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Draftkings question, has any here won BIG

jvm52106 : 11/8/2018 9:20 am
in a Draftkings tournament? I am talking $1000 or more in a single game? If so, do you play multiple entries (say 10 or more) or keep to less than 10?
You can no longer win  
NYG007 : 11/8/2018 10:27 am : link
Too many players run algorithms so you can't beat them. However, yes, I wont multiple times over the amount stated in previous years.

I would have won 30k one week, however, this actually occurred. Thurs - Mon tourney. Its MNF, Ravens vs Steelers. Its 4th and goal from the 1. 4 Guys under me have Bell. There are 4 seconds left. Pitt can kick a FG to go to OT or go for the win. Bell gets hit by 2 Ravens, he is stopped but he somehow gets his momentum going forward. He gets forward, and scores. Steelers win, I drop from 30k (I think it was actually 33k) down to an amount I will not post but was furious.

Short story, its fun to play, but you cant win big anymore. I play the $20 one entry and the $3 one entry. I win 30-55$ weekly on it. Algorithms predict the sleepers, and you cant beat a pc program which all the winners use. I dont know how to get one of those Algor's nor do I want to.
RE: You can no longer win  
WillVAB : 11/8/2018 10:41 am : link
In comment 14168790 NYG007 said:
Quote:
Too many players run algorithms so you can't beat them. However, yes, I wont multiple times over the amount stated in previous years.

I would have won 30k one week, however, this actually occurred. Thurs - Mon tourney. Its MNF, Ravens vs Steelers. Its 4th and goal from the 1. 4 Guys under me have Bell. There are 4 seconds left. Pitt can kick a FG to go to OT or go for the win. Bell gets hit by 2 Ravens, he is stopped but he somehow gets his momentum going forward. He gets forward, and scores. Steelers win, I drop from 30k (I think it was actually 33k) down to an amount I will not post but was furious.

Short story, its fun to play, but you cant win big anymore. I play the $20 one entry and the $3 one entry. I win 30-55$ weekly on it. Algorithms predict the sleepers, and you cant beat a pc program which all the winners use. I dont know how to get one of those Algor's nor do I want to.


Not true. An algorithm is reliant on certain assumptions by the user. You can’t just buy or create an algorithm and print money.
play in single entry contests  
YAJ2112 : 11/8/2018 10:44 am : link
or if you want to do multi-entry do the 3 max contests
2015  
bradshaw44 : 11/8/2018 11:06 am : link
I won $1500 thanks to DeAndre Hopkins decent Monday night game. The next five weeks I won $500, $150, $300, $300 and $100. Since that season I haven't cracked $30. Leagues are filled with bots essentially and it's total crap.

FYI, they 1099'd me at the end of the season. The second you break the $600 mark in a season they have to report it for taxes.
As mentioned above  
bradshaw44 : 11/8/2018 11:09 am : link
I also only play one game a week and it's the $20 buy in for the biggest pot. I don't see a point in playing in the smaller tournaments. It's all or nothing in my mind.
My first year  
pjcas18 : 11/8/2018 11:12 am : link
doing DFS.

I have won one week of my local 20 person pool. For $150. Basically paid for the season. I was dead last the first week I did it, now I'm top 5 almost every week and it comes down to the defense or TE or one of the flex spots.

But when I joined DK I got a free entry into one of the million dollar pools.

I tracked it pretty closely.

This was week 2 or 3 I think. I forget the exact week.

but Fitzpatrick went off, first time he did too for the season.

And I looked and of the top 5 finishers one guy had two of them.

and I checked and he about 150 entries in that pool that I could track.

I decided no way I was ever going to pick Ryan Fitzpatrick that week as my QB and this guy had about 5 or 6 entries with him on it, so I immediately decided those types of contests are not for me.

I do like the format for a closed group or even like YAJ suggested single entry. So no, I've never won big and I doubt I would unless I entered a single entry contest with enough people.
I have a couple friends  
PaulBlakeTSU : 11/8/2018 12:17 pm : link
who have won multiple tournaments of over 25K and some six-figure wins.

I don't play much anymore and never played big, but I did take home $1500 in an NBA contest once.
Depends what you consider big  
kelsto811 : 11/8/2018 12:52 pm : link
I have won in the $100-$300 range multiple times. Most I ever hit was 2K which was cool.

Like others said, it's really hard to win but saying you can't win is definitely not true. There's a few things I used to do that helped.

1) Email Support and ask for the link to the standings of the prior weeks Million Tournament. Most of the time you are going to see the winning lineup as something you'd never even consider and by a complete random person with only a few lineups. Not sure if it is still like that but that always used to be the case. The guy who won the week 1 milli maker on FD a few years ago was only the second lineup he ever made.

2) As others mentioned, try to find some limited entry contests

3) Sometimes the best contests to target are the ones where others are going to be limited in knowledge. I won the 2K on an NFL PRE SEASON contest. No one does research for pre-season and most are sitting there targeting guys like its a regular season game. NBA Preseason, Soccer, UFC, Golf...if you have any knowledge in a different sport, that might be your thing
The guy who won the FD Milli last week  
kelsto811 : 11/8/2018 12:57 pm : link
had Curtis Samuel and Jeff Heuerman. Rest of his lineup was pretty common, Goff, Hunt, Mccafrey, Kupp, Thomas, Ndjoku, and Bears D.

That's the problem, are you really going to pick these two guys if you are just throwing in one lineup. Extremely difficult.
I have been playing both Draftkings and FD  
jvm52106 : 11/8/2018 1:09 pm : link
for a while. I have won as much as $250 in a single game (single lineup) and $500 in a weekend but nothing beyond that. I did play a lineup in a league with friends on DK's, that scored 230 points and if I had played that lineup in the Big tourney I would have won $10k.

I do track the winners and I have Rotoql for my reasearch etc. It does take some solid plays (core palyers) and then mix and match some variations of that core to be consistent but single lineups of just hitting the right guys at the right time is good too.

I played a smaller one on FD a few weeks back with 1189 players, with single entry. The first prize was small, $100. That morning it was announced that Tannehill was out for the game against the Bears. So on a lark I played OSweiler, Wilson, Drake with some offsetting Bears players. I won. Less than 1% of the players had Osweiler in their lineups and less than 2% had Wilson.

I do play more lineups in the big tourneys, knowing the million will be extremely difficult to win but picking up $1500 or more would be nice. Consistency in points is where I am trying to get better and then hope for the lucky part of getting those few times where some of the consistency turns into goes off territory.

Two weeks ago the DK's big tourney was won by less than 1 point between 1st and 2nd place. The second place guy had Njoku at TE and he scored 0 points. Can you imagine losing, essentially $900k by less than 1 point and it was because your TE scored nothing!
RE: I have been playing both Draftkings and FD  
kelsto811 : 11/8/2018 1:29 pm : link
In comment 14169065 jvm52106 said:
Quote:

Two weeks ago the DK's big tourney was won by less than 1 point between 1st and 2nd place. The second place guy had Njoku at TE and he scored 0 points. Can you imagine losing, essentially $900k by less than 1 point and it was because your TE scored nothing!


I've had some pretty horrible losses like this. The worst I've seen though is some guy who lost the top spot (can't remember the prize) because his QB lost points for 3 kneel downs at the end of a game. How horrible is that?

To your point, it's one of the reasons I don't play regularly anymore. I know most people want a higher top prize but the spread from being in 1st to 5th, for example, is nuts.
Oh shit  
jvm52106 : 11/8/2018 1:31 pm : link
yeah, kneel downs can kill you. That sucks..
RE: play in single entry contests  
GoDeep13 : 11/8/2018 4:37 pm : link
In comment 14168811 YAJ2112 said:
Quote:
or if you want to do multi-entry do the 3 max contests


This is seriously good news for anyone out there playing DraftKings. The $300,000 arm $1.25 mil contests LOOK nice and attractive but when the pool is 50k-100k+ players the odds of coming close to the top prizes are’t hood. Since I’ve started sticking to pools under 10k I win almost way more than I lose. Most I’ve mad off with is 28k (off basketball).
I don't know man,  
Mad Mike : 11/8/2018 5:01 pm : link
this guy always made it sound pretty good (even though he's only won a cool $349).

Yes  
dank41 : 11/8/2018 5:14 pm : link
I won $2,400 and $1,800 in different tournaments. Both of those wins were in 2015 and about a month apart. I've only donated since lol. As others have said, it's gotten tougher with guys basically doing it for a living, making it quite difficult for to win the tournaments with thousands and thousands of entries.

That being said, friend in my town won $50,000 this summer in a baseball contest.

We both also finished in the top 3,000 (him around 1,500th place) in the $20 DK Millionaire tournament last week, I was up to around 750th place before the late Michael Thomas TD.

It's definitely possible, just very difficult, definitely don't break the bank.

Like someone above said, always play the single entry tournaments.
and I never do more than 1 or 2 lineups  
dank41 : 11/8/2018 5:15 pm : link
in a tournament. maybe 3 or 4 if I had a good couple of weeks.
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