I wrote last week about how I prefer large field tournaments to heads-up and 50/50 contests because I'd rather be creative fielding lineups than play it safe. But the downside of big tournaments - other than increased volatility which isn't a problem if you have a big enough bankroll and play contests with small enough entry fees - seems to be a higher rake. The 50/50s and heads up games pay out $18 for every $20 they take in, so that's an 11 percent cut, i.e,  20 is 111% of 18. But in the larger tournaments, while the precise amounts vary, FanDuel's percentage retained seems to be about 14.9. For example, I'm looking to enter a $20,000 prize-pool contest with a $5 entry fee and a limit of 4597 participants. At $5 per, Fanduel would take in $22,985 while paying out $20,000. Divide the former by the latter, and you get 1.14925. So their cut is just under 15 percent, a good deal steeper than with the head to heads.

Now, that might be offset by the prize pool of $20,000 being guaranteed regardless of whether FanDuel actually fills the contest, i.e., they have to build in slack as some contests will fall short - possibly well short. And I'm sure savvier players than I have worked out which contests are less likely to fill, possibly even offering overlays. For now, I'll just note the discrepancy and keep an eye out for potential overlays as I play more, but long term the difference between 11.1 and 14.925 has to be substantial.

I wanted to discuss a few more ideas I had, but I've got 40 minutes to set lineups today, so let's get to that instead:

$5 Entry Tournament

P Brandon McCarthy $7800

C Rene Rivera $2,200

1B C.J. Cron $2400

2B Jose Altuve $4000

3B David Freese $3000

SS Erick Aybar $3100

OF Mike Trout $5000

OF George Springer $3800

OF Chris Carter $2900

This is one of the stranger lineups I've ever set. I'm wary of McCarthy, who I have in a couple season-long leagues, due to my rooting interest, but he averaged 93.7 MPH on his fastball in his first outing. (I actually wanted to use Mat Latos coming off the disaster start, but there's a good chance of rain in that game.) Then I stacked right-handed Angels in Texas against Ross Detweiler and right-handed Astros at home against Scott Kazmir even though Kazmir dealt the first time out. I also left $800 on the table because I didn't want to mess with the lineup I liked and actually preferred Rivera as a discount catcher with a little pop over the other options within $800 of him.

$5 Single Entry Tournament

See lineup above, except sub in P Andrew Cashner $8000.

I like the lineup and got stuck setting a second one, so I just swapped out the pitcher.

One of my bigger struggles is not wanting to go against pitchers like James Paxton who I own in a few places in season-long. I also don't want to double-down on those guys, either, so I tend to avoid my season-long investments entirely, something that unduly limits my choices.