Strategy
First and foremost, it's important to acknowledge that there isn't a "crystal ball" to predict outcomes. However, we do have a foundational strategy that can be applied to playing weekly DraftKings PGA contests. I liken my approach each week to playing a game of blackjack. In both scenarios, the underlying principle is to utilize mathematical probability and analysis to make the most profitable decisions. Each hand of blackjack, like each contest, is unique and may involve various factors. For instance, if you hold a 16 with a combination of 10 and 6, and the dealer shows a 10, your decision will differ from a scenario where you have the same cards, but the dealer shows a 4. Similarly, if your 16 is composed of two 8s and the dealer has a 4, the situation becomes more intricate, requiring the consideration of additional variables to maximize profit and make positive expected value (+EV) decisions. Despite these variations, the core strategy remains consistent in guiding our choices.
If you’re with me so far, analysis of winning PGA DFS lineups suggest we need at least one golfer under 5% owned, another under 10% owned and at least 3 total golfers under 15% owned. Cumulative ownership varies week to week based on the simulations and optimal lineups that we make but in general it’s under 75% for all 6 golfers. These represent our basic framework for how we approach making PGA lineups each week, but like anything, there are new circumstances and variables each week. For example, Denny McCarthy might be 7.2k one week and project for 5% ownership. That may or may not be good, but if he performs well this week, next week his price could be 7.8, and project at 18% ownership. That is almost assuredly a bad decision at that price and ownership. Don’t go week to week thinking the same guys are good plays because of performance, there a number of factors that determine a good or bad play week to week.
Our strategy is built around the concept of low risk and high reward and is meant to be able to scale based on your preferred investment level each week. Our strategy is meant to be played in tournaments, not cash games or double ups where the goal is to simply beat half of your opponents. On any given week we are competing with 40,000 to 200,000 other entries and that requires a completely different approach than cash games. Because of this, our probability for winning is mathematically very, very small. Keep this in mind when playing DFS in general – probabilistically, the most likely outcome is that we’re going to lose. We should be constructing our lineups in a way that at least gives us the opportunity to win. Just like in golf, if you give yourself enough good opportunities, you’ll start to see scoring results.
Our strategy each week is derived off of industry leading projections and leveraging industry leading tools. Our goal is to provide actionable guidance to our members to allow them to play intelligent lineups week in and week out that have the upside to win large contests. You don’t need to enter 150 lineups each week to win, I won $215k with twenty lineups ($400 investment), only one of which had all 6/6 golfers make it through the cut. It so happened that lineup won the whole damn thing. What you do need is an intelligent approach that applies the framework of building winning lineups, considers the current market status including prices, ownership, trends, and statistical analysis of players to put ourselves in the best position to win. When we do win, we want to do the best we possibly can to ensure we aren’t splitting those winnings with others. Using this strategy has helped our users build top 0.1% lineups and we’re at ~90% unique lineups weekly in large gpp contests.