DFS Baseball 101: Tournament (GPP) Strategies Part 1

One of the most requested topics I have received is how to play GPP (Guaranteed Prize Pool) tournaments for daily fantasy baseball. Everyone wants to hit the big score, which, of course, is easier said than done. If you refer back to my cash game strategy article from two weeks ago, you'll see that the strategies can differ greatly.

Often, new players are drawn to daily fantasy sports by the prospect of big payouts for tournaments. They make a deposit and put a big percentage of their bankroll into tournaments, lose, play again, lose or only win a little back and give up. This is one of the biggest issues for new players in daily fantasy sports.

What contests to play, how to play them, and how much you should play them

The most important things to consider are identifying tournament players vs. cash game players and proper bankroll management so that you don't lose all of your money in tournaments.

Let's take a look at the math behind tournament play:

Tournaments typically pay out 20 percent of the field as opposed to 50 percent in cash games, so automatically you are going to see a lower win rate. Also, because the payouts are tiered, you are trying to get in the top 1 percent overall. The top 1 percent should win back at least 8-10 times their entry fee, with first place taking 10 percent of the overall prize pool ($1 GPP = $2,000 top prize). You will only double your money if you finish around the 20-percent mark.

Realistically, you are hoping to cash and at least break even or take a slight loss playing tournaments. The hope is to eventually hit a big score (in the top one percent) to increase your bankroll.

My typical ratio of cash games vs. GPPs is 90/10 for daily fantasy baseball. I have a high threshold in baseball because of the huge variance on hitters. In other sports, you can increase your tournament percentage (NBA, NFL) because those sports are more predictable.

For the purpose of this article, you have that equates to $100 in play total on a given night with $90 in cash games and $10 in GPPs. Your max payout on the cash games is $162 ($180 minus a 10-percent rake). If you won 65 percent of your cash games, the payout would be $105 for a profit of $15 or 17 percent ROI.

If you lost all your GPPs, you'd be left with just a profit of $5 on the day. If you won 20 percent of your GPPs, doubling your profit in each, that puts you at an $11 profit.

While this is more of a worst- case scenario on the GPP side, what if you lost 80 percent of your cash games? Even if you won all of your GPPs and eight times your money back, you'd be in the negative for the day. An important thing to remember is that even once you hit a big score in a GPP, don't deviate from the 90/10 rule. New players often get excited with a big win, thinking it will happen the next night and put too much in play.

Remember, you could hit a dry spell and not cash for a week or two. You will need to rely on those winnings to maintain your bankroll.

Tournament Rules for New Players

1 - Play 10 percent of your daily bankroll – Anything more than 10 percent will put you at risk of losing too much.
2 - Play Single Entry Only - This will help you avoid the multiple entry players who put in 50-100 teams and just stack every single combination.
3 - Play $1-$5 entry fees only - Not only do you want to protect your bankroll, but you also want to avoid the sharks. Most of the bigger players won't bother to play in a tournament that is single entry, lower entry, and doesn't have a huge first-place prize.
4 - Stay away from any tournaments with more than 1000 players. Look for contests with the name "Mini" in the description on FanDuel (Mini Squeeze, Mini Rally, etc). As you get more comfortable playing in tournaments, you can expand to 2000-3000, but early on it's perfectly fine to play in fields of 200-500. Remember, you don't want to drain your bankroll and it is easier to win a 500-person $1 GPP vs. one with tens of thousands of entries. The top prize in a 500-person field is still probably going to be at least $50-$100 which is a great return (50-100x). It's all about building your bankroll in the beginning.
5 - Avoid full lineup stacking in the beginning. Stacking is a boom or bust approach and if you're playing smaller, single-entry fields, you can win without having to stack. Having the three and the four hitter on the same team is fine and a solid approach.

Also, here is a quick Top-10 that you can follow. I will expand on these further in next week's article along with covering stacking vs. non-stacking.

1 - Focus on the heart of the order (3/4/5 hitters) and build lineups around those hitters.
2 - Look at hitters with high ISO and fly ball rates. You want as many potential home runs as possible.
3 - Look to attack pitchers with low strikeout rates, high WHIPs, and high fly ball rates. You want runners on base, with potential of homeruns.
4 - Use more of a "Stars/Scrubs" approach. Spend up at 1B, 3B, and 1 OF spot. Save at C, 2B, and SS
5 - Look to take two hitters from the same team that hit back-to-back in the lineup. 3-4, 4-5 hitters are the combos to focus on.
6 - Right-handed batting vs weak left-handed pitching generally gives the biggest power upside.
7 - Look for hitters in games where the team is favored and the total is at least 8 or higher.
8 - Use Vegas Player Homerun Props to find value on a hitter (Last year, Justin Bour was hitting in the No. 4 spot for the Marlins and was always cheap)
9 - Use Vegas Pitcher Strikeout Props to find a value pitcher. You will need to save some money on pitching in order to spend up on studs at the corners. (1B/3B/OF).
10 - Find value by looking for a National League pitcher in a game with a total of 7 or less. In this scenario, you can actually use a pitcher that is an underdog, as long as the line is no worse than +150.