DFBC 2013 Recap: Pepsi7 and K_Lim Take Top-3

by Ethan Haskell (Ethan) Last Updated 2013-10-17 19:29:02

I had the fortune this weekend of being able to attend FanDuel’s Daily Fantasy Baseball Championship and to meet with almost all of the 45 contestants who punched their tickets to Vegas this summer. To no one’s surprise, many of the biggest names in daily fantasy were there and yet it was a husband and wife from Oh Canada who managed to push through and claim the top-3 spots!

Now don’t get it twisted, just because Pepsi7 wasn’t a household daily fantasy name going into this event doesn’t mean he’s not one of the finest players around. He was a 2012 DFBC qualifier as well, so all he did this weekend was prove that he is one of the best daily fantasy baseball minds there are.

Anyways, let’s take a look back at the weekend that was the 2013 DFBC Championship…

Friday Night

Friday Night was the opening reception. For last year’s DFBC this consisted of a small gathering in a hospitality sweet with an open bar and followed by dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse. This year, with 45 contestants, they opened it up in a much bigger meeting room with a nice catered layout of food along with free drinks.

The highlight of Friday night was a new addition as well, the DFBC Qualifier Intros. The guys at FD wrote up some quick intros for each of the qualifiers that were both entertaining and clearly helped ease the nerves of some of the players. Oh and the pictures used were pretty outrageous as well for a few guys.

Dan also got some great interviews with nearly all of the finalists at this event, take a listen if you haven’t yet.

• DFBC Interviews Part 1
• DFBC Interviews Part 2
• DFBC Interviews Part 3

Saturday Night

The drama was in the air all throughout the day on Saturday as lineups came in and players worked on their teams, or in many cases tweaked teams that had been prepared earlier in the week. It was fascinating to see the different strategies of Top-10 players.

For example, STLCardinals84 came in with a team prepared and made very few changes on Saturday. PrimeTime420 on the other hand built both of his teams during the day on Saturday.

FanDuel had rented out the entire Legasse’s Stadium main floor and it was the perfect setting to watch games and sweat. There was stadium style lounge seating, enough food to put me in a casket and all the drinks you could handle while either celebrating or cursing out your team.

Once lineups were released, I ran up to the business center to print out the percentage owned sheets for the players. Here’s the breakdown of which players were most owned (5 or more teams for batters, all pitchers shown):

Right off the bat, it appeared to be all Pepsi7 and K_Lim. Manny Machado and Jhonny Peralta were rostered on all 4 of the husband and wife’s teams. Both went yard in the first hour of action. The popular pitchers in the early games (Liriano, Price and Scherzer) were all dealing. Still, the scoring was pretty low and the range between first and last was minimal at best. It seemed as if we were just waiting for something big to happen.

We interviewed Pepsi7 and KLim quickly to talk about how they felt about their lineups after the first hour. Watch that interview here

Then out of nowhere, punt catching option Devin Mesoraco hit his second home run of the night and was followed by a Shin-Soo Choo bomb. The Pepsi7 and K_Lim lineups that once looked untouchable were being chased down by a few players including our very own Cal Spears.

Cal needed Jay Bruce, Joey Votto and Evan Longoria to do some damage to stay in the running. He got a couple of walks from Votto and Longo but Bruce disappointed by KO’ing in a fashion that only Jay Bruce can.

As we moved to the 2 late games, there were a handful of players still in the running. Pepsi7 and K_Lim maintained the lead with the Top-3 spots but Cal, MrTuttle, and JLove18 had a number of players remaining and were inching up the leaderboard.

MrTuttle may have had the best opportunity, had Ivan Nova not been pulled after a mere 85 pitches in San Diego. Jlove had the Angels outfield covered and Cal’s only player not owned by the top-3 teams was Kole Calhoun.

Then low and behold, Calhoun went yard and Legasse’s erupted. Once again, Cal and Jlove18 were both on the verge of pushing past the stronghold of Pepsi7 and K_Lim. The at bats inched by and Cal was barely holding JLove off in 4th place. Then up came Calhoun again with a chance to move Cal into 2nd with a homer. But the magic had run out and Calhoun just didn’t quite have the double dong in him.

Congrats to Pepsi7

What shouldn’t be lost in all of this is how impressive the feat accomplished by both Pepsi7 and K_Lim was. They took a huge risk by creating 4 low variance lineups and having guys like Peralta, Kendrick and Machado on all 4 teams. That play could have easily backfired and sent them home with a minimal profit, but instead paid off in the form of $294,000 and an opportunity to significantly alter their way of life!

So big congrats to the husband and wife duo that took the DFBC by storm and absolutely pummeled the competition.

And last but not least, here were the final standings of the 2013 DFBC by FanDuel:

Some More Pictures

The creepiest thing on stilts I’ve ever seen at the Palazzo

The Rooms at the Palazzo are Unbelievably Nice

Dumbthumb, Boggslite and Mr. BoggsLite At Friday’s Reception

ShooterMcGavin, Maxdout, Pepsi7 and Klim at Friday’s Reception

Cal Working on Lineups in the Room Before DFBC

Dynamic Duo Dan and AlSmizzle on GrindersLive at DFBC

AlSmizzle’s Biggest Fan Forced to Compete Against Him, Chilltown999

AlSmizzle not happy with his lineup at all

Smadog brought the whole family with shirts. “Every smadog has its day”