COACHS111’S DAILY FANTASY TOOL KIT
BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO DAILY FANTASY FOOTBALL
What is the purpose of this article? Who would read this? Why would I read it?
The purpose of this article is to explain what daily fantasy football is, why we enjoy it so much, basic strategies for winning, and to help players who are just getting started. At one point, I read an article like this many years ago. Now hundreds of thousands of “sweats” later, I am passing on some tricks of my trade. By the way, the term “sweat” refers to the process of a DFS player sweating (being nervous) during the final moments of a contest! This article can be read by anyone, but a lot of advanced players will understand everything covered. For the advanced players, watch for other high end pieces coming soon.
As you are reading this article look out for ***ADVICE FROM COACH***
When you see that, I’m offering my own personal tips or strategies on that topic.
THE BASICS
What is it? (if you have already started playing feel free to skip this part)
DFS or Daily Fantasy Sports are fantasy sports contests which focus on a single game, single night of games, or a single tournament or series. They are usually over within a twenty-four hour period or less, however, there are some that cover a series or one tournament that lasts two to four days. They do not take place over a long duration of time like season-long fantasy leagues. You can play these games on sites like DraftKings, FanDuel, Yahoo, and Superdraft. Most use salaries, (price tag assigned to each player) and salary caps (total amount of salary you have to spend on your team). They are legal in most states, but check the laws in your own state.
Build Your Team
There are a few different types of contests. The two most popular types are what we call “classic” and “showdown”. Classic style consists of multiple games and teams to pick from on a slate. A slate is the term used for the set of time and games used to make up any certain contest. Showdown is generally just one game, or one day of a four-day PGA tournament. For most classic contests, your roster will consist of the following:
- QB
- RB
- RB
- WR
- WR
- WR
- TE
- FLEX (can be RB, WR, TE)
- DST
Scoring points with your fantasy players results directly from how your players do on the field. Basically, the better your player does on the field, the more fantasy points they score. Each fantasy football site has slightly different rules for scoring. The goal is to build a team that scores more points than the field. The field is your competition. You will always have a set salary cap that you can spend up to. You must always stay below your salary cap. Generally, the better the player, the higher salary he/she will have. The higher value position, (QB in Football) will carry higher salaries.
DraftKings Salary Cap of $50,000:
Fanduel Salary Cap of $60,000:
Scoring Comparison DraftKings VS Fanduel:
TYPES OF CONTEST TO PLAY
Terms (Key Vocabulary)
Salary Caps- The budget you are given to build your team
Entry Fees- The amount of money you must pay to enter a certain daily fantasy contest.
Prize Pool- The total amount of prize money that will be handed out to the players with the best scores (varies per contest)
Size of Field- Simply the number of entries in each contest (generally the maximum number). Number of allowed entries can range from 1 to 150.
Payout Structure- This is the schedule that tells what each place is paid, and how many contestants get paid.
There are both free and real money contests in all these types:
GPP’s (Guaranteed Prize Pool)
These are contest that have guaranteed prize pools. A lot of times you will find your large field, large prize contests here. The large sites will offer contest with millions of dollars in prize money! Some contests like “Milly Makers” even offer a million dollars or more first place prizes!
***ADVICE FROM COACH***
While it may look attractive to play in large GPP’s, they are often top heavy. This means all the prize money is concentrated in the first-place prize. Until you build your bankroll, chasing the Milly Makers is often a losing strategy. Find contests that have a more balanced prize structure. In addition, start with some smaller single entry or 3-Max. Single entry means 1 entry per person, and 3-max would be a maximum of 3.
H2H (Head to Head)
These are called “Cash” games. They are contests in which you compete against other contestants. The entry fees and prize pools for these games range from small to large. Some head-to-heads have a $.25 cent entry fee, while others have a $10,000 entry fee. You can also create your own head-to-head leagues on FD and DK if you want to square off against a friend or the public. If you have never played daily fantasy sports, joining a free or low dollar H2H contest is a good way to get acclimated to website’s interface, and player pricing in relation to the salary cap.
***ADVICE FROM COACH***
Be careful of creating your own head to heads or just randomly clicking on someone to play. Look out for their experience ratings, or players in beginner-only settings. A lot of skilled players and pros post hundreds of open head-to-heads, and look to jump on beginners who post open head-to-head contests. You do not want to get started off playing vs pros. I recommend the next type of contests (50/50s) if you want to play cash game styles.
50/50s/Double Ups
50/50s and double-up are synonymous terms for the same type of daily fantasy game. They are essentially a larger field version of a H2H contest, 50/50s and H2H games are often lumped together and referred to as cash games. These games usually range from a field size of ten to thousands of entrants. Those who finish in the top half of 50/50s split the cash pool evenly with every player doubling their entry fee. The advantage to joining these games instead of H2H contests is smoothing out variance by increasing the sample size. The larger the field, the less likely you are to run into statistical abnormalities.
Double, Triple and Quadruple Up Games (Multipliers)
These are considered cash games and they work as contests where the top “x” of the field double, triple or quadruple their money. These go up to 10x leagues. You can also break these down into ‘beginner’ level contests.
Tournaments/Leagues
These are often not guaranteed, and must fill for the contest to run. If it does not fill you get refunded. They are generally 100 people or less, with the most common number being 10 contestants. Playing in a 5 or 10-person tournament is often a good way to get start, with a 30% chance of placing in the money.
Satellites/Qualifiers/Step tournaments
Satellites, qualifiers, and steps are all very similar. They are tournaments in which players attempt to win a voucher, or multiple vouchers, into a more expensive tournament, or qualify for an event,such as a live final. These contests allow players with limited funds an opportunity to play their way into tournaments they might not otherwise be able to afford playing in. They also help the DFS sites fill these larger tournaments. Since a lot of these are a winner take all scenario, they can burn your bankroll if not careful.
***ADVICE FROM COACH***
Watch for satellites that are GPP’s that give away multiple vouchers and are not filled close to lock! You can get value here, and over the long haul win money. This often happens a lot on FanDuel.
Tip number two: Until you build your bank roll, do not chase the large qualifiers like the World Football Finals, or only put a small % towards them. Since it is a winner take all, you can be good (2nd out of 10,000) and still lose money. Last year I had three seats in the DraftKing’s World Football Finals but ate up all my winnings (over $100,000) to do so.
STRATEGIES- A STEP BY STEP WAY TO WINNING:
- Set your budget. Set a plan. This is key. You must pick a certain period and certain dollar amount you can play each day over the duration of that time. DFS is a game of skill, not luck!
Looking at the distribution of winnings on DraftKings, the top 1% enter 28% of fees, but win 44% of the money. This means that for every $100 a person enters $28 but only wins $44 on average. This is pretty good return on investment (ROI). But the key is that you do not know which day you will win. If you change your playing patterns, you are effectively gambling on winning big the day in which you played more money. But what happens if your big day is on a day you played less?
- Choose your contest type! Do not only join contests that have top heavy prize pools. Mix in some single entry, and 3-max contests as well as the larger GPPs. Your strategy will change based on the contest type. This will be covered in depth in a later article.
- Build Your Player Pool- this is simply figuring out which players you want left in your player pool.
- Decide on How You Will Construct Lineups. There are three ways to build lineups (hand building, optimizing, or combination) Will you build by hand within the fantasy site, or will you use an optimizer like the one we have at DFSKARMA.COM to construct your lineups? Or will you do a combination of both based on type of contest?
- Check the Injury Reports- Do this both before you build your lineup before lock, and after lock if contest allows late swap (late swap is term used when you can change a player after lock time, up until that particular players game has started)
- Make Sure to Check Weather Reports- Weather can affect games, so make sure you understand game conditions.
FOOTBALL SPECIFIC STRATEGIES- AT A BASIC LEVEL
This article is designed for newcomers or beginners. So, these are very basic strategies and tips. More advanced articles coming soon.
Best Spot to Spend Your Salary??
Like everything, it depends on the contest type and size. To keep it simple, the smaller the size of the contest or the flatter the pay structure, I recommend using the best projected running backs more. There is a lot of variance in DFS, especially football, so finding a few RBs who have high projected workloads will help a lot. The larger the GPP field, where variance is a good thing, you will want to have a different build.
We want to apply the same strategy with WRs and TEs as well. These positions have more variance and are less consistent than a RB or QB, in terms of being able to project. We will want to take more shots on boom or bust players the larger the contest, or in top heavy payouts.
***ADVICE FROM COACH***
The goal in large field GPPS, (especially top-heavy ones) is to finish in the top one percent only 2-3% of the time, not to cash. If you lose 90% of the time while cashing 7%, but finish in the top one percent just 3% of the time, you will make a lot more money! This is due to the fact that all the money is at the top. So, don’t be afraid to take a more boom or bust lineup build.
What About The Flex??
You will eventually develop your own strategies, but a simple way to start is use a WR at the flex position. Due to WR’s having more variance, the larger the field or in top heavy payouts and qualifiers, the more I suggest using WRs. In cash games, smaller GPPs, and flatter payout structures, I will allow more builds with RB in the flex. I am not saying never enter 3 RBs in large field GPP, but I would recommend using WR in flex (or TE that acts like a WR) with more frequency the larger the field gets.
NEVER JUST PUSH A BUTTON- Think about what others will do!
You do not want to tie people, and you want to create a term we call leverage, more about this in separate article. You need to come up with your own strategy. NEVER just go to an optimizer, push a button, and jam in the highest projected lineups into a large field GPP! Even if your lineup does well, there is a good chance you will tie or “chop” the pot.
The key is building to a strategy and out-thinking others. Sometimes you can have a lot of chalk, (the popular plays) but just be different in a few areas. I recommend always changing a few projections in an optimizer based on your own research so you have a truly unique build.
***ADVICE FROM COACH***
I will have a 10-page article on leverage coming soon. But a simple beginners basic leverage rule is to always be over or under. What I mean is, get yourself a set of projected ownership values, and either be over-exposed to the field or “fade” by being under-exposed. This creates leverage situations and different lineup constructions compared to the field.
Stacking and Correlations Five Simple Tips
Since this is an article for beginners or people new to DFS football, I will keep it simple here. A positive correlation is when one player does well, another certain player or position also does well. There are positive and negative correlations. When you become more advanced you will look at them on a team-by-team, or team vs opponent level. For this article, I am just going to give some basic correlation tips of NFL DFS:
- QB with Pass Catcher Stack- (A stack is multiple players from the same team). When your QB does well, generally, he will have some TD passes. It is a simple fact that someone has to catch those passes! So a simple rule is: no matter the size or contest you play, I recommend in 90% or higher to always play your QB with at least 1 of his pass catching options.
- RB with D- This positive correlation is one that I recommend using a lot with 50/50s and smaller tournaments, but still use in 25% of the time in large field GPPS.
- RB with opposing WR- I like this one a lot with GPPS. As one team runs the ball the other is playing catch-up. It has GPP winning potential when your RB breaks a quick, long TD run followed by a quick score to your WR.
- Game Stack Rule- The larger the GPP, the less likely a big game stack is to win. Since large GPPS have a huge amount of entries, you generally need close to an optimal lineup. Often times I will game stack smaller contes,t and then enter that QB-WR stack in larger field GPPS, or limit it to QB-WR with one player on the other team.
- Mix in QB-WR-RB– If you take a look at the numbers, this is not the best correlation. In large field tournaments it is not used as much and creates leverage. It is an estimated two times more likely to be in the top 1% of lineups than it’s ownership value.
Closing Advice
There is so much more to cover! I hope some of this has helped you. I am putting together many high-level articles and training documents. My last piece of advice is do not play with your heart! Do not pick players because you like them or vice versa. Just because the best plays of the weekend are going against the team you root for does not mean you cannot play them. Players that play like that are the fish Learn to eat the fish not become one!
Until next time!
Signing Off
WHO-DEY!
