Jeff’s Hardcore Core- Dean & Deluca Invitational

Yet another great week for the Hardcore Core as we didn’t quite have 100% of the Core make the cut as we did the week before, but only three of the 17 didn’t get through, which is pretty solid.  The biggest highlight was obviously Billy Horschel who we got for a bargain basement price of $6,700 and only 3-5% ownership across all GPPs. In addition we had Nick Taylor who finished T9 at only $6,900, Keegan Bradley who finished T27 for $6,900, and Danny Lee who finished T5 for $7,100.  I guess you could say we nailed the low dollar guys last week.  The one omission from the Core that I am kicking myself about was Jason Day.  Zach and I talked about how we thought he would be the lowest owned of the top 5 priced guys and a good contrarian play on the webcast, which turned out to be true in the $4 Fore contest on Draftkings.  Ultimately, the issue with his Mom’s health and how it has affected him mentally scared me off of him and I elected to just allocate all my ownership up top to DJ.  As is usually the case, DJ produced a solid amount of Draftkings points (78) considering he didn’t have his A game and could not avoid the bogeys to allow him to contend.  We talked about this a bit on our podcast this week, but it is important to identify a core group of players (you are more than welcome to mine) to build your GPP lineups around. 

Those people who are rostering 60 or 70 players to build 100 lineups are basically trying to win the lottery.  When you hit your core with 25 guys, you are giving yourself multiple chances at the big prize, which is ultimately why we play GPPs.  If you were to have owned Billy Horshel on 1 or 2 of your teams last week, what are the odds that you would have hit the other 5 guys on your roster correctly?  But if you owned Billy at 10% of your 100 teams, you had ten different possibilities to hit the right combination.  For those of you playing in the 20 entry max tournaments that Draftkings is offering now, I would recommend using between 10-15 guys in your core.  I generally never own a guy less than 5-8%.  If I have enough faith to include him in my core, I want multiple rosters with him on it if he hits.  I actually had Billy on 15% of my rosters last week, which is why I had a net profit.  However, I did not have any Jason Day exposure, which is why I did not have any real high dollar finishes.  As I have said many times, GPPs are very difficult to win.  I am amazed at how many FGI members are winning these contests week in and week out.  It is a true testament to the tools and information we offer and also to all of your hard work, dedication, and research.  Keep working hard and good things happen. 

The final thing I want to mention before we talk about this weeks event is something that I have talked about before many times before.  Even though we have been crushing contests over the past few months, I do not want you to overexpose your bankroll in any given week.  Just because you may have won nicely the past several weeks, does not mean you should shove all-in.  Our goal is to be long-term winners and we will win the majority of the time.  Do not let a few losing weeks (and there will be some) destroy many more winning weeks, because you did not stay disciplined with your bankroll management.

The Dean & Deluca or as it was previously, The Crowne Plaza has been very kind to me the past few years.  In 2015, I was fortunate enough to win my first of two seats into the Draftkings Live Final, along with about $50,000 in other GPP wins.  Last year was not nearly as profitable as 2015, but it still brought several thousands of dollars in profit to me and probably a lot more than that to the readers of The Hardcore Core as it only had two of the 15 core players miss the cut while five of them finished in the Top 10.  I really hope this is a trend that continues this year and for years to come.

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