Midway through the west coast games I thought I would turn a profit, but I was mistaken. I fell just out of the money in one of my $10 Double Ups, so I split on those, and cashed in only one of my three $3 tournament entries for $7.50. That means for the $29 I invested, I got $27.50 back, not including the rake-back, for a loss of $1.50. That brings my bankroll down to $881.50.
On the bright side, I did well on the pitching again with six of my seven lineups having Gio Gonzalez, Sonny Gray, Cole Hamels and Jason Hammel. My only dud was David Price. And I also set my record-high in points (unfortunately it was in a Double Up) with 53.5. Interestingly that was one with Gray (whose bullpen blew the win), and it did not include a stack. Most of my losses are due to stacking the wrong teams (or in last night's case, the Nationals sans Bryce Harper because they were facing a lefty.) While it's easy to see the logic of stacking in large-field tournaments, it also forces you to pick players you ordinarily might not. I'll still mostly stack for upside, but I might experiment with throwing out a few with two-player stacks rather than three or four and force it less.
As I mentioned on Twitter last night, there should be a word for that annoyed-yet-vindicated feeling you get when you use a season-long player you hate in DFS, and he goes 0-for-4. On the one hand, you're disgusted with yourself and despise that player even more, but on the other, you're pleased with yourself for not having him on any of your permanent rosters, and it reaffirms your generally sound judgment despite the temporary lapse. For me that player was Ian Desmond last night (For what's it worth, RotoWire's Scott Jenstad calls it a "Gattis.")
The more I play DFS, the more I'm convinced one should not check for in-game updates of one's players. It's far too time consuming and addictive, and I'm pretty sure what's going on in my brain as I click and re-click for box-score updates, flip channels and refresh the "Live" page on FanDuel is akin to that of a murine experimental subject getting intermittent cocaine doses in its water supply (The word "murine" is to mouse as "canine" is to dog or "equine" is to horse - I had to look it up myself.) I see nothing good coming from it, and I'll have to try harder to resist the urge. The problem is I'd be doing some of that for my season-long leagues anyway, so I feel as though I'm being deprived if I ban it altogether. It's like when you realize you're an alcoholic (I'd imagine), and you can't even grab a couple beers with your buddies.
In any event, it's a good test of my discipline, and as I'm only playing DFS Tuesdays and Fridays these days, I can still check the season-long box scores like I used to five days a week.