Transcript

Andy:
All right. Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us for another weekly strategy session. This time Jordan and I are joined by Danny and Max Steinberg to dig into a topical subject, which is the small slates for NBA. Specifically, the playoff slates right now. There’s definitely some unique considerations to have for these contests. Frankly, I was kind of surprised to see how big they’ve been. I think there’s a lot of good opportunity out there at the high buy-ins, but even at the smaller stakes. There’s still some really good contests with good payout structures and I would definitely give these some thought. What we’re going to do is just be pretty quick on some high level thoughts that we have around how to approach these contests. Then, for the most part, we’re just going to go into your questions. One of the big things I know Jordan has talked a lot about in our office hours sessions is, we’re doing this live for a reason.

Andy:
We really want to get some dialogue going. If we give an answer that doesn’t make much sense or it begs another question, ask those questions. Let us know. We’ll be keeping an eye on Slack and in YouTube, so that we can see everything that’s going on and get a good idea of where we need to expand. We’ll do best as we can to get to everything. To do that within the hour, let’s just jump right into things.

Andy:
I’ll actually kick it over to you, Max. I know you have some thoughts on how to philosophically approach these slates or at least what not to do. Can you talk a little bit about how you think about these kind of slates? First, I guess, just to clarify, what we’re talking about is really the three, two, and one game slates. I guess the four game slates, if there’s some thought about that, as well. The pool is a bit bigger on that, so it’s a bit different. For these smaller slates, how are you thinking about them, Max?

Max:
Yeah. I would say that my general philosophy in these small slates, that’s a little different than a bigger slate. You really want to make sure that you’re taking a stand in some way. You need to do something more than just projecting every one as correctly as possible and just building lineups. The issue is, you’re going to get probably pretty similar lineups to the field. As a lot of you may or may not know, having a duplicated lineup can be really, really bad in these tournaments, because you end up splitting the top prize with a lot of people. It makes you not have that much upside to make money. There’s a few ways to go about that I’ll just say off the top of my head. One, you can do that with a pure salary lineup construction approach, where you’re leaving salary off the table. Making it so you have a lineup, because it’s leaving $1,000 or even $2,000 at the salary table, then it’s going to be unique.

Max:
You can take a stand on a player that might be a diamond in the rough. A lot of times, during these slates, I’ll hunt for projections for some of these low minute guys that are the cusp of being value plays. Then, go to a site like Popcorn Machine and do some research. Say, okay, is there some way that some of these low minute guys who are high output players could get more minutes? If they get more minutes, that means they actually could be the play of the slate that’s going to win you a tournament.

Max:
Then, the last thing is choosing someone to fade. A lot of the slates will have players that get really, really high ownership, like 50%, 60%, 70%. There’re some situations, especially if they’re value plays, where they’re going to really fail and just screw someone up. If they do that, then that’s a huge advantage for you. I’d say the same thing in a show down slate with the captain’s spot, right? Let’s say, tonight I have [inaudible 00:04:04] captain as LeBron. I don’t know that’s going to be the case, but if Anthony Davis gets ruled out, that might be the case. If we think, well, Lebron has been injured and he could have a really bad game, that could be a huge advantage, too. He’s going to be a popular captain and you can end up getting a huge advantage by just completely fading someone like him, throwing someone else in and having those games where LeBron they get thrown out and LeBron’s just like, “Screw this.” I think those are the basic locks that I’ve gone for when looking at these slates.

Andy:
Before we jump into questions, I’m curious if you would mind walking through a bit of your process around finding some of those low minute, high upside plays, where you could take an aggressive stand on? I think that’s where it’s not going to be as intuitive for people.

Max:
Sure. Do you want me to [crosstalk 00:05:01]?

Andy:
Yeah, if you don’t mind. I think for the others, it’s leaving a lot of salary on the table, the smaller the slate, the more you want to leave. It’s a blunt weapon, but it works to eliminate the likelihood of dupes. Fading high on plays. It’s not completely straightforward, but I feel like this last one you mentioned is where there’s a bit more nuance.

Max:
Right.

Andy:
If you just want to share your screen, I can toss it up here.

Max:
Okay. Let’s see.

Andy:
All right.

Max:
Is it working?

Andy:
Yep.

Max:
Okay. Let’s just start. We have the main thing that maybe some of you are not aware of, where you can actually look at the components of what makes players projections. We project, literally, everything. That’s what goes into these fantasy player projections. Something that I like to do is just look at some of these lower projected plays and see who has a high projection compared to their minutes. People who are standing out here are Paul Milsap is someone, Marcus Howard. Maybe someone like Marcus Hall. Those are just three that really quickly stand out. Maybe Monty Morris, as well. You look at them and you say, these are a couple players that could be very good value plays, if their minutes go up. I then just go to Popcorn Machine. Someone like Paul Milsap really stands out to me, right? He has a 16 fantasy point projection and only 15 minutes. He’s a really high output player. For some reason, there’s some signal to me that Paul Milsap could play more minutes; that he could be a really interesting player.

Max:
I think, actually, what’s interesting … just thinking about this is, Denver and Portland did play a double overtime game. While Portland is … this is an elimination game for them. For Denver, it’s not. It is interesting to say is maybe they will ride some of these guys who didn’t play 43 minutes two games ago. I think someone like Milsap could be a really interesting play. Right now, we’re just projecting him at the minutes that he’s getting recently. It’s 12, 14. He doesn’t play a lot, but because it’s a special situation … I’m sorry about this. In playoffs, especially, you can get these situations where given the momentum of the playoffs, if a team has lost a couple games and they make a change up, like Dallas with Boban Marjanovic, they started. You’ll see these changes happening as the dynamics of the seven game series goes on. I think that’s a really interesting one. Just basically by looking at that and looking at Popcorn Machine, you can uncover these plays.

Andy:
Let me know if I’m off base here, but the way I’m wrapping my head around is that it’s not as though you couldn’t find low minute, high side plays on larger slates or find other areas like this to take a stand. It’s just that you don’t really need to. There are enough opportunities on a bigger slate where you can find edge without complicating things or without really digging deep. As the player pool goes down, you have to find something to get that edge to overcome the [inaudible 00:08:41].

Max:
It’s just way more important, right?

Andy:
Yeah.

Max:
I’m not touting here, I’m just saying. I haven’t even looked at the slate, so I just literally was thinking about this as we were going through it. If you’re going to uncover a play where some guy is predicted 16 points and he really should be 17 points because of the dynamics that are going to be really hard to take into account when you’re using a model based on the circle data. If you can change him to 17th, that could raise his ownership from 20% to 80%. It’s a really important thing. On a bigger slate, raising someone’s projection a point could be completely irrelevant. You might not even be considered anyway. In this, every player can be such a pivot point, because a point or two in projection can lead to quite a bit more ownership for your lineups.

Andy:
Danny, I know you do a lot with messing around with the salary cap. Just broadly speaking, how are you looking at that? How aggressive do you get by lowering the maximum? What are the rules of thumb that you would apply there?

Danny:
Yeah. As Max was saying earlier, I think having a lineup that’s going to be unique or having as few dupes as possible in these top heavy tournaments is really important for your expected value. With something like baseball and football, I tend to be more aggressive with lowering the max salary, because there’s so many ways that players can fail, whether they have a bad game or they get injured. Football injuries happen all the time. There’s a lot more variance in those sports. With basketball, there’s not a lot of variance or it’s the least variant sports. People don’t get injured as much and people don’t have absolutely horrible games as much, unless there’s foul trouble or something. There’s more of a balance there. I think with something like small slate basketball or showdown, I may leave $500, $600 on the table to give myself a higher chance to having a more unique lineup. I don’t want to do it so much that I have a lineup where it’s too much of a trade off and a lineup is projected too badly to really have a good shot at winning.

Danny:
You want to find that sweet spot where you have a lineup that you think has a high chance of being unique or little duped and also you think could easily have a chance of winning the whole slate.

Andy:
For sure.

Jordan:
With you guys talking about how the edge can be a little bit harder to find in some of these show downs and smaller slates, is this something where you would recommend or you typically find yourself adjusting your contest selection strategy or bankroll management strategy in terms of how much you guys go at these slates?

Danny:
For sure.

Max:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Danny:
I think one of the cool parts about these small slates is if you feel really strongly about one player, that can be a big source of edge. Often, you’re not going to have one player that you think is massively under or over projected in a really small slate. I think when that’s the case, play the contest under $3. Limit the amount of entries you’re doing and the amount of lineups you’re doing, because there’s only going to be so many profitable lineups you can make for a two game slate or a showdown slate.

Max:
I think that’s such a great point. It depends on what you’re thinking. If you go through the slate, don’t even enter contests until you’ve taken a look at the slate. If you see something and you go, “Oh my god, I think this is just amazing. I found an amazing play.” Okay. Well, then enter more contests, take more risks. If you look at the slate and you go, I don’t have any thoughts beyond what I’m seeing [inaudible 00:12:52]. It seems like everything rigged, everyone seems on the paly that I’m like. Everyone on Twitter is talking about it. Just don’t enter very many contests, because you know that your edge is not going to be as high. Right?

Danny:
Right. I think for basketball … an example if someone’s played horribly and gotten in foul trouble every game for the past five games and you see that he’s permanently under-projected, that’s the situation where maybe there’s edge or maybe there’s some other motivation angle. Some angle that where they coach has said this guy’s going to get really involved or I’m going to play him a lot and the projections haven’t picked up on that. That can be a source of edge, too. There’re definitely times where you can find a player who can be really misvalued.

Andy:
Getting a little specific, is there ever a time where you would be maxing out a showdown? Obviously, if the pricing just seems horrible across the board, sure. In most situations, for NBA, would you ever consider maxing out a showdown?

Danny:
If I had a super good angle, a super high-

Andy:
No, no, if it was … I feel like those angles, the price is relatively good. In the playoffs, there’s not a ton of surprises. I just feel like the edge is going to be smaller. From a standard slate, unless something exceptional comes out, would you be maxing it out or would you just be-

Danny:
No, not at all. If there’s a ton of overlay, that’s a time where maybe you max it out. If there’s not overlay, then, no. Chances are you’re not going to be able to make 150 profitable lineups for a showdown basketball contest. It’s probably going to be more like 20 or something like that.

Andy:
Yeah. Do you agree with that, Max?

Max:
Yeah, I agree with that. The only exception is in the NFL. I think that when the sport is more high variance, you’re going to find better edges. Basketball is not that high variant. I would say every other slate I look at and I go, I don’t really know what direction … what kind of stand I would take here. It just all depends, but yeah.

Andy:
I think that’s an important point to hammer home. If you’re just looking for a gamble, you just want to put some money in and have some break even-ish EEV, that’s fine. You just want to sweat, play the showdowns; just don’t go crazy with it. If you are really playing this to get a consistent edge, you have to go in with the idea that not every slate is going to be profitable for showdown basketball. I think as more games get added to slates, when you get to two and three, you can usually find some edge. All those times, don’t just go in and max everything out. Don’t just go in and assume that you’re going to be able to put in the same number of lineups. Take some thought to that. Yeah, go for it Jordan.

Jordan:
Yeah, I’ll just jump in there, too. We’ve talked a little bit in office hours, too. If losing every lineup you enter that night is going to make you feel bad at the end of the night, then NBA showdowns are not the contests for you. Right?

Max:
Yeah.

Jordan:
When you’re finding those edges and pushing an edge on maybe a low-owned minutes, upside guy, if he doesn’t get into the game, you’re going to lose. It doesn’t meant that those lineups were built or constructed in a poor way for that contest.

Jordan:
On the contest selection thing, too, one thing I’ll add is play some of those single entry contests. Play some of those three maxes that are at your appropriate dollar range. Under $3 is even better. The small edges you might find in some of the big multi-entry contests are going to be exaggerated in the single entry. Maybe taking a stand on the higher projected on play of the night is going to go a lot further in a contest where everybody only has one lineup to play with.

Andy:
On that note, we’ve definitely gotten a good amount of questions about single entry contests. This is something that I know you’ve covered in office hours. I think we’ve had a few videos on it, as well. There’s going to be some nuance to single entries, but I frankly think the average player overcomplicated and thinks they’re building entirely different lineups for these single entry contests, versus a 20 max, versus a 150 max. Sure, if you were to look at a winner take all satellite versus a flat single entry, the lineups are definitely going to be a bit different. For small slate NBA, I don’t think the lineups are going to be dramatically different, no matter the size of the contests, just because there aren’t that many combinations you can make. There’s not a lot you can do there. I was curious if you guys had any thoughts on the single entry aspect? Are there any things that you think need to be noticeably different for that, versus a standard, higher cap contest?

Danny:
I don’t think so. I think it’s mostly the same. There’s very small nuances, like the field’s going to be a little bit softer, the ownership’s probably aren’t going to be as concentrated. It’s mostly the same. I think it’s not important to think about those nuances.

Max:
I would just say, the only thing that I keep in mind is to not do anything. Just still treat it like it’s GPP, because I feel like some people, they get in single entry and they just get risk averse, for some reason, which is the opposite of what you should do.

Andy:
They’re putting their cash line up.

Max:
Right. They’re just not smart.

Jordan:
No. Yeah. That’s reflected in the default sliders, too. You’ll see very subtle differences between the single entry slider settings and the 20 max and the 150. A good basis there to work from.

Andy:
Yeah. We did get some questions about just adjusting the sliders or trusting the defaults. Frankly, I think this is something where if you aren’t as familiar with our product, we have settings that incorporate correlation, ownership, and a smart diversity into your lineups. We adjust those defaults for you based on the size of the slate and the contest that you tell us you’re playing. It’s almost one of those things where if you’re asking if you should adjust it, the answer’s probably no. There is more nuance to that. I would almost never start by trying to mess with the sliders. I know Max, especially, you do make some tweaks here or there. On these smaller slates, are you making any adjustments to the sliders? If so, can you just elaborate on what might cause that?

Max:
On the smaller slates. The slider that I’m always most likely to make adjustments to is the ownership slider. That’s mostly because it depends on what I’m doing. If I’m taking a stand on someone, then I’m not worried about getting as much ownership fade, because I already feel like I’m getting the ownership fade that I need. If I’m going to do that and then I might just lower the ownership fade a little.

Andy:
Just by excluding a highly owned player, that’s-

Max:
Right. Exactly. It’s sort of doing it doubly, when I don’t want to do that. If I have no angle at all, I might just raise it more, because I want to fade somehow so let’s see what this [inaudible 00:20:36] algorithm is going to do. I think also, these small slates, I love once market [inaudible 00:20:43] is very high, especially towards the top. A three game, because A, it’s going to get me diversity and, B, it’s going to get me those lineups where in very specific game outcomes, if we’re basing these lineups on one simulation or a few, that they’re optimized for specific outcomes. I think raising that slider, I’m pretty sure if I’m looking at the defaults, it’s one from the top. I know already it looks like the default is literally at the top. I’m definitely very happy about that, because that’s something that I want to do.

Andy:
On a similar note, someone had asked, should I take more aggressive stands with locks and full phase of players on smaller slates or try to spread out and get exposure to everyone? We pretty much already address that, but say there is that play you’re taking a stand on. Maybe you don’t literally lock them in, but they’re in 80% of your lineups or something like that and the field has them 20% of the time. Are you thinking about diversifying the rest of it … the lineup around that or it’s not a big factor in your decision, other than that stand?

Max:
I am not that risk averse. I think it just depends how risk averse you are. It’s not like I’m going crazy on these slates. Especially on a showdown slate, I’m not risking a very large portion of my bankroll. It’s a very small portion of my bankroll on something where it’s like, if I lose, I don’t care. It doesn’t really matter. You’re applying these showdown slates and, for example, you zero … you do not catch an [inaudible 00:22:28] and that’s upsetting. I’d play less, because it’s something you’re going to risk. For some people, it’s fine. It would really be heartbreaking if I went 80% on this player with that one lineup that did really well. I think it can make sense to focus on diversifying. We’re also going to do that a little bit for you, because of smart diversity being so high. I don’t really worry about it.

Andy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). That makes sense. We talked last week a bit about Vegas and sports betting, in general, but also how that can apply to DFS. Jordan, do you want to share the question that came in around that?

Jordan:
Yeah. Yeah. We had talked last week about some of the signals we can get from Vegas and using some of the trends of the way lines are moving throughout the day to influence some of the projections. We had a question come in earlier this week about when applying that to NBA, are you more or less likely to adjust projections based on Vegas trends when you’re looking at just a single game or a very small NBA slate, compared to something like a more traditional 12 game regular season slate.

Danny:
Sure. Yeah. I think it’s maybe easier to take the line movements into consideration on a smaller slate, because you don’t have to research as many teams. In general, with line movement, you just want to follow the steam. Basically, most of the betting that’s going on these games are smart people betting. When they move the line, it’s because a smart person has bet the other side. As far as taking Vegas up into consideration, you want to look at whether the line is moving towards the over or the under or whether it’s moving towards the team. Basketball’s really straightforward. If a team is scoring more points, does better offensively, and is doing better defensively, they’re going to get more fantasy points. If the steam is heading on or towards the direction of one team, let’s say … theoretically I don’t know what the line movement is. Maybe I can just look at it really fast.

Danny:
If you saw the line movement moving towards the Lakers tonight, strongly … like it moved a few points, let’s say. I would want to probably raise some Lakers players and maybe lower some Phoenix players. If it’s moving towards the over, you can raise people in both games. If it’s moving towards the under, slow paced, that’s worse for fantasy points. There’s less opportunities, so maybe you would lower people.

Andy:
It’s not necessarily a counterpoint, but I’m curious, when it comes to taking a stand, it seems like this could be a place to take a stand. I wouldn’t do it blindly, because I think you are right that most of the time you’re going to follow the steam. That’s the smart money. I guess, how would you think about that, Max, if you have any thoughts, too, when it makes sense to take a stand. Taking a stand, in general, that’s what’s valuable on these smaller slates. Are there spots where you might go against Vegas, not purely to be unique, but how would you look at that?

Max:
I get what you’re saying. I would say, specifically in playoff basketball, I think there can be motivation stuff that might change the lines. That’s going to be hard for us to take into account. I think more than ever, you can trust the line movement, but I get what you’re saying. I know there’s a lot of times during the regular season where there’ll be Brooklyn versus some other high powered offense. It’ll be like Wizards, Nets or something and the over/under will be like 245 and it’ll move to 250. In that case, a lot of times, everyone is aware of this. They’re like, this is going to be a high scoring game. People are betting that it’s going to be a high scoring game. That’s a place where you might be able to take advantage and say, I’m not going to value these players as highly, because I think their ownership’s going to be up. I feel like it’s almost better when it’s subtle, there’s sort of a sweet spot. In general, if that happens, if it probably is going to actually be a high scoring game and so there’s a balance.

Max:
I get what you’re saying. If it’s a line movement and the line movement is in agreement with the public and the daily fantasy Twitter, then maybe that’s a sign where I’m not going to do anything here, because I actually feel like their players have a good over/under.

Andy:
Yeah. You touched on this a little bit in that example, but what are some of the differences between the regular season games and playoffs for NBA? Either of you.

Max:
I just think the difference is these series are different because their star players are playing 40-plus minutes. In the regular season, that’s more of a wild card. You don’t know what’s going to happen. There’s more regression to the mean or maybe teams are not taking it as seriously. In these playoff fights where we know LeBron James might, legitimately, in some situations, play the whole game. He’s done that in the past. I remember some finals where the Cavaliers kept being favored against the Warriors and it’s literally because they did not take LeBron out of the game. When you have a situation like that, there can just be differences that are hard to capture in the model, where it might be better to follow basically. It’s more sure.

Danny:
Yeah. I think, going off of what you’re saying, with playoffs, you do see people projected 40, 41, 42 minutes, maybe even 44 minutes. The distribution of outcomes is not going to be a normal distribution. If it’s a regulation game, a person can only get 48 minutes, maximum. These players who have really high minute projections, they’re not actually going to have as much upside as you would think. I believe SaberSim will be able to capture that through the simulations. If this guy has an upside minutes game, he may only get two or three more minutes than we’re projecting. There could be a guy at 25, 26 minutes where it’s possible they get 33, 34 minutes. There tends to be more upside with the lower minutes guys than with the super high minute projected guys.

Andy:
Right. Just to clarify a little on that, with normal distribution, basically, it’s a bell curve. It says an event that, say, someone is projected at a really high minute total, you’re saying that they have the same likelihood of getting 10 minutes above, as they have getting 10 minutes below that total, if it was a normal distribution. However, the floor for me is zero. There’s also a ceiling that is not that far off form some of the projections. That’s where you just have to be aware of what the potential actually could be.

Andy:
Danny, one thing I know you’ve been doing a decent amount of recently, or at least the last few weeks, is late swap. Can you talk a little bit about your late swap strategy, if it’s different than for the regular season? Obviously, with the schedules being a little different, you’re thinking about it slightly differently. What does that look like for you in playoff basketball? If the questionable players are in the last game of the night, how are you building your lineups or what do you think about for late swap?
Danny:

Yeah. As Max said earlier, if someone goes from projected at 13 fantasy points to 15, that may mean you want them in 50% of your lineups versus 0%. Any injury that happens or any starting lineup change can really make a different on what your optimal lineups are. Yeah, I think it’s really impactful. If someone’s starting that you didn’t expect to start, maybe see how SaberSim updates their projection. Maybe project them a little more. Definitely don’t be afraid to do late swap, because there could be a new play that’s really worth playing. That may not even get that much ownership, so it could be a good upside decision, too.

Andy:
Are you building that initial build differently, in the case of having a handful of questionable players in the late swap?

Danny:
Oh, yeah, for sure. If there’s someone questionable and if they’re out, someone’s going to be a really good play. If you’re too heavy on the first game, you may not have an opportunity to put this guy into your lineups or into a lot of lineups. Today with the Lakers is the perfect example. Caldwell-Pope and Davis are questionable. I would lower Denver and Portland players in this situation, because if there is an injury … if both Davis and Caldwell-Pope are out, there’s going to be a lot of really good plays on the Lakers that you’re going to want to play. It won’t be worth playing those borderline guys on Denver and Portland. If they’re both in, then whatever. You still are having good lineups, but you want to give yourself that opportunities to get some really good plays in your lineup, if both those players end up being out or questionable players end up being out.

Jordan:
Yeah. Just adding onto that real quick, too. In the case that those players are in, a lot of times what we’re seeing is that some of these players that go into lock with a questionable tag next to their name, get a little bit less ownership when their game eventually starts, even if they’re playing. Keep an eye on that. A lot of times, players, especially not as sharp players, say, “You know what, I don’t want to worry about late swap. I’m just X-ing this guy out. He’s not going in my lineups.” Then, he plays and that ownership is a little deflated by the time that game comes around.

Andy:
Right.

Max:
That’s a really good point.

Andy:
Yeah. That’s one of the things where late swap can give you a pretty big edge. Just by having coffin set, you can have those questionable players in there, because you know you’ll be able to manage as long as you see them on top of the news and get out from that.

Andy:
We’ve got a couple questions. Two questions we actually answered with the same thing. Matt, from SaberSim via Slack, asked for advice on managing stat correction tilt. He went from winning $100,000 to winning $15,000 on stat correction last night. Then, Clement Davis said if Giant Squid can give us his special recipe, we’ll all be happy. His special recipe is actually the answer to Matt’s question. That is whiskey. That is the answer to handling stat correction tilt. Going to the next one, this is a small slate specific question. Some people think a lot about game stacking. Stacking one game, hoping it goes off or intentionally trying to spread it out across all the games. How do you guys all approach that?

Danny:
Okay. With basketball, basically, there’s an event that causes positive correlation between players and that’s overtime or double overtime. There is definitely some merit to doing a game stack and banking on this game going to overtime and the other game not. Yeah. I don’t know if you want to make every lineup a game stack, but it definitely makes sense, theoretically, to do game stacks sometimes and hope that you get that outcome where there’s overtime. I’m not sure what the probability of overtime is.

Andy:
Right. That’s what I was curious of.

Danny:
I think it’s like 2% or something like that. It’s not that high.

Max:
I think it’s a little higher.

Danny:
I know. It’s interesting math to try to figure out.

Andy:
The outcome is going to vary based on the disparity of the team.

Max:
The spread.

Danny:
Yeah, and the spread, too. It’s an interesting angle, for sure. It makes sense, theoretically.

Max:
I don’t really think about it. I think last year there was a situation where, for some reason, I forget why, there was some reason last year where overtimes were getting bigger or something and were happening more. There was something to that, but I feel like the attention that people go using the game stacking, which we were already going to take into account for you. We’re actually simulating the ends. Just I wouldn’t put any more effort into, honestly.

Jordan:
That’s exactly what I was going to say. With smart diversity at 10 and we’re considering these extremely small buckets of simulations or just even single game simulations. The simulation events where overtime does take place on a two game slate is going to be represented well in your lineup pool anyway. Games where the Nuggets and Blazers go to overtime are going to be games where Willard and Jokic and all these guys all have ceiling outcomes. Those are all represented in a single simulation.

Danny:
Yeah. They’re also events where game stacking is going to … like if there’s a huge blowout, all those players are going to do horribly. You’re not going to have a winning lineup with the game stack in that situation. That’s just another point. There’s a counter argument, which is if you game stack, you don’t get the upside of blowouts.

Andy:
Right. The next question, I just want to make sure we get to it. I think we’ve already covered it, but I just want to touch back on it. When small slates tend to have one obvious chalk high scoring game, what’s the best way to gain leverage without full fading the studs? I think we’ve talking, in the beginning and just throughout, about the different ways you can take a stand. One of the big parts of leverage is truly just minimizing duplicates. The most straightforward way of doing is lowering that maximum salary. Like Danny was saying, in a sport like NBA, where there aren’t a ton of viable choices, you do want to be careful that you don’t lower it too much. If this was baseball, within reason, as long as your guys are in the game, they could all have a good night, especially if they’re against a star pitcher. The leverage is big enough that they could still get their home runs, they could still get their runs, they can get all their extra at-bats, all of that to make it worth it.

Andy:
Whereas, in basketball, you don’t want to be careful. In a showdown, lowering it by 500 or 600 can be reasonable. That’s a great way to do it. It’s also just looking at some of those low minute, high upside plays that Max mentioned, where you’re not honestly directly fading someone, but you’re just trying to find these slightly under the radar plays that you think the field isn’t fully accounting for.

Andy:
Looking at the chat, we also have a question from Tracy-

Max:
Can I just ask you a question real quick?

Andy:
Yep.

Max:
That was at the top and we just missed it from from Randy [inaudible 00:38:15].

Andy:
Yep.

Max:
I think it was on the topic of basically when you’re hunting for value plays and you said what if we would get lost to a three point lead or [inaudible 00:38:22] salary. I think that’s actually kind of clever. If you have someone who’s a value play, who literally is just a huge three-point shooter, especially on draft games, where you get a bonus for that. Those a high variance points, so when you need someone to add about 18 points on these two game slates to possibly even be a winning play, I feel like that’s actually interesting. That’s another thing that you could look at, if you wanted to really hit grand there.

Danny:
Yeah. Just adding to that, I think it seems like there are some players like Damian Lillard, Trey Young, Steph Curry, where if they get hot from three, they’ll just start chucking it up like mad. Those players probably do have a little more upside than other players. I think that can be a decent angle to take, if there’s some three point hotshot who you like.

Andy:
Yeah. Tracy asks, does it make more sense to change percentile or team total or individual projections to adhere to Draft Kings rules? Which has more success at being unique? Just a couple things buried in there. The way Draft Kings works, to be compliant, you have to make changes to two or more players. The easiest way of doing that would be changing a team total or changing a projection, because the percentile, I mean, will impact every player on the slate. That’s one click to meet that rule. Changing a team is going to effect everyone in that game. I wouldn’t take such a blunt tool just to be compliant with them. I think there are going to be ways you can add more value by more fine tuning the projections. If the main concern is adhering to the Draft Kings rule, I would just apply the concepts we’ve talked about to find players you can make some small tweaks to.

Andy:
As far as being unique, again, it’s something where lowering salary is going to help you be unique. Yeah. If you dramatically change a team total and got it further away from Vegas, you would be more likely to be unique. I wouldn’t try to, again, force something in there that dramatically changes the projections, solely to be unique. I think percentiles can be interesting as a way to do that, because you’re still relying on the core underlying simulation results. I think that could be interesting. I’m curious, what do you guys think about, not necessarily just to be unique, but what do you think about using percentiles on these smaller slates?

Max:
I’ve never used them. The reason is, that the percentiles are just an expression of the simulation data, which we’re already using when we’re building a lineup. I think the numbers themselves are very interesting, but for actually building lineups, unless you’re just using the builder in a different way than I do or using the percentiles and not really using the sliders or doing something else, maybe you could do that. I don’t really do that. What I heard in that question is, partly, how is the best way to address my lines? Should I adjust exposures, post build? I mean, maybe this was not the question, but this is how I heard it. Should I adjust exposures post bill, should I adjust player projections, should I use percentiles, should I adjust team projections?

Max:
I think a lot of people use different things. I know Matt, when he uses the builder, he doesn’t touch the projections and he just changes exposures. That’s my understanding of what he does. I like messing with projections a lot, especially because that’s going to make it so my top lineups have the players that I really want. I think it just depends on what you’re comfortable with. I think there’re many ways to use our product that are going to be winning ways to build lineups. It just is versatile. It just depends on what you’re comfortable with and what you want to do. If you really want to focus on balancing your lineups and making small tweaks and making sure you get this stack and then 40% of this game’s stack, and 50% of this game’s stack, which is great, that’s something you’re going to do in the post build process. Maybe that’s what you like to do more. You can adjust review and do what I was suggesting in earlier videos, really hunt for projections that you can change. Change them and then use that to do the majority of your work.

Andy:
Yeah. It all comes down to finding where you can have the most value to the process. Draft Kings obviously does have that limitation that requires you to make two changes. I wouldn’t be trying to find, necessarily, a way around that. I think if you’re following the advice from the videos to even some degree, you’re going to naturally be making a couple changes. I think it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the possible changes that you can make and by trying to do research on all of these players. That’s why, honestly, some of these smaller slates can be more interesting. There’s fewer decisions to make, but it is important to make a few. That’s the thing, I think for a standard DFS process, the Draft King’s compliance rule really shouldn’t be coming into play, because you should be going in, expecting to make a few changes. I’d recommend checking out some of our other videos on some of the more straightforward ways of doing that, while still adding value. That’s where I would point people, there.

Andy:
On the topic of uniqueness, though, when it comes to the captain for showdowns, some people have talked about just X-ing out the highest projected captain, potentially, from both teams to force more unique lineups. People have looks about going for a high ceiling, about high value, low owns and try to differentiate somewhere else. There’s a lot of different theories there and I’m curious how you guys all think about that.

Danny:
I think X-ing out the highest projected player in the captain is an interesting idea. I think sometimes, if someone is really might higher projected than everyone else, then they truly are the most optimal captain pick and you shouldn’t fade them. God, I don’t know. I mean, just using ownership fade and lowering salary is a good way to do it, for sure.

Max:
I think it really depends on the slate. I think this is why doing a build just right off the bat and seeing what lineups are being produced by SaberSim is really smart. It can help you find the direction to go. Okay. I’m getting 100% of this lowering the captain and I have an ownership fade slider that’s high. That says to me, if you weren’t looking at that, you might just use the heuristic. I’m just going to fade the highest owned captain. That would actually be stupid. Our builder is telling you that you should do the exact opposite of that. I think what can be really interesting is if you do a build and you can see, what types of lineups am I getting? Am I getting any lineups where we’re punting the captain to fit in all these players? Does that make sense? Are we getting a bunch of lineups where we’re just spending up on the captain and do I need to go a different direction to be different? What value points are we getting? I think you should just look at how these lineups are being built to give you some ideas.

Jordan:
Yeah, I really like that point, Max. I like the idea, in general, of approaching these with the test build first, like we do on all of our main slates and just see what the builder thinks is viable. Different games are going to play out differently and there’s going to be slates where maybe 60% of your lineups, right off the bat, don’t feature one of those big name studs as the captain. Maybe, at that point, you can adjust your exposures or tweak some projections there and get 100% of lineups that are using more of a value play in your captain spot.

Jordan:
One other thing I’ll add, too, players that are using a traditional optimizer that’s just going to build lineups based on medium projection, are going to be get more of players that project with a higher medium projection. Looking at the Portland and Denver game tonight, you’ve got Damon and Jokic at the top. Both players that we have almost identical ceilings at the moment and Jokic has a slightly higher salary. The field is likely to get a little bit more Lillard at captain. I think you can find some success there just flipping the script. Those two players have very similar ceiling potential and I think you’re likely to see one player become a little more highly owned, purely because of medium projection based optimizers are going to give players more of those lineups.

Andy:
Yeah, and just to build on that, to give people context a little bit more on SaberSim, if you’re not familiar as much. What we’re doing is looking at all of the simulation results. We’ll simulate every single game thousands of times, play by play. We get a true range of outcomes that could happen in any of these games. We use what we call the smart diversity slider to help sample some of those outcomes and make sure that the possibilities that we’re factoring into your lineups are possibilities that could actually happen, because they occurred in the simulations. Max has a really good video that digs deep into smart diversity. You can find that over on our YouTube channel. I recommend checking that out.

Andy:
That’s also why you can use SaberSim as a bit of an advisor. You can do a test build. All we do for a test build is you put in a middle of the road contest, hit build without making any adjustments, and just see what the exposures look like. To Max’s point, we’re looking at ownership. We’re looking at how variants can impact this specific player and the games that they’re in and all of that and all their correlations to other players. If we’re factoring all that in, if we have a high ownership fade and you’re still getting 100% of that player, there’s a reason for that. Whereas, in a traditional optimizer, where it’s just forcing in the mean projection of all the players, it’s trying to find the best combination of that, you can’t read too much into it, other than this is a combination of the highest average projections that fit under the salary cap. That can be useful, but it just doesn’t teach you much. It’s not valuable as a learning mechanism.

Andy:
That’s why what Jordan was saying is that when you’re able to find … [inaudible 00:49:31] I’m actually not getting much of this high stone guy, because there is another player that’s pretty close to him and SaberSim is getting a good amount in there. That’s where it could make sense to bump them up a bit more and try to double down on that.

Andy:
We just got a question in Slack from Chris. He’s asking, do any of you guys deliberately allocate any of your lineups to specific game scripts? I know that if you crank smart diversity all the way up to the top, which on a show down, maybe in a two game slate, it might be already, you’re kind of naturally building lineups around game scripts. Are you thinking about building lineups around a star injury, a massive blow out? Then his example is something like game one of the finals last year when the Heat got blown out and Kendrick Nunn ended up being the key to the slate. Most people didn’t even have him in their player pool. Is that something you think about? Do you think there is merit to thinking about that? What are your thoughts on that?

Danny:
Yeah. I think, specifically, the blowout angle is really interesting. There are certain players that if there’s a total blowout, may play a lot. There may be a starter who would play in garbage time if they’re a really young player or if a team has a lot of injuries. I think if you can theorize about what players may drastically benefit from a blowout, that could be an interesting angle to take, I think.

Max:
Yeah, just to add on top of that, I’d say if I’m doing that, it’s usually filtering, basically. Just filtering together, seeing if I’m getting [inaudible 00:51:17] with pairs or three rows of players that might benefit together or something. Then, using the filters like that to take into account. Then add lineups or remove lineups that I might not think, intuitively, are as correlated in those situation.

Andy:
Then, Danny, this one’s for you specifically and I think it’s a good fit. When you late swap, do you prefer a single quick swap or a full late swap? Would that change if you were in, say, a handful of single entries and free maxes versus 20 max and 150 max? I know this is something you do put a lot of thought into.

Danny:
If you have time, always late swap. Quick swap is a really good tool where if you see news with two minutes until lock and one minute ’til lock, you can do quick swap really fast and get an injured player out of your lineup. If you have time, do the late swap, because that’s the real quantitative one. Quick swap is just, we’re going to take injured players out of your lineup and replace them with the best replacement, as best we can. Late swap is, we’re going to really calculate what the new optimal lineups are, based on how all the projections have changed.

Max:
I would say the only exception to this is if you are really attached to the structure of your lineups and you do not want to change them, do quick swap. See, a lot of times, it’s actually better not to get too attached because the re-optimization of your lineups using late swap can be really valuable.

Jordan:
Yep. One thing I always think, the more you can adjust your mental image of what your lineups are to … these are the lineups I’m playing from the time that the first game starts to when the second game starts, the better. Even in full NBA slates in the regular season, when you get too attached to those lineups that you put in right at lock and then news breaks for that second round of games, if you’re attached sometimes and you’re doing quick swap or something like that, you might be reducing the overall EV of your lineups, because you’re not appropriately adjusting to the news. Especially when there’s only two slates. If Chris Paul’s out after lock tonight, something like that, that adjusts 50% of the games that are available on the slate. If you fell in love with your lineup constructions early at lock, you might be hurting yourself, overall.

Andy:
Yeah. This is definitely especially true for NBA on the shorter slates, because one big injury, one big change, will have a dramatic impact on the entire slate. You can get a huge amount of edge just by reacting to that and rebuilding your lineups around it. Whereas, on bigger slates or in other sports that aren’t as star centered, especially if you are someone who is going to be really getting everything dialed in just the way you want it, late swap can shake that up a bit. More so than you may want and more so than may be optimal, although it’s probably never bad. On these smaller slates, I think it’s something where you want to be taking advantage of the most recent information, because it just has such an outsized impact.

Jordan:
I do see a question on YouTube from our game stacking conversation that I think we missed. Braden asks, so is it bad to game stack? Guys, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think maybe the message here isn’t so much that it’s bad to game stack, nor is it good to game stack. It’s more of a neutral thing here that you’re going to capture the appropriate amount of game stacks with the-

Andy:
Don’t try to force it.

Jordan:
-highest diversity. Yeah. Okay.

Danny:
Yeah, I think it’s possible that game stacking in basketball could just be bad. I think there is math to be done to prove if it’s good or bad. It’s hard to tell. It just depends on what the chance of overtime is and how much better those players perform, because of overtime. There’re downsides to game stacking, too. Getting blown out means you’re … the times where you have a blowout, the losing team is really, really going to do badly.

Max:
I would push back on that. I think game stacking is a net positive. We could argue about this, but what I was saying more is this is literally the purpose of simulating the games, so we can take this into account. Putting extra effort into it, you probably are going to end up overvaluing it, than valuing it correctly. That’s going to be a net negative, especially for your time. I just wouldn’t focus on it more beyond what we’re doing for you already.

Andy:
Right. By looking at those simulations, literally a game is played out. We can see, this was a blowout, how did it impact the games? Does it make sense to play multiple people from this game? What is the impact there? We’ll do that thousands of times for each of the lineups. That’s where, to Max’s point, we’ll automatically account for it. If it’s good, you’ll get more of it. If it’s not good, you won’t get much of it. It’s something that you don’t want to force beyond that, I think it’s fair to say. Maybe we’ll get Wil to do some math and look into some of the other numbers, too.

Max:
I would also say, if you like game stacking, tonight’s the night, because you’re just going to get them regardless of whether you want them or not. There’s two games. You’d have to put in effort not to get them.

Andy:
Right. Yeah. I think that is, just to hammer home the point, what makes SaberSim so powerful. It’s not that you should just completely ignore these kind of considerations and think you can always click a few buttons. There’s a lot of power under the hood. Because of that, you don’t have to do as much. You don’t have to program hundreds of rules and dozens of groups and all this stuff to get a lineup that makes sense. We’re able to leverage our simulator data to give you that. That’s why it’s so powerful. All that extra time that you get, you can focus on adding value to the process, by looking at the areas that we’ve talked about today. The big ones, just to summarize, are at the highest level, the smaller the slate, the bigger the stand, the bigger the tweaks you’re going to have to make, if you want a significant edge. You just have to do more, because there’s less to work with, especially in a low variance sport like basketball. The easiest tools of doing that is leaving a lot of salary on the table. Danny was saying, generally speaking, again, look at how pricing is. Look at what lineups look like as a test build without making any adjustments.

Andy:
Generally speaking, on a showdown, you can feel safe leaving $600 or $500 on the table. As more games get added, I’d probably knock off $100, $200 as you go up. The other way is just simply fading the high owned plays. Then, the last one that we really dug into was finding those low minute, high upside plays and taking an aggressive stand there. There’s a lot of options out there. Hopefully we’ve covered a lot of those in depth for you. If you have any other questions, though, feel free to keep posting them in the office hours Slack channel or sending them over to us at [email protected]. This was a lot of fun, guys. Jordan, Danny, Max, thank you guys for helping out and thanks, everyone, for attending. We’ll be back next week with another strategy session. If there are any topics you want us to do a deep dive on like this, let us know. We were getting a little list going and this is going to be a weekly thing. We can just keep putting out valuable content to help everyone level up their game. Yeah. Thanks, everybody.

Jordan:
Thanks.

Max:
See you.

Danny:
Thanks.