Week 5 NFL DFS Results: +$54,715.22

This is a weekly blog entry on how the previous week went for me in NFL DFS.

If you missed my previous recaps:
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4

Room For Improvement

Despite my biggest winning week so far this NFL season, there is still room for improvement. I made a couple mistakes this weekend that held me back from an even bigger win.

The first mistake was in my preparation. On Saturday night, I not only went to a beer tasting festival, but stayed out til midnight when I had to start working at 6am the next morning. I didn’t over indulge and wasn’t hungover the next day, but I didn’t put in my usual amount of preparatory work beforehand and was a little short on time come Sunday. The lack of time meant I needed to do more work splitting lineups, registering, and working on cash teams so I wasn’t able to enter many GPP lineups, and I think they would have done very well if I had given the scores of my cash lineups and the extreme fantasy scores of low owned players I was on.

The second mistake was hedging. The need to spread ownership when dealing with small uncertainty arises weekly, but this time I think I made a clear mistake. I was all over Cameron Meredith, the bears de facto #2 wide receiver Sunday due to injuries to other players. I knew he would play every down all game, but I was uncertain whether I should have only him or spread my ownership to include Adam Humphries, the #3 receiver on the Buccaneers, who had a hot start to the season but has since regressed. I hedged on a player I knew had a lower expectation and he did significantly worse.

The third mistake was not hedging. Half joking, but it was actually a lower share of Brandon Marshall than I desired. With Eric Decker out and Quincy Enunwa questionable coming into Sunday, I loved Brandon Marshall both conceptually and quantitatively, but I had trouble fitting him into Draftkings lineups. I had a few clear ways to do it, but instead chose for more of the slightly cheaper Julian Edelman, Tom Brady’s favorite receiver. Despite Tom Brady throwing for 400 yards and 3 touchdowns, little went to Julian, so this did contain some bad luck. However, Marshall was due for a much larger percentage of the Jets passing attack than Edelman would be because of lack of competition. All I had to give up to do was slightly downgrading defense, a small price to pay in a high variance spot, well worth it.

The fourth and final mistake was not paying enough attention to ownership percentages. I knew Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger would be the chalk on DK, and I chose to make a Ryan Fitzpatrick lineup in one spot because of the upgrades I was able to make to other lineup spots due to his deflated price. I also chose AJ Green over Odell Beckham Jr. in a spot on Fanduel when I knew the latter would be more popular. On Yahoo I took more Terrelle Pryor and had no TY Hilton, a good popular play that murdered it. The popular plays I was light on all exceeded expectation and my choices underachieved, which was bad luck, but had the reverse situation occurred and I was on the opposite players it would have been less detrimental.

These were all small mistakes, and I’m mostly nitpicking because choosing to do one thing generally means you give up another desirable player in your lineup, but I do believe I could have played better.

Draftkings: +$32030.58

Light on Brandon Marshall and one share of Ryan Fitzpatrick did nothing to hurt my results on Draftkings. I had David Johnson ranked as the #1 overall fantasy play of the weekend so I was all over him on Thursday which helped carry the Fitzpatrick lineup. Also having lots of Cameron Meredith, Ben Roethlisberger,, Tom Brady, and Jordan Howard assured my victory.

Fanduel: +$9437.76

Choosing AJ Green and Mason Crosby over Odell Beckham and Brandon McManus was a minor mistake, but both choices were fine. I guess it’s mostly bad luck I was on the losing end, but I was still on the wrong side and should have won more.

Yahoo: -$10747.40

I basically broke even on Yahoo but lost a $10k HU match against Condia, the former king of DFS who I believe I have a significant edge on. He makes bizarre and suboptimal choices constantly and I feel comfortable sitting him on most sites. Just unfortunate that the one place I sat him by far the biggest I lose because I beat him pretty much everywhere else.

Fantasy Aces: +$8560.65

The past few weeks I set very poorly on aces, but I am very proud of how I set there week 5. I found the best possible lineup for both the Thursday and Sunday slates and beat all the other regulars to more than double up.

FantasyDraft: +$7600.30 (roughly $7200 in buyins)

I just love setting lineups on Fantasydraft. It’s very easy for me to find the best possible lineup while other people find it difficult. Also helps that Condia plays there and makes huge mistakes weekly.

BlitzFantasy: +$7833.33

The notorious playboy king of instagram Dan Bilzerian started his own DFS site, BlitzFantasy, where weekly he sets out a large head to head match for one user to play against him.

~~~ embed:BEaRD_YoDi1/?taken-by=danbilzerian&hl=en instagram metadata:QkVhUkRfWW9EaTEvP3Rha2VuLWJ5PWRhbmJpbHplcmlhbiZobD1lbg== ~~~
Standard Dan Bilzerian picture. Source: instagram

This week he sat a $25k HU match. Due to the difficulty of moving money around, the size of the match, and Dan only allowing one person to play him each week, two friends and I split the buyin up into thirds, worked on the lineup, and played him.

He obviously didn’t set his lineup because he was posting videos of himself at a pool party, at a strip club, wakeboarding, and fondling girls all weekend, but someone who works for him set a reasonable lineup and we nearly lost. Luckily we staved him off and won the match.

Overall Week 5 Results: +$54715.22

Covered most of it above, but simultaneously very pleased with the results and motivated to do even better.

2016 NFL Season Results through week 5: +$151934.07

Season ROI back up to about 20%.

I’m flying back to New Jersey to visit my parents this weekend and plan on working very hard on NFL while there. I won’t necessarily play much bigger, but I’m going to put in a lot of work, play more GPPs, and do a lot more preparation going into Sunday. Excited to continue the strong season in week 6.

---

My name is Ryan Daut and I'd love to have you as a follower. Click here to go to my page, then click in the upper right corner if you would like to see my blogs and articles regularly.

I am a professional gambler, and my interests include poker, fantasy sports, football, basketball, MMA, health and fitness, rock climbing, mathematics, astrophysics, cryptocurrency, and computer gaming.