Victories on Victiv....

Not the biggest pile of money, but beggars can't be choosers.

58.35 should be good enough for a clean sweep, but I got paired with someone who put together a lineup better than me.

They do this interesting thing with Head to Heads on their site.  You put your bet into a blind pool and they pair you up randomly with another player.  On my $5 bet, I got you standard run of the mill sort of player who put up a very respectable 46.35, but the $2 bet fellow either really knows what they are doing or got extremely lucky (I'm thinking the former).  He managed to put together a lineup with Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers, plus Bryce Harper. Anyway, this quirk of Victiv, is something I'm pretty fond of, none of that weird trolling for the presumed weakest link based on something you might glean from an online moniker. Greg Bird might be a name I need to get to know.

And it serves me right for not checking whether Lonnie Chisenhall actually got the start.  And since the $5 guy who got paired with yours truly is have the same emotions I'm having tonight, you might say what goes around comes around pretty fast in DFS.

Another interesting note is something I hadn't noticed about the Pitching Scoring on Victiv.  You choose a Pitching staff. not a pitcher, so you get credit for relief work.  So that means Extra Innings normally means extra points for your team.  I don't know how to predict extra inning games, but it's something to chew on going forward.  An end of game factor, that might be comparable to other site's magic 4 points for a win at the end of a game. However, it helps if your Pitching Staff doesn't just cough it up in the 10th like mine did tonight.

Fresh Set of Eyes..

After a nice little run two weeks ago, I hit a bit of a skid last week.  After taking three consecutive

losing days, I decided to hold off play this weekend.  Center and refocus.  Came back today with a vengeance.
Taking a short break is an excellent thing to do when you hit a skid.  The same thing that happens in Season Long Fantasy happens to players of the Daily Game.  You fall in love with players.  You figure that Melky Cabrera brought you $50 last week,so he'll always do it.  That is not the case.  Players get hot; they cool off; other players get hot.  Learn it, Live it, Learn to Love it.  When you take a break, you assess your roster the way you need to: Making the decision about who will add to your totals the most this day, not last week, last month or last year.  Today is all that matters in DFS.

So, I looked at the basics: best pitching matchups for the money & what hot hitters are facing weak pitchers.  Could have been a lot better night, if I had gotten something out of Gregor Blanco. Or if Scottie Kazmir would have done me proper.   I came in 9th Place in the Quarter Arcade--That's a single digit finish [Ticked back to 10th place due to some late inning scoring by the Braves off Craig Kimbrel, so the new total is $34.84], something I'm not ashamed to brag about.  With the clear head and refocus on the truths of the game I fielded an exemplary roster.

Something you should consider.  If you're having a bad time of it, you only have a couple of choices.  Quit Playing, Double Down, or Take a break.  I understand why people quit.  DFS isn't easy.  Doubling Down, more often than not, leads to bad things.  How many stories have you heard from people about going to Vegas losing a bunch of money and then making it all back?  Usually, they lose more cash, right?  Taking a step back is really good advice, and something I'd hope you keep in your DFS playbook.

Understanding the New Draft Kings NASCAR game, finally..

I wrote a few notes about how to choose a NASCAR lineup on Draft Kings, and had 13 winning weeks out of the first 15.  Then Draft Kings changed the rules, and thus changed the game.  I went O-2 trying two different strategies.  Today I went back to a more basic strategy, I'll talk about more if it works more than one week, but I think I see something.  Today's happy numbers:

Sure there's a few laps to go, but things look up.  And, of course, I got lucky enough not to have a car crash....yet.

Breaking DFS News.

A few weeks ago, Yahoo entered the DFS market.  I thought this was going to be huge thing, but it hasn't played out as such, just yet.  Yahoo has all that money and all those Fantasy Sports players, it simply had to impact the nature of the world of DFS.  But they rolled out a product that was pretty similar to what others already had.  I like what they did, but it failed to shake the ground beneath the feet of the DFS player.  I still think it will have long term repercussions across the entire DFS Universe given time, but not for now.

But then something happened today that I think will be just if not more important than Yahoo entering the fray.

I play on Victiv.com, and I like their game.  It's a bit different with it's lack of individual pitching and it's hitter replacement concept.   I joined there for two basic reasons: (1) it had the best offerings for a person looking at the game, before deciding to deposit, and (2) it has the lowest commission structure in all of DFS.

Today, they sent me an email that I think, might change DFS forever.
They announced that Amaya, Inc, a multi-billion dollar international gaming company out of Montreal, Canada has bought them out and they will be transitioning me, and other Victiv members like me, to Starsdraft.com, without changes to our accounts in a seamless manner as soon as it is ready.

This is a huge backer, and the first of what I believe will be several takeovers of DFS Sites.  And I'll admit I didn't see this one coming.  Amaya is a publicly traded company on the Toronto exchange and their stocks along are worth nearly $4 Billion dollars.  It's no Yahoo, but who is and it vaults the Starsdraft/Victiv Daily Fantasy into the position of second deepest pockets.  And it has synergies that rival if not surpass Yahoo.

There are two aspects of Daily Fantasy.  The first mirrors the wants and desires of the Fantasy Sports enthusiast, which Yahoo hopes to capitalize on.  The second is for the gamblers out there, and that's what Poker Stars brings to the table, being the largest online poker community in the world.  I think it will be easier to teach gamblers about a game based on baseball or football, that to teach baseball or football fans how to gamble effectively.

But more importantly, Victiv had always tried to be innovative, and with the takeover, new innovations will probably be very gambler friendly, as that is what there ownership is used to managing in their customers: the gambler's wants and needs.  If they make the new Starsdraft site, the "gambler's choice" for DFS, it could change the industry.  I have hopes to push the site share down, as this is key to retaining any but the most devoted DFS player.

I think this new influx of competition from big players from both sides of the DFS spectrum will make DFS better in the long run.  It's an exciting day in this little world of ours, and I bet you didn't even know it.

Steven Wright gets no respect...(or was that Rodney Dangerfield)

May or May not be a picture of Boston Red Sox Right-hander
Steven Wright.

Draft Kings is at it again tonight, screwing with the lineups, randomly and without warning.  On every two pitcher site I played on tonight I wanted Steven Wright to be my SP2, but DK removed him on a whim.  Last time out he was better than both my pitchers that night: Madison Bumgarner & Matt Harvey.

I emailed them and they said they didn't get the information that he was starting in time.  I emailed them back that that can't be true, because they have his opponent Juan Nicolino in against him, and he was named the starter tonight, only after Jose Fernandez was assigned to the disabled list on Sunday.  And yet you can play Nicolino tonight if you want.  Plus, Steven Wright was in the database for his last start, someone over there had to make a conscious decision to remove him

That answer might assuage the casual observer, but us DFS baseball geeks,know this kind of thing.  Don't they understand their customers?.

So I sent them a second email explaining the errors of the first email's answer as nicely as I could.  I'll probably amend this note sometime later after I get their reply.

Then I see this banner warning on DK's website, concerning a player who was traded to the Dodgers 10 days ago, and started for them last night at Second Base.  They are breaking week old news tonight.

The reason I get so angry with Draft Kings is because outside of this weird lineup quirkiness, they have the best baseball product out there: Great format, outstanding website, myriad choices of contests, everything you want from a DFS site.  But this one thing stands out like a sore thumb, they screw with the lineups so often and so randomly, it's as if they want to give you the one-day fantasy baseball experience of having a renegade commissioner drunk on his or her own power.  Someone should tell them that's not something we like about Fantasy Baseball.

The Perils of Fan Duel

I could never get my footing in Fan Duel for baseball.

When I win there are two possible causes:

1. Either I picked the best pitcher of the night, or
2. I had 2 or more rather pedestrian hitters really go off.

When I lose it's the same reasons, but for my opponent's team.

Tonight was one such a night.  It's infuriating that there's basically no way to cash in a tournament unless you picked Johnny Cueto, or maybe Chris Sale.  Anyone else your simply done.  On other sites, you can a less than perfect pitcher or pitchers and still score well.  On Fan Duel, you're money is basically on the head of one guy at that one position.

Because the pricing for all hitters except the very top 1% is so lax, you can pretty easily field a competent team on Fan Duel, even if you blow basically a third your budget on one player.  Of course you have to have the David Peralta's and Cesar Hernandez's on your team have good games.

I played a functionally similar lineup on Fan Duel as Draft Kings.  Because of Positional Variance, I wasn't able to field both Chris Davis and Ryan Zimmerman there.  So I scored a respectable 46.75 points in the $2 game, which was good for no money.  Even if I had be able to play Zimmerman at Third the improvement of 5.25 points over Manny Machado, who have only taken be to the very edge of cashing.

I picked the best value pitcher on Fan Duel that night but without Johnny Cueto, I was nothing; My Draft Kings lineup was good for second place in the $2 tournament at $61.25 (as of writing this, but it may slip down to $15).

It's the pricing model at Fan Duel which is the source of this anguish.  They've developed a game with extraordinary importance on the pitcher, with very high pricing, and were force to temper it with the most lenient hitter pricing of any game out there.  I've often likened DFS to the lotto, but Fan Duel takes it a step to far: the top pitcher is your Powerball, required to win, and then if your numbers come up somewhat randomly, then you're a winning.

I might reconsider this tomorrow, but when you play the same bunch of guys and sweep every body on every site you play, and get shut out on Fan Duel, there is a problem that one would be foolish to ignore.  I'm probably going to move the bulk of my Fan Duel Cash to Yahoo. And wait out that site until football season.  I ask again: "How in the world can that website be the leader in DFS?"  It feels like asking "How in the world did we elect George W Bush twice?"

They'll even have Right Turns

NASCAR DFS tomorrow is a bit of a trap..

I generally advocate for playing the numbers in most sports, NASCAR even more so, but tomorrow's Cheez-it 355 at Watkins Glen would appear to be a different animal.  The course is too different to base probable outcomes on past performance.  Kyle Busch has been on fire lately, but my gut says he'll have difficulty finishing top 5.

My Fantasy Feud Entry

Too many turns there at Watkins Glen.  Seven lefts and four rights.  Tricky enough to keep top qualifying speeds in the 120 mph range, and top speeds in last years race barely over 90 mph.  It'll have a greater emphasis on skill as a driver and it looks like A J Allmendinger owns the track, the perennial mid-to low tier performer won last year, and took the pole in qualifying this year.  He cost $10,200 on Draft Kings this week, more than Kevin Harvick, and might very well be worth it. The emphasis will be on driver skill versus speed of the car.

My Draft Kings Entry

It's the kind of Race Jeff Gordon has a chance to cash in on on his farewell tour; it's the kind of race that makes me doubt my process on NASCAR thus far; its the kind of race built to encourage car crashes.

Additionally, with only 90 laps to divide amongst the entrants, the winner of the race even if he leads half of them, will score under 100 on DK.

Finishing position has to be the focus of your entries for NASCAR at Watkins Glen tomorrow. That's the reason I took a cheap dollar flyer on Chris Buescher  who starts from the 32nd position, he gives me the cash to field 5 possible winners.  He seems like the kind of guy who really gives it his all every time he gets into a Sprint Cup race, and if he can move into the mid 20's, I'll get the 25 points, I hope will put me over the top.

I'm going to play, but in small dollar tournament, high risk/high reward entries.  And I've already prepared myself that this means I might not win anything.  I don't know how to strategically insure against the principally unpredictable.  All DFS is pretty unpredictable, my prediction is that the Cheez-It 355 will be even less predictable than most.

So I'm also going to toss up here on the site my lineup cards for both Draft Kings and Fantasy Feud.  These are my hunches just after qualifying based on pricing.  I could make changes before racetime, but this is my best guess for now.

[Afterword: I know I screwed the pooch this day, Buescher dumped in the first lap with Transmission problems, Gordon didn't fare much better: the point of this story is that sometimes it's a crapshoot, today was a crapshoot, and anyone can crap out on a given day, myself included]

They are handing out Free Quarters....

Couldn't have been more wrong about value plays Andrew Heaney and Daniel Norris today.  Good news is I didn't get home until 7:45, so I played nothing on Yahoo or Draft Kings.

Won $9.40 on Victiv, the cooler news is they have a free tournament game where I placed for the first time (You can be a little less vigilant here because I bad player can't sink you, because of the PH feature).  Probably the best site to get your feet wet, if you don't want to put your own money at risk.

Ok, it's only a quarter, but hey, Free Quarter.

Is Clayton Kershaw Worth It?

I hate the days Clayton Kershaw pitches, and am often inclined to just skip the matches.  It's only one day right?  The problem I see is that before you answer any of the myriad questions you need to set a good DFS lineup, you are forced to first answer the question, "Do I or do I not start Clayton Kershaw?"  In effect, the very first wagering decision is which side of the Kershaw Line you fall on, and this is always a tough call because of the pricing.

Today's Clayton Kershaw rolled of the presses on Draft Kings for a whopping $15,000.  Fan Duel and Yahoo had pretty steep prices too. So I built this little table to bring my thoughts more in focus:

*n=$1000 for Draft Kings & Fan Duel; n=1 for Yahoo
**on Draft Kings & Yahoo, you still must buy a costly second Pitcher

Based on what the target score is for a good game by site, we can determine what number Kershaw needs to put up in your DFS lineup to keep pace with the target score, and thus be worth rostering.  In all cases, he has to beat his seasonal average game to be of value (I understand average might not be the best metric as he's been pitching significantly better over the last month than early in the season).  The Fan Duel Number seems entirely makeable as he has done it or better in each of his last 4 games.  The Draft Kings and Yahoo numbers seem a bit high, almost requiring a phenomenal game, but in reality, Kershaw's done it in 3 of his last 4 games on those sites too with scores in those games in excess of 46 points,  It's hard to clearly say at this point, whether he's worth it or not, because of the other variables.

The biggest variable is how well your hitters do, with the savings you might get by giving Kershaw a pass on the day.  This is far too complex to answer breifly, so I am just going to assume that we all do a reasonable job of fielding batter versus cost on average, and hold this constant.

The other thing to consider is how other pitchers might fare in comparison.  I put together a list of other pitchers I have considered fielding for the day, and what they need to score to keep pace with the numbers Kershaw needs listed above.

Mid Point Pitcher is Edinson Volquez (Draft Kings), Hisashi Iwakuma (Fan Duel), & Aaron Nola (Yahoo)

The higher priced pitchers don't seem to be saving you much, until you get to Dallas Keuchel, who basically saves an entire decent hitter in value should you move off Kershaw.  On the Value side, the numbers needed by Daniel Norris & Aaron Nola seem pretty plausible.  Of course for this to work, they need to pitch well, and you need to use the saved money wisely on your batters.  The table does clarify how value hunting in Pitching works, Nola & Norris do have a better chance of greatly exceeding expectations than Clayton Kershaw.

So what is the answer to the question poised at the beginning?  Is Clayton Kershaw worth it?

At today's pricing, and considering what other players are out there, I would say it depends on the website you decide to play on:

• Fan Duel

Likely, Yes - the selection of only one pitcher leaves you with $2700 to field the rest of your roster.  This won't be enough to get the Bryce Harper or Paul Goldschmidt alongside, but you should be able to put together a roster of 8 hitters with potential enough to assist your pitcher by picking up the remaining 30 points needed to get to 50.  This is mostly because of Fan Duel's comparatively relaxed pricing structure for middle of the pack hitters, rather than anything necessarily gleaned from the charts above.

• Draft Kings

Maybe, Yes; Maybe, No - the price tag is astounding, but because there are available today a number of pitchers in the $7K range who teamed with Kershaw would still leave you with $3.5K per player to draft 8 hitters.  If there were no cheaper Pitchers worth a damn, the answer would probably be no.  But for today, I wouldn't object to trotting out Clayton Kershaw and Aaron Nola.

• Yahoo

Likely, No - the $70 price tage combined with another $40 pitcher leaves you with only $11.8 dollars per hitter to fill out your roster.  The way Yahoo prices, there aren't a lot of opportunities to buy very cheap hitters, as almost anyone with a pulse cost $10, and any regular starter cost $13.  And considering the high percentage of budget even value pitchers take up, fielding Kershaw will cause significant difficulties in fielding a halfway decent roster. Their extraordinarily tight pricing makes me think the target number on Yahoo should be lowered to about 110 points, but considering they basically use Draft Kings rules with more points for wins, I did the calculations using the number I arrived at for DK.

Betting on Preseason Football

So, I've come to understand that DFS Football, much like Fantasy Football, is at least 10x bigger than DFS Baseball.  Ok, great, probably shouldn't be from a quality of game standpoint, but I accept it.

DraftKings has rolled out their DFS product for Football, which includes the capacity to play in Head to Heads and Tournaments for pre-season football.  Who would do such a thing?

In the pre-season game, everybody is priced at $5500 bucks whether it be Tom Brady or Eric Frohnapfel, no matter what position he plays.  This cracked me up so much I created a lineup and entered the Quarter Arcade.

But if you look at the Head to Head page, Assani is willing to lay down 5 Grand on meaningless unpredictable football.  Made me laugh enough, I had to share it.

I know that people are crazy for Football, but I think this might be it "Jumping the Shark."

NASCAR Options

I recently was invited to a baseball free roll on another DFS site called Fantasy Feud (link here).  I placed near the bottom but in the money for $2.20.  I noticed they also had a NASCAR game, so I let the money ride on that and, of course, I lost.  But considering the way Draft Kings changed the nature of their game without warning, I thought people might like to know there are options out there.

Draft Kings Scoring

Fantasy Feud Scoring

The truth is Draft Kings altered their game to match what Fantasy Feud was already doing more closely.  The other site wasn't giving points for Pass Differential, and had a game more focused on Place Finished, which is what Draft Kings wanted to be. And Fantasy Feud had a six driver format, which DK seemed to want to copy.

The primary difference is the Place Finished spacing.  On Fantasy Feud, 1st place gets 100 points and each position behind sees a 5 point drop off, and varying degrees of drop off offering a range all the way down to 1 point for last place.  On Draft Kings, First place gets 46 points, 4 points ahead of 2nd, who receives 42 pts.  And from there, each position behind gets 1 point less.

Fantasy Feud also doesn't give any points for Fastest Lap, which is a relatively small part of the overall NASCAR game.

The research for either game should be fairly similar: you are going to focus on Drivers you think have a good chance of finishing high in the rankings for the price.

It's simply an option one should be aware of.  I'll admit I enjoy the DFS NASCAR game and it has given me significant enjoyment in watching a NASCAR event.  And a level of respect for the competitors that get behind the wheel.  It's not the greatest sport out there, but I now get why it is so popular.

You need 120 points on Draft Kings...

After winning $80 in the early part of last week, I had a rough weekend giving back all of it plus some.  Especially, with my 1-2 DFS Nascar drivers running out of gas with only two laps to go.  In a stupid attempt [Do not try this at home] to get my money back quickly, I threw down a single $25 bet in a 89 man double up on Draft Kings.

I thought Madison Bumgarner and Matt Harvey were locks for good nights, and I was able to get a couple of decent hitters into my lineup alongside them in Anthony Rizzo and Randall Grichuk.

I was sweating it out hovering between 38th (in the money) and 41st out of the money, until my $2000 Jose Lobaton singled and scored in the 9th to push me to 32nd place.  Grichuk's game deciding home run in the 13th inning vaulted me appropriately to 13th, so I could rest pretty easy for the remaining 3 innings of play this evening.

A couple of things I thought were noteworthy.

1. In this league, Bumgarner and Harvey were the most owned at 55.1% & 49.4%, yet they were both owned by around 15% of the teams.  A lot of folks out there are trying to find value at pitching, especially at SP2.
2. Taylor Jungman had a comparable game for a few thousand less.  The best pitching performance came from Steven Wright of the Boston Redsox who cost next to nothing, but was owned by no one in this group.  I don't think a single "expert" recommended him this day either.  Maybe there's something to be said for looking for value in pitchers.
3. The cutoff point to get paid in this league was a score of 119.35.  It wasn't a particularly high scoring night.  So I think this lends credence to the idea that the golden number for Draft Kings is 120.

Anyway, I'll admit it was a stupid gamble, and will reiterate that one should never put themselves in a position in a game this volatile,where one game predicted poorly could end or radically curb your future betting strategies.  I survived it,  I liked my lineup and I was ready to ditch Draft Kings because of their screwing with the NASCAR game without any warnings.  Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to like about DK, but when you only find out the rules changes after you locked your money down in a contest, one has reason to be upset.

Daily Fantasy Football Comparisons

Comparing Scoring Systems on Yahoo, Fan Duel, and Draft Kings

Every day when I log on to Fan Duel or Draft Kings, the default now goes to Daily Fantasy Football. As I am planning on playing with a little of my winnings, I thought it might be important to examine the scoring structure, along with understanding what plans Yahoo*** has for their game.

*Yahoo Salary Cap has yet to be confirmed.

• SALARIES & LINEUPS

The chart at the right seems to show marked similarities between the sites, with the exception of Yahoo's $200 pricing structure.  I haven't been able to corroborate that number via anything Yahoo has put out so far, but I can't imagine them being too different from their baseball game.  Plus, even if I'm wrong about this, the ratios of the yet to be determined Player Salaries to Salary Cap really diminish the impact should my guess be incorrect.

The most notable differences between the three are the handling of Kicking and Defenses.  Fan Duel plays with both, with Yahoo & Draft Kings have jettisoned the KICKER.  Yahoo also will be playing without a DEFENSE.  This may seem radical to the traditional season long football player, but the reality is that these are the most highly variant and unpredictable positions in Fantasy Football. I think it's a decent idea to rid them in a game where real money is on the line each and every day.  I know my long term league we ditched these two a couple of years back.  

Equally interesting is Fan Duel's not having a FLEX position, while Yahoo & Draft Kings do.  I think Fan Duel has a cleaner game because of this.  Having an option to play a WR or RB or TE, in a season long league is a nice option to ride out injuries and bye weeks in 17 week league.  In a daily format, adding the FLEX position adds back in a lot of the variance the removal of KICKER and/or DEFENSE took away.  The next best offensive player for the money could be just about anyone: a second string TIGHT END, a back up RB who leeches a couple of goal line carries, or a 3rd string WR, who maybe returns a kickoff for a TD.

• OFFENSIVE SCORING

Offensive scoring is even more similar among the big three sites.  Fan Duel & Yahoo will be 1 pt per 25 yards for passing, and 1 pt per 10 yards rushing or receiving.

**Yahoo has stated that their points system will mimic their standard league
 scoring system,however these scores have not been independently verified.

completely identical among the three sites in question.

Yahoo has decided to go with a .5 PPR (points per reception) format like Fan Duel.  Draft Kings uses a full point PPR format.  Adding in PPR enhances the value of WR's, TE's and RB's who specialize in catching passes.  Therefore, this advantage will be more noteworthy for players on Draft Kings.

Draft Kings also adds in small bonuses for exemplary games from QB's, RB's or WR's, giving a 3 point one time bonus for crossing the 300 yard passing threshold or 100 yards Rushing or Receiving.  A lot of season long league utilize similar bonuses.  This is a personal preference thing in my view.  If you want higher scoring games that reward your players for bigger offensive days, you should probably head over to Draft Kings.

On a smaller note, Draft Kings also penalizes a QB only -1 for an INTERCEPTION THROWN, whereas both Yahoo & Fan Duel, use a -2 point penalty.  A bad QB outing will therefore will have less impact to the Draft Kings Players.

• DEFENSE & KICKING

As only Fan Duel utilizes both of these positions, this is of most importance to the the Fan Duel Player.  Yahoo's decision to jettison both of these concepts signals a much cleaner game from them as the scoring from these positions is usually the most complex and difficult to understand, let alone predict.

Where they allow scoring Draft Kings and Fan Duel are identical. And the points added or deducted for DEFENSIVE POINTS ALLOWED are pretty much exactly what I see in most season long fantasy football leagues.  

Fan Duel remains the only site of the three to score KICKERS giving the standard 1 point for a conversion and 3 points for a FG, with a small bump for long field goals over 40 yards.  Nothing crazy or out of the ordinary for the season long fantasy football player.

Strangely enough, looking at scoring as a whole Yahoo will most likely have the lowest scoring game, while Fan Duel or Draft Kings will likely be the highest, depending on whether your Kicker has a great day or your Team catches lots of passes and accrues multiple bonuses   This flips on its head my experience with DFS baseball, where Fan Duel's rules are dramatically different and good scores are often 1/3 lower than other sites.

 I can't definitively tell you where you should play or which site is better without playing each.  But the first rule of Fantasy Sports is always, "Know your rules," and that is what I've done with this modest complilation which I've now shared with you.

***The information on Yahoo DFS Football was principally taken from the following interview with Brad Evans. Information on Yahoo default scoring can be accessed here.