RotoTalk: Above Average - A 50/50 Story
Everyone wants to be the best. We pour our hearts and souls into daily research and roster development with they aim of taking down the top prize. Winning is sexy and the payoffs are juicy at the top. Winning takes near perfection to accomplish at times. Today, we’ll discuss how to carve out a profitable corner of the daily fantasy world by merely being above average. No one is going to brag about a run of above-median performance, but the money hits the paypal account without regard for how flashy the earning process was.
50/50 For Beginners
The concept of a 50/50 game is pretty simple – the top half of the pool gets paid by the bottom half. It’s clean, simple and refreshingly devoid of the 1%/99% nonsense. It’s very much a working man’s game. What’s it take to win? Well, that kind of depends on the size of the 50/50 contest.
Contrary to what we discussed in the first installment of this column, smaller 50/50 pools generally require slighty more risky player selections. You see, in a pool where 4 of 8 players get paid, you’ll need to separate yourself from your competition to get into that top half. On Daily Joust, let’s use the solo game target of 60 points as the threshold you must eclipse to cash in a small 50/50. If you build a “safe” team that you can comfortably project to get to 60 points, you’ll likely be right on the cut line and at the mercy of what the top scores in the pool are. One or two monster scores in a small 50/50 can quickly derail the chances to cash of a team designed to end up in the middle. Two big scores at the top quickly turn the bottom 6 into a 1/3-2/3 contest. So, you need a bit more upside in your lineup to compensate for this situation.
Shifting toward a larger pool, the impact of the top scores is minimized. Two big scores in a 32-man 50/50 still leaves 14 spots to be paid out of the remaining 34 contestants, which isn’t significantly worse than the 50/50 setup you entered in the first place. That is to say, the “middle” is much larger and provides much more margin for error in a larger 50/50 contest.
Reality Check
We opened by discussing that in order to be profitable in the 50/50 world we need to merely be above average. That sounds easy, but it requires being consistently good. That is, you can’t suck and expect the 50/50 games to be your saving grace. No sir. It’s certainly easier to be profitable playing 50/50 games than it is to succeed in GPPs, but this isn’t free money.
50/50 To The Power of 5
Now that we are comfortable with the 50/50 concept and have realistic expectations, let’s kick it up a notch. Daily Joust offers a fantastic little game they like to call the King Richard’s 50/50 Survivor Tournament. The game works a bit like this: Day 1 starts as a 32-man 50/50. Each day, the top half advance to the next day with prizes paid out for each round. After 5 days, a champion is crowned with the winner raking in $225 in cash prizes along the way and a seat in the $15k Super Joust 3 come September. It’s quite nice if you can emerge victorious.
The great part about this game format is that it requires daily adjustments to strategy. Each day, the 50/50 pool gets cut in half leading to different roster selection criteria each day. On days 3 and 4, when the pool is 8 and 4 players, respectively, you’re going to have to swing for the fences a little more than you did on days 1 and 2 with 32 and 16 players. It’s the added elements of strategy in a multi-day tournament of this nature really turn it into a game for the sharps. If you can consistently put together above average lineups, 50/50 games are a great way to make some dough. If you can apply the proper logic when creating a roster in a pool that shrinks from day-to-day, the DJ King Richard is pretty much a must play.
And now, a lineup…
DJ runs a new King Richard every other day or so. Today, we get a fresh 32-man pool to attack. I think I’ll use a lineup something like this one in some early games to warm up for the 7:05 start time of the King Richard. It provides the right mix of solid plays and upside to hopefully get to the top half…which really is all I need to do.
| Pos | Player | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| SP | Jonathan Niese | 175k | I’m going for broke right away. The Pirates have been whiffing at an impressive rate and Niese is cheap after getting routed in Toronto. |
| 1B | Freddie Freeman | 88k | Just 1 homer from his last 10 games. He should fix that against Arroyo in the bandbox. |
| 2B | Robinson Cano | 99k | Warming up. Homered last night. |
| 3B | Hanley Ramirez | 95k | The Fish are heating up. Hanley’s riding a 6-game hit streak. |
| SS | Jose Reyes | 83k | 5 hits over his last 3 games. Easy play. |
| OF | Josh Hamilton | 135k | 3-7 against Millwood…and he’s Josh Hamilton |
| OF | Ryan Braun | 131k | 5-13 lifetime against Zito…and he’s absolutely murdering the ball. |
| OF | Matt Holliday | 105k | 8-14 with 3 HRs against Suppan. |
| C | Buster Posey | 84k | Homers in back-to-back games and Marco Estrada tends to serve up the gopher ball. |
If you’re new to Daily Fantasy, you could try a lineup similar to this out in the new $1 contest, the Page Thomas Daily MLB Tournament. It’s low-cost to join, and the winner also gets a seat in the “All Star Joust” where you will have a shot to win 2 tickets to the MLB All Star Game and $1,500 cash. Click any of the Joust links to join!. There’s also a 40% Deposit Bonus on your first deposit.