Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNonPareil
I have some thoughts.
This was my first year trying this semi-seriously FTR.
I had this notion going in (started during NBA season) that cash games were unbeatable. I heard all of the pro lineup sharing stuff and got turned away from cash games. I figured the big money guarantee advertising would bring the fish in droves (which I think is still true). So I focused my time on the small dollar big field GPPs.
I played mainly all GPPs during NBA and basically broke even, just barely ahead. However, I was not very good at the NBA imo so I wasn't surprised by the results.
However, in the MLB, I feel I'm a much better player. I started out playing mostly GPPs and was treading water. It was very very frustrating because I knew my lineups were pretty solid and I was losing confidence. I also hated becoming so caught up in ownership %s and trying to predict what amateurs would pick so I could go elsewhere. In the end, I switched to 99% cash and never looked back.
Looking back I just think that luck is going to be the predominant factor in your success in the low dollar huge field GPPs. I think a solid player MAY actually have reduced variance in the higher dollar GPPs ($25 as opposed to $1-$5) despite the skill increase. Either way I think you need a HUGE bankroll to withstand that variance. Not that there isn't money to be made in these, there is, but it wasn't right for me. Additionally, I think the time required to be a skilled GPP player is greater than to put together a +EV cash lineup on a given night.
Additionally, I have been putting my cash lineup in the GPPs every night and have seen a nice ROI there as well.
I think you can be profitable in both but I think the luck outweighs the skill in the micro dollar GPP tournaments. You could finish in the top 1% more than your fair share but never get those top 3 places and you pretty much don't make any real money.
So, cliffs I think there is money to be made in both and cash games aren't dead yet.
Nice post. I think the perception of where the money in DFS is is really interesting. It seems that a lot of people have the "cash games are dead" mentality and I wonder how much truth there is to that statement.
Everyone references all of the free advice/projections/optimizers/etc, and those tools certainly help the general public be competitive, but I think it pretty much stops there. Obviously that reduces the edge of better players to some degree, but I doubt it's to the extent that "cash games are dead." Those tools may actually be beneficial to the better players in some regard. As long as the fish think they are competitive, they won't dig deeper and actually try to learn anything.
I think your comment about cash game lineups in GPPs is spot on. Will you win life changing money? Unlikely. Can you get a positive return? Absolutely. The popularity of stacking has made it so that there is a ton of dead money. Even beyond running your cash game team, I think there's a lot of merit to running non-stacked teams that are just iterations of your favorite hitters/pitchers.
It's hilarious to me when people post asking what they're doing wrong because they aren't doing well in GPPs, despite doing everything the "right" way (stacking top/underowned teams, low ownership pitchers, etc). They don't realize that more often then not they are building BAD teams, hoping for extreme outlier performances. While stacks might be more likely to win you a tournament, I've got to think there's money to be made (even if it's not a lot) in GPPs by just entering solid lineups.
