Daily Fantasy: How to Win Your NFL DFS Cash Games (Fanduel and Draftkings)

Can you smell that? It’s almost football season and within a few weeks, we will have plenty of new fishes in the sea. Yes, I said fishes. As a seasoned player, Week 1 is a good time to feast on all the new players. They come in thinking they know how to play DFS because they dominate their fantasy leagues… blah blah . Yes, I’ve heard it all, but come Week 2 they are already broke. Well, this article is here to make sure you are on the right side of that and have a very profitable week and season with all these tips and advice.  Throughout the season I will have my weekly post of KID_DFS “Cash Plays” so be on the lookout for it. All right let’s get down to business.

 

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As you can tell by my GOAT score that I heavily play cash games, I enjoy cash games because there is a greater chance of cashing. In cash games, you only need to beat 50% of the field. That’s a chance I’m willing to take! The downfall is payouts are smaller than GPP’s (guaranteed prize pools) you are making your money back plus 80 cents on the dollar, yes Fanduel needs their rake so they take their 20 cents .

There are 3 types of cash games and I will explain the benefits of each one.

50/50

This is where I would start if you want to get familiar with cashing and only having to have to beat 50% of the crowd. This is amazing as you have to  beat the other half. I’d advise sticking to the smaller entries if you not a veteran. Just think the higher the entries the more you will run into sharks (seasoned veteran players) that know what they are doing and there will be optimal rosters in there. Always look for top sharks or players that you see weekly that do well to see how they build their roster and learn from. Analyze and figure out why they were on those players, what made that player so special. I like to do that after all my contests are over, you can never know too much. You will learn week to week of how to think like a shark and build rosters like a shark.

H2H

Head to Head, yes ME VS You! All you have to do is beat only one person. This is where you can still win money even if you have a bad week. If you have a great roster you will cash in all your h2h’s , but if you have a horrible week chances have that your opponents did as well as you then you will have some that cash and some that don’t . Remember it’s a sprint, not a marathon there is 16 weeks of NFL. As you play H2H on fanduel be aware one player can pick up ALL your games. So a little piece of advice if you are up late I’d post my games late, believe it or not, theses sharks sleep and well they won’t go fishing looking for newbies at around 2 a.m. unless your name is Condia. That guy is in every contest.

Double ups

Double ups are for the more experienced players. You are probably asking yourself well when will I know I’m an experienced player? When you are placing in the top 15% or so in 50/50 . In double ups you get your full 100% percent on your return, Fanduel doesn’t rake anything. Not so fast though it gets harder as only 44%  of the field cashes, what you really thought fanduel was going to let you profit that easy. Know that it will be harder to cash in these contest so when I look for double u I look for more entries in a contest so double up fields of 100 or more  that ways there is more of a chance for me beat out more people.

Screen Shot 2016-08-15 at 12.20.43 AMThe GOLDEN question I get asked all the time  is how many rosters do I make? Truth be told it depends on the slate. Normally I try to keep a core group of players on both rosters if I hedge. Say I can’t decide between Devonte Freeman,Adrian Peterson I will have one of each on each roster.  While it’s not optimal to create multiple cash games as your cash game roster will get less optimal and now you will be hoping to hit on three different rosters which will offset your winnings if only 2 of 4 cash. Keep it between 1-2 and remember you have a whole week to make your cash game roster. Just don’t wait until the last minute and freak out and change your roster that you’ve been working so hard on all week.

 

How do we construct such a good roster?  Well let’s start off by at the start of the week enter yourself in as many cash games contest that  your bankroll allows you, Remember try playing only 10% of your bankroll as you can have bad weeks like when Jamal Charles tears his ACL (yes that week still haunts me) or when players don’t perform.

vegas

Vegas:

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What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas , except lines and spreads. There are several sites where you can get how many points the teams will score allow. Vegas doesn’t mess around they have money to lose when they put out a line of  Over/Unders and prop bets.  This is the outlier you will use to find out what games you will be targeting. We want to target high scoring games and players from that game. Defense is vice versa, but we are targeting a low scoring game and where it looks like the opposing offense will behind throughout the game as sacks,interceptions will pile up and your defense will get points.   Remember Vegas tries to get as close to as they can for the projected score as they can, so I will take my chances on believing bookmakers that have millions of dollars to win.

Line changes happen throughout the week, keep an eye out for this as when line change it will give your an idea of how bettors think the game is going to go so Vegas changes the lines because they see bettors bet on the line one sided so they want to cover their possible losses and make it harder for the bettor to win. As this changes, you may notice that can benefit either an offense or defense.

Injuries and roster changes happen all the time. Throughout the week I would keep an eye on Twitter or Rotoworld and see what injuries and depth chart changes have been made and see who benefits in the situation. If a QB goes down and their backup gets inserted into the starting lineup and he’s 5500 you save a huge amount of salary that helps you get stronger at other positions and get a more solid roster. Just know the field will be on him so keep an eye on good value vs trap value. Do extensive research to see  if the value that opened up will be a good play, will he get touches,volume,targets. Remember In NFL you have a pretty good projection of where touches will go if you pay attention to how the team is playing week to week.

Correlations work many ways I always want my roster to be as optimal as possible so I will look for correlations. I always think touches,usage,matchups,targets and if I’m trying to pair up a correlation I try to make sure it adds up on both sides. This is a greater strategy to use in GPP, but as well in cash to an extent.

For example if you look at the roster above, Devante Freeman was a cash game play that week the whole field was on him I knew he’d be highly owned due to the tear he was on and well playing the lowly 49ers, but this wasn’t going to be a high scoring game for the falcons. 49ers would actually  go on to beat them and make it 17-16 and well not that many opportunities for the falcons to go back and forth near the red zone as they struggled on the road.

Understanding Value

When it comes to value in cash games we need 2x value on Fanduel and 3x on Draftkings. The reason being is because depending on the weeks some weeks are higher than others. On average the score to cash in cash games is 120 points and 140 on DK. In double ups the score will need to be higher. So when you are looking at players you should really ask yourself will this players meet 2x value? There are plenty of sites that provide projections for players to give you an idea of how many points they will get.

Rotogrinders, Daily Fantasy Nerd, Fantasy Cruncher are some of the top websites that give you projections and also some will let you build a lineup for free and optimize your own lineup, remember though just because it’s optimizing a lineup for you doesn’t necessarily mean they are giving you the line with the most floor.

Roster Construction:

Now we build our roster, there are many ways to build a roster. Just remember we are trying to beat half the field so we want to have players that have a solid “floor” as we are looking for touches,targets,volume and usage and match ups. If you look at my cash game roster you can  see if I have Antonio Brown and Deangelo Williams on the same roster. This isn’t always an ideal situation as TD’s can go many ways, but the way the Steelers were  using Williams as their workhorse and Brown had the best matchup against the weak raider’s secondary. I knew that the week before the steelers had a lot of usage towards Williams and brown. The touchdowns went to one or the either. While this could be a negative correlation we know that in this situation that amount of volume of  touches and targets they would get would help justify their salary so that’s what helped make this a positive correlation in my eyes.

They were highly talked about in the DFS industry throughout the week.  Vegas had that as a shootout so as I say trust Vegas and go for the higher scoring game . Having Crabtree and Brown was another positive correlation as if the Steelers scored the Raiders would score and they’d be passing back and forth.

As well I stacked my RB with Kicker as if the Steelers didn’t punch it in when they were in the red zone I knew that my Kicker would come in and Kick the field goal and he’d get points on the drive. That’s another positive correlation we have to help strengthen  our cash game roster. This is not always ideal, but then again Vegas had this game scored high so I always try to target a kicker  from high scoring game and as well I don’t like to pay up for them.

Let’s break down to what we are looking for at each position for cash games.

Quarterback

You would think we would want a QB that throws a lot, but what good would it be if this QB threw the ball a whole lot but wouldn’t be effective in Red-Zone? When I look at my QB’s I’m looking for an efficient QB. Think Tom Brady, Cam Newton.

So if you look at the roster above I believe that it isn’t always optimal to pay up for a QB, with the NFL being a pass happy league there will always be a good matchup. Winston had the matchup as well. While he did not throw a passing TD he did get a rushing TD and 249 yards and got 18 points. he exceeded value as in cash games we only need 2x their salary. To figure what each player is worth per point you can use this formula $/Point = (Player Salary)/(Player Projection)  from here you can find out if they are worth their salary and if you will be getting good value out of them. We want Value Per Dollar, we don’t need  the all-star game at such a low salary we just want them to meet value and that’s what we got out of Winston here, meeting 3x his value.

Last year the Saints were  the team I enjoyed to pick on week in and week out. So when it comes to salary to spend you will hear to spend up and gets the points, I like to on the other hand is spend down.  I know if I spend down and that QB hits value, then I know that I will way ahead of the competition and then load up elsewhere on a position that has floor and with the player with the better matchup as I know the player pool is much thinner at the other positions unlike Quarterback.

QB checklist

  • Efficient QB- Minimal Turnovers, Throws TD’s in the RZ
  • Matchup- Weak defense against the pass
  • Vegas- Projected high scoring game
  • RZ Volume- Amount of RZ opportunities, RZ passing attempts . (bonus)Rushing attempts, think Cam Newton, Jameis Winston,Russell Wilson

Runningbacks

Running backs are going to be the core of your lineup building week in and week out. This position seems to be one of the hardest  positions to nail, due to the league going to an RBBC (running back by committee) with almost half the league. There are very few workhorses like Adrian Peterson, Todd Gurley,Devonte Freeman  whom carry the rock and do well week in and week out . So it’s important to keep an eye for roster changes,Injuries and social media (twitter) to find out what the coaches gameplan and strategy is going to be throughout the week. Let’s dig in and find out what we are looking at when it comes to RB’s.

  • Volume-We want the player that will run the ball and get the majority of the team’s usage.
  • RZ volume- Rushing opportunities within the red zone Todd Gurley,AP,Devonte Freeman, Chris Ivory etc.
  • Game Script- Positive Game script, if the teams fall behind then the player will more likely be off the field due to the team trying to catch up. So look for their team to be ahead and if they will be then more likely the team will be trying to run the clock out.
  • Depth Chart- Will they have someone stealing carries for them? The thinner the depth chart the better for that RB.

Wide Receivers and Tight Ends

Touches+Volume+Redzone Targets=Opportunities which add up to touchdowns. This is what we are looking for in “Cash Game” players. We want our players to have as  high floor as possible. If we look at Delanie Walker He was getting 8.9 tpg (target per game)  averaging 70 yards and had an RZ target rate of 28% . To give you an idea oh how much he got targeted, Antonio Brown had an RZTG of 30% . That’s absurd for a TE to have such a high target rate in the red zone, but when your QB is Marcus Mariota and your WR is Kendell Hunter and one of  your other starting WR went down then that opens up more opportunities for Walker.

With WR and TE we are looking for them to get targeted a whole lot . This is the position where I like to pay up, Last year 3 top WR on average met Cash game value throughout the whole year. Julio Jones, ODB, Antonio Brown. I always try to have a top WR in my cash games and then mid salary $8500-$7000. It’s all about balance, but with top tier WR I know I  am getting top elite volume. These Wide Receivers will get targeted a whole lot and also get targeted in the Red Zone. Red Zone is vital when it comes to cash games, Eric decker was one of my favorite players to play because week in and week out he severely underpriced. Over his career he’s always been targeted in the Red Zone and last year he was targeted the most in the Red Zone a whole lot and his 12 TD’s prove it.

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Wide Recievers/ Tight ends

  • Targets- We want this player to get a high volume of targets, If he’s WR1 on the team that’s even better then we know the QB will always be looking for him. Tight Ends will be different week in and week out due to matchup’s and on game script.
  • Red Zone Target- We want our player to be targeted in the Red Zone often. As a touchdown is worth 6 points and even say if their team likes to for 2 that’s another 2 points for the conversion rate, I like to think Antonio Brown as the steelers are famous for  “Going for 2” because no one remembers the extra point.
  • Points Per reception- We want this player to not only get volume, but we also want to make sure he gets yardage after catch (yac) because it’s important if he’s getting more than just .5 on FD and 1 point on DK.

 

TWITTER

I have a confession to make….I have a twitter if you don’t get on that right now! Twitter is the google of DFS. While many google DFS articles Twitter you can be a step ahead of the competition and add beat writers, sports analyst,local beat writers,top-ranked DFS players. You get to see what player everyone is on throughout the week and their top plays for the week. Add as many DFS related content as you can . This is an investment and in the end, you will have a plethora of DFS advice and help. You will have  people you can talk to about DFS.

You will see who people are on and dig deep to find out why. You will notice what’s trending in the DFS industry as this is important for finding the best information out there. Remember there is a lot of information out there, and listen to everything with a grain of salt.

Feel free to add me aguirre_jason and look through the people I add and add them, Ignore adding Miley Cyrus I don’t remember adding her Throughout the season, I will be adding tips and advice as to how to become a better CASH game player in my game theory  sections  KID_DFS Cash games plays so be sure to check back here week 1 NFL season.

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Jason Aguirre

Father of 2,DFS Junkie from NFL to CFL,Nascar,MLB,NBA. From Utah and Support all local teams and with no NFL team I support the OAKLAND RAIDERS. Find me at The DFS Roundtable facebook page or feel free to find me on my twitter.

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