Posted a long writeup earlier but Steemit lost the blog, so just going to do a quick rundown this time around.
Draftkings
Liked the following players:
-QB: Drew Brees, Deshaun Watson
-RB: Kareem Hunt, Todd Gurley, Lamar Miller, Mark Ingram, Jerick McKinnon
-WR: DeAndre Hopkins, Michael Thomas, Jarvis Landry, Michael Crabtree, Amari Cooper, Taylor Gabriel, Jamison Crowder, Ricardo Louis
-TE: ASJ, Kyle Rudolph, Austin Hooper, Zach Miller
-DST: Ravens, Falcons
There were over 100 lineups within a point of optimal and they had wildly different lineup constructions. I thought my choices were the safest: lock the high owned players, play Brees+Hopkins to semi block not having Watson/Thomas, and split between the close spots.
This was the first week that not having the Sunday Night Football game hurt the slate: Broncos Defense and Evan Engram were excellent plays. It really sucks that Draftkings did not reevaluate their decision to leave the game off the slate for this week, since Falcons/Patriots is the game of the year with many potential plays.
Fanduel
I had trouble finding better options to split with than Jarvis/Larry. Le’Veon Bell was a $300 discount from Kareem Hunt, but the money didn’t open anything up since I already had everyone I wanted elsewhere.
Yahoo
Lineup of the year — only lineup within half a point was Le’Veon over Kareem straight up, but just like Fanduel, the $3 savings opened up no other players, and in half PPR I preferred Kareem.
FantasyDraft
There were a few options after locking in the four RBs, Thielen, and Broncos, so I split two ways to get exposure to the players I liked.
Overall
Won on all 4 sites and am finally profitable on the season. Have only booked two winners in the first 6 weeks this year: compare that to last year where I won huge 5 weeks and had one small losing week over the same time period. But happy to be up overall finally.
NBA starts tomorrow
Only a two game slate, but Cavs/Celtics and Warriors/Rockets are both great games. Since I’ll be playing much smaller in NBA and have no fear of bragging, I will be running a daily results blog just as I did for MLB.
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DeAndre Hopkins, while a target machine - I think was a mistake, that I also made. Given the matchup, the fact that the browns are super thin at WR right now, and RB for that matter, while also Hogan getting his first start seems like a game that would be on pace to be more HOU to be running than passing.
I think it's a mistake to say "oh this game is an obvious blowout and he can't do well". If it's a blowout they scored points, and how did they accumulate those points? Through their best offensive weapon.
The Browns have one of the better run defenses in the league and below average pass defense. Also sharp bettors actually had the Browns, that didn't work out, but the line came back towards them at close. I believe the Texans also had the highest total on the slate, but that may have changed when the Browns were getting bet at the end -- either way they were projected for 27-30 points, and Hopkins likely makes up about 1/3 of that TD equity.
Think Hopkins was a great play, even in hindsight, and it's just bad luck that he got 13.8% of the targets yesterday when he garnered roughly 37% the previous 4 games.
Thats probably 1 of the many reasons you are far more successful at DFS than I am. I guess I need to learn how to balance ignoring hindsight and using past information to try to find advantageous spots.. Because like Poker, you typically need a decent sample size to go off of, just because you lose BI's - doesn't necessarily mean you are playing wrong, just a by-product of variance. Regardless, I'm really happy to see you posting for DFS again. Last year was really fun watching you crush Dan Bilzeran, and raking in all that cash.
It's easy to second guess every move. Sure, Deshaun+Jarvis+Crabtree > Brees+Hopkins+Crowder was a fine lineup and they were projected within .3 of each other. Trying to decide which side was better was basically splitting hairs, just sucks that one side wins by ~35 points. But in general, when faced with a very close decision, it's safer to go with the higher owned players.
I'm sad the glory days of DFS are behind us. Condia blocked me on DK, he won't play FantasyDraft anymore, and he refuses to sit big on Yahoo. No more Blitz fantasy, they went out of business. Hopefully we get a second wind sometime in the next few years, but I'm not counting on it.