Test Visual Compser

Recently, while watching Antonio Brown’s entire career as a Patriot, someone asked, “How are you so good at FanDuel?” Game theory! If you’re new to daily fantasy sports (DFS) there is one key thing you must know. It’s not enough to just build a good lineup, you have to build a unique, good lineup. That’s where game theory comes in. The original game theory concept addressed zero-sum games, in which each participant’s gains or losses are exactly balanced by those of the other participants. Basically, if someone else is doing bad, then you’re doing good. An example in fantasy football – you have a team’s QB and your opponent has the team’s RB. Every time the QB scores a touchdown, that’s good for you and bad for your opponent, because the QB took away the RB’s opportunity to score points. But, in DFS you don’t know who your opponents will be playing, so you have to make assumptions. You have to try to figure out who the most popular plays each week will be. Sometimes it’s easy… when the New England defense is playing against the Miami Dolphins, you can reasonably predict that they’ll be the highest-owned defense. Similarly, when the Saints are playing the Rams one week after Christian McCaffrey went for 42 fantasy points against them, you can be sure Alvin Kamara will be the highest-owned RB. 40 to 50% of the people in tournaments may even have him! Most DFS players also like to chase points, meaning if a player does well one week, they’ll be highly owned the next week. So, what do you do with this information? You want to avoid these players (usually) and instead target good players who just had a bad week. Sometimes the matchup is so good – or the price is so good – that you’ll go right along with everyone else and use that player. But, more often, we need to find a way to differentiate our lineups. So if we use the highest-owned player, or several highly-owned players, we’ll want to add some players that we think will have low ownership. This doesn’t mean we try to hit a homerun by playing a backup TE or 4th string WR; we still need to have players who have the potential to be a top-scoring player, but who just aren’t as popular. Another way to differentiate your lineup is by not using that highly owned player at all. Instead, look for a player who has a similar projection – or, really, a similar chance of being the top scoring player at the position. Maybe there is a player who is slightly more expensive, so people are bypassing him for the cheaper option. Maybe there is a player who is facing a tough defense so people are shying away, but forgetting that the offensive player is still an elite player capable of scoring a lot of points. Think of an elite WR playing against a top cornerback or an elite RB playing against a good defensive line. If you choose not to play the highly owned player you can also differentiate and, thinking about game theory, gain leverage on the field by picking a player that is competing with that player for points. In the example above, if half the tournament field will have Alvin Kamara you might instead choose Michael Thomas. If the Saints score their points through the air, then every time Michael Thomas scores that’s good for you and bad for all those people who have Alvin Kamara. Every time Michael Thomas scores you’re gaining a huge advantage over 40 to 50% of the field because you’re moving up the leaderboard while they stay put. You may also decide to avoid the Saints all together, hoping the game is more of a defensive battle with lots of field goals. When you’re thinking about differentiating your lineups by playing less popular players, you should remember, it’s really the ownership percentage of your nine-player roster that matters, not just the ownership percentage of your individual players. If you have an RB who is owned by 40% of the players in the tournament, but you have a TE who is only owned by 1% of the players, that combination is still a pretty unique combination. But, if you have an RB who is only owned by 10% of the players in the tournament and that same TE, then you really have an advantage over the field. If that 40% RB is a bust and your 10% RB does well, then you’ve leap-frogged 40% of the people in the tournament. That leap-frogging is the secret to tournament success. You can’t expect to win a large tournament when your score is moving up and down right alongside thousands of other people.    Another way to differentiate your lineup is through roster construction. There are basic correlations – for example, pairing a QB and WR, because if the QB has a good game there is a high likelihood that the WR will also have a good game – but there are less popular correlations that you can also take advantage of and even anticorrelations. In our first game theory example, we noted that a QB and RB take opportunities away from each other, so they’re anticorrelated. Normally, you don’t want to pair a QB and RB from the same team, but if that team has a very high projected point total, then there is opportunity for both players to do well, giving you a unique lineup that other people will be afraid to use, because it’s not correlated. You could also build a lineup that uses multiple correlations. Most people are getting pretty good at using a QB and WR together, but don’t always think about the other team. If that QB and WR pairing has a good game, that means they’re probably out to a big lead and the other team will be passing to try to catch up, so you should […]

League of Legends Worlds edition! Esports has erupted into the mainstream more and more. For me, it was during the Covid sports shut down that I began to pay attention. My partner Chris has been killing the game as a top-50-in-the-world player on Draftkings. After only a few hours with him, I managed to take down 2 GPPs on a subject I had known nothing about prior to him introducing me to it. Follow him on this folks, it’s fun and I will be going full time with him on it after this season ends. I encourage you to watch a broadcast and challenge you not to get hooked.Speaking of Worlds, they continue tomorrow morning at 4am Eastern Time so if you want in on the action get to it NOW! For Draftkings you build a team just like you would for the NFL Showdown slates. You have positions to fill with a salary cap. Chris goes into details in some videos we’ve done and articles we’ve posted before but it’s too late for basics! All you need to know before tomorrow is you find the Teams you figure will win and stack them together in a 4/3 split between players from winning teams. You have a Captain slot that is worth more but also costs more just like NBA or NFL Showdowns and you need a player from each game position as well as an over-all team, kinda like a team Defense in NFL. Step #1 go to https://www.bovada.lv/sports/esports/league-of-legends to get an idea of where Vegas has these games. You want tough fought games that will get deep and not necessarily the overwhelming favorites that might win too fast to accumulate GPP winning totals. But you do most often need both sides you bet on to win! Looking at the Spreads below you can see that Top Esports is the biggest favorite on the board. I tend to stay away from those players as the risk to dominate too quickly can be too high. But you could use their Team Slot as a play if you have the salary to spare in a game they should handily win. Of the favorites that Chris liked the most when I spoke to him, he was on DragonX and also liked JD Gaming in a close match as underdogs. So let’s start there. A good example is to drop Deft (ADC) for DragonX into the Captain Slot for $11,700 and that forces you to put Loken for JD Gaming into your ADC slot. From here since I have the DRX player in my captain spot I want JGD in the Team Slot. With these two teams salaries combined not being extremely high you can fit almost any combo into the rest of the slots so mess around with what feels best for you. But I like to have 3 other members from the team I used in the CPT slot and 2 other members from the team I used for the TEAM slot. So an example might look like this:CPT: Deft – DRX (ADC)TOP: Zoom – JDGJNG: Pyosik – DRXMID: Chovy – DRXADC: Loken – JDGSUP: Keria – DRXTEAM: JD Gaming – JDGAs you can see, the optimal format of Team split 4/3 between two teams you like! Follow along soon for more details and lineup building technique when the next season boots up and Chris, Mark, and I dig into it! PrizePicks LOL Now for something Completely Different! Check out this new fantasy game — just picking over/under on player projections, get a 25 percent match when you deposit! https://www.myprizepicks.com/welcome?invite_code=0150292 Here we are looking at individual players and their projected totals of Kills plus Assists. Using what we know about the Vegas odds and scoring props we look at these guys individually by looking at their projected team totals and if they will most likely win and plan accordingly. Looking at https://lol.gamepedia.com/World_Championship clicking on the team name you want to see and you can look at each players average kills and assists. That is a great place to start and the basics say if you expect their team to win, they will go slightly over their average and if you think they lose they will likely go under. Of course a ton of variables exist and matchups matter and game flow against particular opponents… but that is a ton to get into right now and look for more skills building articles to come in the next season….. You Parlay players where you pick 2, 3, or 4 guys you get paid when you are right! The 3 and 4 player picks have the flex option that allows you to miss one pick and still win a portion of your bet! For now our favorite Prize Pick plays are:Unders -Broken Blade (7.5)Finn (9)Kramer (8.5)PowerOfEvil (7)Overs -Gadget (4.5)Deft (9.5)Nuguri (9)Knight (13)Good luck friends! – Jonny Danger

Chris E-Sports talks about his $200k win in Week 1. Wow, what a weekend. By now I’m sure you’ve seen the screenshot and understand that I had one of the best weekends you could realistically hope for. It’s one that I’ve worked for 6 years to accomplish and it’s still surreal. To be fair, 200k doesn’t go that far after you pay taxes, buy 6 TVs, 4 computer monitors, a new rig, some clothes, an entire bar, and a pack of Kirkland white tees. I kid, I kid… I only bought 5 TVs. It’s important to take a step back after major wins. In the past, after winning I would go way above my normal play and get involved in larger buy-ins than I was comfortable with. And it wasn’t that I was uncomfortable with the cost, it was because I didn’t adjust my strategy for the larger buy-ins. This often resulted in losing days and since then I’ve learned to take it easy, enjoy the win, and then adjust strategies if moving up stakes. Instead of talking about the lineup, let’s talk about the theory of how to build on short slates. I’ve won over 20 GPP’s (guaranteed prize pools, or, the tournaments with thousands of entries) this year of various sizes and many of those have come on short slates. I approach them almost the same in E-Sports as I do in the NFL. The strong correlations between players on winning teams is the key. First thing, I map out several different scenarios that can happen in the game. How does this game go if Team A wins? What about Team B? In-game two I do the same thing. Now comes the least intuitive part of the process – I understand that I’m going to be wrong. It’s my “if you ain’t first, you’re last” strategy. Usually we’re trying to be right, we’re trying to pick the players we think will do best. But so is everyone else. So what’s the result? We lose; most people lose. In fact, on a given month only about 15% of players are profitable. The thing that binds most of those people together is they are all trying to be right. We have to ask ourselves “How do I win if everyone else is wrong? How do I build my lineup to go against the crowd?” Don’t get me wrong, if you’re playing a cash game or small-entry tournament you can go with the more “correct” players – the fewer people in the contest the less you have to differentiate your lineup. But when you’re in these large GPP’s you need to be wrong to be right. So what do I mean by that? I mean I’m taking stands that don’t feel good. I’m going underweight on Michael Thomas at home, even though I expect him to do well. The field thinks he’ll do well, and they’ll be on his side. So if he has a bad game or gets hurt my lineup will look different and have an edge. As the season goes on, I’ll explain this a bit more in the DK Building Blocks weekly article and I’d be happy to answer any questions any subscribers have in regard to how exactly to build these types of lineups. If you haven’t already, you can get access to my DK Building Blocks, our DFS eBook, and our weekly picks and analysis here. Finally, don’t get me wrong, you lose a lot with this strategy so you need to have a bankroll that reflects the contests you’re playing in. And the fewer entries in these massive GPPs you play, the more off the beaten path you need to be, and the more often you’ll lose, so I’d recommend playing smaller ones to build your bankroll to start.

When you first start playing daily fantasy sports it can be overwhelming. In season-long you just draft the best player available on your cheat sheet, but DFS introduces player salaries. It’s similar to an auction, you can have any player you want if you’re willing to spend your budget for him. But how do you know how much players are actually worth? Where should you spend your money? And where should you try to save money? Let’s jump into some DFS basics and see if we can answer these and many other questions. There are two main types of lineups in DFS – cash lineups and tournament lineups. Cash lineups are geared toward contests where you’re playing a limited number of opponents. This could be head-to-head’s, double-up’s, or 50:50’s. Typically, when building lineups for these contests you want players that have a high floor, meaning even in a bad week they typically will not be a complete bust and they’re generally pretty consistent. They may not have potential to score two touchdowns and get 100 yards in a week, but they’re also not likely to get you zero points. This is contrasted by tournament lineups where you want players that have boom-or-bust outcomes because you need to beat thousands of other people. In tournaments, you want players that have a high ceiling. These players have a lot of week-to-week variance, meaning in one week they might score two touchdowns and get 100 yards, but the next week they may get no touchdowns and only 30 yards. To win a tournament – or just to cash in a tournament – you need all your players to have above average performances; you need all your players to have a boom week, so to give yourself a chance at this you’re willing to take on the risk that the player may end up with a low point total. If you’re not first, you’re last! There is a third type of lineup that we’ll mostly focus on. It’s a blended lineup where you have players who have a high floor but also have a high ceiling! Think of elite RBs who get 20 carries a game. Even if they don’t have a great day, they’re “probably” not going to ruin your lineup. And if they do have a great game, then you’re well on your way to cashing in a tournament. These, of course, are well known players and are likely to be popular picks each week, so if we use these players we have to find other ways to make a unique lineup. You can read more about all the different ways you can differentiate your lineups here. So how do we pick players? How do we know much players are worth? One common way to value players is using a projected points per dollar metric. You can find this in the value column of our weekly Player Grid section of our daily fantasy content. We use our base projections and the player salaries to rank players in order of most bang for your buck. For example, a QB whose salary is $9,000 and is projected to score 20 points would have a points per dollar projection of .002. A QB who is $8,000 but is also projected to score 20 points would have a points per dollar projection of .0025. Basically, the QB who only costs $8,000 is more valuable and would rank higher in our value rankings. Your goal when building a lineup is to maximize the value of the money you spend. These value rankings are a good starting point when building cash lineups. When building tournament lineups, we’re looking for players who have potential to be near the top of all players at their position in a week, so we don’t just want to understand their base projection, we want to understand how many points they could potentially score if all things go right for them. We can use the player’s salary to get a sense of whether we think the player can perform well enough to help us win. When we’re playing in tournaments we’re typically shooting for a lineup that scores over 180 points, which happens to be three times the total salary you have, $60,000 (on FanDuel). When evaluating a player, as a general rule, ask yourself if you see a way this player can score three times his salary. If you want to pick a player for $4,500 do you see a way that player can score 13.5 pts? If the player is $7,000 do you see a way that player could score 21 pts? This will give you a general sense of whether that could be a tournament winning player or not. That’s the general approach – in reality, more expensive players don’t need to get you a full 3x, while inexpensive players really need to be getting 4 and 5x. But 3x is a good, general starting point. We can use our value rankings as a starting point, but we have to look deeper to understand the best-case projections. This is where Vegas projected point totals come in to play. When trying to pick players who have potential to be a top-scoring player at their position, we want to find players who have lots of opportunity. Our starting point is looking at Vegas point totals. If the sports betting guru’s in Las Vegas are setting the over/under on a game’s point total at 48, that’s a game where we can expect lots of points to be scored and, in turn, can expect some individual players to have big games. We want to find those players. There are other ways we can use Vegas information. For example, if the point spread is small and the over/under is high, the game is more likely to be a shootout with both teams scoring a lot of points. If the point spread is really high there is blowout potential and you may lean toward playing a […]

In Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) there is a concept called ‘stacking’. It originated in baseball, when DFS players would get as many real players from the same team as possible. The thought is that when a team does well, it’s likely because several of its individual players did well. Makes sense. In large DFS tournaments you need to find as much upside as possible, so you look for correlations like these. Sign up for FanDuel! The concept then carried over to DFS football. While you typically don’t stack an entire team, it makes sense that if a QB has a good game, it’s likely that one or two of his receivers will have a really good game as well. After all, someone must be on the receiving end of QB points. But there is another, sometimes ignored, scenario… what about when a QB has so many weapons you can’t possibly determine who is going to benefit the most? If the QB has a really strong game, but spreads the ball around, his receivers may end up with a bunch of good, but not great games. When we use a QB without using any of his WRs, we call this taking the QB “naked”. There are other correlations and anti-correlations and contrarian correlations and on and on, but this isn’t a DFS article. So how can we use this concept in our season-long fantasy leagues? Should we use this concept at all? When you pair a QB with his WR (or multiple WRs) there a few main scenarios: They all have great games and you crush your opponent. They all have mediocre or normal games and you do just as well as you would have if you had started different players. They all have terrible games and you get crushed by your opponent. Because you have multiple players whose points are dependent on one another, you’re susceptible to more variance. You typically either win big, together, or lose big, together. So when does this strategy work best? Or, put another way, when do you need the most variance? Let’s pretend it’s the end of the season, you have a must-win game, and you’re projected to lose to your opponent by ten points. This would be a great time to start a QB and WR from the same team. It’s not always feasible in season-long fantasy leagues, but you get the idea. Similarly, if you’re projected to win by ten points, you may not want to expose your lineup to negative variance and risk having both your players perform poorly. It may be safer for you to not pair your QB and WR. You don’t get a lot of flexibility to do this during the season, but when you’re drafting you’ve surely thought, or heard someone else say, “I should get WR X because I have his QB already.” Maybe you should, maybe you shouldn’t. What type of players does this make sense with? You don’t want to just blindly pair any WR with his QB, but some WRs have a special relationship with their QB and receive much of his attention. Let’s look at some of those players. We want to consider players that receive a high percentage of the team’s targets, on a team that passes a lot, and, of course, we want that player to catch a high percentage of his targets. We looked at 40 players (not necessarily WRs) that received at least 20% of their team’s targets. Then, considering target %, catch %, and number of targets we gave each player an overall ‘stackability’ score. Player Team Score # of Targets % Caught % of Team’s Overall Targets WR Antonio Brown PIT 6.0 154 68.80% 30% WR Jarvis Landry MIA 8.3 131 71.80% 34% WR Julian Edelman NE 9.0 159 61.60% 37% WR Larry Fitzgerald ARI 9.7 150 71.30% 25% WR Jordy Nelson GB 11.7 152 63.80% 25% WR Demaryius Thomas DEN 11.7 144 62.50% 30% WR Mike Evans TB 12.0 173 55.50% 31% WR Odell Beckham Jr. NYG 12.3 169 59.80% 28% WR T.Y. Hilton IND 13.0 155 58.70% 28% WR Michael Crabtree OAK 15.0 145 61.40% 26% WR Doug Baldwin SEA 15.7 125 75.20% 23% TE Travis Kelce KC 16.0 117 72.60% 24% WR Golden Tate DET 16.3 135 67.40% 23% WR Julio Jones ATL 16.3 129 64.30% 24% TE Kyle Rudolph MIN 17.0 132 62.90% 24% TE Greg Olsen CAR 17.0 129 62.00% 25% WR Emmanuel Sanders DEN 17.3 137 57.70% 28% WR DeAndre Hopkins HOU 17.3 151 51.70% 30% WR Amari Cooper OAK 18.3 132 62.90% 24% WR Terrelle Pryor Sr. CLE 18.7 140 55.00% 28% WR Cole Beasley DAL 21.0 98 76.50% 21% WR Allen Robinson JAX 21.0 151 48.30% 24% WR Stefon Diggs MIN 21.7 112 75.00% 20% RB David Johnson ARI 23.3 120 66.70% 20% TE Jason Witten DAL 24.3 95 72.60% 21% WR Rishard Matthews TEN 24.3 108 60.20% 24% TE Delanie Walker TEN 25.0 102 63.70% 23% WR DeVante Parker MIA 25.7 87 64.40% 22% WR Jeremy Kerley SF 26.7 115 55.70% 23% WR Brandon Marshall NYJ 27.0 128 46.10% 24% WR Davante Adams GB 27.7 121 62.00% 20% WR Kenny Britt LA 27.7 111 61.30% 21% WR Kelvin Benjamin CAR 28.0 118 53.40% 23% RB James White NE 28.3 86 69.80% 20% WR Tyrell Williams SD 28.7 119 58.00% 21% TE Charles Clay BUF 29.0 87 65.50% 20% WR Tavon Austin LA 33.7 106 54.70% 20% WR Dez Bryant DAL 34.0 96 52.10% 21% WR Quincy Enunwa NYJ 35.0 105 55.20% 20% WR Kenny Stills MIA 36.3 81 51.90% 21% Let’s look at Julian Edelman. He led the league with 37% target share last year, was third in number of targets, but only so-so in catch percentage. Still, that’s good enough for our third most stackable player… last year. This year, I’ll be taking Tom Brady “naked”. You can use this list as a tie-breaker when choosing players or when deciding if you should pair your […]