Crowning The World's Top Daily Fantasy Tournament Player
There are many reasons we all play daily fantasy sports (DFS). Some do it for the money, the fame, or the trips. But there is only one sure-fire way to achieve all of these goals in one fell swoop: by becoming the RotoGrinders Tournament Player of the Year (TPOY).
As the year comes to a close, the excitement is building to see which of the top DFS players in the world will emerge as this year’s champion. But, before we get to that, you may be asking yourself…
What is RotoGrinders?
RotoGrinders is the #1 online community and strategy site for daily fantasy players. Featuring stats, content and expert picks from some of the most successful DFS players in the world, RotoGrinders has a wide variety of tools to help gamers make the best lineups possible each day. (RotoGrinders also contributes content here in the “Daily” section of FantasyPros.)
In addition to a plethora of tools and advice, RotoGrinders also has a results-based ranking system that lets you compare how you measure up to some of the game’s best players. Which leads us to our next topic…
What is the RotoGrinders TPOY?
In a nutshell, the TPOY Leaderboard is a rankings system that tracks the 50 best large-field tournament finishes for each player across DFS sites. The rankings system assigns a point value for each of these finishes and totals them to create the TPOY leaderboard.
Similar to the “Top DFAC Expert Rankings,” the TPOY Leaderboard is also integrated here on FantasyPros. But whereas expert rankings will continue to change over time, the 2014 TPOY is coming to a finish this week – and it’s a close race. More on that in a moment. In the meantime, you might be wondering…
What’s the goal of the TPOY?
The TPOY will recognize the most successful daily fantasy tournament player in 2014. As the DFS industry experiences record growth, it’s important to validate the expert skill required to consistently win at such a high level.
The TPOY scoring system, clarified
While the rankings system sounds pretty straightforward, there are a few criteria that a contest needs to have in order to be eligible to be counted towards the TPOY standings. These include:
— The prize pool for the contest must equal at least $10,000
— The player must finish in the top 20% of the field
— The contest must have taken place in the 2014 calendar year
— If a player has multiple entries in a tournament, only their best finish is counted
Players are then awarded points using a formula based on their finish in the tournament and the prize pool to determine the overall TPOY rankings. For more detailed information, and a full breakdown of the TPOY points formula, be sure to check out the TPOY FAQ here.
What are TPOY participants playing for?
In addition to eternal fantasy glory, the winner of the Tournament Player of the Year will receive a custom-made trophy commemorating their accomplishment, along with a free first-class plane ride and hotel suite for the legendary RotoGrinders NFL Kickoff party in Las Vegas in 2015. Not a bad deal!
The race to the finish
With 2014 coming to a close, we’re beginning to see how the standings are going to shake out. With that said, even though the DraftKings King of the Beach Finals and other big tournaments are in the books, there are still plenty of chances to jump up in the rankings.
The Frontrunners
With all of this in mind, let’s take a look at some of the players who are in the running to take down the 2014 RotoGrinders Tournament Player of the Year.
Jonathan “McJester” Zellers
It’s always best to start at the top, and McJester is certainly no exception. The degree to which McJester has dominated GPPs (Guaranteed Prize Pool tournaments) this year has been nothing short of amazing. McJester started to make a name for himself early in the year when he went on what could easily be described as one of the craziest heaters of all time.
In the second half of the 2013-2014 NBA season, McJester won a $25 NBA GPP an astonishing seven times, along with a number of other top five finishes. In addition to winning it multiple times, McJester’s unique GPP lineup building strategy caused him to claim three or more places in the top 10 on more than one occasion.
All of that aside, it takes much more than seven results to win an award as prestigious as the Tournament Player of the Year. In addition to his NBA Slam success, McJester was also the winner of the StarStreet (RIP) NBA Finals. In fact, he finished first, second, and third in this tournament…Incredible! He also finished in second, seventh, and eleventh place in the DraftKings $1,000,000 Bank Shot, giving him 2,403.46 TPOY points, and huge scores on three of the major sites.
Of course, even though McJester claimed multiple top scores in a few of these tournaments, only his best finish in each event counts towards his TPOY ranking.
Peter “csuram88” Jennings
I think we can all agree “it’s fair” to say that csuram is one of, if not the best DFS player in the world right now. Not long ago, Peter took down 1st place in the DraftKings King of the Beach MLB Finals in Atlantis, which was worth a whopping 8,149.08 TPOY points. Oh yeah, he won a million dollars in that tournament too, but who cares about that when the RG Tournament Player of the Year is on the line!
Peter has been a dominant force on DraftKings all year long across every major sport, including a big score on Week 8 of this NFL season when he took down the $50 GPP. In addition, Peter had three entries in the King of the Beach finals for the NFL event, and while he didn’t turn any of those into another huge score, just qualifying for three seats to such an exclusive gathering is incredibly impressive.
DraftKings isn’t the only place that Peter has had success, as he has had several top finishes in the $200 and $1,065 buy-in MLB tournaments.Peter’s results from the NFL King of the Beach, while not a top finish, should provide a nice boost in points to close the gap with McJester.
Justin “stlcardinals84” Van Zuiden
Justin began his run for the TPOY title early in the year with a stretch of wins at the start of the MLB season that could be described as nothing short of epic. In the month of April it seemed like every single night Justin was either winning, or very close to winning, the $200 entry nightly MLB GPP. Those wins kept him at the top of the TPOY leaderboard all by his lonesome for quite some time. On top of that, he also qualified for a multi-million dollar championship event at the end of the 2014 baseball season, which is quite an accomplishment by itself.
While baseball was certainly his best sport this year, Justin has also become quite well known for his consistent success on DraftKings CFB, as well as the occasional big NBA score. If there is a sport that has daily fantasy, you can bet your bottom dollar that stlcardinals84 will find an edge in it. Currently, Justin sits in third place, and is well within striking distance of the TPOY’s top honors. A win in in any of the big NFL or NBA GPPs coming up could easily put him over the top.
Drew “dinkpiece” Dinkmeyer
While it would take what would likely be one of the most dominating streaks of all time for him to take the top spot, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the DFS force that is Drew Dinkmeyer. For those of you who might have missed it, Drew won the DraftKings $3m Millionaire Maker tournament recently, beating out over 109,000 people to become an instant daily fantasy football millionaire. That win awarded him 7,620.37 TPOY points, which was enough to skyrocket him from out of contention, right into the top 10.
As things currently stand, Drew is about 9,000 TPOY points behind the first place McJester, but with more NFL tournaments and the ever-increasing NBA action, anything is possible!
It’s hard to say which sport is Drew’s “best” since he has success in all the major DFS sports. Between the Millionaire Maker win, the DraftKings MLB King of the Beach final, and multiple excellent NBA tournament finishes, dinkpiece has at least one major GPP win in each of the major sports.
Drew is a contender to win every GPP every night, so don’t count him out just yet!
The Race to the Finish
There is no doubt that every player in the Top 10 of the TPOY leaderboard at the moment has had a very impressive 2014 in the world of daily fantasy sports. But with that said, the final standings are far from decided. A first place finish in any of the massive NFL or NBA tournaments coming up could be worth 7,000 or more TPOY points, which could cause quite a stir in the standings.
There is another million dollar first place prize still to be won, and any player can easily have a huge week by winning more than one of the big GPPs. There are quite a few other players other than the few mentioned above that have a very legitimate shot at taking down the TPOY title with a outstanding score or two.
When it’s all said and done, there can only be one RotoGrinders Tournament Player of the Year, but one thing is for certain: whoever takes it down will have certainly have earned the honor of receiving the most sought after award in DFS.