So lets play a game... Texas hold'em, 100 players, 1 hand, everyone gets the same Flop, Turn and River and you get to pick your starting hand. Winner(or pot is split between ties) takes all... 10$ entry, 1k pot. Which starting hand would you pick?
This seems pretty straight forward on the surface right? AA! says everyone...
Its all fun and games until you realize that if you pick AA, A) You will win very often and B) When you do win, it wont be much more than what it cost you to enter the contest to begin with. On the other end of the spectrum, if you pick 7-2 off-suit, A) You will lose pretty much always but B) When you do win, you're most likely to win the whole pot. Now the right hand to pick here is probably neither AA or 72 off suit. You could come up with how everyone is likely to pick their hands vs how often every single one of these hands are likely to win and just take the one with the best expected value...
Now WTF does that have to do with FF? Let me preface this by admitting Im not very much into FF, but this concept pretty much applies to anything gambling related and whether you'd like to admit it or not, pretty much everything in life is a gambling proposition. Risk vs reward.
The poker game here is pretty much something you can do in daily fantasy football every single day, tourneys. Depending on the payout structure, you're going to build your team with either solid(AA) or Boom or Bust(7-2o) potential. Winner takes all = boom or bust while a game in which half the players get payed would warrant a more solid approach. Heads up games, or one vs one would absolutely warrant a solid roster too.
When it comes to season long fantasy leagues or even keepers, it becomes alot murkier... Like I said earlier, Im not into FF much and absolutely dont play vs pros but in the drafts and rankings I come across, its a very lopsided approach towards building a solid roster. Players seems to go for the solid positions first alot while waiting on the variance based groups later in the draft, which makes sense, season long FF is just a bunch 1v1 games stringed together. But at the same time, building a strictly solid team severely limits your upside, especially if one of your strongest solid player were to miss some time.
Long story short, player rankings and expected PPG are only half of what you should look at when building your team. You really need to pay attention to how the other guys are drafting and whether they're building solid teams or boom or bust teams. They might not even know what the **** they're doing but it doesnt matter, you can still exploit it. This will be most useful when you're drafting late or when you're severely outmatched in a particular game.
Dont expect solid to do miracles, they're called solid for a reason. If you're up against a solid team that should easily beat you, you need to switch it up. If you're going to lose, it doesnt matter by how many points you lose, you need to gamble it up... Some ways to add variance to your team or to neutralize the solid on the other team...
One last example that has absolutely nothing to do with FF... Matt Moore and Fitzmagic milked a pretty nice, long and rich career in the NFL using exactly this concept. There's no way they would've lasted this long in the NFL trying to play a solid QB game, instead they just went out there and gambled it up and Im pretty sure they'd do it the same way again if given the opportunity.
This seems pretty straight forward on the surface right? AA! says everyone...
Its all fun and games until you realize that if you pick AA, A) You will win very often and B) When you do win, it wont be much more than what it cost you to enter the contest to begin with. On the other end of the spectrum, if you pick 7-2 off-suit, A) You will lose pretty much always but B) When you do win, you're most likely to win the whole pot. Now the right hand to pick here is probably neither AA or 72 off suit. You could come up with how everyone is likely to pick their hands vs how often every single one of these hands are likely to win and just take the one with the best expected value...
Now WTF does that have to do with FF? Let me preface this by admitting Im not very much into FF, but this concept pretty much applies to anything gambling related and whether you'd like to admit it or not, pretty much everything in life is a gambling proposition. Risk vs reward.
The poker game here is pretty much something you can do in daily fantasy football every single day, tourneys. Depending on the payout structure, you're going to build your team with either solid(AA) or Boom or Bust(7-2o) potential. Winner takes all = boom or bust while a game in which half the players get payed would warrant a more solid approach. Heads up games, or one vs one would absolutely warrant a solid roster too.
When it comes to season long fantasy leagues or even keepers, it becomes alot murkier... Like I said earlier, Im not into FF much and absolutely dont play vs pros but in the drafts and rankings I come across, its a very lopsided approach towards building a solid roster. Players seems to go for the solid positions first alot while waiting on the variance based groups later in the draft, which makes sense, season long FF is just a bunch 1v1 games stringed together. But at the same time, building a strictly solid team severely limits your upside, especially if one of your strongest solid player were to miss some time.
Long story short, player rankings and expected PPG are only half of what you should look at when building your team. You really need to pay attention to how the other guys are drafting and whether they're building solid teams or boom or bust teams. They might not even know what the **** they're doing but it doesnt matter, you can still exploit it. This will be most useful when you're drafting late or when you're severely outmatched in a particular game.
Dont expect solid to do miracles, they're called solid for a reason. If you're up against a solid team that should easily beat you, you need to switch it up. If you're going to lose, it doesnt matter by how many points you lose, you need to gamble it up... Some ways to add variance to your team or to neutralize the solid on the other team...
- Matching QBs with their WRs/TEs
- Matching your WRs/TEs with their QB and vice versa
- Starting mediocre RBs on the winning side of an expected high scoring blowout. *check vegas total and odds.
- When drafting late, picking the best WR off the board expecting to pick his QB later either as a backup or starter.
- Sitting a solid QB for the mediocre backup with which you roster a great WR/TE.
One last example that has absolutely nothing to do with FF... Matt Moore and Fitzmagic milked a pretty nice, long and rich career in the NFL using exactly this concept. There's no way they would've lasted this long in the NFL trying to play a solid QB game, instead they just went out there and gambled it up and Im pretty sure they'd do it the same way again if given the opportunity.
