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Welcome to the 2016 version of The Daily Grind, a look at Daily Fantasy Football from several vantage points.  Together we will look at many different topics this season – from managing expectations and bankroll to what Footballguys has in store for 2016 and how to best use what this site has to offer to maximize both your enjoyment and your bankroll by Super Bowl LI.  So let’s jump right in with some thoughts on both expectations for playing this year and also a first take at a guided tour for Footballguys’ DFS coverage this season: 

DFS Simplification

Without any doubt, DFS is a puzzle.  Every week we are given the same rules – a salary cap and a list of players, and a set of roster spots to fill.  The question is always the same – how can we get the most points with those boundary conditions?  This is the problem set before us, and it never changes from contest to contest – but what does change is the contents of the puzzle box.  Some players get hurt, some ascend to starting roles, most have different prices and projections.  The permutations seem almost infinite.

Until they are not.

Some weeks we have what is known as a “free square”, where we are given a player is projected to outperform his price by so much that he is a must play.  The phrases of “chalk” and “highly owned” are bantered about, but the key item is still the same – nearly everyone is going to use this player.  Now, I get that some people may want to “fade the chalk” to go against the masses and try and beat them at their own game, but for me, I love free squares.  Whenever I can reduce the problem and simplify my DFS lineup, I am all for it.  If there are three guys subbing in for starters and they all have near minimum salaries, not only am I going to take full advantage of those guys, I am also going to focus most of my efforts on the remaining spots of my roster.  The choices are already made for me, so why not try and beat everyone else elsewhere? 

The only time I might go against the crowd is in a big GPP, where if I know 75-80% of the teams are all on one guy, I know that I am much more likely to cash (or even win it all) if that player underperforms and I avoid that pitfall.  But overall, DFS is about reducing a big problem down to its simplest parts, and I love free square auto-plays for that very reason.  

Evaluating Tournaments

There are a lot of ways to play DFS out there, but clearly some of the most popular contests are big prize tournaments.  These can pop up on every site and have various prizes and payout structures, which can make it hard to decide which ones to play.   That’s why I came up with one metric to measure how the general shape of the payouts are distributed, and which ones may be more “flat” or “top heavy” in their payouts.  I call it the 1% / 2% ratios rule.  Here’s how it works.

Take the number of entries in the contest for any tournament and multiply that number by 1%.  Look up the payout for that number (rounding if need be).  Repeat the process with 2% instead of 1%.  Divide both numbers by the entry fee.   

Now you have a basis of comparison for GPPs – what do they pay if you finish in the Top 1% and what do they pay for a Top 2% finish in terms of a multiple of the entry fee.  Using that metric, we can see how many contests compare, and also gauge new GPPs (like the new ones this week on DraftKings) to see how they all stack up.  This week, I’ve done a lot of the math for you:

Table 1 – GPPs and the 1% / 2% Ratio Rule

So what do these numbers mean?  Great question.  The higher the numbers for both ratios, the steeper the payouts are for the top end performing teams – and the harder it is to get a reasonable return on your investment (ROI).  Of course we all enter GPPs with the hopes of a high finish, or even finishing first – but often we fall short.  It is nice to know what a Top 1-2% finish will reward you, plus it also helps to know how the general shape of the payout structures are.  It can either be very steep (slanted towards first place or just a few top finishes) or rather flat (many of the top entries get rewarded similarly). 

In my experience, the numbers tend to align towards one another as the sites all have a general idea of what players want.  They have tried flatter or steeper payout curves, but the ones that fill the most are the ones like those represented in Table 1, with 1% ratios usually around 6.0 to 8.0 and 2% numbers in the 4-6 range.  Sometimes outliers do pop up, such as those on the $500K Slant on DraftKings, and it is important to understand what those different answers mean.  If the 2% number is low but the 1% number is in the typical range, that usually just means more people are paid out and that the prizes for finishers between 1% and 2% are lower to make that happen.  The alarm bells for me go off when BOTH numbers are lower than usual, which is what the $500K Slant has.  That means the contest is top-heavy, and you have to be well into the Top 1% to get a decent ROI.  Those are typically GPPs I tend to avoid, unless they are those that offer a ticket to another contest (a satellite).

Now that we have established the baseline, here are how the three midseason contests look at DraftKings this week:

Table 2 – Midseason GPPs for DraftKings and the 1% / 2% Ratio Rule

I find it rather interesting that the high end ($5M) and the lower end ($2M Mini) are similar when you compare the 1% and 2% ratios, but the one in the middle – the $1.25M Medium – is actually the worst.  If you are going to play any of the three, I would probably recommend to go with either the high entry fee GPP or the low entry fee contest and avoid the one in the middle – but the middle one is not too far out of the typical range for alarm.  It just helps to be able to compare all these GPPs in an apples to apples way, and I have found this is a good, quick method and helps me.   I hope it helps you as well.

A DFS For All Seasons 

DFS basketball continues to grow, and it is pushing for the top spot in daily sports.  If football is the #1 sport in the U.S., why is it basketball is vying for the top spot in DFS?  The key is the first word in that acronym – DAILY.  Basketball, along with hockey and, prior to the playoffs, baseball are all truly daily sports.   Want to play on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday?  You certainly can with these other major sports.  That’s the big difference.  If you enjoy the puzzle of putting together winning lineups in a salary cap format, I strongly suggest that you try the NBA, and take a long, hard look at our debut of Hoopsguys.com where we are branching out to DFS basketball coverage.  Slates run every day of the week until almost June, so jump right in and enjoy all the fun and action!

A GUIDED TOUR TO FOOTBALLGUYS’ DFS 2016 COVERAGE (FINAL EDITION)

Over the past three weeks I have provided you a guided tour to all the DFS coverage Footballguys is providing this season. Here at Footballguys, we have dedicated a good amount of the staff and resources to give you the best DFS content possible, and the intent of this tour was to highlight as much of the content and how to use it as possible.  As a courtesy to you the reader each week, I will leave this placeholder so you can find the tour in the future and can find the articles and tools you use the most.  Just remember to check the week number in the link, as it will take you to Week 3 content.  

Here is the final version of the tour:

Week 3 Daily Grind DFS Tour

Good luck to you in all of your contests!

Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com.

Follow @JeffPasquino