A Couple More Week 17 Thoughts

No real content to add today, just a couple miscellaneous wrap up items on the end of the football regular season at Fantasy Sports Live.

Blinders was kind enough to comment on my "mini-vent" regarding players missing from the pool. In case you didn't see it, his response:

This is an intermittant problem with the roster feed, and it only effects five players. We have been trying to catch the issue for most of the season, but it has proved very difficult. We could have just removed the players from the pool for good until resolved, but three of them were good fantasy players (Cotchery, Drew, and D. Jackson), that people were constantly complaining about. Basically we would manually add them to the pool at the start of the week, and at some point during the week they would be dropped off of thier actual team and removed from the pool. When we noticed this we would add them back in, and they would remain until the end of the week (they were always availiable on the weekends). We are expecting this issue to resolve itself next year with updated 2009 rosters, but if not we will get it fixed. For all other sports, and all other players, the draft pool is locked down for the entire time.

They'll get it fixed, and it wasn't that big a deal. Just a little bother. I appreciate the reply, though, and thought it deserved a mention.

Back to Week 17. I must have refreshed Blinders' blog a half dozen times today at work. He always gets the Blogger Battle results up pretty quick and with the end of the season I was (obviously) eager to see how things shook out. In a word (or seven), it couldn't have ended up much better. The bonus cash ended up in the pockets of only four bloggers - myself, Joe Speaker, Al Can't Hang and Buffalo66. I got the biggest piece. Buffalo66 got the smallest piece, but hopefully his winnings - he won more cash than I did over the 17 weeks - will make up for that a little.

It was a good day. A very good day.

You can read about Speaker's win here and enjoy (as I did) this gem - one of the umpteen contests I entered was a nearly empty "beginner" contest shortly before kickoff:

Most of the damage was done by Drew Brees and his aerial stat-padding circus and the Artist Formerly Known as LDT (I refuse to call him LT). Steve Breaston (super pick, just super) and Ryan Longwell also had a say and I needed most of 'em since I had to beat Andre Johnson and Michael Tuner, both of whom had huge days. Congrats to Al and [bonds] for making the Finals, though [bonds] also needs to be called out for beating Emet in her first try on FSL. That was mean. She may have called you a "fucker" at one point, but she really didn't mean it.

First I was all:


Then I was all:


And finally I was all:


Sorry, Emet, it won't happen again! (It was probably deserved tbh)

Playoff football coming up. My recollection is that there are two games on Saturday and two on Sunday, which means that contests will presumably run both days. Good luck with your picks.

Week 17 Results

The Denver - San Diego game just ended, but does a junkie wait for contests to officially close at Fantasy Sports Live before calculating results? I think NOT.

Wow. What a wild week for scoring. There were some HUGE numbers posted - in one six player contest I put up 149.7 points ... and came in fifth!

I kept entering contests right to the deadline, ending up with 24 plus the Blogger Battle TOC. It ended up not being a good week, as I made two critical errors: Taking Rivers over Brees in most contests (I had them rated quite closely and expected more out of the Carolina D) and being too lazy to sub in the New England D for the Atlanta D (same point cost) after seeing the weather in the NE/BUF game. I took the New England D in contests I entered this morning, but didn't go back. That decision laziness cost me 15 points and a bunch of cash.

I finished second in the BB TOC - congrats to Joe Speaker who put up a huge 142.2. Al Can't Hang came in a close third. I have no idea how the overall series will shake out, as I was outpointed by both Kev (who I think has no blog and thus is ineligible for the bonus cash) and Buffalo66, but it wasn't by a ton. We shall see. I do not include bonus stuff in my results. Thanks FSL and Blinders for an enjoyable series.

I fared exceptionally poorly in 10 player contests, bubbled twice in the six players and crushed the heads up. Weird.

Sunday results: 24 contests entered (10 - 10 player, 7 - 6 player, 7 - HU); 12 cashes (3, 3, 6); total risked: $85.50; total won: $87.00; net: +$1.50; ROI +1.8% (LOL)

If it holds up, I'll take the win. {Edit: Yup, figured correctly.} I think this is probably as much as I've risked in a single week - bankroll management standards were relaxed given that (a) it was Week 17 and (b) I thought I had better than usual picks. I will definitely scale back for the playoffs - it's harder to find an edge when there are so few games going - and will probably ramp up NBA play a bit going forward, at least until I decide if I can win playing basketball.

User Tips: Check Your Rosters!

(Part of a series, in which I offer tips to maximize your enjoyment of the Fantasy Sports Live experience)

Another tip that will probably seen obvious. I specialize in that sort of thing.

Here it is: You can change your rosters prior to the start of a contest. Unless you entered shortly before the deadline, you might want to take a minute and double check your roster(s).

Believe me, there are times when you'll want to do just that. Let me give you an example: This week, when checking results, I was annoyed to find that I had Pierre Thomas of the Saints in one of my contests. Thomas was hurt and inactive. I knew that. But I had entered the contest in question several days previously and I didn't know about the injury at the time I entered. Plus I didn't remember taking Thomas. This is an obvious and stupid mistake. And lest you think it's totally uncommon, I also found that I had Matt Cassel of the Pats in one contest - I remembered having selected him in one contest and swapped him out when I saw the weather during the pregame shows, but as it turns out I had taken him in TWO contests. Never trust your memory!

Fortunately, these were dollar contests, so I really only lost $2. But any half decent running back in place of Thomas would have gotten me a cash, so this was lost opportunity too. Idiot.

Don't be like me - double check your rosters!

Week 17 Contests & Mini-Vent

If I've counted correctly, I'm in 21 contests plus the blogger battle TOC. If that's not a season high it's very close and I could still add a couple more depending on what remains open as we get closer to kickoff. Go big or go home - I have less roster variation than usual, so it could be a great week or it could be a wipeout of epic proportions.

And now to spend the next 2.5 hours trying to find pregame coverage, watching for late scratches and generally keeping my fingers crossed that I went with the right guys. There are definitely times where I wish I was on the west coast with those 10 AM kickoffs.

On a completely unrelated note:

If you've been reading this site, you know that I like the Fantasy Sports Live product. I may offer occasional criticism - usually minor - or ideas for things I'd like to see, but overall I'm pretty happy. One thing that I've run into three weeks in a row now has started to bug me and I feel the need to vent about it: Please find the gremlins in the player database! Last week, I wanted to play Maurice Jones-Drew. Nowhere to be found. This week, I wanted to play a backup running back as a flier in a dollar contest. Not listed. On at least two occasions this year, I wanted to grab DeSean Jackson as a filler WR. No can do, no entry found. Arrgh. This isn't a major gripe, but it is an annoyance. I hope it's resolved before next season.

And now, on with the countdown.

Playing The Rush

I don't pretend to know what I'm doing, but I'm starting to enjoy the NBA contests.

Saturday results: 3 contests entered (0 - 10 player, 1 - 6 player, 2 HU); 3 cashes (0, 1, 2); total risked: $7.80; total won: $14.00; net: +$6.20; ROI +79.5%

Sleep now, football tomorrow later today. Weekends FTW.

No Pressure Or Anything

Week 17 of the NFL season is upon us, with the usual challenge of trying to figure out just who the heck is actually going to play this weekend. I think it's a safe bet that few Titans and Colts of consequence will play, some Steelers and Giants will get the day off, and beyond that ... who knows?

I'm in four contests so far {edit: Make that 12} at Fantasy Sports Live plus the blogger battle tournament of champions. The TOC has 3 participants including myself, and most of the money goes to first place, so picking right is critical. I'm reasonably confident that I have identified some of the best players, unfortunately I'd need a point cap of about 1300 instead of 950 to squeeze them all in so compromises must be made. I'm not so confident in some of my tradeoff guys and will be sweating my picks right up to the deadline and beyond. I may have to enter some no cap contests too just to see if I really did have the right guys identified.

I'll probably end up in ten to fifteen total contests before all is said and done. For better or worse, I just can't stay away from the football. I should probably also burn through my two bucks over at Snapdraft - that could be another good opportunity to pick all the "best" guys I can't fit under the point cap.

And then there is basketball. I entered my first NBA contest of the month yesterday and came away with a comfortable win. Watching a few games thanks to the internets and paying at least a little bit of attention to who's who has made a noticeable difference. Now if only I could stop relying on the FSL feed for injury information, life would be golden.

Friday results: 1 contest entered (0 - 10 player, 0 - 6 player, 1 HU); 1 cash; amount risked: $3.40; amount won: $6.00; net +$2.60; ROI +76.5%

Thursday results: DNP, some holiday or something

User Tips: Clean Up The Lobby

(Part of a series, in which I offer tips to maximize your enjoyment of the Fantasy Sports Live experience)

Yes, I know. There is at least a 50% chance that any given user tip will cause your head to asplode. It must be at least 80% that you'll mutter "thank you CAPTAIN OBVIOUS". So be it. If I can help one newb player enjoy their FSL experience a tiny bit more, the user tips will keep coming.

Today's tip is on the ability to sort the contest lobby. If you're looking at the contest page, you can obviously click on one of the labeled tabs to limit the contests displayed to just football, just basketball, etc. But note that you can also click on some of the column headings - sport, cost and date/time - to organize contests by those things. You can also use the "status" drop down box in the lower right hand corner to limit contests to those that are registering. For extra happy fun time, use all three at once - you can do that.

The sort features built into the Fantasy Sports Live site come in especially handy on days like today, when there are three different sports in play, with a huge assortment of different contests. Go give it a try and then post a comment about how much this user tip DIDN'T improve your life. That's okay, I can take it.

Google Gives You The Most Interesting Results

I was killing some time this morning, random googling Fantasy Sports Live related keywords, and I stumbled across a cluster of sites started by FSL regular Tippy. I'm mystified as to why I hadn't come across them before. Google can be weird that way.

Anyway, the sites are inactive and the domains are for sale. Looking at some of what is there, I'm pretty impressed with the site designs and I think the concept was pretty good. I'm all too familiar with the whole "not enough time to do this" concept, though, and can't say that I'm surprised at the inactivity. It's hard enough coming up with the occasional blog post.

No contests today - even the pro athletes get a day off every now and then. Have a good holiday and if I don't o.d. on eggnog I just might get in on some Christmas Day hoops action.

Wednesday results: No contests scheduled
Tuesday results: DNP, have you seen the traffic around the malls?

Week 16 Results, Take Two

At least I was right about something. I figured correctly the results of my standard Fantasy Sports Live contests.

I was wrong about the results of the Blogger Battle - I didn't know that Kev had entered another contest and his other (worse) score counted. I picked up a few points by finishing third overall and am in first (!) with a small lead over Kev and Buffalo66 with Week 17 to go. Bonus cash is on the line.

The Sundays With Dr. Pauly tournament of champions was kinda LOL. Since there were so many entrants and everybody but Mattazuma beat Pauly's score, the payouts were small. The standard return was $9.52 plus the dollar entry fee. Like I said, LOL. Fun anyway. I do like these series events.

I'm hoping to hit 100 wins on the site this weekend. I'm currently at 97, sitting in 44th place on the leader board - more than 2,000 behind the king, kaiseroll13, and almost as many behind the viceroy, buffalo66. One of these days I'll forumlate some goals for 2009, which will probably include a target somewhere in the top 20.

On the standard fantasy football front: As predicted watching the Green Bay-Chicago game was painful. Aaron Rodgers shredded the hapless Bears in the first half and I was on pace to lose, but he didn't do much in the second half so I survived. I think that makes 8 wins in a row - the Dolphins of fantasy! Should be a decent payout. The first time I've won the league since 2001.

Monday results: DNP, out Xmas shopping

Week 16 Results

Waiting on contests to go final, but as usual I think this will be right.

Meh week. At least it wasn't a loser. Things were looking promising as my early game players had good days, but I got almost nothing from my late players. Last minute touchdowns from Fitzgerald and Bruce cost me a couple of early heads up contests. That's how it goes. Second place in my winner take all contest.

I finished 3rd in my Blogger Battle contest and wasn't able to outscore the leader, so it's either 2nd or 3rd depending on how Buffalo66 did. Tournament of Champions in that next week. {edit: Actually the season runs 1 more week too, so I still have an outside shot at the series win.}

Dr. Pauly put up a low score in his TOC, so I won't get much of a bump there. I didn't count the dollar entry and won't count the bonus cash won in my totals.

In regular fantasy football, I have a 28 point lead. My opponent has Aaron Rodgers left. I expect to be tormented watching the game tomorrow. Go Bears.

Sunday results: 15 contests entered (9 - 10 player, 2 - 6 player; 4 HU); 7 cashes (5, 0, 2); amount risked: $52.70; amount won: $55.00; net: +$2.30; ROI +4.4%

Saturday results: DNP; stuck in snowdrift

Week 16 Contests

In about ten contests so far. I may add a few more but won't hit 20. This part of the season can be challenging with guys getting unexpected rests, teams already thinking about the offseason, etc.

I was still puzzling over why I don't have as much as I won in my Snapdraft account, and then it hit me: I bet they took backup withholding of 30% since they probably don't have my social security number. LOL. Ship the 96 cents to the IRS!

Update (Sun 11:30 am ET): Fifteen contests. Unless the early contests go very badly, that's probably going to be it. I have even less roster variation than usual, so it could be a very good ... or very bad ... week.

Championship of my regular fantasy league this week, too. I missed out on big scoring days from McClain and Witten, my opponent got decent points from TO. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Pick like a professional penny slot player champion today.

FSL Versus Snapdraft Part 2: More On The Rake

I've noticed that I'm getting quite a few Google hits from people searching on Snapdraft. Sorry about that, I don't have any special tips, bonus codes or other goodies for Snapdraft - other than to tell you to go get the free five bucks they're offering for you to sign up and try it out. Just go there and sign up. Go now.

But before you go and as long as you're here, let me ask: Are you a serious daily fantasy sports player? If so, why are you playing at Snapdraft? This is an honest question, I'd really like to know - please leave a comment below. There may well be logical reasons to play at Snapdraft. If you think the competition is easier, the contest structure gives you an advantage or you can get games that you can't get elsewhere, those would all be legit. Maybe there are other reasons I'm overlooking.

Otherwise, though, it seems to me like you're losing money. It's simple - the "house" takes a bigger cut at Snapdraft than they do at Fantasy Sports Live.

For kicks, I wrote a little computer program this evening ("nerd notes" are below). It ran a simulation of 10,000 trials on each of the following - $50 bankroll, used to enter 9 x $5.50 10 player "winner take all" contests at FSL (cost $49.50) or used to enter 10 x $5 10 player contests at Snapdraft (cost $50.00). Payouts are the standard $50 at FSL, $40 at Snapdraft. I did not attempt to model the more typical 3 place FSL payout, just used the winner take all contests as the closest comparable to Snapdraft.

For a player with a 10% chance of winning each contest (i.e. 1 in 10 - if the results were random), the average ending FSL bankroll was $49.74, with a high roll of $300.50 (6 wins) and a 35.21% chance of "going busto". The same player (10% chance of winning) at Snapdraft had an ending bankroll of $43.72, high roll of $240.00 (6 wins) and a 31.68% chance of "going busto".

For a player with an edge - a 15% chance of winning each contest, the average ending FSL bankroll was $72.93, with a high roll of $350.50 (7 wins) and a 20.29% chance of busto. Snapdraft sim resulted in $63.48, $280.00 (7 wins) and a 17.64% chance of busto.

If you're incredibly superior - 20% chance of winning each contest, the sim produced an average FSL ending roll of $95.83, high of $400.50 (8 wins) and a 11.76% chance of busto. Snapdraft: $83.58, $320.00 (8 wins), 9.79% chance of busto.

The interesting result is that the Snapdraft player in each case ended up with a smaller bankroll than the rake difference itself would predict: The FSL player pays 9 x $0.50 in contest fees or $4.50 in total, the Snapdraft player effectively pays $1 per contest (the 20% "rake" on each) or $10.00 in total, or $5.50 more than the FSL player. And yet the FSL player came out $6.02, $9.45 and $12.25 ahead (10%, 15%, 20% chance players, respectively). Rake compounding FTL. The FSL players did have a higher chance of "going busto", which is probably due to the difference in the number of contests (9 vs 10).

You can take this with several grains metric tons of salt. I'm not a mathematician. It doesn't really prove anything - you were probably saying "duh" from the get go, it's not like the rake difference is hidden.

What you should take away, though, is that the "rake" matters - the lower the contest fees are, the better chance you have to be a profitable daily fantasy sports player. You don't even have to be a high volume player - note that we're talking about runs of 9 or 10 contests TOTAL here - to see a significant difference in results.

I play at Fantasy Sports Live for this reason and many others.

I did see when I looked today that Snapdraft has some 25 player contests up and that both the NBA and NHL contests seem to have launched. Also, they now appear to have a $10 bonus on a $100 deposit. FYI, FWIW.

***

NERD NOTES: Holy cow, has it really been ELEVEN YEARS since I wrote a computer program? It has. I had to download a copy of Turbo Pascal - now available as freeware! - and essentially re-teach myself the correct syntax. It wasn't hard (like riding a bicycle if you want the hackneyed analogy), it wasn't even time consuming. This type of sim isn't rocket science. I might even call it fun. Now, if only I could teach myself Java or something that's not completely dead I might take a crack at creating that football roster optimization program I've been dreaming of....

Yes, there are some weaknesses in the Turbo Pascal random number generator. I don't think they're material, however.

Last but not least, Legal Nerd reminds you that Snapdraft is a product of NBC Universal, fanball or whatever division of General Electric that happens to own it. No claim is made in any way shape or form to the name, likeness, product, copyrighted phrases or whatever other nonsense they might have protected legally. All rights are reserved to the owner, etc etc etc. Same for Fantasy Sports Live. This is a blog, reviewing products. Send any deeply held grievances to me via email at res ipsa poker (no spaces) DOT communism is a failed system.

User Tips: Always Remember To Check Inactive Accounts!

Okay, this one isn't Fantasy Sports Live specific. So what?

Always remember to check out old online accounts before forgetting about them, you might find a nice surprise. I can remember finding measurable amounts once or twice held on poker sites that I'd stopped using (back before the UIGEA).

As an object lesson, I just happened to check my Snapdraft account and lo and behold, I has moneys! $2.24 to be exact - it turns out that I won my four player contest from a couple weeks ago when I tried out the site. I had written things off before the late game and I did have the Baltimore defense which crushed. (I finished 2nd in my other two contests, stupid winner take all payouts. lol)

I haven't quite figured out why I have $2.24 when it says I won $3.20 in the contest, but whatever. It's one more shot at a half decent payout and money that I didn't expect.

Checking old accounts can = free money. Do it today, or if today's not convenient, tomorrow. Or the next day. Whatever. If you want some, just do it.

Cooked Like A Christmas Goose

No results posts this week because I've been way too busy to play. About all I've done is enter three football contests so far. I'll probably hit double digits there but might not load up too heavily. I do have the Sundays w/ Dr. Pauly regular tournament of champions (but not the Super TOC, boo) to enter and the last week of the Blogger Battle season to do so I need to pick well.

Monday results: DNP, air travel woes
Tuesday results: DNP, overcome by jet lag
Wednesday results: DNP, allergic to eastern time zone
Thursday results: DNP, denied entry by commissioner
Friday results: DNP, infected Facebook page

I'm thinking about some basketball for Saturday, just to change things up. It's been a while.

Week 15 Results

I just returned home from Las Vegas and of course one of the first things I did was log on to see how I did at Fantasy Sports Live this weekend.

Addict.

I knew from watching the games - it sure is nice to have six or eight on at a time, compared to the usual zero to one at home - in the deee-luxe Imperial Palace sports book that I had a couple players that were good (Andre Johnson and Dominic Rhodes) and a couple that were not so good (pick any other receiver, Chris Johnson) that did nothing. So no idea how things turned out.

A win is a win, is what happened. I finished 3rd in my Blogger Battle contest and 2nd in my Sundays w/ Dr Pauly contest. Enough to make the week profitable. I'm still second in the Blogger Battle with one more week to go and have the tiniest of leads over third.

Sunday results: 5 contests entered (5 - 10 player, 1 - 6 player, 0 HU); 2 cashes (2, 0, 0); amount risked: $35.00; amount won: $50.00; net: +$15.00; ROI: +42.9%

On other fronts, it appears that I somehow luckboxed my way through a second week of regular fantasy football playoffs and the ragtag band of misfit toys will be playing for the league championship next week. Good times. Except that tradition dictates that I lose. That won't be so much fun.

Vegas was fun, of course. I didn't like most of the games and lines at the sports book on Sunday, so I basically stayed away. I did end up a winner thanks to the San Diego miracle - I was ready to tear up my ticket with two minutes left, I was on the over and needed 11 points to win. 12 points scored, winner. It covered the wipeouts on my donkey parlay bets (thanks a bunch, Washington) and left me like six dollars richer. It's just as well, I think, that I don't bet on sports.

I did get a chance to chat a bit with Blinders about FSL. We'll see if I have anything I can post when I'm less fried.

Contest Spotlight: The Winner Takes It ALL Baby

(alt hed #1: You want another reason to play at Fantasy Sports Live?
How about: Sometimes wishes come true!)

(alt hed #2: This post has nothing to do with ABBA...
unless you count what I'm listening to right now)

Apparently I should scroll the lobby more often - Fantasy Sports Live is now offering ANOTHER new contest type and one which I mentioned wanting in a recent Wish List post ... winner take all contests! Currently on offer are two Week 15 winner take all football contests - both with a $5.50 buy in - a six player and a ten player. First prize is $30 and $50, respectively, with no other prizes awarded.

I would guess that more contests at more price points will be offered in coming weeks if these prove popular ... for now though it's pretty sweet to see some new offerings and I'm going to go sign up for at least one of these right now.

Buckle your seat belts people, it's going to be a wild ride.

Fantasy Sports Live ... Now For Beginners!

Ooh, new contest!

The Fantasy Sports Live lobby currently lists a "Beginners Week 15" football contest in the lobby. My ace detective skills have determined that this is a 6 player event that pays 3 places instead of the usual two. Payouts are $14, $10 and $6 for first, second and third, respectively. $5.50 buyin.

The ranking cap is also a bit more generous than other contests, with 975 points to spend.

Otherwise, it appears to be a standard football contest.

Out of respect and fairness to beginners (and the fact that I'm on a plane in a couple hours), I think I will refrain from entering. You have no idea how hard it is to hold back...

***

We interrupt this post to bring you a commercial moment: For the best signup bonus available to new Fantasy Sports Live players, simply click on one of my links or use bonus code BONDS when you sign up. Get free bonus money - up to $30 - to try out the site risk free. See how it beats the pants off Snapdraft and the rest of the competition.

Week 15 Contests

I'm only in six contests this week. Blogger Battle, Sundays w/ Dr. Pauly, one of the new Winner Take All contests, a Joe Speaker Special and two generic multis. I spent a grand total of about 3 minutes thinking about who I wanted to take, so expectations are low. Hopefully I can clean out the sports books on Sunday instead.

Pick like a bookie champion this weekend.

Anticipatory Results Post

I'm staring at the calendar. I can see already how little time I've going to have before vacation, so here are my Fantasy Sports Live results for this coming week:

Monday: DNP, run over by DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart
Tuesday: DNP (WNP at this point), run over by work
Wednesday: DNP, buried by work
Thursday: DNP, completely destroyed by work (followed by packing)
Friday: DNP, United Airlines lost my picks
Saturday: DNP, can't get my imaginary laptop to hook up to free wi-fi

I am going to remember to enter one football contest before I leave town - Blogger Battle. I may or may not enter a Sundays With Dr. Pauly contest as I am completely out of the running for the super TOC being 70 points back with 1 week to go. I suppose I might enter a dollar multi or something as well, but this will most likely be the smallest amount risked on football all season.

One of the things I hope to do while on vacation is to chat with the FSL brain trust about what new and exciting things they have planned for 2009. If I learn anything blogworthy it'll appear next week some time.

Otherwise, posting around here will be essentially non-existent until I return. Pick like a champion in my absence.

Week 14 Results

Waiting for contests to go final, but I'm pretty sure that this will end up being correct. (edit: Yep)

New rule: Don't have your defense going in the Sunday night game if at all possible. I had the Baltimore D in my two biggest contests of the week and was on the bubble in both at the half. The Baltimore offense coughed up the ball twice deep in their own territory, leading to 10 cheap Washington points (on less than 50 yards total offense), minus five for the defense and I figure it cost me between 20 and 30 bucks. Darn you Flacco and McGahee. Oh well, I guess I'll take the nervous energy considering that it was otherwise a pretty dull contest.

Overall results for the week were still favorable. I ended up in 20 contests. I killed the heads up matches and once again struggled in 10 players. Out of the money in both the Blogger Battle and in Sundays With Dr. Pauly. I slipped to 2nd in the Blogger Battle last week and could possibly drop to 3rd this week since Buffalo66 topped my score, but I don't think he'll pick up quite enough points.

Sunday results: 20 contests entered (12 - 10 player, 2 - 6 player, 6 HU); 13 cashes (5, 2, 6); total risked: $75.90; total won: $119.00; net: +$43.10; ROI +56.8%

Well, So Much For That

It looks like my Snapdraft "career" might be over after one week. I just checked my results - I selected a 10 player, a 4 player and a 3 player contest with my five bucks, and it doesn't look like I won any of them, although I was close.

Boo.

Daily Fantasy Sports Strategy: Roster Variation

When a successful player at Fantasy Sports Live dishes out knowledge, you should definitely pay attention. Buffalo66 did just that earlier this week:

2) Is it a viable strategy to shake up your picks and vary your rosters across the board? I know others disagree with with me, but I say a resounding "NO".

Widely varying your rosters is a sure fire method to lose money over time. While you are probably guaranteed to win a few, you will never win them all. You are "playing not to lose" instead of "playing to win".

If you practice good bankroll management and can withstand a big losing day, then there is nothing wrong with taking your best guess to score points and playing that roster across the board.

If you follow my picks, you notice I never change my rosters much (if at all). I will tell you Kaiseroll13 does the same. If the top two overall players at FSL use this strategy, you would think there is something to it. Just food for thought.

If you ask me, I agree with about 99% of this. Widely varying rosters across different contests is definitely -EV over the long run. Even in the short run - which is what a football season or a week of contests is, really, it's difficult to make consistent +EV variations and his point is well taken - if you have a best combination, how can you expect to come out ahead with different players? If you think you can, you should be playing those guys instead.

The area where I think we probably disagree a bit is on the utility of minor roster variations. Not to put any words in Buffalo66's mouth, but I think he's generally against roster variation, period. Use your best combination, all the time.

Now I'll admit it: I vary my rosters. I don't think I reach the level of "wide" variation (usually and with one caveat, which I'll get to in another post), but I have been known to vary on a limited basis as a hedge against variance.

Let's say, for example, that you have done your homework for a week's games and you have come up with four receivers, all of whom are pretty close in expected production. The logical thing to do is to pick the best three and go with them. But - and again, this requires a close case - I believe that you can reduce your overall variance by varying your picks and effectively using all four players.

Assume that you have graded out Randy Moss and Wes Welker similarly. You figure each is most likely going to score something in the range of 10 points. But you know that they're totally different players - Welker will get his points by getting his usual six to ten catches and no touchdowns. Moss will have fewer catches but is much more likely to score. Then again, he's also much more likely to put up a zero. If you graphed expected results, Welker's would be tightly bunched around 10, while Moss would be much flatter:

So who do you choose?

If you play Welker in all your contests, you're taking the lower variance option, obviously. You can predict with a much higher level of certainty what your team score is going to be. However, if it's a wild scoring week in the NFL, that may not be enough to propel you to the cash. If you play Moss in all your contests, you have no idea what you're going to get. You're taking a chance - if Randy has a big week, you may get a clean sweep, if he puts up a near zero you may get swept when even a modest point total would have made a difference. You can project results all you want, but it is an imperfect science because of the vagaries of human performance. If you saw Moss play last week you know where I'm coming from.

So, anyway, the theory is that by - in this example - taking Welker in some contests and Moss in others, you can reduce your overall variance somewhat. Can I prove this? Nope. I've started messing around with the statistics, but I'm not sure that I can eliminate enough variables and simplify things enough to actually figure it out. I should also mention that I think the utility of variance differs between heads up, six player and ten player contests but I haven't gotten anywhere with that math either. Stupid math.

I'll typically use this type of player variation only on marginal decisions and, honestly, I don't have the level of discipline in making selections that Buffalo66 or kaiseroll13 do. It's a leak.

So, in conclusion, you might want to take the fantasy pro's words to heart. Go read them again. As I see it, roster variance is like playing with gasoline around a fire. Sometimes you'll get a warm glow, but you're much more likely to get totally burned.

Bad analogies for the win!

Fantasy Sports Live Versus Snapdraft

I got a comment from Buffalo66 the other day that Fanball, the people behind the new Snapdraft product, is giving away $5 free to try their contests. I got an email from them last week as well, which I assume is because my regular fantasy league uses Fanball as a stats service.

Of course I jumped on the offer - who am I to pass up a free $5?

Don't answer that.

Instead, let's break it down. Snapdraft, obviously, is a competitor of Fantasy Sports Live. Snapdraft offers a fairly similar assortment of daily fantasy contests, with a number of significant differences:

* At the moment, Snapdraft is football only. NBA contests are supposed to launch this week.
* Snapdraft offers 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10 player contests
* Entry fees range from $1 to $10
* Contests are winner-take-all
* All contests have a $27 million salary cap
* Lineups have a flex player instead of a third WR

The interface is a little different, but pretty user friendly. I especially like the feature that allows you to easily use the same lineup in multiple contests. Another plus is the ability to easily filter contests by number of players and/or entry fee.

On the negative side, I'm not a big fan of the fact that contests can span multiple days (i.e. Monday night games are included), the lesser payout (80% vs 90% for FSL) and I'm not entirely clear on whether the full payout is guaranteed - if a 10 player contests only has 7 entrants, do they pay out as if it were full (ala FSL), pay out as a 7 player contest, or is the contest cancelled? I studied the rules for a while and still don't have an answer. Also, other than the free five bucks, I don't think that Snapdraft offers a signup deposit bonus. Fantasy Sports Live is obviously much superior in that area, especially if you use a bonus code (less than subtle plug for bonus code BONDS goes here). {Edit 12/19: It looks like Snapdraft now has a $10 bonus on a $100 deposit. Get up to $30 on $200 at FSL, bonus code BONDS duh. Also, I'm not likely to keep editing this post, but I thought this was worth mentioning.}

I'm entered into three contests, we'll see how it goes. I did not have the slightest bit of trouble fitting my roster under the salary cap, so it feels like playing uncapped contests at FSL. Traffic doesn't seem to be real heavy, but that's not surprising for a beta site that just launched.

Overall, I can see Snapdraft as a potential competitor - they have a nice site and are likely to build good traffic from their other fantasy services - but for now Fantasy Sports Live is clearly the better option for daily fantasy sports players.

Week 14 Contests

I just entered most of my contests for the week. I think I'm 18 as of right now, and I might hit 20 for the first time. Honestly, it's too many. Too many contests, too much roster variation, too many different games. Oh, well. I guess I have to hope that Sconie has a bad picking day, since I think he's my opponent in every heads up match I've entered so far.

Playing tight cap contests this time around is certainly interesting - there are so many players with favorable matchups this week, but so many of the best have hugely inflated point values. I guess you have to hope that you pick the right couple guys and the "value" picks pan out too.

No other contests or results this week. Once I return from vacation in a little over a week I want to try scouting some basketball and hockey a day ahead - I just don't get home in time to enter contests on weekdays otherwise.

Thursday results: DNP, tied up researching banned substances
Friday results: DNP, waiting for results of injunction request
Saturday results: DNP, buried under 6-12 inches of snow

Slow Week

No contests at Fantasy Sports Live so far this week. Work is kicking my butt and I have a million things to do before I hit Las Vegas next weekend. (Note to self - sign up for contests early).

I'm in two NFL contests for this weekend. I'll probably end up with the usual total, something in the 10-15 range. I haven't done any serious analysis yet, but it looks to me like there are going to be a ton of points scored on Sunday. It'll be important not to have too many busts.

In the real world, I ended up tied for the best record in my regular fantasy football league despite having the third-fewest points scored. I have a number two seed in the playoffs and will be crushed by a team I defeated twice during the season. Considering the bunch of misfits that make up my roster, it's been a great year.

I have a few posts swirling around in my head and might crank one out tonight. Maybe.

Monday results: DNP, shot self in groin*
Tuesday results: DNP, suspended for excessive use of diuretic*
Wednesday results: DNP, sidelined for calling ex-girlfriend "leftover turkey" in the media*

(* Note: Shooting was with rubber band, diuretic was caffeine, "media" was blog)

Week 13 Results

If I weren't into consistent post titling, this one would carry a header of "DeAngelo Williams Saved My Bacon".

Ended up in fourteen contests. Twelve cashes. In a tough week for scoring, I had three contests decided by less than one point - two of those decisions going my way. The one that didn't was regrettable, as it was in one of my highest (lol) buyin contests. Kudos to cwfoot, who was the only player in any of my contests that I saw picking Matt Forte, and Forte garbage timed just enough points to take a third away from me.

I was also in the odd position this evening of having to root against Adrian Peterson, despite having him in several contests. The way things turned out, he was a factor only in contests where I didn't have him on my roster (at least once I looked sometime in the 2nd half). I think that late TD cost me a few bucks.

No complaints at all though. My QB selections sucked - other than one selection of Matt Ryan in a salary cap contest, none of my picks reached double digit points. Other than Greg Jennings, my receivers also did nothing. Luckboxing was definitely involved to get favorable results from such shaky picks.

In series play, I finished 3rd in my Blogger Battle contest with a mediocre score. The best I can hope for is to pick up a few points in the overall standings. In Sundays With Dr. Pauly my score was also pretty pedestrian, which means that I'm out of the running for the Super TOC unless I set records the next two weeks. Really there's no reason for me to keep playing those, other than the fact that the series brings out some different players.

Sunday results: 14 contests entered (9 - 10 player, 1 - 6 player, 4 HU); 12 cashes (7,1,4); amount risked: $53.00; amount won: $109.00; net: +$56.00; ROI +105.7%