Sometimes, 2nd Place Is Pretty Darn Good

Last night, Fan Duel held another large salary cap contest. However, it was NBA, which is my weakest discipline.

I was expecting the "slam" to fill up completely - 400 entries. I decided to take 12 shots and adjusted my rosters accordingly.

Much to my surprise there were only 366 rosters entered. I kind of regretted not putting in more attempts.

Regardless, my rosters were varied enough to yield two cashes: 2nd place for $600 and 7th place for $160.



While I'm pleased with the result, I'm not sure I'll be playing NBA salary cap regularly. I'll stick to the auto pick games if I have my choice.

Including my regular play yesterday, I'd say this night was definitely a top ten earner for me, perhaps top five. Still not close to my best night ever (profit wise).

October has been a great month, making up for a horrible summer.

Buffalo66 Challenge Contest #16: 60k Success

I manged to win another football contest in the challenge. Final score was 135-99. results are here.

I decided to stick with the standard 60k cap instead of the expert 55k cap, mostly because I had won both previous 60k contests.

We manged to have a few similar picks this week, including Roddy White, who went off and scored 32.1 points by himself. We both had BAL kicker Cundiff, who scored a respectable 15 points.

I wanted Olindo Mare, but the weather report was heavy rain and 18mph winds in Seattle. This also convinced me to take the SEA defense, which ranked #2 in my projections.

Mare went on to have a great game, but my change in DEF paid off with 16 points. It also allowed me to afford Rodgers at QB, who put up a small margin over Brees.

Overall, my entire team chipped in for a great score.

This leaves the overall challenge at 10-6 in my favor, with football favoring me 3-1.

Bum Hunting In Daily Fantasy Sports

I'd been saving this post for an earlier publish, but with all the activity lately I had to push it back.

Now that football, hockey and basketball are all about to be in full swing, there's an explosion in traffic at the daily fantasy sites like Fan Duel and Fantasy Sports Live. With this increase in traffic comes an interesting mix of new players, casual players and "Serious Business" players, like yours truly.

Any fantasy player that plays TO MAKE MONEY, will try to find an edge in the games and exploit that edge to a maximum advantage.

There's nothing wrong with profit motive. That's why I play the games. However, my experience shows that the way to maximize your profits is not by beating up exclusively on new and casual players.

If I find a weak opponent and chase him mercilessly - taking every matchup at every opportunity - he will leave the fantasy scene permanently, bearing only the small reward of those brief contests.

My competitor Blinders recently wrote this post claiming that he has a method to play only exclusively new and casual opponents. He is basically calling himself a "Bum Hunter" - playing only the weakest competition to extract maximum advantage in contests.

Now there is a difference between game selection and bum hunting. Employing game selection means choosing contests that are within your skill level and risk level (including bankroll). Good players can play other experienced players - with both utilizing game selection.

Bum hunting is chasing down the weakest competition, wherever they may be. In Blinders' example, he is hunting down newbies in the smallest dollar games by using profiling in the matchup process.

So what is all of his bum hunting worth? A bunch of $5 contest wins over 14 weeks of the NFL season? Running off dozens of new players that might have stayed if they had easier opponents out of the gate? Not much to brag about IMO.

There are several other regulars out there that are also bum hunters. I'm not going to name any names, but some of the top players try to avoid regulars at all costs.

Let me tie this all together for you with two points:

1) If you want to make serious money in daily fantasy, you have to play serious opponents. These are the players with the deep pockets. No crying that a player is too good. Hang with the good players (within your bankroll) and you'll have days worth writing about.

(Also, learn to win at more than one sport if you want to have more than bubble gum money in your pocket.)

2) Spread your action out equally amongst all opponents, good and bad. I cannot emphasize this enough. This is a major key to my success.

I might see 2-3 contests available against a weak opponent, but I will take only one. Why? I want him to win the other two contests. I want him to stick around and bleed off all of his other winnings to me. In the long run, I will make more off of him than the bum hunter could make.

Don't forget that spreading out your action will reduce your risk exposure. If you score well on a given night, you will win most of your contests (regardless of the opponent). If you score poorly, playing a wide variety of opponents will still likely garner you some wins (thus saving some bankroll).

Ideally, on any given night my action will be EQUALLY spread out amongst all possible opponents.

Buffalo66 Challenge Contest #15: Mistaken Identity

I managed to win the most recent football contest in the challenge. Estimated final score was 101-89. Results are here.

The reason I say "estimated" final score - it's because I still have a player active. But he'll probably never see the field in the Monday night game.

I saw Zach Miller in the player pool at a very attractive price. he was my #3 ranked TE. I just didn't realize there were TWO Zach Millers (spelling the same) in the NFL.

So with my 2nd rookie mistake of the challenge, I picked the backup Jaguars TE for my roster instead of the Raiders all-pro.

This blunder made have turned into a wonder for me, but the contest was close for most of Sunday.

We were neck and neck as the late games progressed, but a very questionable pass interference call in the DEN/NYJ game gave Blinders new life. A TD plunge for Tomlinson, plus a last minute drive by DEN. This was looking like a disaster for me.

Denver fumbled away their last chance after moving about 30 yards.

So I needed about 20 points to take the lead for good With Peyton Manning & Reggie Wayne playing Sunday night. They delivered just enough for a comfortable margin, despite several Indy turnovers.

I was surprised Blinders chose the regular cap, since he crushed me with the expert cap. I'm still not sure which I like better, although my record is better with the standard version.

This leaves the challenge at 9-6 in my favor, with my football portion lead at 2-1.

Shootout At Fan Duel Corral

Last night was a promo contest at Fan Duel. A hockey cap contest with unlimited $10 entries and a $755 prize pool.

I decided to take 10 stabs at it, figuring my chances were better than most.

I was kind of pissed when it wouldn't let add more than one entry. There were only about 50 entries total, and I figured most decent players would lay off once the overlay was eliminated.

Support said they would fix the glitch and multiple entries were allow with 3 hours to go. I put in my 10 rosters even though there was an UNDERLAY (meaning more entry fees than prize money).

I chose 5 goalies I thought would perform and put 2 different rosters with each goalie choice. 3 of my goalies won and 2 lost. Probably no coincidence that my 5 of my 6 entries with winning goalies cashed.

As I filled out my 10 rosters, two things popped into my head: 1) It would take 60 points to win 1st, and 2) I need at least ONE roster with Sidney Crosby.

So my last roster edit, I added Sid the kid to the team.

The combination of a Crosby hat trick, my goalie winning, and my obvious value pick David Booth putting up 2 G, 1 A was enough to give me the 60+ points for first.

What was more surprising - I had 4 more rosters finish in the top 10 for 5 total cashes:



None of those secondary cashes had Crosby.

I'm sure I rubbed a lot of players the wrong way by putting in multiple entries. But they had the right to do the same. I know one other player had at least 4 entries.

Now Fan Duel gets some things right and gets some things wrong. I am tough on them because I think it is the best place to play daily fantasy. They are the only site really growing right now, and they need to listen to their regulars to ease the growing pains. It will pay off in the long run.

While this was a great win promotion wise, I've had much better nights (profit wise). This isn't even close to my best money night.

But I hope this showcases the skill involved in daily fantasy. As I've said all along, it really is a game of skill.

Daily Fantasy Sports Is Headed In The Wrong Direction

(Quick update before my rant: I started out the hockey season with a 34 for 34 perfecto on opening night. Followed it up with another strong winner. However, I came back to earth with some losing nights, including my worst football Sunday of the season.)

I'm so frustrated with the "powers that be" in daily fantasy sports; I'm actually considering retirement. They are pushing me in that direction.

While there has been a solid explosion in the number of daily fantasy sites available, there has also been an effort to reduce the amount of skill actually involved in the games.

Basically, there are two types of contests: Salary cap & auto pick/draft. Every contest available is a variation on these two styles.

I have stated in this space before that auto pick is the most skillful version, because it guarantees the competing roster will have no identical players.

There is also more skill in the draft selection process, as opposed to fitting your roster under a cap.

While salary cap is less skillful, it can be skillful enough – provided that the cap is “tight” (forcing players to make some tough choices) and the pool is re-priced regularly, reflecting fantasy performances.

My favorite place to play daily fantasy, Fan Duel, is failing on both of these fronts. I was recently told they are eliminating auto pick because it isn’t popular enough. And their salary cap offering fails in its re-pricing strategy, IMO. (Also, the regular cap is just too loose.)

I understand where Fan Duel is coming from. They are in business to make money. They are trying to attract the most users to their site. They have to make the games easy to play. They want the users to be able to pick all of the popular players for their rosters. (*ahem*, auto pick?)

So Fan Duel produces soft cap games, including some with BIG prizes. It gets a lot of eyes and traffic in their direction. They have marketed well through newspaper networks. They have brought a lot of new players to daily fantasy.

But through their actions they are saying to me, “We don’t want any experienced players. We’ll eliminate auto pick and make our cap games less skillful then they could be. We are trying to remove as much skill as possible to level the competition.”

Now I have no problem with the donkaments on Fan Duel. Go for the brass ring. But if they eliminate auto pick, they will lose all of my football & basketball action.

Don’t think I’m just picking on one site. All of them leave something to be desired.

I cashed out of Draft Zone last night. There’s just not enough traffic to support continued play there. And only 7 roster spots for hockey, 5 roster spots for NASCAR.

Draft Street and Sports Geek have no hockey or NASCAR.

Fantasy Factor has no cap games only? I’ll pass.

365 Fantasy Sports won’t let me look at their offerings without registering, but from what I can tell, no draft games are available.

Fantasy Sports Live has a flawed, but playable draft game. However, their traffic seems to have really slowed in hockey and NASCAR.

And LOL Snapdraft, GG.

Now if these sites want me to keep large deposits of money with them, and churn those deposits for as much rake as possible, they have to put up offerings I think I can win.

If you want the daily fantasy scene to explode with a real-life “baller” – like the one portrayed in the Kaiseroll13 ads, there has to be skillful contests. Otherwise the big winner will be one lucky guy who won the biggest donkament. And that’s not a grinder by any means.

I have other options besides daily fantasy. Heck, I even have legal sports betting 20 minutes away from my home. Perhaps I’ll put my money into that.

More on all of this at a future date.

Buffalo66 Challenge Contest #14: Completely Underwhelmed

I lost the latest football contest in the challenge, 119-80. Results are here.

This is the first week I've played with the expert cap and it didn't seem to make too much of a difference in the level of competition. You are forced to take more value picks, usually 4-5 roster spots instead of 1-2 under regular cap.

Blinders' roster performed well above expectation. Only Arian Foster and Clayton put up lousy scores. I had Clayton as well, negating any advances I could make.

My team was a complete opposite. I had 7 of my 9 players under perform their projections. With the exceptions of Nedney and Michael Bush, it was a disastrous performance all around.

The contests was pretty much over by the start of the late games. This was definitely my biggest clunker of the NFL season.

So now the series sits at 8-6 in my favor. The football portion is tied 1-1.

Tune in next week!

Some Daily Fantasy Deep Thoughts

Fantasy football has been profitable so far this season. Winner, loser, break even, winner.

I've concentrated much more on the autopick/draft games. Any roster where you pick at least 4 deep at some positions is better suited to this type of contest.

The salary caps on Fan Duel continue to be cream cheese soft. If it weren't for autopick, I probably wouldn't play there much at all. I'm hoping they adjust the hockey cap - right now it's way too high. (Went from 35k last year to 55k.)

Outside of FSL, I can't seem to get any NASCAR action. Two weeks ago, I got exactly $1 in action across all sites.

Draft Zone is a freaking ghost town. In ALL sports. It's a shame, because I do like their offerings.

Why the hell does fantasy factor need a download client when they only run no-cap games?

I would love to play Shawn Childs in a daily fantasy game (in any sport) that forces you to make at least ONE tough decision.

I'll never make the top of the Roto Grinders leader board if they continue to use their current formula. (Although I will gain 700 points on PrimeTime420 once the basketball points reset.)

Anyone who cries to me this year about playing them too much in hockey... well, tough luck. Stick to the sites I don't play on.

Finally some players have said my week 4 cap team would've won the FFFC on Fan Duel. Whatever. I don't play the FFFC because they aren't offering enough GUARANTEED prize money for the effort.

When they offer a decent prize structure, I will offer them my entry fees.

Buffalo66 Challenge Contest #13: Vick-timized

I won the first football contest in the Buffalo66 challenge, 144-134. Results are here.

I felt pretty good about my team heading into the afternoon. However, I was concerned when Aaron Rodgers put up a "meh" performance - especially after a 3 TD first half.

Blinders made some great picks, including Ladainian Tomlinson who put up a whopping 27.5 points. Arian Foster added 30.7 more, despite being benched for much of the 1st half.

It was pretty close all day until the late games hit halftime. Mike Vick injured his ribs on a goal line rush and didn't return to the game.

After that injury, I zoomed out to a huge lead that was mostly gobbled up by Foster. But I managed to hang on for a 10 point margin.

That leaves me up 8-5 overall, with a 1-0 lead in pigskin. The next contest is Sunday.