Not a bad night, and with zero shares of that little axxhole Mookie Betts (3 HR's). It's not often that the 1,3,4,6 guys all hit homeruns and that happens to be the 4 I used, but that's how it worked out tonight with the Cle lineup. I also used a lot of 1-2-3-5 and 1-2-3-6, which were also aight, but 1-3-4-6 was the code and that's how I stacked it the most. Also, I was way overweight on Corbin, Choo, and Moncada.










I even won $650 on DK, saving me from having to top off the account.


So I dunno. I had a bigger $ run when I was hot in May 2016, but that was mostly at $25 stakes, nothing like this where I'm just crushing huge field micro GPP's every other night. I put in a lot of hours (and stress) to make $55K in 2016/2017, and now I've made $39K in just under 3 weeks without even taking any real shot. Feels good man, but not as much as you might expect. I know there's another shoe out there and it's dropped on me so many times I've come to expect it. At any rate I'm feeling really good about the bankroll now and might just take a little salary. Also, I think it's safe to say that I'll be sticking to my plan of trying to make this work for the next two years like I talked about a few weeks ago.


Getting a little ahead of things here but if this keeps up 1 of 2 things is true.

1) I'm among the best and ran like **** for most of 2 full baseball seasons?

2) I've made some changes. These small tweaks are the difference between a struggling bottom feeder and a crusher?


Kinda scary either way.


As for goals:

Goal- $100K in 2018.

Dream- $250K in 2018

Hell yeah, keep the big days coming.

**** yes. I love this thread.

in gl

This game can be funny. I always go over box scores before looking at results. Yesterday I knew I had a good day, but thought Mookie may have really hurt me with his 3 bombs. That third homer cost me a few bucks for sure but obviously not the slate killer I thought it could have been. Tonight none of my stacks really popped, but I thought I may have had enough shares of some big one offs to make up for it. I knew I wasn't taking anything down but with the way I've been running I thought it might even be a winning night.

Nah, Played $1700, payed out $300... lol


Anyway just wanted to post a bad night.



Tomorrow night's slate looks pretty interesting, at least for a 5 gamer. I'll pretty much stack everyone with everyone, several different ways. But the focus will be bucking the trend. For one I plan on using a lot of Chase Anderson. Not exactly going off the reservation with his prime matchup, but I think a couple bigger names will be considerably higher owned. Also, Arrieta is so cheap on DK I might use him in most lu's.


Friday night is the first 15 game slate of the season. If the offerings look juicy I might take a shot at it to celebrate.

How much u made last year and whats the balance this year?

My career goes something like this:

2014: +$15K (with a starting roll of $550)

2015: +$95K (woot)

2016: +$25K (Won $55K middle 2 weeks in May, so I lost $30K the other 50 weeks, gulp)

2017: +30K (lost almost every single day from midApril-July, and I was extremely burned out, or lazy if you will at NFL. So pretty good year considering)

2018 first 3 weeks of baseball: +$39K, well +37.5 after last night


Future: ???

Figured I had my first -$2K night of the year. Not one share @Coors with the Cubs scoring 16, a lot of Kershaw, and I took a stand on Mia Vs Chacin @Mil (they got shut out) woof. Played $2173 (which I think is the most I've played on one slate so far this season)






So, not quite as bad as I thought.... (-$1641)


I want to start building some lineups for tomorrow night, but I'm just not feeling it. Coors is gonna be cold, and Tex looks like a potential rainout (like Coors looked like tonight, grrrr) I busted my ass making 375 lineups for Fri so I might just scale back the volume a bit and wait for some lineups/better info tomorrow night.

I'm also still following the thread, looks like the start of the season has been very good so far man, good to see

What's up LT, you still playing?


I've been running bad since my big night on Tue. I posted the 2 worst days, total -$3994 for the 5 days. As of now the minorest of many blips throughout the season, very easy to stomach after running great for a couple weeks. Let's see if I can not have one of these last 3 ****ing months this year!


I'm lovin the slate and the games for tomorrow so I'm taking a bit of a shot.

Maxing all 3 of these out:







That's $2850, my biggest shot of the year. The only question is if I make 300 lineups (150 DK/150 FD) doubling the FD lineups up into both contests, or 301-450. I was leaning toward 300, but after a quick look at the slate and salaries I'll want a ****ton of Coors for value, but not so much for taking a stab at the $50K for 1st in the rally. I'm thinking something like 150 Coors lineups for the Squeeze, using about 50 of them in the Rally, so around 400 total lineups. I'll knock out at least 150 tonight, maybe as many as 300, so crunch time will be nice and relaxed unless 3 or 4 guys I was really counting on to play aren't, in which case it could be a total cluster****. I'm willing to roll the dice on that.


With these ridiculous top heavy payouts I'll have a little stack exposure to everyone, but I'll still be keying in on a few favorites. Oak and Tex @Tex jump out. Hou tho super obvious, they might be higher owned than Coors. Sea and CWS @CWS looks kinda cold there tho. LAD R OF's. Min @Tanaka and Bal home Carrasco are nice contrarian stabs. My favorite off the board play is Mia @LAD against this kid in his first MLB start




Great arm, check. Kid could dominate. Anyone remember Barrios' first crack at getting big leaguers out? lol. I'll have Mia stacked at least once with every team on both sites.

Trout should be underowned. I don't hate the idea of running off some cheap stacks and trying to squeeze in Trout and Stanton.


Also, Tomorrow night is pay day. I haven't figured it out exactly but I'm thinking $10K, $15K, or $20K. Be nice to take one of these down and just make it a nice round $50K.

The shot didn't go quite as planned. Played $946 on DK:




Bleh. A lot of action in the 2-1 game @Dodger Stadium


FD went better, but still not good:




The problem with a $200K paying $50K to 1st:



is you luck ass backwards into an incredible score and still lose pretty big on the night.

1st/25579= $50K

13th and 21st= $450


But I knew what I was entering, no complaints.



Process notes- I ended up building over 400 unique lineups. 300 last night, leaving me 100 more to do today. No surprises as the first 7 or 8 lineups were released, then Margot, which was no big deal even though I had 70 shares. Then the hammer came down in the last 70 or 80 minutes as there was just no way Bour or Dietrich would have the night off vs a righty, but they both somehow did. This completely destroyed dozens of lineups as swaping turned lineup after lineup from +EV 4/4 or 4/3/1 into a bunch of random ****. I was far enough ahead to fix about half. The rest went into battle with a couple random Marlins and auto swap dudes. The Horror.


I'm not sure what the takeaway is. I like building west coast games the night before for a couple reasons:

1- Always lower %

2- The lineups typically come out so late the day of that I don't have time to do much with them.

I just need a better contingency plan for when **** goes this far off the rails, luckily it usually doesn't.


Not feeling the Tue slate as of now. should be a low volume break. No lineup building tonight, at least.



Something I've stumbled upon recently that I wanted to share, the MLB Statcast podcast. I listen to dozens of baseball pods every week looking for that one little piece of info that might be worth something. This show has by far the best UNpM (useful nugget per minute). I can't recommend it highly enough to anyone who wants a better understanding of advanced stats or just the game in general.

9 losers in a row after my big night on Tue 4/17. -$7299 is a nice chunk of change but I'm not too annoyed, yet. Where earlier I was hitting or just missing on most of my game plans now I'm missing huge most nights. Tonight being the lone exception as I really loaded up on TB hitters. They ended up being the play but I went close to 100% Sale and he underperformed. I lost $100, easily would have won $1K or $2K even w/o any outlier just on value if he had an avg start, but that's the way it goes. Onward and upward.


I love the slate tomorrow. I've already built 80 lineups on FD, will do about 100 more there tonight. So far Reds with everyone, next up Tex, Bal, and maybe Philly and/or Cle if I don't use the 100 up on Tex and Bal. Saving my 150 builds on DK for tomorrow. I'll be a lot more balanced there.


The season is really settling in now. No more 40 (or 20 for that matter) degree game temps, still too many day games but not as many (and curse this 6pm-6:30 start time horse ****, curse it to hell!). I've been knocked down a peg or two the last few days but I still feel good about my game and I'm ready to go after it.


I've been doing a lot of lineup reviews. I struggle with classifying lineups as +EV or not. I mean I know that the vast majority of lineups I look at look bad to me, including many 4/4 lineups built by known players. I've been ranking a lot of lineups a grade higher than I actually believe them to be based on basic 4/4 or 4/3/1 structure and a known player attached to them. **** that! The more lineups I build, and review, the more I think the actual quality of the stacks matters, a lot. If that 4/4 Verlander lineup I posted from last season is still somehow +EV, it wont be for long. Especially now with the changes to FD's lineup structure. It's easier to build 4/4's with 8 great plays, making stacks with hapless 9th hitting catcher types that much worse.

congrats on the run you had to start the year jimmy...

you know variance is a ***** in baseball...keep on keepin on...

Thx 3a

I was going to post an update last night but I was tilting too hard, mega-tilt. Probably the first time all year I've felt any tilt and man I went from level headed professional to full blown monkey tilt. First, I posted this Thur night:

"I've already built 80 lineups on FD, will do about 100 more there tonight. So far Reds with everyone"

Yeah, they scored 15 and I lost $1K anyway. I had all the right guys, except for little slap dick Jose Peraza, who you'd expect to hit around 3HR's a year. Well he went hairy ape ****. 2 bombs, just filled the stat sheet. This of course totally goes against something else I wrote Thur night:

"quality of the stacks matters, a lot."

What I meant by this was the sum quality of each individual play in a stack. Peraza is exactly the type of "bad" play I was talking about (that the algo's just jam in to complete the stack) lol. But hey, I didn't say it never works...


I haven't looked at tonight's main slate results yet as there's still a game going, but I think I won enough in the 4pm slate to say the losing streak is officially over at 10 days (-$8336). Didn't bink but littered the top 100 and cashed 108/150, which ain't easy:




And now the late game is over. Only played $223 on DK tonight:



Meh, thought I might get the goose egg on DK so I'll take it.


FD:




Hey now. Last night thought I won, didn't. Tonight thought I may have lost like 80%, didn't. No idea what I did right here (the box scores looked pretty ugly)

One kinda fluky outlier lineup, nice:




I hardly used any McCullers (I think it's safe to say he's back now after his last 2 or 3 starts, btw. He looked way out of sink early this season) Kinda lucky to have paired him with the right padres/Miggy/Altuve.


Figured I lost most of the $1005 I made in the 4PM slate and only lost $1 of it. Not a huge score by any stretch, obviously, but I'll take a $1K day after a pretty ugly 10 day down swing.


Sun is always a low volume day for me and I'm guessing tomorrow will be especially so. Done at 1PM, then work in the yard/beers, maybe some fishing/beers, followed by a steak!/more beer. Back on the attack Mon...

Not pointing out to center and calling my shot or anything, but Ariz is gonna be really low owned tonight, against Ross ****ing Stripling at that. Love Goldy/AJP/Peralta, maybe with another cheap d-bag, and Goldy as a 1 off. He'll be about a quarter as owned as popular expensive plays like Bryant, Arenado, Votto. Also, JDM should be a little underowned. Beast


Fun slate...

Only really playing PGA right now and have taken the past two weeks off, season has been up and down really. I played super low volume MLB wise the first two weeks but my job is just too busy during the day now to feel comfortable with playing MLB.

Hope the beginning of May has been treating you well

It's hard to predict how I did by looking at box scores on super high scoring nights, like tonight. I mean I had a ton of the right guys, but not much Springer and no Adams, so I figured no real chance at a bink, but maybe a decent night anyway. What I didn't expect was another -$1K night (on about $1300 vol, so a bloodbath). But that's how I'm running now. A quick glance at my FD results shows that my 3 best teams had 6! homers and Strass (not a great start, but a win) Those were good for 2.5X, 2.5X, and 2X payouts, lol.


So it's been 3 weeks since my big night on 4/17. The 1 small winner I posted, and 20 losers. -$12,850 taking my season total down to +$26,150. I posted about being on mega-tilt the one day, but other than that I've been taking it in stride. Just now I'm starting to feel it a bit. My typical good times aren't $40K in 2 weeks, so god ****ing dammit my typical run bad just can't be -$4K a week, I don't typically have enough good times to make up for that. So I guess my shot is over, not that it was much of one anyways, maybe played $2K a night 4 or 5 times. I have been playing more like $1200-$1800, I guess I need to scale that back to closer to the level I was playing to start the season ($800-$1500).


Taking a step back and trying to evaluate something like this isn't easy. It's tough to make a level headed assessment after losing 20 out of 21 days. I mean I sucked at poker, I doubt I ever lost even 15/21, and if I lost 4 days in a row it felt like it was never going to end, these sometimes go for months. All that said this isn't a really big deal in the grand scheme of things, yet. I could go another couple weeks like this w/o really even breaking a sweat. But if this is still chugging into June I'll feel like I'm right back to where I started the year, even if I'm still up $15k+. I don't care about getting rich, it would be nice, but really I'd just like a little piece of mind, and I was VERY CLOSE to just that 3 weeks ago.

Not in an attempt to console you, as I put in nowhere near your volume at DFS, but my failure to bink anything, and I mean anywhere close to anything, in 3+ year's of DFS made me quit the game cold turkey. I haven't even given more than 5 minutes of thought to DFS in any day since I quit it. Losing over the stretch that I did at DFS was really humbling to me and what I thought of my sports knowledge.

Not sure what my intention with this post is other than, I am really in awe at your fortitude to continue to plow away at the dfs grind. Kudos to you man! Stay tough!

I would imagine your experience is pretty common. As far as me plowing away, yeah, I dunno man. I love this ****! but I think I've come close to quitting a couple times, or at least come close to coming close. My long summer downswings in 16 and 17 both took a toll, financially, and more importantly psychologically. That and some really rough weeks in football last year almost pushed me over the edge. If I had the job opportunity last fall that I had this spring I might just have cashed out and forgot all about it. As is I'm happy to be giving it one more shot.


This last week wasn't good, small loser (-$1600), but I had a couple winning days, and mostly small losers, so it wasn't really frustrating (or damaging to the ole bankroll) at all. Good value just no outliers. That puts the now 4 week downswing at (-$14,450) and the YTD at (+$24,550)


I don't know what to think about today's SC sports betting ruling. I haven't found much interesting analysis, so if anyone has please feel free to link it here. I tried to read the RG thread btw. Sweet Jesus, what a cesspool!

This isn't my once a week, so something must have happened, right?

First-

I'm such a stubborn ****ing idiot. The difference between this return:



and something closer to this (on $130 volume):





was my absolute refusal to give up any value by not using 100% Sale on FD. 90/10 Sale/Verlander would have been no guarantee of a huge score, but maybe, and I wound have made a hell of a lot more than $58 on FD. I could literally feel that it was a mistake in my bones as I was finishing up my last few lineups. However, once I make my mind up I usually stick to my guns.

Second- Fun posting a DK screenshot for a change. Here is my DK balance before this pays out:



hehe

Here's the winner:




I used a lot of MIA, A LOT! Mostly with LAD, esp on FD because those 2 worked best together with Sale and a tight cap. I mentioned going after the unproven Buehler with these same pathetic Marlins a couple weeks ago. BOOM. Sometimes it actually helps to know something about how baseball works.

Also, was down $5500 on DK this year, now, up a hundo. **** em'!


Here's where I tempt fate:

The downswing is officially over! I declare this, the Summer of Jimmy

I think I'll try to post my once a week on Sun going forward, even though the idea is already cutting into my Sun nap.

The week that was-

I had the one good day I posted about. Pretty crappy week other than that, esp this weekend. Fri and Sat I played weather fish and watched everyone else play the guys in better spots and not get rained out. Today I put in my typical light sun volume and focused on Twins and Mets, wrong and wrong. For the 6 days I had the one decent winner and 5 losers. Total +$3360 YTD +$27,910 I was back to over $30K on the year heading into the weekend. I'll be back!



These %'s caught me off guard Fri night:



I built around 100 lineups around that, so a lot of that ownership is me. They were expensive, the cap was tighter than normal, and it wasn't a perfect MU by any means, but that offense home v Clevinger isn't really much of a deterrence, at least for me.

Like I said the cap was tight, but you could make it work with deGrom:




I'm not really sure why I'm posting this, but no need to beat around the bush. My point is that with a few exceptions people really suck at this ****, no imagination whatsoever (I get the irony of posting this after just losing 24 out of 25 days, or whatever it was. Feel free to remind me about this post next time I'm acting like I'm ready to slit my wrists. Not trying to be a dick though, just giving my honest opinion). Going utility man hitting 8th, .172 C hitting 9th, or any other turd plays to differentiate isn't necessary. Just don't always play the Yankees/Red Sox and whoever else is hot that week. Boom, different!


One last baseball note before I switch gears a bit. I haven't really taken many shots lately. It just feels dumb when you've been bleeding $ every day for a few weeks, even if bankroll allows and it looks juicy. Anyways looks like I'll be playing over $2K for the first time in a couple weeks tomorrow. I'm loving the slate. Playing my typical vol on FD:



and maxing this plus a little smaller stakes stuff on DK





Something New-

*This is mostly off topic, though it does have to do with my DFS bankroll. You may or may not find it interesting, but I do! and that's what I care about here

Long story short I've been living a mostly cash existence. I knew about credit card miles and such, but never put any thought into it or knew what I was really missing out on (A lot of free money). Shortly after getting home from Fla this winter a human person from my local bank called me to offer me a credit card and a meeting. This random call set all the following in motion. I got the card and started to research. It didn't take long to learn about all the bonuses and rewards I was missing out on. Actually that's kind of misleading, I knew about all that stuff, I just never really looked into the DETAILS.


So by early Mar my OCD is kicking in and I'd decided to jump in head first and become a credit card bonus whore/point chaser. I was reading a ton every night and soaking it in like a sponge. During my research I stumbled upon the "best bank account bonuses" section of Doctor of Credit (great resource btw)

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/best-...count-bonuses/


Most of these come with hoops I'm not interested in jumping through, but 3 or 4 of them are super ****ing easy. Free money yo! I don't think I'll be doing much of this going forward, but maybe, esp if something juicy and or easy pops up. This lead me to pulling money from checking/paypal/FD, all earning 0.00%. So now I'm using it to make money instead. Then I see that interest rates on some of these online accounts are much higher than I thought they'd be. Not that 1.5%-2% is anything great, but it's better than my 2 small B&M savings accounts. .01% and .05%, lol. These are now closed btw.


I needed $25K to get the full $200 Bonus from Discover savings. Part of that is bankroll, part tax fund, and part Fla fund, but for now I'll keep every cent in there as long as possible.


I also opened a few other smaller accounts at slightly better rates. I've gone from way too much in checking to keeping it around $500-$1000 at any given moment. WAY WAY too much in paypal to 0-$500, It's nice seeing a big number in my FD account, but mid 5 figures when I'm playing $1200 a day? Pretty dumb. No more! I'm not gonna get rich off of any of this, but what I do make is free. A little time and effort, but I like thinking about this kind of thing. I'm making a game out of how much interest I can squeeze out of everything, like floating $500 on cap1 for 50 days and paying 3 days before due date to collect an extra quarter, lol. I'm having fun with it. I want every cent!


Stats!

opened 3 cards late feb/early mar: $400 in bonuses easily cleared

rewards earned so far: only about $50, I live cheap, my annual Fla trip is where I spend all my money

opened a 4th card, Discover IT this week (probably my last of 2018) for the 2%/10% and 0% on purchases for 14 months. I was going to spend everything on this card and run it up with the money in the bank, but they kinda put the kibosh to that with a tiny limit. Still, should be able to squeeze some EV out of this puppy.

Bank Bonuses-

$200 Discover- Credited

$180 Huntington- Wont get this for a couple more months

Next up, Citi

Interest on bankroll-

Not much, just started moving money into these accounts 3 weeks ago. Compounding daily tho, yo.


Goals- Make at least $1K a year off CC bonuses/rewards over the next couple years as I position myself to go ham in 2020 and beyond. (at that point I'm thinking maybe as much as $2500 a year).

I can't really make a $ goal for squeezing interest out of my bankroll as that totally depends on how I'm doing at DFS. The goal I do have is just to max it as much as possible. Like taking the free quarter from cap1 or what I was gonna do with my discover card if my limit wasn't $1K. Of course I don't really need to be a nitty ***** like that, that's just for fun. Mostly I just need to be smarter than keeping $10-$50K just rotting in checking/paypal.


Long and rambling, check.

Final thoughts_

1- Not only am I not spending 1 cent I wouldn't have to get these bonuses/rewards, I'm making a game out of trying to spend LESS. Here's a nice reward, don't waste your money on a pizza you fat ****!

Dr of credit is great, JL started a nice credit thread in OOT, a lot of **** to wade through at MyFico forums, but some smart players, and tons of relevant data points.


Any questions or tips about this stuff, feel free.


C Ya next Sun, unless something interesting happens

Strange week...

Mon- Took a bit of a shot as planned, dropped a K

Tue, Wed, Thur, all tiny winners adding up to what I lost Mon, cool, even steven.

Fri/Sat, clobbered both days. Lost a K each day, around -50% on Fri, lost just as much Sat on less vol. Nothing went right.

Today was better (on tiny "quick throw some lineups in before going out for the day" mode Sunday volume)






Not thrilled with a 6X return on 20/88 lineups in the top 1% and 68/88 ITM, but who's the idiot who didn't bother putting 1 in the top 5? ME! In all seriousness it feels like a missed opportunity, while still nice to crush it (minus the outlier). -$17 on the week, +$27,893 on the year. If nothing else I've stopped the bleeding from my fairly treacherous free fall of late-April early-May.


I decided that this type of pitching mix (from Tue):






makes more sense on days where my initial thought is to go 100% 1 dude (Sale again, of course) even if I sacrifice some long-term EV. It worked out too because Smith beasted and turned a day from **** to +$600.


Giddy like a school girl to take this down




My ROI on anything over $25 buyin is like -90% going back a couple years now. so in the end, still most likely a waste of a quarter...

you can find bank bonuses that are much more worthwhile than the Discover($25k for $200). I am not sure about Fla but you should have some options. I will be around, looks like it's another good baseball season for you thus far.

The easier stuff on DoC I've either done, am doing, or plan on doing. I'm not interested in jumping through many hoops though (debit cards, DD). I'm open to suggestions, specific bonuses, or overall strategy. I'm formulating a long-term CC strategy now, but probably not app'ing for anything for around a year. I'll post more about that as I get closer to launching. Also, I live in Indiana, I go to Fla on vacation.


This week- Sucked! 7/7 losers, knew I got crushed a couple days, did. Thought I did well a couple days, didn't. -$5223 bringing my YTD down to +$22,670


Takeaways- I'm not gonna let this thread devolve into a whinefest again. That **** is just depressing and weak. That said, man, I really thought this year was going to be different. If you change the order of my first 2 (good) weeks with the weeks since, bad weeks being first I don't think I ever make it to the +$39K 2 weeks. I wouldn't have busted, but I seriously think I might have quit, probably for good. So that's how close I came to being done. At this time I have no idea what my actual bankroll is. I know how much money I have, but I'm really not sure how much I'm willing to lose. I would have gone down with the ship in 15 or 16, now, nah. That's not to say I'm close to quitting or anything, June could go as poorly as May did, still in, the first 2 weeks of Aug could then go as poorly as the last 2 weeks or April, still in. I'm not sure what the breaking point is, hopefully I'll never get close enough to know.


All in all I still feel pretty good about my game and my prospects, but the delusions of becoming a crusher and staying a crusher die hard. I talked about not just moving up and staying moved up because my BR was bigger after a good start to the season. Well that was nice talk that I should have stuck with as I did kind of move up and stay playing higher. Nothing outrageous, in fact probably more conservative than most in my position, and much more conservative than an actual gambler. Anyways, time to step back a bit and try to turn this around while not dropping $5K a week.


Interesting? strategy bit- I've mentioned in the past that I'm generally a huge pitching nit (going back to my contest days, before DFS was even a thing), and that I've made some adjustments to that this year, going more yolo. I've really been pushing it though. There's still spots where I only want to use 1-3 high priced studs in good spots, and I only come off it to hedge a bit, but more and more I'm finding slates where I spread it around to 6, 8, 10+ guys, sometimes skipping the most expensive or 2 pitchers altogether. One such spot was Max @Bal on Wed. They suck, and he's great, but still, not the best matchup, not close. Not only did I do a 100% fade, I also stacked up against him in a big chunk of my lineups, both total and complete failures. I think the takeaway for many would be that it was a bad idea, but the more I thought about it afterward the more I liked it. *Another frustrating thing from this week, other than Wed I pretty much nailed pitching and still got crushed. Pitching doesn't matter

direct deposits are quite easy. my ACH transfers from Alliant Credit Union checking accts always qualify as DD's. Don't let that deter you from binking a nice bonus as often times the DD's are easy to meet. however, often times many banks have minimum DD deposits to waive monthly fee's, so always keep an eye on this. But again, most third-party transfers work(in regards to waiving the monthly fee), just "push" them from the 3rd party bank. Do not request a transfer from the bank you are trying to achieve the bonus through(pull), or when waiving the monthly fee.

push>pull