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Shark Autopsy Report – Analyzing MMA GPP Lineups to Make You a Better Player

Welcome back to the Shark Autopsy Report!  Typically lineup deconstruction articles focus on NFL and NBA contests.  If you’ve read the Shark Autopsy Report throughout the 2018 – 2019 NFL season then you are familiar with the report’s approach.  If this is your first time reading the Shark Autopsy Report, Welcome!  You may access the 2018 – 2019 NFL Shark Autopsy reports here. Over the course of the MMA season this article will deconstruct winning DraftKings lineups in contests where the dark waters of Guaranteed Prize Pool (GPP) contests that are ripe with sharks.  Navigating these waters where the sharks smell blood in the water is not easy, but the DFSArmy has you covered, providing you with the essential daily tools to help our VIPs turn into sharks!

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Synopsis of the Shark Autopsy Report

The Shark Autopsy Report is different from the other DFS site’s lineup breakdown articles that you can read online, as there are a multitude of these types of articles.  The Shark Autopsy Report provides you with a breakdown of the top ranked DFS pros lineups construction, from the total number of lineups they utilized each fighter in the Uppercut contest, their percentage of that fighter drafted overall in the Uppercut contest, the percentage the tourney field drafted the fighter, and the variance between the DFS Pros’ percentage drafted of a particular fighter as compared with the tourney field.  Note: with the Shark Autopsy Report, you will see negative and positive variance percentages.  The positive variance values showcase the DFS Pros were overweight on a particular fighter as compared to the tourney field and negative variance values showcase the DFS Pros were underweight on a particular fighter as compared to the tourney field. 

DraftKings $150K Uppercut Contest – Feb. 9th  UFC 234 Card

Unlike NFL Milly Maker and Sunday Million contests, MMA doesn’t offer tourney top prize payouts that your ordinary DFS player is going to flock to.  In fact, similar to other niche sports, MMA has smaller contest pools and smaller contest payouts, though the payouts in the Uppercut are really good.  As compared to NFL, the Uppercut is MMA’s Milly Maker.  No matter the sport you determine to invest your bankroll, you should as a DFS player be analyzing this contests winning lineups and DFS Pros lineups.  It should be part of your repertoire as a DFS player to revisit the prior week’s winning lineups, not just for the Milly Maker and Sunday Million contests, but all of the contests you entered to see how the winning lineups were constructed.  Additionally, you should be looking at your own lineups to determine WHY certain plays in your lineups went off and WHY other plays did not.  This will ultimately make you a better player, but it will help you determine trends you may not have otherwise noticed if you were not reviewing over past week’s lineups.

Analyzing Uppercut Tourney’s Top 20 Lineups

Multiple lineups tying throughout the entire Uppercut tourney is not uncommon in MMA, actually it is a commonality, and very prevalent at the top of the Uppercut tourney.  The top 20 lineups consisted of 17 lineups tying for 1st and 61 lineups tying for 18th place.  There was only one difference between the 17 first place lineups and the 61 18th place lineups and that was the first place lineups had Austin Arnett in them and Raulian Paiva was in the 61 eighteenth place lineups.  The top 20 lineups had 100% ownership on Devonte Smith, Montana De La Rosa, Jimmy Crute, Jalin Turner, and Ricky Simon.  Devonte Smith was the highest owned fighter in the Uppercut tourney field at 58.06%, followed by Montana De La Rosa at 37.36% and Jimmy Crute at 37.11%.  Arnett was the lowest owned fighter in the top 20 lineups across the Uppercut field at 16.77% ownership.

We see a very similar dynamic across all DFS sports, no matter which sport it is, that picking your spots on one or two players or fighters to be contrarian on is THE most optimal lineup construction methodology.  Going full contrarian at more than that will lead to the least optimal lineup construction.  If you read my NFL Shark Autopsy Report articles, you were able to see over the course of the 2018 – 2019 NFL season that this ideology held true at a very high percentage of the time within the top 10 scoring lineups in the Milly Maker contest.

Analyzing DFS Pros Fighter Usage

The DFS Pros lineups the Shark Autopsy Report will be analyzing over the course of the MMA season are BDHolla89 and Moklovin.  BDHolla89 is the number 1 ranked overall MMA player per RotoGrinders and Moklovin is 3rd ranked overall MMA player.

Looking at BDHolla89 and Moklovin fighter usage and lineups, we can get an idea of the fighters they used as shown below.  Let’s see their ownership of the Uppercut field’s highest owned fighters (Smith and De La Rosa) to get a sense of how much valuation they place on those two fighters.

As you can see in the diagrams above, BDHolla89, utilized Devonte Smith in 76% of his lineups which he was overweight on the tourney field by 18%.  BDHolla89 was overweight on the field by 22% utilizing Montana De La Rosa in 60% of his lineups.

Moklovin’s ownership of Devonte Smith was closer to the Uppercut tourney field ownership, but was still overweight on the fighter by 8% as compared to the field.  Moklovin went underweight as compared to the field on De La Rosa by 4%.  Moklovin pivoted that 4% ownership of De La Rosa to Jalin Turner, and Turner and Smith were Moklovin’s highest owned fighters on the card at 66.17%.  Moklovin was overweight to the tourney field on Turner by 29.70%.

Top DFS players take a stand on a certain play(s) that they believe will go off based upon certain parameters and factors they’ve researched and believe to be viable.  Taking a stand with a contrarian play or two that fit the top DFS players parameters, along with surrounding those contrarian plays with chalkier plays will lead to strong results on the night’s slate or card.  It’s a proven strategy that works in all DFS sports!  If you believe that you need lineups full of contrarian plays and minimal chalk plays, then your bankroll will suffer and you will be looking at the reload button more often than not.

Side-by-Side Comparison of DFS Pros Fighter Usage

BDHolla89’s bulk ownership was in 5 fighters who had ownership greater than 50%, whereas Moklovin only took a stand on 3 fighters with ownership over 50%.  Side-by-Side comparisons like these truly showcase the thoughts that DFS Pros had on each fighter on the card.

To conclude this installment of the Shark Autopsy Report, the DFS Army was started based on the concept that brings high-level tools, projections, and information to average players would allow them to compete on a level playing field with the DFS pros that have been dominating the industry for years. Check out our full Wall of Wins to see countless other screenshots from regular players utilizing DFS Army tools and advice to take down 6 figure prizes on a regular basis. Sign up as a DFS Army VIP today to take your game to the next level and start competing like a pro.