Took a real bath tonight. Nothing like a real blow to your bankroll to teach some real lessons.
Quick Notes:
Reinforcing last night's thoughts on pitching, in the game between the Astros & Padres, Dallas Keuchel outpitched Andrew Cashner everywhere in the known universe except for in DFS. If Pitching is King in Daily Fantasy Baseball, the authority to rule comes from three important sources: Strikeouts, Strikeout, & Strikeouts.
Miguel Cabrera scored 37 points tonight after taking a 0 the night before. This goes to show that annyone can have a awful night on any given night, even the superstars, but also they are the best
(and most expensive) for a reason. It also highlights the role luck plays in this game.
But the big story of the night is one of those issues, they never talk about in any article or any podcast: who you play. One has myriad choices in what style of game to play: number of opponents, games used, etc. But a choice that is overlooked is how to find the weakest opponent. Now, I am playing a lot more games than I should because I'm testing theories and even sometimes seeking out the big time players to see how they construct their lineup, so I don't really fret daily losses, but tonight I encountered my worst loss to date as you can see by the scorecard at the bottom of this post.
Part of the losses is on me, I had $14 over two lineup cards that believed in a bounce back from Shane Greene, which didn't come. And one of my lineup cards had $8 all in large player pool tournaments, with no offsetting more winnable games (a strict random occurrence says you will lose 50% of H2H games, but roughly 4 out of 5 tournament games).
But the bigger problem is the opponents I faced.
I went to bed thinking I lost about $25 on Tuesday to find out some post 1 AM heroics brought me even for the day. Since I had already prepared myself to lose the money, I figured it was as good as time as any to move up from $1 & $2 games to $5 games. The four H2H games were all losses, three of them vs. players who just by watching the boards one can see are leveraging at least a few hundred bucks each and every night. So either they know what they are doing or are just pushing money out into the ether. I'd bet on the latter and I'm sure they know more than me. For what it's worth, the worst loss was by 11 points and the other three were between 3-5.35 points, So at least I'm a decent opponent. This allowed me to make back $9 in the 50/50, which brings me to the lesson of the day.
It might be rather obvious, but the higher the dollar amount at play, the tougher the competition.
I'm sorry if this is something we all should just know. But I thought I knew it, and still ran the night as if I didn't. I even made the mistake of setting the maximum times one opponent could play me button to 2, which made the closest loss actually 10 bucks. This is a holdover from $1 games, where I really don't care whether I wager 1 or 2 dollars, I find it easier than setting up a row of $1 dollar contests and another of $2 contests. Many of the big fish shy away from the smallest dollar games deeming them too trivial for their interest, but they attract a lesser experienced opponent. I would bet that most first time players enter $1 games first; I know I did.
Which brings us back to the dreadfully obvious point: Cheaper games bring more varied and often less skilled opponents; more expensive games just the opposite.
I'm not going to give up on moving up the ladder, and considering that one more hit or picking an decent pitcher the outcome could have been $45 dollars in my pocket. I'll attempt it again later. When I first deposited my original $100, I lost more than I won for pretty much a week dropping as low as $77.35 before finding a process that worked.
So I suggest that if you are just starting and want to throw 10 bucks down in Head to Head games, play 5 $2 matches rather than 1 $10 match. I assure you, it will make for a less painful initial experience. It's better for you to win a little or at least mitigate the losses by getting a portion of your outlay back, even if you only beat one opponent. And if you notice, it's what all the serious players do, racking up dozens and dozens of separate challenges.
And if you lose remember: some of the best lessons cost the most.
Quick Notes:
Reinforcing last night's thoughts on pitching, in the game between the Astros & Padres, Dallas Keuchel outpitched Andrew Cashner everywhere in the known universe except for in DFS. If Pitching is King in Daily Fantasy Baseball, the authority to rule comes from three important sources: Strikeouts, Strikeout, & Strikeouts.
Miguel Cabrera scored 37 points tonight after taking a 0 the night before. This goes to show that annyone can have a awful night on any given night, even the superstars, but also they are the best
(and most expensive) for a reason. It also highlights the role luck plays in this game.
But the big story of the night is one of those issues, they never talk about in any article or any podcast: who you play. One has myriad choices in what style of game to play: number of opponents, games used, etc. But a choice that is overlooked is how to find the weakest opponent. Now, I am playing a lot more games than I should because I'm testing theories and even sometimes seeking out the big time players to see how they construct their lineup, so I don't really fret daily losses, but tonight I encountered my worst loss to date as you can see by the scorecard at the bottom of this post.
Part of the losses is on me, I had $14 over two lineup cards that believed in a bounce back from Shane Greene, which didn't come. And one of my lineup cards had $8 all in large player pool tournaments, with no offsetting more winnable games (a strict random occurrence says you will lose 50% of H2H games, but roughly 4 out of 5 tournament games).
But the bigger problem is the opponents I faced.
I went to bed thinking I lost about $25 on Tuesday to find out some post 1 AM heroics brought me even for the day. Since I had already prepared myself to lose the money, I figured it was as good as time as any to move up from $1 & $2 games to $5 games. The four H2H games were all losses, three of them vs. players who just by watching the boards one can see are leveraging at least a few hundred bucks each and every night. So either they know what they are doing or are just pushing money out into the ether. I'd bet on the latter and I'm sure they know more than me. For what it's worth, the worst loss was by 11 points and the other three were between 3-5.35 points, So at least I'm a decent opponent. This allowed me to make back $9 in the 50/50, which brings me to the lesson of the day.
It might be rather obvious, but the higher the dollar amount at play, the tougher the competition.
I'm sorry if this is something we all should just know. But I thought I knew it, and still ran the night as if I didn't. I even made the mistake of setting the maximum times one opponent could play me button to 2, which made the closest loss actually 10 bucks. This is a holdover from $1 games, where I really don't care whether I wager 1 or 2 dollars, I find it easier than setting up a row of $1 dollar contests and another of $2 contests. Many of the big fish shy away from the smallest dollar games deeming them too trivial for their interest, but they attract a lesser experienced opponent. I would bet that most first time players enter $1 games first; I know I did.
Which brings us back to the dreadfully obvious point: Cheaper games bring more varied and often less skilled opponents; more expensive games just the opposite.
I'm not going to give up on moving up the ladder, and considering that one more hit or picking an decent pitcher the outcome could have been $45 dollars in my pocket. I'll attempt it again later. When I first deposited my original $100, I lost more than I won for pretty much a week dropping as low as $77.35 before finding a process that worked.
So I suggest that if you are just starting and want to throw 10 bucks down in Head to Head games, play 5 $2 matches rather than 1 $10 match. I assure you, it will make for a less painful initial experience. It's better for you to win a little or at least mitigate the losses by getting a portion of your outlay back, even if you only beat one opponent. And if you notice, it's what all the serious players do, racking up dozens and dozens of separate challenges.
And if you lose remember: some of the best lessons cost the most.
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