Swerving Around Dogs And Busses
He thought it was hilarious. In fact, he laughed in my face.
As if I was the only person on Earth who had never ridden a “motorbyke” before…
To be entirely honest, I never intended to ride one at all during these six weeks my wife and I are spending in Thailand. They had made it sound like the place where we are staying was in walking distance to the beach and to restaurants and to food markets. They had made it seem as though it would be simple for us to get around without using one of those terrifying scooters everyone zooms around the country on.
They lied.
And so, the guy we are renting our place from told me we should rent a motorbike – he told me it was really the only option for doing the things we wanted to do. He said he would go pick one up himself and bring it to me. He did just that – then, he asked me if I had ever ridden one before. I told him no.
That was when he laughed.
“You’re gonna ride around on this and you’ve never rode one before?”
Oh, yes. So funny. Absolutely hilarious.
He showed me how to operate the darn thing, then I practiced on our street for a bit (more laughter ensued). After I got comfortable enough riding that motorbike myself, my wife climbed onto the back of it and we practiced some more. Down the street, up the street. Down the street, up the street. Down the street, then – “What do you think, you ready?”
“Right now?” my wife asked.
“Why not!”
“All right. Let’s do it!”
We kept right on going – right out into the street.
It felt like we had gone forever when we finally stopped to grab some lunch and (more importantly!) to sit for a bit and unwind. It felt like we had really conquered that motorbike – like we had really accomplished something special!
Now that I am comfortable on that scooter (um…“more comfortable,” I should say), I realize we hardly went anywhere that first trip. Now that we have navigated busy roads and swerved around dogs and busses and pedestrians and cars backing up right into the middle of the freaking road, I realize that first trip tested us on nothing more than a couple back roads and a pair of easy intersections. Now that we’ve gone a few kilometers to the beach and have hit up a few different restaurants and have done several loads of grocery shopping (it’s not easy when you have to transport all your groceries back home on a motorbike!), I realize we really didn’t do much at all that very first trip onto the road.
And yet: in a way, we did everything that first trip. Without that first trip out onto the road, after all – without being in the middle of what was supposed to be yet another practice run up and down our street, and deciding to simply ask, “You ready?” – we would not have reached the point we have reached now, where we feel comfortable on the motorbike and can use it to take us anywhere we want to go.
That might not sound like a big deal to you. Maybe you’re a risk-taker, and maybe “zooming around busy Thai roads on a scooter, with your wife’s life dependent on your ability to handle said scooter” sounds like no big deal. But as a cautious individual myself (I kid you not – my sisters and my wife frequently refer to me as “Cautious Carl“…I guess because alliteration is fun, and “Cautious Jordan” doesn’t sound as snazzy), taking that risk and zooming right out onto the road felt like a big deal to me.
If it doesn’t sound like a big deal to you? Well, think of something else that does sound like a big deal; think of a story you can relate to that story of mine. Then listen to what I’m about to say:
A lot of times, one of the best things we can do in daily fantasy sports is simply “try new things.” Not pause and ponder. Not think about the risk. But just, simply, try it – just, simply, be willing to take some risks, and be willing to do something we haven’t done before.
Over the last two and a half weeks, I have had one of the best runs of my DFS career. I haven’t had any huge tournament cashes, because I’ve hardly been playing tournaments at all, but throughout this stretch, it has been a huge upset for me, in my mind, if I fail to cash in cash games.
Incidentally, this positive run pretty much coincided with my resolution to start treating each and every DFS slate I played like the single most important slate of my entire life (you remember that article, right?). Obviously – as I mentioned in that article itself – part of my poor results on days when I was less focused than I should have been could surely be explained by “variance.” And part of my consistently positive results during this solid stretch can surely be explained by “variance” as well. But with that said, you would never be able to convince me that my overall poor results on “days when I really had no time to prep for a slate but played anyway” this year were all due to variance, and you would never be able to convince me that my overall positive performance throughout the year on days when I have been fully and entirely focused has been due simply to “variance,” either. That’s just a side note, but it’s in place as a reminder: treat each DFS slate like the most important slate you will ever play, and I can just about guarantee that you will see improved results (yes, even if you are a winning player already: you will see improved results!).
Another item that the start of this positive run coincided with, however (an item more pertinent to this particular article), was a week or so during which I entered, tracked, and examined every single “practice team” I had built throughout the day.
If you have read (and paid attention to) enough of my DFS writing, you know that I typically build anywhere from 15 to 20 to 40 (or more!) teams for any given slate. A lot of these teams are simply thrown together with no conscious thought put into them at all (beyond, of course, what my research for that slate leads me to gravitate toward). Basically, in building a bunch of teams, I have an easier time getting a feel for the players I really like, and for the players I really do not care for all that much. By the time I put together the team I will be using in cash games or in tourneys on any given day, I have narrowed down the larger sample of players I was toying with on my “practice teams” to the specific guys I want to use.
Usually, these “practice teams” disappear, and I never really think about them again.
For about a week, however, I decided to enter all these “practice teams” into the Quarter Arcade on DraftKings. Some days, this was 15 teams. Some days, this was 20 teams. Some days, this was 40 teams. And as each night progressed, I studied these other teams to see how they were doing; I asked myself why I had moved off of certain players, and why I had stuck with other guys I had stuck with; I asked where I could take the knowledge gained from these “practice teams” and use it to improve my approach.
What did I find?
Frankly, I found that there were a few new things I could try in my overall team-building approach. I found there were certain areas where I had gotten stuck in my thinking – areas where I could improve.
For example: If you have read my RotoAcademy course on Predicting Pitching, you know that I am never averse to paying down at one pitcher spot on DraftKings – even in cash games. I generally feel confident enough in my ability to diagnose and predict pitching, I’m fine taking the lower-priced guy some may view as “high risk,” as I feel strongly that I can typically diagnose the low-priced guy who can come close to matching what the high-priced guys are doing that day, and who can therefore enable me to grab a stud pitcher while still being able to pay up for the hitters I really like.
What I found in examining these “practice teams,” however, was that I had gotten locked into the idea that I absolutely had to pay up for at least one pitcher on DraftKings. In other words: even if I found a pair of low- or mid-priced guys I felt good about, I would only choose one to roll with, and would use a high-end guy in my other pitcher slot. It felt “too risky,” when it came down to it, to lean on a pair of lower-priced pitchers; after all, “pitching” is the most predictable element of daily fantasy baseball, so this is where you should be paying up…right?
But when I realized that I had fallen into this way of thinking, I started to work to correct it.
On Friday – with Clayton Kershaw (and about eight other aces) on the mound – I stuck with a pair of mid-priced guys (Trevor Bauer and Raisel Iglesias) whom I felt had the ability to match what the high-end guys would do that day. These two pitchers combined for over 55 points, and they enabled me to pay up for the high-upside hitters I felt great about using that day.
Conversely, on Saturday, I really didn’t like Corey Kluber all that much. But I was already paying down for J.A. Happ, and I did not feel that I could also justify taking the relative discount on Jordan Zimmermann when Corey Kluber was just a couple thousand more. Even though I did not feel things lined up for Kluber to have a great day (or…I should say, even though I felt things lined up for Zimmermann to be able to match what Kluber could do, for notably less in salary), I slipped back into my thinking that said I “had to pay up for at least one top arm if I had the ability to do so.” Zimmermann ended up slightly outscoring Kluber, for significantly less in salary.
Now, obviously, these are just two examples – and the idea of “paying down for both your pitchers” is not even what this article is about. Instead, these are simply illustrations – examples that show what happened when I was willing to “try new things,” and what happened when I was “too afraid to try new things.” In this instance, one of the “new things” I realized I should be trying is paying down at both pitcher spots if I feel comfortable that I have properly diagnosed a pair of guys who can match the “top arms”; one example showed me actually trying this new thing, and the other example showed me refusing to try this new thing.
And sure, I could have “tried this new thing” and been wrong. Heck, I could have “tried this new thing” several different days and realized it was not something that works for me, and is not something I should have been trying in the first place. By “trying this new thing,” however, I still would have improved my knowledge and understanding of daily fantasy sports, and I still would have continued growing in my ability to increase what I always aim be able to say is my “ever-growing win rate.”
Maybe I just wrote on this topic because I wanted to talk about riding around Thailand on a motorbike. But maybe, instead, I wrote about this topic because “being willing to try new things” in my DFS approach has helped me over the last couple years to become the DFS player I am today – and “being willing to try new things” in my DFS approach has helped me over the last couple weeks to make even further improvements to that “DFS player I am today.”
Are there any areas where you are stuck in a rut in your thinking?
Are there any approaches you maybe could improve, or techniques you might be able to refine?
Are there any places in your DFS game where you could try new things?
Maybe it’s time you ask yourself this question. Maybe it’s time you commit to continually evaluating your DFS game, and to continually looking for new things you can try in order to improve.
“What do you think, you ready?”
“Right now?”
“Why not!”
“All right,” you say. “Let’s do it!”