – but you could probably argue that odds are pretty good that one of them finds the end zone.  You can also make a similar argument for one of them getting 100 yards.  With a baseline of 100 yards for one and 50 for the other plus a touchdown, the combined worth of that pairing has a “high floor” or baseline of value and have good odds of reaching enough fantasy points to equal twice their combined salaries.

Now we need to discuss tournament lineups.  This is the opposite type of thinking for 50/50s.  You actually don’t care about a respectable score, because you want to finish at least in the Top 10%, and hopefully in the Top 1% or even first overall.    Respectable scores that put you just ahead of 50% of the field are still worthless because only the Top 10-25% get payouts, so you have to take on more risk.   This is where you need to really think about which players can explode on a given day to really boost your scores.  On FanDuel, you are typically shooting for at least three times a player’s salary and on other sites like DraftKings you need to even get 4x or better to finish way out ahead.  So now you can see that you need players that are riskier but offer more upside than in a 50/50 lineup.  Taking a $5,000 receiver that gets 5-6 catches and 60-70 yards a week on a consistent basis may be just fine for a 50/50, but that is not going to cut it for a tournament.  You need a player that can achieve at least 100 yards and a touchdown – and preferably has the chance to find the end zone more than once.  Even if there is the possibility that he lays an egg and fails miserably, you have to go for the high upside players in order to finish way up in the standings.  This is why you typically have to avoid pairing any players from the same team unless you build a “stack” of a quarterback and a receiver or tight end that could hook up several times a game.   To maximize your upside and give you the best chance at winning a tournament you have to go for only one player from each team, but certain pairings (such as defense and running back) can make sense for a game to play out a certain way (a good defense will help a team to lead in the second half, where the team’s lead rusher will get plenty of work to run out the fourth quarter). 

So there are two separate and distinct mindsets – cash games and tournament play.   There is nothing wrong in playing both types of games, but there is a warning to heed.  The danger here is that you start to build one type of lineup (and enter a type of contest) with the wrong philosophy in mind and start to put players you like for cash games in GPP lineups and vice versa.  That is a mistake and will hurt you in the long run, even if you experience short term success.  My recommendation would be to build one type of lineup first and then get up from the computer, take a walk, enjoy a beverage and then come back with a brand new mindset and a clean slate.   Then build the rest of your lineups with the other frame of mind.     This will help you to succeed in both cash and GPP games.

Good luck this week!

INDUSTRY NEWS

November Freerolls This Week!

Once again it is time for some free games!  For members of FanDuel and numerous other DFS sites, players are rewarded on a monthly basis with an entry to one or more GPP tournaments.  These "Free Roll" Tournaments are a reward for the volume of play at each site.  Using FanDuel as an example, these contests can be found in this way:  Log in to FanDuel and look for tournaments with free entries to see which ones you are eligible for this month.

So be sure to check all of the Free Roll Tournaments at all of the DFS sites in which you play and enter a team for a chance at free money this weekend!

FanDuel Punt Block Touchdowns - Scoring Change for 2015

DFS Class Action Lawsuit

DAILY CONTENT AROUND FOOTBALLGUYS.COM

NFL WEEK 14

Halfway into the NFL season, and we have had some big, big contests in DFS so far - and the fun continues.  Let's dig into some of the big contests out there.  If there are any that I miss, please drop me an email (pasquino@footballguys.com) and I will update this article.

FANDUEL - WEEK 14 BIG CONTESTS

All of these contests can be found in the lobby at FanDuel.