DFS NHL Advice: Best Games To Enter
I’ve been regularly playing NHL DFS for 6 years now, and have had some glorious experiences where everything went right, and some tough nights where my players seemed to be playing with food poisoning or perhaps just lacked the inspiration to have a big game when I needed them the most. That’s the fun and challenging aspect of NHL Daily Fantasy Sports as anything can happen on a daily basis. “Day trading” players is a lot like day trading on the stock market, it can be a great few hours with significant gains or a total disaster with sizable losses.
I was long a full season fantasy sports poolie, but if you told me ten years ago that daily fantasy would be a mainstream thing to do with completely new lineups being built every 24 hours or less, I would have thought you were crazy for many reasons. For those looking to get into Daily Fantasy Hockey, this is article will break down the different types of game formats you can enter.
Which Contests Are Right For My DFS Style?
The decision to compete in cash games – these being contests where you have around a 50% chance of winning – 50/50s, double ups, and head to head matchups, are much different than GPPs (Guaranteed Prize Pools) where your percentage of winning is around 20% depending on the specific contest. How do you know which of these contests to enter – all of one type, or a hybrid approach? Should lineups be built differently depending on the contest format? These and more questions you may have regarding cash games and GPPs, and in this article, I do my best to talk about what your mindset and approach should be with regards to contest investments and lineup makeup.
Cash Games
After taking lots of bumps on the chin in GPP contests I took a more conservative approach to my DFS play by allocating more time and money into cash games. On any given day I normally allocate at least 80% of my budget into cash games where chances of winning are around that of flipping a coin and hoping for a heads result. When competing in cash games you are looking for NHL players who have low variance, essentially meaning you should be looking at rostering players that have consistency with their recent fantasy point totals and have a decent upside for more than their most recent 5 to 10 game average on that day. So if an NHL player over his past five games has fantasy point totals of 3.5, 4.5 5.5, 4.7, and 7.5 against average or above average defensive teams, and is against a weak defensive team tonight, then this looks like a prime opportunity to select that player with confidence. Lineup balance is key when it comes to cash game contests, you want lots of average players around the $5,000 salary range who have been performing consistently over the past few games. With cash games you aren’t going for the home run, you just need a decent fantasy point total to have a fair shot at placing in the money. In DraftKings the magic number to win cash games is usually around 30 to 40 fantasy points, and normally less for head to head contests specifically, so when I’m doing my projections I’m looking for a projected total around 35 to 40.
50/50 Contests
I usually look for the 50/50 contests with the most lineups possible so that there are more spots to win in versus smaller contests with fewer lineups. For example, I prefer seeing a contest that has a maximum of 1,000 lineups where 500 are in the money, instead of contests that have 20 for a maximum lineup limit and 10 lineups win. Over the years I’ve done better when more lineups are in contests for cash games, this may not be the case for you, but they work for me. You can expect to earn an 80% return on 50/50 contests, so if you place a bet of $10, you win $18 – a profit of $8.
Double-Ups
I normally avoid double up contests because the odds of winning is around 43% to 44% and you only win another 20% more than you do in 50/50 contests. It’s interesting how often my finishes are right around the top 50% in cash game contests, and if I was in the double up format I would lose a lot more than I do now in 50/50 contests. The extra 6% to 7% of winning lineups does make a difference, and with that being said, I would recommend playing in more 50/50 contests over the double up ones. There is an exception though for me and it goes back to the maximum number of lineups permitted in a cash game contest – I would rather go into a double up contest that had 2,298 maximum lineups where 1,000 lineups win versus a 50/50 that only has a maximum of 20 lineups and the top 10 wins.
Head to Head
This is my most preferred contest format for cash games as you go mono a mono versus one other user. The good thing about the head to head setup is that even if your lineup has a bad night of only 19 fantasy points, there’s still a chance that you can win if your opponent also has a bad night. 19 fantasy points in 50/50 and double up DraftKings contests for NHL will never fly, and you will lose every time. There are also nights where my lineup might have 45 fantasy points and I lose a head to head, and I would have placed in the money in a 50/50 or a double up, but more often than not this isn’t the case. A typical cash game day for me has 3 to 5 head to head contests entered, and 1 or 2 in the 50/50 category. A key element of head to head contests is who your opponent is and their level of experience, I always look for users who are beginners or fairly new to DraftKings using their Experience Badges indicator as a reference. Beginners have nothing besides their username, then the level of experience goes up from there with one down arrow, two down arrows, one horizontal line, one down arrow with one horizontal line, and two down arrows with one horizontal line. Taking on beginners will give your lineups the best odds (on average) to win contests, but they are getting harder and harder to find – when you do though, jump on them.
GPPs
This contest format is like the wild wild west where lineups are all over the place in terms of NHL players selected, and fantasy points earned range widely from 10 to 70+ on the high end. When building lineups for GPPs you are looking for players who have the potential to rack up a large number of fantasy points to help you win big monetary prizes. When you go after the players who have high upsides though they are typically the McDavid’s, Kucherov’s, and Kane’s, and come expensive in the $8,000 salary range, and if they don’t perform your lineup is likely to receive a low point total and totally bomb. When I have had huge nights of 60+ fantasy point totals I usually have one or two superstars in the $7,500 to $8,500 range, one or two in the $6,500 to $7,500 range and the rest of the lineup rounds out with value players in the $3,200 to $4,500 range excluding my goalie which is usually around $8,000 – I don’t ever skimp on my goalie as more often than not, when my goalie losses then my lineup losses too so I start building each lineup with my goalie at the core. For your GPP lineups to finish in the top 20% it takes a greater level of risk than cash game lineups, so you need to be aware of that fact and take a “stars and scrubs” approach to lineup construction. I usually play in one GPP contest to go along with my cash game contests as a home run type of mindset. GPPs don’t usually pan out too great, but when your lineups perform as you expected then the win can be incredible – even in $1 GPPs.
Playing in a combination of cash games and GPPs is ideal, just be sure to allocate a lot more money towards cash games and you will hedge your bets and win more consistently. People who end up quitting DFS were more than likely all in on GPPs and their money went up in smoke fast, and they didn’t see hope for winning on a regular basis so they decided to spend it elsewhere outside of DFS. Focus on cash games, make small and calculated bets, and plan on playing DFS for the long-term!
DFS
