THE $100 BANKROLL CHALLENGE

WEEK 10 REVIEW

Messy....

Week 10 was the type of week you walk away from with lots to contemplate about the current best way to attack DFS. Coming into this season most people who are on the sharp end of DFS would have advised double stacks for GPP’s, and bring-backs (a member of the opposing team), were seen as essential. Ten weeks into the season and we’re seeing tournaments won without these conventional methods routinely. I feel like my DFS process has been refined this season, partly by having to tell to anyone who reads this what my decisions were, but a good win in tournaments is still alluding me. Over the last two weeks, I haven’t cashed in a tournament above the min-cash level and that’s fine and profitable, but we’re getting closer to the end of the season and as the slates get more condensed, I tend to play less. My chances to win big are slipping away. 

Followers of my Twitter account might have seen me post my lineups and contest selection about an hour before lock on Sunday. I tend to only get them posted before lock if I’m very confident, and I was. The cash lineup in particular felt strong, so let’s start there. Dak Prescott was underpriced against a weak Atlanta Falcons team and was a no brainer. I knew playing the chalk running backs Mark Ingram and D’ernest Johnson here would be safer than in GPP’s and this left me free to play Davante Adams, Mike Evans and Jonathan Taylor with the savings. All three of those players were some of the highest projected players on the slate and in cash that’s no bad thing. Ownership is never a problem in cash, we just play the best plays. I really liked Jerry Jeudy, who continues to outperform Courtland Sutton and anyone who has read my Value Plays column will be familiar with my love for Dan Arnold whilst DK continue to under-value him. His usage and price are too good to pass up. The plan for contest selection was similar to normal, hit the big field single entry contests where I trust myself to be better than half of the entrants, and it worked out. From early on in the slate I was confident these would cash and with a final score of 152.24, it was never in doubt. 

GPP’s however are a different story. If you read my Stack of The Week article you’ll know I was all in on Russell Wilson’s return against Green Bay, so he picked a bad time to have the worst game of his career. My build focused on two games, stacking Wilson and Lockett with MVS as a bring back and then using Dalvin Cook, Tyler Conklin and Mike Williams from the Vikings against the Chargers. This build allowed me to fit Jonathan Taylor in who I was really high on but ultimately I was left with a bunch of under-performers. My cumulative ownership was less than 80%, which in hindsight makes me think I gave up too many projected points chasing differentials. My second team, which I entered into fewer contests, faired slightly better. Again, I took a correlated approach with pairings of Herbert and Mike Williams, Zeke and Pitts and Swift and Washington. On another day this could have worked out and I maintain that the approach was good. The ownership level crept up to 105% which feels good for the contests I was playing in, the points just weren’t there. 

Overall I walked away from the day with a small profit from the cash lineup and that’s no bad thing. On weeks where I’m confident in my cash team, I’ll often play enough that if I lose all my GPP entries I’ll cover that loss if the cash team is good. I’m happy with the contests and lineups I used, it just didn’t hit. There’s always next week...