A debate in the DraftKings channel on the We Want Picks Discord server has sparked this article which will be my second weekly series for DraftKings going forward. It became very apparent to me in this conversation, and by noticing the trends following in members’ lineup construction, that most of you don’t have a remote clue about playing DraftKings.
This same person commented that “DraftKings content is never made for the single-entry player” and was using the premise that ownership doesn’t matter for single-entry players. First and most importantly, ownership matters in one way or another for everything. Second, I have been writing the premium content on this website for the last year and a half for DraftKings, and I only know how to play cash and small-field single-entry contests – so that has been almost exclusively what that content has been based on. Someone new is taking over starting this week, however, as I have never had the desire to be the DFS guy to begin with, and was just doing it out of need.
The purpose of the DraftKings Rewind article will be to take a look back on cash lineups and single-entry tournament lineups, specifically small-field contests. By doing this I believe that it will be easier to demonstrate how experienced DraftKings players use ownership to make decisions that open the door to long-term profitability.
THE CASH LINE
Before we can jump into retrospective lineup construction for cash games, we need to know what the cash line is. For those that don’t know what I am talking about when I say “cash line,” this means the lowest score possible in your cash contests where you could have won money. In double-ups, this is the top 40% of the field, and in 50/50 it is the top 50%. You do not get a bonus for finishing near the top in these contests so the cash line is all that matters. You can look at each one of your specific contests to see what your cash line score needed to have been.
For the purposes of staying consistent, we will be using the chalkiest lineup possible as our cash line. The actual cash line will vary from contest to contest in a given week but is usually within a few points of each other in one direction or the other.
UFC Nashville Chalk Lineup
As you can see, if you used the six chalkiest fighters you could possibly cram into a lineup for this weekend, you would have scored 463.57 points. Now go check the cash line in your cash games, there is a good chance that score would have put you either slightly above it or slightly below it. This is because of ownership. The actual ownership numbers will be different in cash contests and small tournaments than the projections every website offers because those projections are for the biggest tournament possible. They can still be used as a guide to target the most popular fighters and stay away from putting yourself on an island in these small contests though.
A good way to build a cash lineup is to start with the most chalk-heavy lineup you can and then make educated changes based on ownership and your own intuition. A good example of this is when I showed the chalkiest lineup possible to someone in the Discord channel, they said, “I have doubts about Jeremiah Wells.” Perfect! This is where the human input comes into the mix. Let’s run with the theory of not being sold on Wells and wanting to move off of him.
A decent way to get some input here would be to head over to the Cash Core tab on the DraftKings plays that come with Premium Membership. On that write up you would have seen that I included Assu Almabayev who was $100 more than Jeremiah Wells and still someone who came with decent ownership. Let’s make that change and see what his lineup could have looked like.
UFC Nashville Slight Change Lineup
As you can see, making that change would have resulted in an increase in your score. Your cash lineup score would now be 525.11. Now go check your cash line in your cash contests and see if you would have been over the cash line. Most likely, you would have. In fact, I would assume you could have won some money in small-field single-entry tournaments with that score as well, or at least been pretty close to the cash line in those types of contests. The bigger the contest the more difficult it would be to place in the money with a cash build.
The other direction you could have gone here, again assuming that Wells was the fighter you didn’t love, would have been to ignore the premium member play and drop down to Kennedy Nzechukwu which on the surface wouldn’t have been a terrible play based on ownership alone, but would have significantly affected your score negatively.
GETTING DIFFERENT
Now let’s jump over to small-field single-entry tournaments. When people who don’t understand DraftKings play these tournaments, they are generally trying to win first place and nothing else. If that is the way you want to play them, for the excitement, then have a blast. That isn’t the most long-term profitable way to play these contests though. You want to do your best to achieve some level of safety as well by choosing the right chalk to eat while looking to get somewhat different with your pivots.
For UFC Nashville the two highest-owned fighters were Cory Sandhagen and Tatiana Suarez. Going into a small-field contest without either of them would be an all-or-nothing play. You will either win first, or you will be near the bottom. There is no other outcome possible fading the two most owned fighters on the slate. So let’s assume you were smarter than me and chose to go with Sandhagen. By doing that you would have been moving off Suarez and Font because you don’t want to double up generally in single-entry tournaments. It has worked out a handful of times, including the event with Chito and Font, but it is not a winning long-term strategy.
Here is what your lineup could have looked like moving off of Suarez and Font from the starting point in the cash line section if you were the sharpest guy out there.
UFC Nashville Sharpest Pivots Lineup
As you can see, that lineup would have scored 619.84. Now, of course, making the absolute perfect decisions would be a rarity and usually only happens in mass multiple-entry contests because people have eliminated variance as much as possible by using math.
So it is unlikely that you made the perfect decisions, but even if you made one of them and a not-so-bad second pivot you would be falling somewhere in the middle of the modified cash lineup (525.11) and this single-entry lineup (619.84) as far as your score goes. Coming off of Rob Font and Tatiana Suarez while still considering ownership to keep a level of safety would have put you in this ballpark if you used the “Live Dogs” section of premium membership to assist you.
None of those fighters would have been as good a decision as Ludovit Klein, but they all would have improved your score over Rob Font and likely contributed to you finishing in the green in your small-field single-entry contests. Best of all the two best plays from that group were over 20% owned which also gave you a bit more security. Let’s assume you dropped down to Billy Quarantillo from Suarez and then moved up from Font to Raoni Barcelos as that would be the most obvious change while still maintaining a high level of ownership. That would have made your lineup the following.
UFC Nashville Safe SE Lineup
As you can see that score was 537.20. While I cannot guarantee that score would have won money in your single-entry small-field tournament contests, I think you would be surprised how often that process would at least bring your money back while keeping you in the hunt for the bigger prizes in those contests. When you start playing low owned fighters in small-field single-entry contests you are playing for the big prize or nothing because you are on a very small island with just a few other entries.
When it comes to large-field single-entry contests you would want to get more creative and hope you are closer to that sharpest pivots lineup above, but for small-field stuff, you don’t have to sacrifice all safety to finish in the green. Stop listening to people that don’t understand the game, ownership is important, even if you are just using it as a guide for smaller contests.
FINAL THOUGHT
Just pick your best six man! That was the advice from a non-member who provides a capping service in another Discord that led to members picking Jessica Andrade in your cash games and small-field single-entry tournaments this week. Playing DraftKings is not picking winners. You should use the ownership numbers to guide your decisions and consider both sides of each fight, that is how you play DraftKings. Over the long term that is the only way to see any kind of profit from playing cash and small-field single-entry games.
Of course, hindsight is 20/20 always, and there are going to be times when the chalk shits the bed, but that is what is considered the variance of the sport – not the other way around. Over time playing cash and small-field single-entry you will see a positive return on investment much easier than playing with no regard for safety. People have been playing DraftKings by the numbers like this for years, and it is the only proven way to play those contests to make your bankroll last long enough to see a return on your investment. One thing I didn't dive too deep into for this article is the total ownership, but you will notice that the safer lineups are all around 200 for total ownership, and the more contrarian big-money lineups are closer to 150 for total ownership. If you dip too far below 150 you are playing very contrarian and will not win often enough in these contests to outrun your depleting bankroll. So in the spirit of the article, I am going to say it one more time, ownership matters everywhere in the game of DraftKings.
If you have any questions or are actually committed to learning to play DraftKings please feel free to message me on Twitter (X) @WebGuyWWP. I am not by any means the oracle for DraftKings advice, but I do understand these ownership numbers and how to use them well enough to help you make informed decisions rather than just throwing darts.
