FAN DUEL
First of all, let’s highlight some key aspects of FanDuel’s roster and scoring.
1) There are no generic positions (G,F) or UTIL spots, so everybody has the same positional restrictions.
2) Rebounds are 1.2 points each rather than 1.25. This may seem menial, but when the stats add up you could be talking about a couple of points, which could be the difference in cashing or not.
3) There are nine positions to fill out of $60,000 (avg player = $6,667).
4) Turnovers are worth -1 (twice as detrimental than DraftKings).
5) FanDuel has a much less aggressive pricing scheme than DraftKings.
OK, knowing this, the first thing we have to do is establish a target score for both game types depending on what you play. This is where my monthly cashing average comes into play. If you take all the months put together on FanDuel, the average score required to cash works out to approximately 271.3 points. In order to allow for some variance and give a bit more of a cushion we are going to round up just a bit. For tournaments, you need significantly more upside from your plays in order to meaningfully cash, especially since most people play multiple lineups in GPPs (Guaranteed Prize Pool). In order to achieve that upside, we need to add at least three or four points per player to rise above their value threshold enough. Since there are nine players on a FanDuel roster, adding three points would raise the target score by 27, and four would be 36 more. We’ll use that for an adequate GPP targets score range. Using these numbers, we wind up with:
FanDuel Target Score for 50/50s = 275 FanDuel Target Score for GPPs = 305-310 Now that we have a team target score, it’s time to start breaking down individual players of various skill levels that will get us to our necessary number. If you divide 275 (target score) by 9 (number of players on roster), we get 30.55, which represents the number of points that those nine players need to average. If you divide 30.55 by the decimal equivalent of the average player price (6.667), you get 4.58. This number basically refers to what you have to multiply each player’s price by in order to calculate his individual value.
EXAMPLE – Chris Paul is $9900, so we multiply 9.900 by 4.58 and get a value threshold of 45.34 as the number of points Chris Paul needs to “hit value” for cash games.
I’m going to tweak this just a bit. The difference in stats takes away some of the efficacy of simply multiplying by a number, and the FanDuel points are added, not multiplied, so we need to incorporate this to get a more round number (plus we need a basis for adding the 3-4 points for tournaments). The pricing algorithm I then use is:
Cash games – 4x + 4
Tournaments – 4x + 8 “X” refers to the player’s price in case that was confusing. So, when I refer to a player’s value threshold in my FanDuel articles, I am using this math equation.
EXAMPLE – Damian Lillard is $8500, so….
4 (8.500) + 4 = 38 points to hit value in a cash game.
4 (8.500) + 8 = 42 points to hit value in a tournament.
DRAFT KINGS
With me so far? Good. Now I’m going to really ruin your day because DraftKings is considerably more difficult than FanDuel. The good news is this segment is a lot shorter since I’ve already explained the concept behind this. Before we begin here, let’s look at some key elements to DraftKings.
1) DraftKings has three generic positions (G, F, UTIL) which can drastically change the way each individual constructs a lineup.
2) DraftKings has 8 roster spots to fill with a $50,000 cap.
3) DraftKings offers multiple scoring bonuses which can really make scores skyrocket (+0.5 extra for each 3-pointer hit, +1.5 for a double-double, +3 for a triple-double)
4) Turnovers are only -0.5 (lessening the reduction of scores)
5) Pricing is extremely aggressive on DraftKings (which means the site is very quick to adjust when a really cheap play has a nice game and it’s predicted he will have more time).
Example – Robert Covington was recently minimum priced and has since almost doubled in price in only three games).
6) DraftKings offers the late-swap feature, which is probably the site’s biggest selling point.
All right, now that we have a handle on DraftKings, we need to examine the monthly average of a winning DraftKings lineup. Based on the monthly average from 2013, the average score was 285.5. Have you grasped the gravity of the situation yet? Not only is the DraftKings target score almost 15 points higher than FanDuel’s, we have one less roster spot with which to accomplish this. There’s no point in sugar-coating this – the aggressive competition and high-scoring atmosphere gives you much less margin for error on DraftKings (it helps to have the late-swap feature to save you from a zero). Anyway, using the same math we used to create a target score on FanDuel, we wind up with the following:
DraftKings Target Score for 50/50s – 285 DraftKings Target Score for GPPs – 320-325 If you divide 285 (target score) by 8 (number of roster spots), you get an average player score of 35.63, which is six points higher per player than on FanDuel. If you divide that number by the decimal equivalent of the average player price (6.250), you get 5.7, which is what you would multiply each player’s price by. Again, however, we need to incorporate the added points of the bonuses, plus eliminate the variance that straight multipliers create, plus give ourselves something to add tournament points to (like last time). If we use the pricing algorithm we used for FanDuel, we wind up with:
Cash games = 4x + 10
Tournaments = 4x + 14 Using it the same way as with FanDuel, here would be an example of how to calculate value threshold:
Dwyane Wade is $7800, so….
4 (7.800) + 10 = 41.2 points to hit value in a cash game.
4 (7.800) + 14 = 45.2 points to hit value in a tournament.
I know this seems very high, but given the fantasy-friendly scoring system on DraftKings, it’s pretty reasonable to expect, especially given the math we applied before. Now, keep in mind this is just based on averages. Some nights Wade’s 41 points will be much more than the average cashing number, and sometimes it won’t even be enough. The point is this is a good basis in order to systematically build your team with a mathematical target in mind.
First of all, let’s highlight some key aspects of FanDuel’s roster and scoring.
1) There are no generic positions (G,F) or UTIL spots, so everybody has the same positional restrictions.
2) Rebounds are 1.2 points each rather than 1.25. This may seem menial, but when the stats add up you could be talking about a couple of points, which could be the difference in cashing or not.
3) There are nine positions to fill out of $60,000 (avg player = $6,667).
4) Turnovers are worth -1 (twice as detrimental than DraftKings).
5) FanDuel has a much less aggressive pricing scheme than DraftKings.
OK, knowing this, the first thing we have to do is establish a target score for both game types depending on what you play. This is where my monthly cashing average comes into play. If you take all the months put together on FanDuel, the average score required to cash works out to approximately 271.3 points. In order to allow for some variance and give a bit more of a cushion we are going to round up just a bit. For tournaments, you need significantly more upside from your plays in order to meaningfully cash, especially since most people play multiple lineups in GPPs (Guaranteed Prize Pool). In order to achieve that upside, we need to add at least three or four points per player to rise above their value threshold enough. Since there are nine players on a FanDuel roster, adding three points would raise the target score by 27, and four would be 36 more. We’ll use that for an adequate GPP targets score range. Using these numbers, we wind up with:
FanDuel Target Score for 50/50s = 275 FanDuel Target Score for GPPs = 305-310 Now that we have a team target score, it’s time to start breaking down individual players of various skill levels that will get us to our necessary number. If you divide 275 (target score) by 9 (number of players on roster), we get 30.55, which represents the number of points that those nine players need to average. If you divide 30.55 by the decimal equivalent of the average player price (6.667), you get 4.58. This number basically refers to what you have to multiply each player’s price by in order to calculate his individual value.
EXAMPLE – Chris Paul is $9900, so we multiply 9.900 by 4.58 and get a value threshold of 45.34 as the number of points Chris Paul needs to “hit value” for cash games.
I’m going to tweak this just a bit. The difference in stats takes away some of the efficacy of simply multiplying by a number, and the FanDuel points are added, not multiplied, so we need to incorporate this to get a more round number (plus we need a basis for adding the 3-4 points for tournaments). The pricing algorithm I then use is:
Cash games – 4x + 4
Tournaments – 4x + 8 “X” refers to the player’s price in case that was confusing. So, when I refer to a player’s value threshold in my FanDuel articles, I am using this math equation.
EXAMPLE – Damian Lillard is $8500, so….
4 (8.500) + 4 = 38 points to hit value in a cash game.
4 (8.500) + 8 = 42 points to hit value in a tournament.
DRAFT KINGS
With me so far? Good. Now I’m going to really ruin your day because DraftKings is considerably more difficult than FanDuel. The good news is this segment is a lot shorter since I’ve already explained the concept behind this. Before we begin here, let’s look at some key elements to DraftKings.
1) DraftKings has three generic positions (G, F, UTIL) which can drastically change the way each individual constructs a lineup.
2) DraftKings has 8 roster spots to fill with a $50,000 cap.
3) DraftKings offers multiple scoring bonuses which can really make scores skyrocket (+0.5 extra for each 3-pointer hit, +1.5 for a double-double, +3 for a triple-double)
4) Turnovers are only -0.5 (lessening the reduction of scores)
5) Pricing is extremely aggressive on DraftKings (which means the site is very quick to adjust when a really cheap play has a nice game and it’s predicted he will have more time).
Example – Robert Covington was recently minimum priced and has since almost doubled in price in only three games).
6) DraftKings offers the late-swap feature, which is probably the site’s biggest selling point.
All right, now that we have a handle on DraftKings, we need to examine the monthly average of a winning DraftKings lineup. Based on the monthly average from 2013, the average score was 285.5. Have you grasped the gravity of the situation yet? Not only is the DraftKings target score almost 15 points higher than FanDuel’s, we have one less roster spot with which to accomplish this. There’s no point in sugar-coating this – the aggressive competition and high-scoring atmosphere gives you much less margin for error on DraftKings (it helps to have the late-swap feature to save you from a zero). Anyway, using the same math we used to create a target score on FanDuel, we wind up with the following:
DraftKings Target Score for 50/50s – 285 DraftKings Target Score for GPPs – 320-325 If you divide 285 (target score) by 8 (number of roster spots), you get an average player score of 35.63, which is six points higher per player than on FanDuel. If you divide that number by the decimal equivalent of the average player price (6.250), you get 5.7, which is what you would multiply each player’s price by. Again, however, we need to incorporate the added points of the bonuses, plus eliminate the variance that straight multipliers create, plus give ourselves something to add tournament points to (like last time). If we use the pricing algorithm we used for FanDuel, we wind up with:
Cash games = 4x + 10
Tournaments = 4x + 14 Using it the same way as with FanDuel, here would be an example of how to calculate value threshold:
Dwyane Wade is $7800, so….
4 (7.800) + 10 = 41.2 points to hit value in a cash game.
4 (7.800) + 14 = 45.2 points to hit value in a tournament.
I know this seems very high, but given the fantasy-friendly scoring system on DraftKings, it’s pretty reasonable to expect, especially given the math we applied before. Now, keep in mind this is just based on averages. Some nights Wade’s 41 points will be much more than the average cashing number, and sometimes it won’t even be enough. The point is this is a good basis in order to systematically build your team with a mathematical target in mind.