Jeff’s Hardcore Core- OHL Classic @ Mayakoba

Before we dive into recapping the Shriners Open and previewing the OHL Classic, I just wanted to thank all of you who took a few minutes to complete the survey that we sent out this week. We received amazing feedback and suggestions from you as to how we can improve your user experience and the information that we provide to you.  If you have not yet had a chance to complete it I would ask that you do and help us out.  Having been a subscriber to numerous other content based sites over my many years playing fantasy sports, I found that customer service was not a strong point of most of those sites. When Zach and I started FGI we committed to putting our members first, listen closely to feedback and suggestions, and do everything we possibly could to create the best customer experience. Having received suggestions from you, I can tell you that we have already started to make some of those improvements already. As you can imagine some things are for more expensive to develop than others, so they will not happen overnight, but just know that we will continue to work hard on them and thank you for your continued loyalty to FGI.

The other thing I will mention here is I heard on a couple of surveys that some folks want cash game advice within this column. I want to make it clear that this is not a cash game column. This is strictly a GPP column. If you want cash game advice, read Pari’s preview column and Zach’s Daily Spin column. Some of the recommendations I make will certainly make great cash game plays and sometimes rosters can overlap, but I often times make selections and implement strategies that would not be appropriate for cash games. For that reason, to avoid any confusion, I just want you to use this column as a resource for building rosters just for GPPs. You will see I often times attempt aggressive moves, intentional fades that I would never do in cash games. Ownership percentage should not even come into play in your cash game selection. It is strictly based on value. GPPs however we are making bold moves to attempt to set ourselves apart from the other 99.999% of the field and win a GPP and achieve the highest upside. In cash games you just need to be in the top 50% to achieve the highest upside. It is very rare that we win a GPP, but when we do, the reward is huge. We need to stay disciplined in our bankroll management so that we do not blow through our bankroll over those weeks where we are negative. Over the last 12 weeks, my GPPs have been profitable 8 of them, which is extremely good for GPP play. Unfortunately during that time, my highest finish has been 10th place, producing a $1,000 win and I have not hit any huge paydays. In my career however I have hit multiple five figure cashes including one for $35,000, one for $26,000, and even a six figure cash for $120,000. Let me tell you, there is no better feeling in DFS than when all of your hard work culminates in a big score. They do not happen often, but if we remain disciplined and stay in the game they will happen.

Last week was one of those weeks where I was not profitable in my GPP play. It wasn’t a lack of guys in my core making the cut, it was a failure of them finishing high and getting the placing points. Twelve of the fourteen players in my core made the cut, which is our first hurdle every week, but without having the winner or any high finishes, we do not have a chance to take down a big one. I just talked about making bold moves in GPPs, well I made one last week and it did not pay off. Based upon all of the buzz throughout the industry on Patrick Cantley leading into the Shriners, I assumed he was going to be overwhelmingly popular and that turned out to be accurate (38% in $4, 43% in $33, and 51% in $400). A large majority of the time, when I think a guy is going to be owned by roughly half of the field in golf, I am going to fade him in GPPs, especially when he is one of the highest priced players. If he happens to miss the cut, I have now eliminated half of my competition. If he finishes outside of the Top 20, I have gained a significant edge over half the field. If he finishes between 5th and 20th, I haven’t gained anything, but I also haven’t really lost anything either by not owning him. The only time that the strategy blows up is when that player finishes in the Top 3, which is what happened last week with Cantlay coming our victorious. When a strategic fade wins; we lose, bottom line. It wasn’t that I didn’t think Cantlay wasn’t a good play last week or even that the price wasn’t good, because I think it was. It was strictly a move based upon ownership in a highly variant sport like golf. That is why I wanted to make the clear distinction between cash games and GPPs earlier. You would never have faded Cantlay base upon his perceived high ownership in cash games, but in GPPs I believe it was the correct move and even knowing the result and having lost because of it, I still believe it was the right move. Another thing I will add is there were still more than 20% of folks who did have Cantlay on their rosters that failed to cash in GPPs last week. So even if you identify the winner and he is owned by such a large amount of people you are not assured of winning or even cashing for that matter.

GPPs are about bold moves and the willingness to make them without fear of taking a -0- on a given week. If you are looking to be slightly profitable and cash as often as possible, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that in the least bit. You just need to embrace that fact and make sure you are making the best game selection and play in cash games exclusively. I think the industry as a whole neglects talking about many critical aspects to players success and game selection is one of them. It is too bad, because I think a lot of new players come into DFS not knowing proper game selection, bankroll management,  aggregate ownership, game theory, strategies, etc, which results in them not having success initially and becoming discouraged and quitting.  There are websites out there that offer statistics  and models alone, which is great and we offer those as well. But all of those other variables are what are going to make you a successful player over the long-term.  I am confident that all of Team FGI is armed with the proper knowledge on all of those aspects so they have a significant advantage over most every other DFS player out there. That does not mean we will win every single week, because we can’t prevent guys like Kevin Streelman last week who rated out well in almost every single metric from laying a humongous egg.

Hopefully this discussion was helpful for you. I am willing to share every single bit of knowledge that I have used to be successful in DFS with Team FGI. One final thing I will stand on the rooftops and yell about what you should do to become better at GPPs and that  is to study the trends. Every year we pull together the data from GPP winners over the course of the previous year and Zach reports this information in a well written and easy to understand three part series of columns, which will be released in December. Read those article not once, not twice, but many times and take notes. This is critical data that you need to have in order to develop winning strategies for GPP winners. There are clear trends that we see every single year and we need to be on the forefront of those to stay winning players.

Alright we move onto this week

Jeff’s Strategy & Hardcore Core- OHL Classic @ Mayakoba
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