#1 Ranked PrimeTime420 Shares His Thoughts
#1 Ranked PrimeTime420
Number one is in the building ladies and gentlemen. Chris aka PrimeTime420 has been blazing Daily Fantasy Sports for almost two years now. During the brief period from March of 2010, when RotoGrinders began compiling data for daily fantasy, through today, PrimeTime has amassed over $22,000 in winnings. He is the #1 Ranked Daily Fantasy Grinder on our site, and by a solid margin. As of last week’s rankings, PrimeTime420 had amassed over 2,700 Grinder Points, separating himself from second place by almost 900 of those points. To put that in perspective, if PrimeTime420 finished in first place with his points total in the BCS College Football Final Standings, the points accumulated by second place would only be good enough to earn an 8th place ranking. PrimeTime is living proof of the possibility that the best Grinders could one day earn a living solely playing Daily Fantasy Sports; PrimeTime currently supplements his fantasy “day job” only by working at a restaurant on nights. It hasn’t come easy though. PrimeTime has gotten to where he his with hard-work and effort over the past two years, devoted towards researching and understanding the games. He’s learned to manage his bankroll, control his emotions, and remain humble. Even today he has respect for and will avoid certain opponents. Chris was nice enough to give us some time to talk with him, and get inside the hungry-yet-humble mind of the number one ranked Daily Fantasy Grinder.
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Give us some background info on the Top Grinder. Where do you live and do you supplant your income from Daily Fantasy Sports with a regular job?
My name is Chris and I’m 26 years old. I’ve lived in San Diego all my life. I am a die hard San Diego Chargers and Padres fan. For right now I work at a restaurant at night, and do this fantasy stuff for my “day job”.
What are your favorite sports and sports teams? Did you play any sports? Also, do you care to share the meaning behind PrimeTime420 with our readers?
I played baseball in high school, but arm injuries kept me from going on to play college ball. As for my name, I picked PrimeTime because I though its a cool nickname to have. The 420 part is something that I’ll let everyone figure out on their own.
How long have you been ‘grinding’ daily fantasy sports? How many contests do you participate in each week and across which sites?
I have been grinding for almost 2 years. On FSL I will play anywhere from 50 to 80 contests per week for baseball. It just depends on whether I’m running hot or not. For basketball I would play around the same amount of games as well. Over on 365 I play about 30 contest per week. As my bankroll increases there I will increase the amount of games that I play there.
You are currently the #1 RotoGrinder, #3 on Fantasy Sports Live’s leaderboard, (according to your interview with FanDuel) were ranked #1 there in February and April, and you regularly crush 365. What do you attribute your success to?
There are a couple reasons why I have a fare amount of success at daily fantasy. One is I’m a huge sports fan and I’d like to think that I know a lot about most sports. The main reason is hard work. Over my two years of playing daily fantasy I have developed my own strategy on picking players. To do that I can spend anywhere from 30 minutes to more than a few hours trying to project which players will do the best for that day. Then comes factoring in the weather and checking lineup cards to see if my guys are playing. If you want to be successful long term as a daily fantasy player you have to put the time in. If you don’t you might be able to win in the short term, but in the long run the better educated players will win.
Walk us through a day in the life of the current #1 Grinder.
A typical day in the life of PrimeTime420 in the middle of fantasy season would be:
I usually will wake up around 11:30 or noon. First thing I do is log on to FSL and 365 to see if there are any heads-up contests available and to see if my heads-ups or multi-players have filled up. Then throughout the day I will check for lineups and check the news wires for info on my players for that day while doing whatever I else needs to be done that day. After contests start at 4pm PST, I usually have to get ready for work. I work at a restaurant so I won’t get home till around 1:00 AM. I actually love that I don’t have to stress out and watch contests. I can just come home and check to see if my projections were right. Then I start my studying for the next day and will usually be working on my lineups till early in the am. Then I’ll go to bed and start over again the next day.
While you have an account on other sites than FSL and 365, your recent success has just been on those two sites. Why is this?
In my opinion Fantasy Sports Live has the best product out there for me. One reason is their rake is the best out there. Also I think their ranking cap is the best out there because it is accurate and is the tightest. I believe that gives me an advantage over most players because it takes more skill when the cap gets tight. I also love FSL because of their multi-player tournaments. Multi-player tournaments give me the best chance of making a good profit. That is also why I started playing 365. They have tons of multi-player tourneys ranging from 6 dollars to 22 dollars, and most of them fill up every day. They also have a wide variety of games. So usually I can find one of their types of contests that gives me the best chance to win.
I quit playing FanDuel a few months ago because I do not like their salary cap. I do not think it is very accurate and it lead to a lot of similar lineups. Players were able to get their top choice at pretty much every position. That took a lot of skill out of the game and took away most of my advantages as a player. Their cap has gotten a bit tighter recently, but I still don’t like it because player pricings are inaccurate in my opinion. Also FanDuel’s Rake needs to be lowered. It doesn’t give the players good reason to make the jump from the lower buy in to the higher buy ins. However their new fantasy football championship (FFFC) looks great and I will definitely give FanDuel football a shot this season just because of that.
You tend to take on challengers at all buy-in levels. What is your typical buy-in range? Do you have any specific Bankroll strategies?
My buy in range is anywhere from $3.40 to $107. I usually stick to mostly $5.50, $11, and $22s. I only take a 100 dollar contest if I believe I have a big advantage over the player and I really like my lineup that day. I also don’t play the higher buy-ins regularly because its not smart for my bankroll management. I’ve spent the last two years slowly building my bankroll. And in due time when I’ve built up enough money I will be playing the higher buy ins at a higher volume. I like to play mainly multi player tournaments sprinkled in with a few heads ups each day. I prefer multi-player contests because I can win more money while risking much less.
You take on all comers across all sports. What is your best sport for daily fantasy and why?
My best sport is basketball. I think the main reason for that is because I don’t have a favorite team or players. In baseball and football I am a die-hard [Chargers and Padres] fan. Even though I don’t like to admit it sometimes I will use my heart instead of my head when it comes to picking against my teams. So with no allegiances to any teams in basketball I just go out there and pick the best players and hope to get good results. Plus after playing almost two years of contests I have my own method of picking players and it works out well for me.
What do you have envisioned for the future of Daily Fantasy?
The future of daily fantasy can be huge. Since I started playing almost two years ago the number of players playing daily sports has skyrocketed. When I started it was pretty much FSL and SnapDraft. Now there are more sites to choose from and the number of players is growing every day. In the future I just see the sites getting more traffic, with more high buy-in contests being filled, and lower rakes because the sites will need to compete with each other.
What aspect of Daily Fantasy Sports do you think sites could improve on?
I think most of the sites that I play have their stuff together. However each site has some things they could work on:
- FSL – I love Fantasy Sports Live. It’s definitely my favorite daily site out there. The one thing FSL could do would be to add a forums page like FanDuel’s. It’s a great way for players to talk to each other and let the site know if they are having problems.
- FanDuel- FanDuel has a great site layout and their chat board and forums are great features. However the rake their is ridiculous and needs to be lowered. I’m not a fan of their cap either.
- 365 – This site is great because of all the choices of contests you can play. However the site runs really, really slow. Honestly it keeps me from signing up for more contests. If I have to make a last second lineups change it takes me a long time.
Is there anyone that you will not play Heads-Up and under what circumstances?
I will take on all comers on FSL and 365. However there are two players who I won’t sign up to play in heads up contests. They are Kaiser_ and Buffalo66. I’m not scared to play them. I play them every day in multi-player contests. I don’t think it is smart bankroll management to go after two of the best players out there. Buffalo usually doesn’t play heads ups of FSL so he’s easy to stay away from. However, Kaiser_ is almost impossible to stay away from. If you put out a contest on FSL, chances are its going to be him you are playing.
In an interview with FanDuel you told them that your two goals for 2010 were building your bankroll and learning to deal with the variance in daily fantasy better. How is that coming so far?*
My 2 goals for 2010 are going good. I am slowly but surely building my bankroll up. Dealing with the losing streaks is still tough for me. I am in the middle of a huge one right now and it sucks. However I have been doing a lot better at not letting the losing streaks affect my life at work and with friends, which was my main problem in the past.
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