Thursday, November 5, 2015

Daily Fantasy Adviser Strategy Sessions: GPP plays

The subject of this brief strategy session guide will be GPP plays.  I've noticed that sites like Fan Duel and Draft Kings often talk about playing your one secret lineup.  They even encourage this, making it easy to enter a lineup in multiple contests after entering it in the first.  You can quickly enter one lineup in multiple contests with the click of the mouse for each contest, making it easy to try your chances in multiple games.

On the surface to some, this seems like a great idea, right?  I mean, if you try your chances in one contest, and then in another as well, you're doubling your chances...right?

WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG

At first it may seem like that, but then you have to realize: you're still playing the same lineup, and so are other people, percentage wise.  Devonta Freeman is still going to be owned in like 40% of this league and the next, or whatever it is.  The point is, that you've still got the same chances of winning, what you're doubling is your payout IF you win.  Maybe if the second tournament is a smaller tournament, then sure, THEN you're improving your chances of winning.  If you actually want to improve your chances of winning tournaments, here's what you want to do:

Play many lineups.

But you don't want to just throw random lineups out there, right?  What you want to do, is target a group of players.  Find the players you think are going to be good, and build several lineups out of them.  Play ten slightly different lineups in the same GPP, THEN you've improved your chances by ten times of winning that tournament.  I mean just think, how many times have you almost won, but been off just one guy or two?  And how many of those times had you been thinking about playing another guy that ended up going off, and it cost you the win?  I mean maybe you're tossing up Martellus Bennett and Gary Barnidge at the TE spot at a comparable price, and go with Bennett, but Barnidge goes off and you slip out of paying spots because you just didn't cash in on the TE position.
How FRUSTRATING is that?  You kick yourself asking "why didn't I just pick Barnidge instead of Bennett?" Meanwhile however, I'm over here wondering why you didn't pick both of them.  Wouldn't THAT have given you the better chance, instead of agonizing over who might play better?  GPP plays are buying lottery tickets, the more you buy, the better your chance of winning.  Play as many as you can, and then rake in as much as you can!