RotoGrinders Interview: Shawn "shawnzhan" Zhan
Tides can change quickly in Daily Fantasy Sports, and such is the case with Shawn “shawnzhan” Zhan, who has quickly climbed the ranks of the DFS elite to become one of the best in the industry.
Currently the #3 ranked player in the 2018 RotoGrinders Tournament Player of the Year race, shawnzhan is ranked in the top 25 of four different sports, including a current #3 ranking in MLB. He’s also qualified for numerous live finals, and he is proof positive that with hard work, you can rise to the top in DFS.
Shawn took some time out of his busy day to answer a few questions for RotoGrinders. Let’s find out more about this top-ranked Grinder.
RotoGrinders: Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where you grew up, went to school, what you did before DFS, married, kids, single, etc;
Shawn Zhan: My name is Shawn Zhan, and I was born in Nanjing, China. My parents immigrated to the United States to study accounting when I was born, and I joined them in the States when I was 3. I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, and went on to earn a bachelors in applied mathematics. Before DFS, I was working in the Chicago loop at JP Morgan as a programmer.
RotoGrinders: When did you get into DFS? What was your introduction to it?
Shawn Zhan: I had been playing season long fantasy basketball since I was in middle school, but around 2014 the league I was in with my buddies broke up, and since most public free leagues aren’t very active I decided to google around for paid fantasy leagues, which led to me finding out about DraftKings. As soon as I discovered them I was so excited because I knew this was right up my alley as I’ve always loved both sports and problem solving. At the time it was around 3 months before the NBA season started, but every single day I was reading up and learning about DFS and basically counting down the days until tip-off.
RotoGrinders: Tell us about your DFS path. The struggles you’ve had… the successes. When did you feel you had become successful enough to consider yourself a pro?
Shawn Zhan: Man, it’s been a crazy but fulfilling ride these past 4 years thanks to DFS. I started with a $600 deposit in October 2014, and was playing low stakes NBA while watching games every day and spending a lot of time on r/dfsports as well as RotoGrinders. I ran pretty well the first couple months, and by December my bankroll was up to $5,000. It was around this time that I had my first of many losing streaks, and in the span of a week or two I dropped down to $1,000. I was so frustrated because of how much work I had put in to make that money and how quickly I had lost it that I decided to bet the rest of my bankroll on a $1k head-to-head thinking to myself that if I lost I would just quit DFS. I consider that h2h win one of the luckiest moments of my life because since then I’ve had the opportunity to meet so many awesome people, learn many valuable lessons, and have a lot of amazing experiences that would not have happened otherwise. I turned “pro” March of 2016 when I quit my job to focus on DFS full time. I had been thinking about it for a while, but a week prior I had won more money in a single day than my yearly salary, and that was the trigger that made me realize that DFS is where I needed to put my time.
RotoGrinders: What happened where you were able to go from putting your last $1K into a head-to-head contest to the point you are at today? Was there something that just clicked? What does it feel like knowing that on a nightly basis you are putting up in entry fees what some people won’t make working an entire year?
Shawn Zhan: In that year and a half period, I was basically just working non stop to get better at DFS. There was no one thing that just made things “click”, instead, it was just a steady accumulation of knowledge gained through a lot of time spent watching games and studying all aspects of the DFS as well as top players. I’m sure from the outside looking in it must seem insane to wager such a large amount each day, but most pros built their bankroll through a long period of time so it really feels like business as usual. Another thing to consider is that since you should be earning or losing a % of your bankroll each night, it theoretically should take the same time to move up from betting $100 to $1,000 a day, as it would from $1,000 to $10,000 a day (this is ignoring the fact that the difficulty rises as you move up stakes). So basically the number is not as far out of reach as one might think.
RotoGrinders: Tell us about your daily life, the routines you take, and the approaches you utilize.
Shawn Zhan: The answer to this question really depends on the time of year. During baseball season, my workload is lighter so I try to take time to enjoy life – right now I’m playing a lot of golf, beach volleyball, basketball, going out with friends, and also raising a new puppy. This is key because my workload and stress levels come to a peak each year once NBA and NFL seasons are in full swing and I don’t have the time or energy to have as much of a social life. As far as DFS goes in the morning I usually look at big picture things like schedule, injuries, and weather. Throughout the day I might read an article here and there, and then the real work happens in the hour or two prior to lock.
RotoGrinders: Do you look/listen to others’ advice? If so, what do you try to glean from it and which names are at the top of your list?
Shawn Zhan: Of course, and anyone who doesn’t is either lying or an idiot. If I’m just learning a sport (for me I had not followed NFL or PGA prior to DFS), I’ll watch/read anything and everything just to get a “feel” for the game. After I gain some level of comfort with understanding the sport (with NFL its been 3 years and I just now feel like I’m getting there), you start to have a sense of which writers have no idea what they’re talking about, which to be honest is most. I try to avoid articles that focus on giving out specific plays, instead I enjoy reading about high level strategy/concepts or just non DFS articles about the sport, especially when the author provides data to back it up their ideas. It’s sort of like the DFS version of the old adage about giving a man a fish vs. teaching him how to fish.
RotoGrinders: Are there any DFS players you look up to or that have influenced you to get to the point you are at today? If so, who, and how did they do so?
Shawn Zhan: Yeah absolutely… When I first started I didn’t think it was possible to become a DFS pro – those guys on top of the RG leaderboards were just a screen name to me with no actual person to picture alongside it. I think when I started qualifying for live finals and I was able meet a lot of those guys, it showed me that it was possible and motivated me to work harder to get to where they were. Some of the first guys I met were scout326, who at the time happened to live a block away from me and is a great guy to bounce ideas off of, Erik “I’ve made over $62,000” Hafner, one of the nicest guys out there, and bcalicore who I still talk DFS with for hours on end every time we meet. Since then I’ve met many other pros and I’m grateful to have people in my life who understand the stressful, strange and exciting aspects of being a DFS pro. One that I want to meet one day is Condia, I feel like he is one of the few guys who has achieved legendary status in the DFS world – someone who has achieved everything he set out to do and made it out alive. I would love to pick his brain about his career in DFS and what life is like after.
RotoGrinders: What is your typical research process? What resources do you utilize? If you make your own model, what factors do you weigh the most?
Shawn Zhan: I try to automate tasks whenever possible, therefore I don’t do much day to day “research” per say. I do watch a lot of games and read stuff which occasionally will lead me to have an idea of an improvement I can make in my model, at which point I would try to test it as best I can, and then implement it. There are too many factors that contribute towards a good DFS model, so I’ll just say the most important factor is dedication of the person behind the model.
RotoGrinders: How many lineups do you typically enter on a slate? If more than one, what is your approach?
Shawn Zhan: I used to run a single lineup but now I’ll usually run the 150 max unless I know I won’t be around my computer near lock. There is definitely a lot to learn when jumping to max entries. If there’s one thing that max entering has changed in my approach it’s to not fixate on one or two players I’d want to jam into my lineups at all costs and instead just trust your model.
RotoGrinders: What’s your biggest night in DFS and what do you remember most about it? Your worst night and similarly what do you remember about it?
Shawn Zhan: I’ve never won a Milly Maker or a live final so all of my top results are pretty bunched together. One of the more memorable big nights happened when I was driving down from Wisconsin to Chicago… I had planned it so I would reach a rest stop with WiFi around 30 minutes before lock, but bad luck with traffic and accidents delayed my arrival to the rest stop until around 10 minutes before lock. Then I had to scramble with awful internet and barely replaced my dummy lineups with like a minute to go. Then I left and when I reached Chicago I saw I was winning $150,000+. My worst night was a couple years back when J.T. Realmuto hit a home run, but overran his own teammate who was waiting to see if the ball would be caught on the warning track… the result was a single out advancing. The HR would have put me in 1st in a bunch of contests so I still tilt out about that from time to time.
RotoGrinders: You’re known around our office for having a highly contrarian strategy for MLB. Tell us about this strategy, how you developed it, and how it has impacted your MLB DFS play.
Shawn Zhan: This question is a tough one to answer as I don’t want to give away my strategies. I think at the end of the day, it is impossible to be one of the best at whatever you do if you don’t find some way to differentiate yourself from everyone else. I will also say that if you trust yourself over all else, sometimes you will end up being contrarian without trying.
RotoGrinders: If you had one piece of advice to offer to a player new to DFS in terms of strategy, what would it be and why?
Shawn Zhan: This is another tough question because there are so many to choose from, and it also depends so much on what you’re trying to get out of the game whether it be to have fun or to eventually make it your job. I guess if I had to pick one thing it would be to develop an analytical mindset. I.E. whenever you are watching a game and you see something interesting, train yourself to think about why that may have happened, and if there is a way for you to leverage that into a DFS edge. The more you do this, and the more nuggets of info you accrue in your head, the more you will naturally be able to incorporate new things you see into your overall DFS approach.
RotoGrinders: Where do you see yourself down the road in regards to DFS? Do you want there to be a long-term thing for you? What things do you hope to accomplish as a result of DFS success?
Shawn Zhan: Ideally I would keep playing for the foreseeable future, but there is no guarantee that DFS will be around in the long term, and also no guarantee that I can stay ahead of the field which is getting smarter every day. I don’t know what I’ll do after DFS, but a dream of mine since I was a kid was to be the general manager for my favorite team, the Chicago Cubs. I know it’s a long shot, but if there is anything that I can take away from my time in DFS, it’s the confidence that I can achieve whatever goals I set my mind towards.