Buffalo66 Challenge Contest #1: I Fall Behind

Well, I've lost the first heads-up challenge with Blinders.

You can see the results here. The final score was 37-39.

I really liked my chances tonight, especially when Blinders picked Hunter Pence (who wasn't playing).

Blinders also took a huge gamble with Chris Carpenter, who finally pitched after a 2.5 hour rain delay.

In other words, he didn't check the lineups or the weather.

I got off to a great start with a Bautista grand slam. However, Jon Lester had his 2nd worst outing of the season, only putting up 9 points.

I was cruising with a 10 point margin until Joey Votto homered and Chris Johnson doubled in quick succession, erasing most of my lead.

Rick Ankiel also walked with 2 outs in the 9th, and later scored on a walk off HR.

Although Carpenter pitched well, I managed to hang onto my lead. With 103 pitches, Tony Larussa sent Carpenter back out for the 8th. He pitched a perfect inning with 2 strikeouts, to give Blinders a one point lead.

I had one last gasp to tie, hoping for a Torrealba strikeout, but he singled with 2 outs in the 9th.

So you can see right away how huge pitching is to winning in baseball. Take away the pitchers and we are neck and neck.

We have 11 more baseball contests, with only 9 weeks to go in the season. Factor in Blinders vacation, and we have less than 8 weeks. So there should be a contest every 4-5 days.

Stay tuned.

How Daily Fantasy Sports Made Me A Better Poker Player

(Could also be titled: Bad Beats Happen In Fantasy Too!)

So I'm on a three day losing streak. Not the best way to end up the month.

On Tuesday, I lost every contest, due to the fact that Stephen Strasburg was scratched minutes before the start time. With 0 points from my pitcher, I was pretty much doomed for the night.

When this situation happens, I like to go back to all of my news sources and see which one reported it first. This helps me lock in the best places to look for information.

BTW, earliest announcement? 7:01pm. Four minutes before start time. Not enough time to change the rosters. (Actually AFTER the start time on Snapdraft.)

I guess someone could argue that playing fewer contests (or even only one) would prevent this situation in the future. Well, it would be nice to only modify one roster, but:

a) You still need to have that info right at 7:01 to be able to change the roster.
b) I had some opponents who also had Strasburg, so I still had a fighting chance in those contests.

Anyway, onto the main point of this post.

Players get injured. Players get ejected. Games get cancelled. Sometimes it costs you a bunch of contests.

When I get a "bad beat" in fantasy, I easily realize that it's completely out of my control. I have no control over the weather, the officiating or the health of athletes.

In poker, this is the analogy I failed to connect with for many years.

When someone would hit a running one out, one out straight flush on me, I would beat myself up. I'd tell myself I played the hand horribly and I should have done something differently to make my opponent fold.

The intention of learning to make myself a better player was there, but the lesson was rarely learned.

Thanks to my fantasy bad beats, I've come to learn which plays at the poker table I can control.

Now I'm a much more confident and relaxed poker player - with improved results.

Fantasy Reflections: Past, Present & Future

Now that I have adequate time to play daily fantasy contests, I also have the time to update my records.

Some interesting patterns have developed over my fantasy "career".

The obvious sore spot in my history is April. The WHOLE month of April. Every year.

Look at these awesome results:

April-08 FSL: 323 for 593 (54.47%), ROI -3.40%.
April-09 FSL: 137 for 397 (34.51%), ROI -18.15%.
April-09 Snapdraft: 7 for 34 (20.59%), ROI -55.71%.
April-10 FSL: 83 for 218 (38.97%), ROI -13.32%.
April-10 Fan Duel: 37 for 136 (27.21%), ROI -37.95%.

Now these stats include all sports, but at least 80% of it is baseball. Maybe 90%.

Jumping to conclusions, I think that my projections just might be HORRIBLE at predicting the 1st month of the baseball season. Either that, or I just run bad for 3 straight years.

Even with that rotten month of April, I've managed to be profitable in all sports for every calender year so far.

Emphasis on the "so far".

I've had a tough time keeping my head above water this year. I had a 3 month losing streak on both FSL and Fan Duel. My up to the minute stats for this year:

FSL-10: 339 for 751 (45.14%), ROI -0.24%.
FD-10: 462 for 897 (51.51%), ROI -7.72%.

You can see that I'm well within the range of what each site charges for rake (10%).

Also, my win rate will likely always be lower on FSL because I play all my multis there.

But I'm worried that I may have dug myself too large a hole to turn this year profitable on BOTH sites. (Overall, I'm likely to run hotter on one site, probably turning a bottom line profit by 12/31.)

Now, I've always made my biggest profits in the fall, where my Oct-Nov wheelhouse - Hockey, NASCAR, football - all run together.

I'm hoping a great 2nd half run in baseball & NASCAR will happen. I'm finding football to be tougher overall, especially because of the great free info that has exploded into the laps of the casual players.

Fantasy hockey and I will be pals for a long, long time.

So here's to hoping for the best, surviving the worst and keeping my profits alive for 2010.

The Buffalo66 Challenge v1.0: Blinders Accepts!

I've finally received an offer to take on my Buffalo66 fantasy sports challenge.

Blinders has offered to take the challenge, although I had to make a few concessions:

-No NASCAR contests. I'm giving up one of my stronger sports.

-No autopick contests. There are MANY regulars who won't play these. I think most just don't get the strategy elements to them.

-No football, hoops or hockey contests until the seasons are at least a few weeks old.

Basically, I had to give up a fair amount of EV to get this action.

However, we have agreed upon 12 salary cap contests in each of the the 4 major sports @ $25 per contest. We'll begin whenever Blinders is ready to start.

Of course I'll be blogging each contest, so you're sure to be sick of it in a month or so.

Rotogrinders.com Is Here, With My Mug On The Home Page

One of the more interesting fantasy sites to come along recently is the new rotogrinders.com.

What these folks are trying to do is start a daily fantasy community, which includes a forum and user rankings.

They asked me for an interview, which I granted. You can jump to the result here. Now that my name, picture and screen name are common knowledge, I can expect the hacks/identity theft to start any day now.

As for the new site, I think they are headed in the right direction. Having the contest results (winners only) is a HUGE informational bounty. You can see the volume of contests on each site now.

I'm also hoping the forums will spawn shared knowledge of the industry to help the player, not the "house".

My only beef is that the ranking system is flawed. They are using the same system developed for pocketfives.com.

This won't work in daily fantasy. There are two reasons for this:

-Not enough large multi-player contests. In poker, you can win a tournament over a huge field. In fantasy you are lucky to fill out a 10 player contest.

-Limit on monthly/seasonal/yearly results. If I win a $100 contest 100 times on Fan Duel, then it's impossible to achieve a higher score (from HU) using this system. And the system doesn't take into account all of the losses it took to get those 100 wins.

It would be super easy for a high volume player to max out his results on multiple sites over any time frame.

I'm not saying I have a better ranking system designed, but the current model is pretty meaningless, IMO.

Why Winnings Don't Reflect Good Fantasy Players

Quick post today, mostly because I've had this on my mind.

Let's take an example of two Fan Duel players.

Player A plays ten $100 contests, winning five of them.

Player B plays 13 $10 contests, winning eight.

On the leader board, you will see:

Player A $900
Player B $144

However, looking at the true profit of each player:

Player A, $1000 in entries, $900 in winnings.
Player B, $130 in entries, $144 in winnings.

A true profit/loss leader board would read:

Player B $14
Player A -$100

Now I realize some people have money to burn and they don't necessarily care about profits. If you know any of these people please let me know where they play.

All Matchups Revealed: Fan Duel & Everyone Else

Thanks to my new friends at Roto Grinders. The site may not be live today, but will officially launch this week.

Now we can see ALL of the contest results from the previous day, week or month. For all of the daily fantasy sites.

While it shows the total contests and the winners, it doesn't show the losing opponent(s).

As I have said many times before, "winnings" does not equal profit. However, you will get a good idea of what volume people are playing.

Much more to come on this subject.

Veggie Burgers & Fan Duel Matchups

What's the worst thing about buying a case of veggie burgers and not being able to sell them?

Eating the aforementioned veggie burgers.

I have to admit they are not terrible. Although, I also admit to preparing them topped with chili. Someone suggested last night to try them with bacon. Bacon makes everything better.

I see the launch of the $100 games on Fan Duel has already allowed some players to put up gaudy numbers. While the dollars "won" doesn't reflect actual profit, it gives a good indication that a volume of matchups are taking place.

Which leaves me a little curious as to how those volume matchups are occuring. There are nowhere near the amount of public entries to support the volume of matchups being represented on the leaderboard.

You can also see the amount of unmatched private entries when you sign up for a new game. However, matched private entries are unseen to anyone not involved in the matchup.

I'm guessing that some of the high volume players are inviting each other to private matchups.

As for me, I've been getting enough competition for my measly bankroll. I like to spread my risk by playing as many different opponents as possible.

While it won't ever get me to the top of the leaderboard, it will continue to make me the small, consistent gains I've earned over the last 3+ years.