You hear there are a million ways to skin a cat. Well, in the world of daily fantasy sports, this old cliche certainly applies. We have all kinds of contests at our disposal from cash games to tournaments. Leagues and single-entry contests. Head-to-heads and massive multi-entry million dollar prize pools. And, all these contest types carry different strategies in building winning lineups. If you ask 100 “experts,” you might get 150 answers….because some will give you two.
I get asked about cash game strategy a lot in our DFS Army community, and my answers are usually revolving around teaching you to use The Ladder System. The Ladder System is a way of building a largely “cash safe” lineup and capitalizing on it’s performance to both maximize it’s upside and minimize it’s downside. In many ways, this single method has forever changed our VIP members’ games for the better. However, tonight, I’d like to talk about a different way to minimize your downside in cash games. I believe there are two key ways to accomplish this mitigation of risk.
The Single Lineup Method for Cash Games
The Single Lineup Method is very simple and somewhat obvious. You build one lineup, your best lineup, and play it in all your cash games. This sounds risky, and it is. Like investing your entire retirement account in one, single stock, you will live by this lineup and die by this lineup. You are putting all of your research into a very small set of players in a game with a lot of variance. If it does well, you do well. If not, well….you don’t.
Players using this method believe your first shot is your best. They believe by building a second lineup, you are directly affecting your upside because if you liked that player so much, he would have been in your first lineup. There is a lot of merit to this thinking. However, firing a single bullet is still very boom or bust by it’s very nature.
The way this philosophy mitigates risk is by leaning on volume. A player using The Single Lineup approach to cash games will load up a lot of contests from head-to-heads, to 50/50s, to double ups, to small leagues and will try and get as much exposure to the entire site’s players as he can. The single lineup player knows with only the one lineup, he can’t play just 3 head-to-heads and expect to realize his lineup’s true potential. He might get lucky and find 3 turds. But, he might get unlucky and find 3 better scores.
But, by spreading out across 100 contests or more, he smooths out his variance and capitalizes on his lineup’s place among all lineups built and entered in cash games. His goal is to beat 60% of the lineups. And, he believes his best shot in doing so is with one single do-or-die bullet. Many of your big-named DFS pros play exactly this way. They rely primarily on the head-to-head competitions and lean on the 50/50s and leagues for some upside when they do very well for the week.
The Multi-Entry Method for Cash Games
The Multi-Entry Lineup Method flips the previously mentioned strategy on it’s head. Instead of firing just one bullet into a ton of contests, the multi-entry player mitigates his risk by building a lot of lineups. Instead of beating 60% of all players, his thinking is a little different.
The multi-entry guy doesn’t necessarily believe his first lineup is his best effort. He knows the game he plays has variance and he doesn’t know which end of it will bite him in the ass. He can be undecided among several quarterbacks and still show profit for the week by using them as a unit. If multi-entry guy can’t narrow down past 3 quarterbacks in his cash games, he will just build 3 lineups and use each QB in a lineup.
He is no longer hoping he beats 60% of the players across the entire site. Multi-entry guy is hoping 2 of his 3 quarterbacks do well. He hopes the same with his running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, and defenses. He is assembling a team of players to build many lineups with.
If the Single Entry Method is like a single stock, the Multi-Entry Method is like a mutual fund. The multi-entry player is allocating percentages of “player shares” to his overall portfolio and simply hoping the overall portfolio performs. With this method, the multi-entry player can enter all 50/50s and forego head-to-head contests altogether. After all, he is already spread out. He just did it in a different way.
Comparing Single Lineup and Multi-Entry in Cash Games
Let’s assume we plan to invest $100 no matter which method we play. The Single-Entry Method will enter the one lineup in 100 $1 contests for a total of $100. (This is preferable to say 4 $25 head-to-heads because of the variance we mentioned before.) The Multi-Entry Method will build 10 lineups and invest $10 in each lineup for the same total of $100.
I think it’s fairly self-explanatory that the single entry guy needs head-to-head contests to mitigate his risk. But, to clarify, think about this: If the single entry guy enters 100 head-to-head contests, he will beat 43 of them some of the time and will beat 82 of them other times. He is nearly guaranteed to get some of his money back, even in losing weeks. However, if single entry guy entered 100 50/50 contests, he is not guaranteed to get any of his money back. Sure, if he would have beaten 82 head-to-head contests, he doubles his entire investment in the 50/50 contests. But, if he only beats 43 of them, he loses everything. This boom or bust nature is exactly what we are trying to avoid in cash games. And, is precisely why our single entry player needs to lean on head-to-head contests. (For more details on contest types, see our Training Camp Series.)
The Multi-Entry Method leans on 50/50s for it’s safety. This player will choose a larger 50/50 contest (50 players or more to smooth out the inherent variance of the 10 player contests, for example) when building his 10 lineups. Sometimes he will cross the cash line with 3 of his 10. Sometimes he will cross with 8 of his 10. But, just like the single-entry head-to-head method, multi-entry guy nearly always gets something back. Therefore, he is using the 50/50 contests to mitigate his risk.
Just like single-entry guy increased his variance in 50/50s, multi-entry guy would also increase his variance with head-to-heads because he cannot possibly capitalize on the volume needed to make head-to-head contests safe. If multi-entry guy entered each of his 10 lineups in 10 head to heads, he invests the same $100 but actually increases his variance. It is much easier to lose due to bad luck when playing only 10 opponents vs playing 100 opponents.
Once again, there are many ways to skin a cat in cash games. Hopefully, now you are better able to tailor your style of play to the contest best fitting your game. As players, we need to always put ourselves in position to gain an edge. One way we do this is by studying the advantages and disadvantages of the many types of contests offered these days. Single lineup builders should focus on head-to-head contests, and they should take on as many contests as possible to spread out their risk. Multiple lineup builders should focus more on the 50/50 contests because by building multiple lineups they have already spread their risk. One method uses players on the site. The other method uses players in the sport. Find your method of building and play the games structured to help you win.
ChoppoDong is a contributor and coach at dfsarmy.com and can also be followed on Twitter at @ChoppoDong. If you are the type of player looking for more advice emphasizing the fundamentals of daily fantasy sports, use the code 10-OFF for a 10% discount off your monthly DFS education. Gain access to all our coaches, player experts, articles, videos, research tools, and optimizer for as long as you remain a member. Join our Slack community for real-time discussion of all DFS sports 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week. Join the DFS Army today and unlock your true potential with our help.