When I first started playing poker regularly, there was this website called PokerChamps. I don’t think it exists anymore. It wasn’t one of the big-name sites, but it did have one feature I rather liked.
FanDuel: Testing out some strategies, trying out some games
The game structure can dictate who you go for, and how you build your roster in the weekly fantasy game. Look through some attempts with me.
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Every hour, on the hour, the site would host a free tournament with thousands of entrants. And the top finishers would still get cash. Not much cash (I think first place was $7, down to $1 for ninth, or something like that), but cash for nothing.
I would pretty regularly enter these when I had nothing going on. Now, when I play regular poker, I’m a conservative player. Fold a lot, see a lot of hands, only play when I’m confident. That’s a fine strategy in real poker. It was an abject failure in this game, though. The only way to win these free tourneys -- thousands of players, quick blind structure, only a few small payouts -- was to bet big, and bet quick. You just went all-in and hoped.
When the game changes, you have to change your strategy.
FanDuel has multiple different game offerings. Frankly, my favorite (and the one I’ve played most often) offers the least reward. I play a lot of the 50/50 games. In those games, the best you can do is slightly less than double your investment. In a hundred-player 50/50, the top 50 finishers get almost double their buy-in (less some site fees), while the bottom half get nothing but a thanks-for-coming.
For a refresher on general FanDuel gameplay, see our primer on Tuesday.
In games like these, I tend to the conservative. Find players who might have low ceilings, but have fairly high floors. Frank Gore, for example, is unlikely to ever have one of those 230-yard, three-score games. On the other hand, he's the primary running back on what should be a good team. With some exceptions, he'll get some numbers.
In a hundred-person 50/50, you don’t really care if you finish first. So long as you finish 50th or better, no one knows the difference. Just get someone who will do something.
On the other side of the coin is the tournament-style game. The top 10 percent (or so) finish in the money, with that money escalating as the ranking does. Pretty standard. You finish in the top 11 percent, darn, peace out.
In this style of game, you need to shoot for the moon. Vincent Jackson might only catch two balls for 27 yards, but the flip side is that he could catch eight for 150 and two scores. You need the high-ceiling players to beat out the other 90 percent and have a chance at the big bucks.
There are games in between as well, with everything from “Double Up” to “Quintuple Up” where you finish in the top X percent of entrants, and you multiple your buy-in by X amount. As the number of payouts lessens, the number of risk/reward players worth buying in on increases.
Each week in this space, the plan is to check out a couple of FanDuel games, and try out a couple of rosters. I’m really using the teams I create here, so it’s a very money-where-mouth-is scenario.
For starters, I’m going to try a 50/50 team. My roster:
| Position | Player | Opponent | Salary |
| QB | Nick Foles | JAC | 8,500 |
| RB | Alfred Morris | at HOU | 7,700 |
| RB | Bernard Pierce | CIN | 6,100 |
| WR | Andre Johnson | WAS | 7,400 |
| WR | Keenan Allen | at ARI | 7,200 |
| WR | Eric Decker | OAK | 6,400 |
| TE | Greg Olsen | at TB | 6,400 |
| K | Cody Parkey | JAC | 4,900 |
| DEF | Cincinnati | at BAL | 5,400 |
I don’t think there are any crazy scorers here. Sure, Foles, Johnson and Decker each had at least one monster game last season, but by and large these are simply good players. Morris and Pierce aren’t the top tier of running backs, but both are the fulltime ball-carriers for their respective teams. With Cam Newton recovering from injury, Olsen could be a nice dump-off candidate. Allen is his team’s primary, as are the other two receivers.
There’s little chance this team would finish first in a big tournament. But in a 50/50, I’m confident it’s one that will sit in the top half.
Now, a “Mini Rush” where first place pays out 120 times the entry. Payouts go all the way down to 157th place, but at that point it’s only double the entry fee. I’ll be aiming high here:
| Position | Player | Opponent | Salary |
| QB | Peyton Manning | IND | 10,200 |
| RB | LeSean McCoy | JAC | 9,400 |
| RB | Shonn Greene | at KC | 5,100 |
| WR | Demaryius Thomas | IND | 8,700 |
| WR | Victor Cruz | at DET | 6,900 |
| WR | Brandin Cooks | at ATL | 5,700 |
| TE | Travis Kelce | TEN | 4,500 |
| K | Randy Bullock | WAS | 4,500 |
| DEF | NY Jets | OAK | 5,000 |
The key to this sort of game is the low-end guys who could do something. Kelce has been a rising sleeper in the preseason; he's still cheap in the game, but he's got potential. It's rare for kickers to go crazy with scoring, so save money there by grabbing a cheap starter. The Jets get to face a rookie quarterback; if Derek Carr struggles, they could reap the benefits. Greene, whatever, I needed to save a few bucks.
But by saving in those spots, I could grab the top quarterback in Manning and his top target in Thomas. With Wes Welker suspended and Emmanuel Sanders an unknown quantity in the Denver offense, it's easy to see a route to big Denver scoring with those two. On top of that, I got LeSean McCoy, who ought to be one of the top running backs.
This team would probably be fine in the 50/50 as well. But Greene, Cooks, Kelce? These are guys who legitimately could score zero. It’s unlikely, but it’s on the table. But they could go the other way, as well.
So there are a couple rosters. Am I going to win money this weekend? I’ll let you know.
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