I enjoy playing DFS baseball. I think it's lots of fun trying to figure out the best lineup to put in each day. It's invigorating to win and gut-wrenching to lose. I hit a wall of frustration this weekend (don't worry I'm still up substantially for the year), and taking a few moments to reflect on the days events made me understand something bigger than every other thing I learned thus far:
Daily Fantasy Sports is not a game of skill.
I learned this as I watched Chris Sale blow up versus Minnesota on Thursday, or Johnny Cueto get rocked by the Atlanta Braves as I write. The guy who won the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight contest tourney played a bunch of Twins. I learned this as I took down a bunch of players with a batter who wasn't starting in a game because he came in to pinch-hit and got three at-bats and 15 points. There is no reasoning process imaginable that could predict these occurrences that are at the very core of DFS. I wanted to believe that a guy could come into this and beat the system. But it was exactly the feeling I got when I spent two years trying to beat the Poker Tables. And nothing like the five years of my life I devoted to playing tournament level chess.
I know the voices on various websites and podcasts will say otherwise. They sort of have to as they are getting paid, many of them directly, by sites like FanDuel and Draft Kings. I know that the court carved out an exception to keep this game legal in most states, but the courts also think money is speech. It's a gambling game based largely on luck of the draw. If anyone could actually predict if a hitter was going to get a hit or not, someone would have beat MLB.com's Beat the Streak by now. After all, they are offering more than 5 Million dollars in a game that cost nothing to enter.
This realization forced me to rethink what I was doing, both on Draft Kings and with this blog. I came to these conclusions:
The skill portion of the game is identical to the skill portion of Poker, and something the talking heads in this field rarely even allude to. You can learn to do the same two things you can learn in poker to increase your odds of winning.
That's it. That's all that can be learned and these two things will be my focus of this website and my playing DFS. They are mammoth concepts to digest, so there's still a lot to try to comprehend. It is still loads of fun, but the understanding of what it actually is will bring real clarity going forward. I'm still no expert. My credentials are only my playing something in the vicinity of 500 contests in the month of April. I wanted to see things. I needed to assemble data.. And it would be a crime against human reason to ignore the obvious facts, just because I wish it weren't true..
Daily Fantasy Sports is not a game of skill.
I learned this as I watched Chris Sale blow up versus Minnesota on Thursday, or Johnny Cueto get rocked by the Atlanta Braves as I write. The guy who won the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight contest tourney played a bunch of Twins. I learned this as I took down a bunch of players with a batter who wasn't starting in a game because he came in to pinch-hit and got three at-bats and 15 points. There is no reasoning process imaginable that could predict these occurrences that are at the very core of DFS. I wanted to believe that a guy could come into this and beat the system. But it was exactly the feeling I got when I spent two years trying to beat the Poker Tables. And nothing like the five years of my life I devoted to playing tournament level chess.
I know the voices on various websites and podcasts will say otherwise. They sort of have to as they are getting paid, many of them directly, by sites like FanDuel and Draft Kings. I know that the court carved out an exception to keep this game legal in most states, but the courts also think money is speech. It's a gambling game based largely on luck of the draw. If anyone could actually predict if a hitter was going to get a hit or not, someone would have beat MLB.com's Beat the Streak by now. After all, they are offering more than 5 Million dollars in a game that cost nothing to enter.
- I enjoy the process of Daily Fantasy Sports
- Even though it's not a game of skill, there are some skills required to compete.
- Someone should put this information out into the world.
The skill portion of the game is identical to the skill portion of Poker, and something the talking heads in this field rarely even allude to. You can learn to do the same two things you can learn in poker to increase your odds of winning.
- You must learn how to avoid making bad decisions that diminish your capacity to be in the game when the money can be won.
- You must learn how to bet, and refrain from betting, strategically.
That's it. That's all that can be learned and these two things will be my focus of this website and my playing DFS. They are mammoth concepts to digest, so there's still a lot to try to comprehend. It is still loads of fun, but the understanding of what it actually is will bring real clarity going forward. I'm still no expert. My credentials are only my playing something in the vicinity of 500 contests in the month of April. I wanted to see things. I needed to assemble data.. And it would be a crime against human reason to ignore the obvious facts, just because I wish it weren't true..
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