Maybe three. Let me explain.
I started my account with Draft Kings about a year before I deposited any money. I think a lot of people do this. They offer free accounts and at least one free daily tournament in each sport covered. So I opened my account and picked a football team. And like most I lost. I finished in 14,823rd place, and I walked away disgusted. How was I supposed to know that some nobody TE on the Giants would score three touchdowns? What the hell is anyone thinking playing this dumb game? You have better odds of winning buying a scratchoff lottery ticket.
The Tournament Game
That's the first game we almost all see, the tournament game. It's the one they advertise the big payouts to pique your interest to get you in. In the tournament game, you play a different sort of team. You're trying to find at least 8 out of 10 guys who really spark your totals. You hit, you win an exponential return (in the free game $0 could turn into $2, in a paying game $1 could become $100, $27 could become $100K). In that free tournament, I picked a good team, and beat out 80% of the competition, but that gave me no reward and a feeling of unworthiness I was playing the wrong game.
If you play tournaments, you take big risks for big rewards, and your team should reflect that. You want big totals and you need to take chances to achieve those. You might come up empty, but remember 1st place out of the money ends the day in the same shape as 100,000th place out of the money. Don't fret your zeroes.
The Head to Head Game (H2H)
The realization hit me much later, if I played the same lineup in a daily game vs. one opponent I probably would have won. Of course, I'd have to lay out some money to prove my point. So I did and it worked. I turned a buck into a buck eighty. I played again, and I won some and lost some, but I discovered that this game of strategy was extremely interesting. I didn't have to pick the 10 best players at each position, I just had to pick 10 players who as a group could outscore someone else who had the same idea as me. This is a compelling puzzle for the mathematically minded sports fan, and what sold me on the game. I am a fan of this concept, at least for fantasy baseball.
If you play H2H, you are really just trying to put together the best possible lineup for the money. You often pay big money for safe strong picks, and take a few chances. The chances you take are often forced by lacking funds to buy better players. But this resembles the thought processes managers like Joe Madden and Terry Francona do when they start Ryan Raburn or Chris Denorfia.
The Third Game (Hybrid game)
There are a number of different styles of matches beside what's mentioned before. You can choose to play any different number of opponents between 1 and 100,000. The fewer you play, the more your lineup should look like a head to head game. Beating two people simultaneously in a Triple Up isn't too different from beating one, and your prize for winning moves from $1.80 to $2.70 on a dollar wager. The next step up is leagues. Draft Kings defaults Leagues at 5 or 10 teams, but you can create virtually any number you want. Sometimes it's winner take all, some times it pays out top three or so. The more payouts the smaller the prizes, and vice versa. As you add teams beyond 3, you team should slide just a little bit from a H2H style roster to a Tournament roster. The same is true for winner take all formats.
To summarize, there are two distinct games going on on Daily Fantasy sites that are offered to you through the identical web interface. Pick the wrong style team for the wrong type game and your wrong results should come at no surprise. Tournaments are like playing the lotto, if you could have some knowledge of what balls tended to do in the hopper in the past, and the hoppers weren't specifically designed to give each ball equal chances. H2H is much more a skill game, And you can add a few more teams in a league to maintain the skill and up the potential reward.
I started my account with Draft Kings about a year before I deposited any money. I think a lot of people do this. They offer free accounts and at least one free daily tournament in each sport covered. So I opened my account and picked a football team. And like most I lost. I finished in 14,823rd place, and I walked away disgusted. How was I supposed to know that some nobody TE on the Giants would score three touchdowns? What the hell is anyone thinking playing this dumb game? You have better odds of winning buying a scratchoff lottery ticket.
The Tournament Game
That's the first game we almost all see, the tournament game. It's the one they advertise the big payouts to pique your interest to get you in. In the tournament game, you play a different sort of team. You're trying to find at least 8 out of 10 guys who really spark your totals. You hit, you win an exponential return (in the free game $0 could turn into $2, in a paying game $1 could become $100, $27 could become $100K). In that free tournament, I picked a good team, and beat out 80% of the competition, but that gave me no reward and a feeling of unworthiness I was playing the wrong game.
If you play tournaments, you take big risks for big rewards, and your team should reflect that. You want big totals and you need to take chances to achieve those. You might come up empty, but remember 1st place out of the money ends the day in the same shape as 100,000th place out of the money. Don't fret your zeroes.
The Head to Head Game (H2H)
The realization hit me much later, if I played the same lineup in a daily game vs. one opponent I probably would have won. Of course, I'd have to lay out some money to prove my point. So I did and it worked. I turned a buck into a buck eighty. I played again, and I won some and lost some, but I discovered that this game of strategy was extremely interesting. I didn't have to pick the 10 best players at each position, I just had to pick 10 players who as a group could outscore someone else who had the same idea as me. This is a compelling puzzle for the mathematically minded sports fan, and what sold me on the game. I am a fan of this concept, at least for fantasy baseball.
If you play H2H, you are really just trying to put together the best possible lineup for the money. You often pay big money for safe strong picks, and take a few chances. The chances you take are often forced by lacking funds to buy better players. But this resembles the thought processes managers like Joe Madden and Terry Francona do when they start Ryan Raburn or Chris Denorfia.
The Third Game (Hybrid game)
There are a number of different styles of matches beside what's mentioned before. You can choose to play any different number of opponents between 1 and 100,000. The fewer you play, the more your lineup should look like a head to head game. Beating two people simultaneously in a Triple Up isn't too different from beating one, and your prize for winning moves from $1.80 to $2.70 on a dollar wager. The next step up is leagues. Draft Kings defaults Leagues at 5 or 10 teams, but you can create virtually any number you want. Sometimes it's winner take all, some times it pays out top three or so. The more payouts the smaller the prizes, and vice versa. As you add teams beyond 3, you team should slide just a little bit from a H2H style roster to a Tournament roster. The same is true for winner take all formats.
To summarize, there are two distinct games going on on Daily Fantasy sites that are offered to you through the identical web interface. Pick the wrong style team for the wrong type game and your wrong results should come at no surprise. Tournaments are like playing the lotto, if you could have some knowledge of what balls tended to do in the hopper in the past, and the hoppers weren't specifically designed to give each ball equal chances. H2H is much more a skill game, And you can add a few more teams in a league to maintain the skill and up the potential reward.
No comments:
Post a Comment