Yahoo Bankroll Challenge, Week 3: Tripling Up
For more information on the Yahoo Bankroll Challenge and to read the recap from each week, click here.
If you read last week’s column, you’ll remember my discussion on knowing your strengths and weaknesses. However, I’m a man of great confidence in my abilities, and I refuse to believe that “No Veteran” players can continue to dominate me in some sports, no matter how poor my historical ROI is for those contests.
So yes, I’m not great at NFL short slates, but I have to be better than inexperienced players who haven’t studied the intricacies of short slate lineup constructions and don’t follow DFS religiously like I do. Right? Right!?
Right.
I finally broke through with a decent NFL win this past weekend to triple my bankroll from the last time you heard from me.
Week 3 starting $ balance: $4.60
Week 3 ending $ balance: $11.10
Week 3 starting YSRP balance: 11
Week 3 ending YSRP balance: 31
Here are some of the strategies I used this week with advice on how to implement them on other DFS sites:
Strategy #1: Review opponent’s lineups
Aside from the poor NBA and NFL performances so far, my head-to-head record through three weeks is a head-scratching 2 wins and 5 losses. And you call yourself a professional.
Am I that bad at creating H2H lineups or am I just supremely unlucky? This is a question you’ll eventually ask yourself if you play H2Hs and have a rough patch, so it’s imperative that you take the time to review your opponents’ lineups.
So after losing my sole NFL 4-game H2H by an embarrassing 22 points over the weekend, I checked out my opponent’s lineup. Spoiler: it’s trash.
He did not play Alvin Kamara (without Taysom Hill or Latavius Murray). He played a WR3 (Marquez Valdes-Scantling). He didn’t play the underpriced every-down RB (Devin Singletary). Oh, and he FLEXED a TE for the cherry on top:
Domination.
I feel good about the process, and I can’t let a one-game (or seven-game) sample size cloud my judgment of taking inexperienced opponents’ H2Hs, especially when countless mistakes (I doubt my opponent would agree they're mistakes since he smashed me) are being made.
How to implement this on FanDuel or DraftKings: Take time to review the lineup of every single H2H opponent. Are you just being outplayed? Can you learn anything? Are there common trends in winning lineups?
Strategy #2: Taking days off!
On Wednesday, it was a great day in America, as we had the pleasure of being able to sweat a 9am UFC DFS slate. Despite having a bunch of items on my to-do list, I chose to enjoy the fruits of my labor (this is also important!) and just watch the UFC fights and sweat my non-challenge, actual income-producing lineups.
When I did check out that night’s NHL slate, I noticed it was only four games. With a busy afternoon ahead, I didn’t want to rush a lineup just to play, especially when every dollar is so valuable.
So, this may sound crazy, but I skipped the slate and didn’t play DFS on Yahoo on Wednesday. It’s okay, it’s healthy (and recommended).
How to implement this on FanDuel or DraftKings: Take off days/slates if you’re busy or don’t feel comfortable with lineups. There’s always another slate.
Week 3’s Pivotal Moment
Bang! I returned $9 on $2 in NFL League entries for the Divisional slate. Super-stacking the Chiefs game in two separate contests was enough to earn me $5 and $4 respectively.
While slowly grinding hockey without a big ROI win, these two league victories were a major boost to my bankroll. This is why leagues are so important to smaller bankrolls (compared to GPPs or even lower-risk contests)! If you keep grinding them and playing correlated lineups, eventually you’ll get a top 1% finish that results in 10x or 20x ROI.
Play enough leagues, and those 1% results will add up to boost your bankroll to the next tier.
Next Steps
There aren’t a ton of NHL contests on Yahoo, so even though we’re only 21 days into this challenge, I need to start thinking about a plan to grow my bankroll exponentially. Going from $0 to $11 is awesome ROI -- and I knew the first couple months of this challenge would be the most difficult -- but I need to keep in mind the goal of $10,000 by the end of the year.
I can still play slowly and pick my spots, but my intermediate goal now is to have a $100 bankroll by the time MLB rolls around, as it’s one of my most profitable sports. From there, I need to run that up to a significant number for NFL 2021, a sport where I’ve always believed the challenge will be completed if I have enough ammo.
For any questions about the bankroll challenge, hit up Brian on Twitter. For more information on bankroll management, contest selection, and long-term DFS strategy, read our flagship e-book, The Ultimate Guide.