Best Ball Drafting on DraftKings, Fanduel and Yahoo.

My second season playing Best Ball on DraftKings/Fanduel/Yahoo and I think I’ve learned a lot from last year.

If you’re not familiar with Best Ball games, it’s pretty straight forward – you draft a team and all your top scorers will automatically be scored for you. No more agonizing over who to start from week to week – Best Ball takes care of that for you. There is only one thing you need to worry about; if a player you drafted gets injured you can’t pick up a new player from the waiver wire. Once you draft your team that’s it you’re stuck with it the whole NFL season.

Each site is slightly different:

Draftkings gives you 1 full point for receptions while the other 2 only give you .5 points. That’s a big difference – for example if you draft a WR who has 100 catches on the year you would get a full 50 more points during the season with Draftkings.

My strategy for DraftKings is to target pass catching RBs like Ekeler, Kamara, Deandre Swift and Saqoun Barkely. My backup RBs are going to be the pass catching 3rd down backs. Some of my favorites are Michael Carter, Jerrick McKinnon, Travis Etienne and Chase Edmonds among others. Of course this list will change once official depth charts come out.

Getting a full half point for receptions is huge so if you’re playing Drafkings be mindful that high volume receivers that don’t get a lot of yardage (see Keenan Allen or Jarvis Landry) and TDs can still be valuable.

So if you’re not drafting in the first 4 or 5 picks then go the zero RB strategy route and try and snag a high volume WR like Adams, Diggs, Justin Jefferson, Calvin Ridley, Travis Kelce and Deandre Hopkins over RBs who don’t catch the ball like Derrick Henry, Ezekiel Elliott and Jonathan Taylor.

Fanduel has 2 flex spots (one more than Draftkings and Yahoo) which means you need a deep bench. My strategy is to really make sure not a lot of my players share the same bye weeks. I know it’s a hard thing to keep track of but if you want to maximize those 2 extra slots you want to have as many players active each week which means that I don’t have more than 2 WRs sharing the same bye week if I can help it (this is true especially of RBs I think).

Last year I finished out of the money by a few points quite a few times and if I could’ve had done better job of planning the bye weeks better I think those extra few points I possibly could gain on bye weeks would’ve been the difference between being in the money or busting out.

Yahoo does it a little differently. They reward money for having the high score for the week. I play mostly the $1 or $5 buy-ins. If you win a week on a $1 team you get a .25 cents for the high score of the week. For the $5 games you’re rewarded $1 per weekly high score. I think this is neat because if you have a team riddled with injuries and you’re basically out of it for the year, you can still get some of your money back. This is the best feature of Yahoo Best Ball in my opinion.

Example: Last year I targeted Zeke Elliott for a number of my teams and as everyone knows he got injured fairly early in the season. I knew my chances of cashing Best Ball was slim (anytime your 1st pick in the draft gets hurt it’ll be a long frustrating bestball session) but I did manage to win back a few dollars by winning a week late in the season.

Perhaps the pros have a different approach but these are my observations. So if you’re a super successful DFS player maybe you can give me your opinions on this. I’m open to any criticism or advice so fire away!

Well that’s it for today! Happy Drafting everyone!

Fantasy Football is back!

So I haven’t written anything here for over 7 years because of various life stuff. I finally grew up and got married and have a wonderful daughter. She’s older now so I now have some time to play some poker with some friends online and I will continue to try and profit from Daily Fantasy Football on Fanduel and Draft Kings.

Sports betting is another way to potentially profit, however, from what i’ve read and seen on Youtube sports betting is extremely hard to win consistently and only the top 1% – 3% of all sports gamblers actually make money. Those odds don’t look to good but I’ll give it a try anyway.

My strategy for daily fantasy this football season is a simple one: Invest $5 per week on DraftKings and Fanduel. Play in $1 single entry DFS tourneys to start (usually $20K prize pool) and then split the rest between other tournaments that are multiple entries.

This strategy may change but I think I have a fighting chance at these low level entries because:

• I won’t lose a lot of money as I’m only risking $85 on this project.
• I don’t think that the DFS pros are going to bother working these low level DFS tourneys. I may be wrong but I would think that if you’re a DFS pro then they’re not looking to play the $1 events. Not sure if is actually true but that’s what I think (if anyone is reading this and have actual information about DFS pros playing the $1 tourneys please let me know).
• Most of the players are just like me. I just want to have fun watching football and hopefully make a little money at the same time.

The next project will be my regular fantasy football leagues. I have been a part of 2 leagues for a long time now. Each league is different in many ways.

One league is an auction league where you bid for players on your team ($100 salary cap). This particular league costs $300 to join. I split the buy-in with a friend of mine so we make the decisions jointly (more on this later). This is your basic set up 1 QB, 2 RBs, 2 WRs, 1 TE, kicker and D. I know it’s old school bidding for a kicker but it’s been this way since I joined this league so who am I ask them to rewrite the rules? 12 team league so opportunity to make some money is there with a little luck. The league also gives a $100 prize to the team that gets the highest total score for that week, so there’s opportunities to win some of your buy-in back. I kinda like this rule because even if you’re out of the running for the playoffs, your team can still some money if you have a awesome week.

The thing that makes the auction league different is that you play every team every week. So in any week you can go 11-0 if you have the highest score for that week (you also get the $100 weekly bonus). Before it was heads up but then we had situations where a team trying to make the playoffs plays another team who is done for the season and they don’t bother putting up a working roster. Thus giving a team basically a free win in that heads up match up. To counter this we found a fantasy site (CBS Fantasy) that will allow us to set up the league where everyone plays everyone else weekly. This way if a team tanks and loses interest in the season it doesn’t affect any team negatively because everyone will get a win against this team that punted the league because their top player is out for the year. Hopefully I explained this well.

Auction leagues are great because you can bid for the players you actually want instead of waiting your turn in a traditional draft where you can miss out on players you’ve targeted but someone else drafted. You want Pat Mahomes as your QB? Bid him up!

My other fantasy football league is a little weird I guess but when you’re playing with friends it’s still fun.

This league has 10 players and the buy in $100. This is a standard snake draft league. The thing that’s different is that this a 2 QB league. Yes that means you have to draft and start 2 QBs every week. This is a standard head to head matchup every week. Top 4 teams make the playoffs. 3 places paid with a $20 weekly bonus for having the high score of the week. Draft details will be coming soon!

I will discuss sports betting and my online home poker league the next post.

Daily Fantasy Football is almost here!l

So I’m getting ready for some football; yes that’s right it’s football season and I’m going to blog about my gambling experiences betting on football and I will also be participating in daily fantasy football games also.

I’m starting with $50 on Yahoo and Fanduel.  Going to play the $1/$2 entries to build up bankroll.  We’ll see what happens.

I’m also going to put $50 into a sportsbook account and try and get that up to $1,000 – mostly by betting parlays and teasers.

General strategy for daily fantasy football games:

Pick players from high scoring games.  I’m going to check sportsbook and use the over/under as a starting point.  If any game has a O/U of at least 48 total points then I’m picking as many players from that game.  I didn’t come up with this strategy but I think it’s a sound strategy…besides the people at Vegas are very good at predicting these things.

Another strategy I want to try is keying certain players and loading them up on my team.  This might be a disaster because if my keyed player gets hurt or has a bad game then most of my entries will go bust.  Cheap good players are hard to find on fantasy sites so if I find a cheap player that has high upside then I’m going all in.

WRs to Target on Fanduel:

Jordan Matthews – $6,800

Davante Adams – $5,500

John Brown – $6,000

Chris Ivory – $6,400

For WRs, my preference is to always have a cheap player with explosive potential.  All 3 WRs I have listed all fit in that category.  I’m particularly excited about having Matthews on my team.  Atlanta’s D is pretty bad and I think the Eagle’s offensive strategy will create many opportunities for stats.

For RBs, I’m looking for cheap RBs who are goal line vultures or RBs that can catch.  3 down backs are hard to find and they’re also expensive on FanDuel, consequently, my strategy of loading on cheap WRs will allow me to pick at least one elite runner.  For week 1 I love Eddie Lacy ($8,500).  I think with Chicago’s weak D and all the injuries to the Green Bay WRs will force McCarthy to run Eddie Lacy more until Cobb heals and when Davante Adams/Janis/Ty Montgomery finally understand the complex passing offense that the Packers employ.  Losing Jordy Nelson is a big deal for GB.  It doesn’t mean that anyone can replace a talent like Nelson, despite the obv athleticism shown by the 3 young WRs vying to replace Nelson.

RBs to target on Fanduel:

Chris Ivory – $6,400.

I liked what I saw from Ivory so far. He runs tough and he even has shown some soft hands out of the backfield.  He’s also the primary goal line back.  Not bad.

Doug Martin – $6,900.

Contract year and has a chip on his shoulder.  I’ll take a flyer and go with the muscle hamster.

Jonathan Stewart – $7,100.

I know he gets hurt all the time but I think the Panthers are going to lean on the run more this year and Stewart will be the primary back in my opinion.  The funny thing about talented backs who get hurt a lot…they always have one really good year where they’re healthy…think Arian Foster or CJ Spiller.  Stewart is due.

Another strategy is to take the cheapest kicker possible that is attached to a decent offense.  I want kickers who play on offenses that stall inside the opponents 30 yd line.

The only TEs that I would even consider are obv the big three (Gronk, Graham, Olson)…yes Greg Olson is an elite TE. Who else is Cam Newton going to be throwing to? These TEs will cost you.  Graham is $6,900.

I won’t go for the middle tier TE’s.  I don’t think they hold any value. I’d rather take a chance on a athletic TE that is a endzone target:

Tyler Eifert – $5,000

Jordan Cameron – $5,500

Larry Donnell – $5,300

Eric Ebron – $5,000

Charles Clay – $5,000

These are the cheapest TEs with the most upside in my opinion. They key here is that all of these TEs have decent QBs throwing to them (except Charles Clay) and they’re supposed to get their share of end zone targets as well. For week 1 I really like Cameron as a cheap decent upside TE.

I really love the Jets D ($4,400) against a horrible Cleveland offense.  I also like Miami’s D ($4,700) because they’re playing the Redskins and whomever they start at QB…Kirk Cousins? HA.  I also love Minnesota’s D, especially for their week 1 match up with the Niners.  Kaepernick is completely lost at QB.  They lost a lot of talent on both sides of the ball and lost their head coach.  This team needs a year or two to re-set so I’m going to gamble on the Niners being a sub 6 win team.  The other strategy is to stream defenses depending on the team they’re playing.  Houston, San Fran, Cleveland, Buffalo, Jets, Carolina, Washington, and the Jaguars are all teams I’d consider using a defense against.

That’s my strategy and I’m hoping it’s a good one.

Starting Bankroll: $50

So So Days

So the Atlantic City trip was a minor success.

I wound up being down $80.  One hand really did me in…it was the difference between being up $400 or down $80.

I limped with 33 and hit a set.  Some loose passive player hit two pair on the turn and shoved.  I called, and he boated on the river.  $400+ given to some luckbox who then gives it all to somebody else chasing the straight. Don’t you hate when that happens?

I did have a couple of good sessions.  I managed a +$597 session at the Borgata.  I also booked a +$200 session, however, i did have some losing sessions as well (-$275 and a -$100 session).  Sprinkle in all the tournaments I didn’t cash it and you have a -$80 trip.

The tournaments went lousy.  I went deep but not deep enough to cash.  I was so close though…always 5 off the money.  Sucks. I was ahead every time preflop.  This is how I went down during the tournaments:

2/3 vs QJs

Guy to my left was super aggressive and I was short stacked so I had to choose when to defend my blinds as he was raising my blinds often.  I have $40K in chips (blinds are 3k-6k with a 1k ante).  He raises to 12K and I shove my 40K into the pot.  He says he has pot odds. he calls with 2/3. I have QJs.  338 on the flop ends my run.  oh well.

KJ vs Q10 & Q10

Again short stacked (about 6x BB) and  I push with KJ and get two callers. Both have Q10.  Both hit a 10 on the flop.  Are you kidding me?  Game over.

88 vs A5s

This was a bounty tournament and I had already secured 4 bounties. This was the tourney that I was really focused and playing well up until we are two off the bubble.  I have a healthy stack and I can cruise into the money if I can only dodge some bad luck…

I have 88 on the button, i limp and hit my set on a 874 flop.  checked to me and I check. Turn is an Ace.  Great card for me…I check and button shoves, I call he has A5.  Gut shot straight draw…nothing ever comes easy.  And you know the rest.  I book my $100 in bounties and call it day.  Yuck.

Then again being down $80 isn’t so bad when you consider that I was down $800 on tournaments alone.  Even so, I would say that I didn’t have a successful trip but I didn’t have a really bad one either.  I guess I’ll have to get them next time.

Atlantic City and Delaware Park

So this weekend I’m planning to go on a much needed mini-vacation. The first stop in my poker vacation will be Delaware Park. Planning to play the $100 on Saturday afternoon. This game will be soft but that’s not to say it won’t be difficult to cash. Luck is the great equalizer and sometimes the other guy gets lucky. I’ve went deep and bubbled a couple of times at Delaware…so no breakthroughs in terms of big cashes so I hope that this week will be different.

Sunday is going to be Atlantic City and the Borgata. Tried to play the 2015 Summer Heater but I couldn’t take off work so it’s going to be the Cabot Charity Event (Put a Bad Beat on Hunger). It’s a $300 buy in ($220+$30+$20) and last year first place was $9K. Sweet if I can get there. Hopefully the poker gods see fit to reward me this weekend.

For Monday and Tuesday, I think I’ll hit up the Borgata daily tournaments or possibly play in the cheaper buy-ins if I bomb out on all my tourneys and cash games.

Upcoming stuff:

Fantasy football is back! Already in 2 leagues – one’s a snake draft and the other is an auction draft. Details to come.

Lastly, I’m all set for some daily fantasy football action on Fanduel. Going to start with $100 and see what transpires.

Wish me luck!

Fantasy Football Anyone?

Since Online poker is illegal here in NYC, I’m going to re-start this blog and see if I can make some $$ participating in daily fantasy football games on Fanduel.

I’m going to think of a plan and see if I can make some scratch.  More to come….

Player of the Year part 2

I’ve finally done it……twice.

2x player of the year.  This quarter I was on fire, at one point cashing in 7 straight games, and rode the rush to another player of the year award.

It was a successful year, however, it’s still a work in progress and I need to continue playing solid poker if I want to remain profitable in the long run.

Stats for 2014:

50 games

20 cashes

Profit: $1,599

A 40% cash rate is pretty sweet, however, there’s room for improvement there also.  I won 6 times and chopped once this year to go along with eight 2nd place finishes.  Not bad but I need to convert more cashes into wins.  My goal for 2015 is to up my win to cash ratio to 50% or higher in league games.

My cash game in the league was successful also as I booked a $585 profit, most of it coming from a +$171 night early in the year.

Its clear my poker game has improved and my wallet shows it. But it isn’t only about the big picture, it’s also about mastering the little things in poker that add up to bigger profits.  Little things like extracting maximum value from thin value hands or exercising better pot control while in position.

While my goals remain the same….to book a profit while playing poker…I also am thankful for everything I’ve gotten from poker even the bad beats.

 

Atlantic City Action

Interesting weekend in AC. I started out playing some cash (1/2) prior to playing in a tournament.

I did pretty well in cash as I pocketed $84 in profit before I registered in the tournament ($70).

I understand that playing cash is different from playing in a tournament but I don’t understand why I do so much better at cash than in tournaments. I wonder if my readers also have a similar outcome.

The tournament was over pretty quick for me. I have 88 and the flop is:

J 8 J – two diamonds

yay me, flop a fullhouse and I’m ready to chip up. I’m in EP so I check. 3 other players check behind.

The turn:

another J.

ugh. not a great card for me but I think I’m still ahead as I’m pretty sure no one has a pocket pair higher than my 88. There could be a person holding the case Jack but I bet anyway to narrow the other players range. SInce the pot had about 3K in it already, I decide to bet 1,800. Two callers. Well both of you can’t have the Jack, so let’s see what the river brings us.

The river is a J.

UGLY. Now my boat is counterfeited and I check. As everyone checks around and King high wins the pot. Sick isn’t it? Short stacked and bored, I last only an hour in the tournament.

I slink back to my cash game and play for 4 hours until the next tournament. I wind up doing very well playing cash, up $150 after 4+ hours.

Key hand in this session is when I had 66 in the hijack seat and facing a $15 raise from an older guy in middle position.  I flat the raise, hoping to hit a set.  2 other callers in the pot also (yes the action was that sick).

The Flop:

2  3  4 rainbow.

Not a bad flop for me, however the PF raiser leads out for $25.  I’m convinced he has a over pair because he was a pretty tight player and usually a $15 PF raise indicates a big pair or AK/AQ at least at least as he’s shown down some big hands.  So I flat the bet and see if I can spike a 5 or 6. One other player calls the bet also.

The turn is my magical 5.  Now I’m in business.  The question is how to extract value from these guys, provided they have a Ace in their hand.

villain # 1 again bets out $25, other guy folds and I flat the bet again.  The bet seemed a little light but I’m thinking I’m going to string him along so I just call.

The river was a blank and this time the villain checks.  I’ve seen this before where there might be a chop pot and players check it down on the river.  I’ve also seen guys try to buy the pot when there is 4 to a straight and both players have the straight already.  But this is different.  I have the nuts basically and I’m thinking anyone holding an Ace is going to call. There’s roughly $180 in the pot, I bet out $75.  I don’t want to bet more and get the other player to fold.  I also don’t want to bet too small and not maximize my value if indeed the villain has an Ace in his hand. $75 seemed like a good amount.

Villain insta calls and shows AA.  Good enough for the second nut.  I show 66 and take it down.

After 4 hours, I again take a stab at a tournament.  Another $70 down the drain.  My tournament game is suffering.  I don’t know what it is but I haven’t cashed in my last 12 tournaments.  I haven’t even come close, so I have to figure out my leaks or maybe it’s variance.  I’d like to to think that but I’m pretty sure there are plenty of leaks in my tournament play as of late.

This time it took me about 5 levels before I tanked my chips to some guy who amassed a huge stack by hitting the board hard.  I was involved with the chip leader in a hand where I had AQs.  Flop was K Q x.  Two diamonds. Bet, bet, raise and shove. Game over, I didn’t hit my Q or another diamond.  Villain had K9 suited. Go figure. At least I lasted 2 hours, so that’s a start. My plan for this tournament was to play tight and raise only when I had a top hand.  TAG. TAG. TAG. That’s how I was going to turn this tournament negative streak around.  Oh well it didn’t work out the way I expected.  Back to the drawing board.

Anyway it’s a blessing in disguise as I head back to the cash tables at around 9pm.

I’m playing well, picking my spots, and mixing it up.  I was called down on some bluffs (small ones) and a few times I was nicked when other players had 2 pair against my TPTK. Why do guys call bets with top pair and weak kicker is beyond me.  I lost a fairly big pot ($150+) when my KQ ran up against K2 and he hits two pair on the river.  My turn bet was fairly big $50 but the guy called anyway and spiked his two pair.  GRRRR….

Even with some ill timed bluffs and other players getting a little lucky against me, I’m still up $200 at that point.

Then the biggest hand of the night.  I’m in EP with 99.  I raise to $8 and I get a whole bunch of callers until the button where he raises me to $20.  OK, let’s see if we can hit a set.  Only one other callers came to play this hand.  3 handed and waiting for the flop:

K   5  9. two clubs.

Bingo, I hit my set.  Let’s see if we can make some money on this hand.

I’m in EP so I check, let’s see what the two other players are going to do.  At this point I’m only worried about one of the villains holding KK, which would put a damper on the party that’s going on in my head. I hit a set, against two rocks.  I hope they have something big.

Original bettor, bets out $40 and the 2nd guy in the hand, pushes for his last $93.  I call. villain calls.

The turn was another 9.  Quads!  I can barely keep myself still but I have to keep a straight face like I’m scared of that 9.

I check, and the villain checks behind.  Maybe I should’ve put in a bet here. Tight villain probably has the K but how big.  His PF raise seems to smell like AA or AK.  This guy was pretty tight from my observation. I go through the hand in my head again and I think he’s got AK and he’s afraid I hit trips with the 9.

The river was inconsequential because I’m holding QUADS!  lol.

This is where I don’t like that I’m in EP.  I’d much rather be in late position and finish the action than start it.  There’s $200+ in the pot and I’m trying to see how much value I can get. The villain has about $120 left in his stack.  Shoving doesn’t seem like a good move, I want a chance for villain to call down with AK or AA, if he doesn’t have it then he’s going to fold anyway (maybe he missed his flush) so shoving is out.

I decide to bet out $80.  Yes it’s kinda of smallish but I wanted to bet a decent amount so I can get some “call equity” with AA, AK, or even KQ, so $80 seemed to be good.

Villain calls and I take down another big pot (for 1/2).

At this point I’m at $750 and sitting pretty.

I wish I could say that I kept all of my winnings but as we know poker can be a bitch and I lost a big hand to a flush over flush, and another when I had KK and the villain had 1010 and spiked a 10 on the river when we were all in PF (he was short stacked and had only about $100 when he shoved to my PF bet).   Add up all the bluffs that went wrong and I wind up with $535. Not bad, I’ll take it.

To recap:

I wind up +$379 on the night.

+ $519 in cash

– $140 in tournaments.

+ $379 on the night.  Not too shabby.

Where to start?

So I have $20 in my account.

What to play?

I guess I can play cash @ .02/.05 levels.  It would be faster to build my BR but then I could go bust if I run bad.

Or I can  play SNGs…both single table and multi table which is something that i’m confident that I can be successful at but again if I go on a bad streak my BR is bust.

Lastly, I can play micro MTTs.  All I need is make one decent score and my BR will skyrocket, however, I’m not sure I want to spend hours and hours playing a micro MTT.

I would also say I’m equally good (or bad) at all these disciplines. 

Not sure what I’m gonna do.  Maybe a little of everything.

Starting Over

Wow, has it really been 2 years since I’ve posted?  I guess so.  Ever since online poker was banned in the US I’ve been playing in my poker league and in casinos mostly…when I have the time.  But that all changed a couple of days ago.

I get this email from Bovada (formerly Bodog) telling me to place a bet or I lose my balance.  I totally forgot that I had a Bodog account that I opened up in 2006-2007.

I  log on to see that I have $20 and change in my account.

The I remember about Bodog (now Bovada) is that the interface was ugly and the structures were bad and there wasn’t a lot of traffic.

So now that I have $20, I’m gonna see if I can build this baby into $1k.  I might not be able to cash out but I’m gonna try.

Possible? Impossible? We’ll see.

Right now I’m at $37.18 after I finished  3rd in a 27 man tourney, 3rd in a 9 man SNG, and 2nd in a 6 man SNG.

All this for a $17 profit…lol.

it’s a good start though..