Yesterday was an odd one as I was rushed setting my lineups, accidentally entered three Double Ups and only one higher-upside tournament and put a bunch of players into the latter I didn't even like. Of course, all four of my entries cashed, including the tournament one thanks to Hector Santiago's win at the tail end of the late games. The cashes were $20, $20, $10 and $25, respectively for a total of $75, minus $35 in entry fees for a profit of $40. That puts my bankroll back at $992. I feel a bit like I did 10 years ago when I was up $9 after playing nine hours of online poker - it's a lot of work to break even.
The hope is I'm learning something as I go, and the cashes will get more frequent. One thing I took away from Tuesday night is the 50/50s and Double Ups - despite their meager rewards - might be necessary if only to provide some positive feedback along the way. Bankroll-wise, it's easy to ride out the volatility of big tournaments so long as the entry fees are low enough, but as someone getting started it's nice to bank a few wins and see progress being made... though maybe I just got lucky.
Another takeaway is it might be worth going ugly now and then. I'm not talking about hunches I have that are out of phase with what most people are doing. I mean ugly, ugly - picking players I don't even like but who are decent values given the match-ups and venues. There's something oddly enjoyable about rolling out Oswaldo Arcia, Santiago and Luis Valbuena, none of whom were even that cheap.
I also think it's a good idea to look at the FanDuel prices early in the day, identify 3-4 players at each position I like at their prices and try to build a few lineups that incorporate as many as possible. Some diversification is worthwhile, and as I get better at building lineups more quickly, it'll be easier to achieve.
Finally, while I complain about being pressed for time because I want to blog every lineup before the games start for the sake of transparency, it's a beneficial tradeoff in my opinion. Being required to post costs me 20 minutes or so of preparation, but in return I get more of what NYU professor Jay Rosen calls "full-stack credibility." He's using that phrase in the context of actual journalism, but I think it applies here too. If the lineups are timestamped, documented, posted and tweeted out before the games start, and the bankroll tally adds up, you know these results are real and not doctored to make me seem better than I am at this (not that anyone would suspect that given my $8 in losses so far, but in the event I went on a winning streak, I want people to trust that too.)
But being transparent about the lineups and bankroll is only one part of the "stack", so to speak, and I wanted to lay out a few others:
• I'm using FanDuel and not DraftKings or one of the other DFS sites for the purpose of this blog because it's the biggest, and it's simple to play. While FanDuel and DraftKings (and many other smaller DFS operations) are RotoWire sponsors - and bring in more revenue for the site than I'd ever hope to make playing DFS - none has as of yet sponsored this particular blog. Put differently, we would make the exact same amount of ad revenue from those companies (as of April 22, 2015) whether or not I were writing these posts. To the extent ads for sites show up as links in these pages, it's part of a different package and would show up on the blog regardless of whether "DFS Amateur Hour" existed or not.
• Because I'm one of RotoWire's owners, some of the DFS ad revenue ends up in my real life bank account, and I have a financial interest not to write anything that would deter those sites from advertising with us. At the same time, as someone who wants to be credible in the eyes of readers, I have a strong professional, ethical and ultimately long-term business interest in sharing my observations truthfully. For that reason, I think it's important to write about pertinent issues like how much rake FanDuel takes for a given contest and the importance of considering that before entering one. No one has - as of yet - asked me not to.
• I'm hoping eventually to get these posts sponsored and create more revenue for RotoWire - and ultimately myself. My strategy for doing so is to describe my experience and share my observations as honestly as possible, hope people relate to it and grow the readership to the point where the DFS companies (FanDuel most likely because I'm using them, but that's not set in stone) want to reach those readers. Saying gratuitously nice things about or endorsing FanDuel (or any other DFS site) would undermine that strategy because I would lose credibility with readers and ultimately their attention.
• I'm somewhat ambivalent about the massive influence of DFS on the industry and don't know whether it's sustainable in the long term. That said, I'm having more fun playing it and writing about it than I thought I would when I started.
Feel free to let me know on Twitter if you think there's something I'm leaving out.
If I have time I'll enter into some Wednesday night contests and post those later.