Where There’s Smoke, There’s Daily Fantasy Sports Players Griping About Bad Luck

Am in another airport terminal, awaiting the first of a couple of flights today that will be taking me to Las Vegas where I’ll be helping cover the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio. Looking forward to it, but to be honest I’m also kind of looking forward simply to disconnecting for the next several hours and relaxing aboard my flights.

Was writing here a couple of weeks ago about fantasy sports and how the daily/weekly site DraftKings had hooked up with the WPT as a collaborating sponsor. In that post I was drawing a few parallels between poker (especially the online variety) and these daily games I’ve been playing occasionally on sites like DraftKings and Draft Day.

Haven’t done so well during the last few days of playing these daily games, and in fact some of the “run bad” I’ve encountered is making me think more and more how fantasy sports are not at all like poker.

About a week ago I set a line-up for a night’s worth of NBA games, then to my dismay discovered after the games had begun that my star player, James “Magical Beard” Harden, was suited up for the game -- i.e., in a suit, not a uniform. (That’s a pic of “Dr. Harden” above.) Was a last minute decision, apparently, not signaled by any of the injury update sites (or at least any I check), and thus I was essentially sunk before the night had even begun.

Then a couple of nights ago I screwed up and after having reserved a spot in a Draft Day game and set my line-up, I forgot to save my selections until just a few seconds after the deadline had passed, and thus had entered a fantasy team with no players. Oof!

Finally last night came another bad beat as I had taken Tim Duncan to fill one of my power forward positions, and in fact was doing okay and probably on my way to winning in the double-up game I’d chosen. Then came word that the Spurs-Timberwolves game -- scheduled in Mexico City, actually -- had been postponed due to a fire near the arena filling the place with smoke!

Again, I was sunk, as was everyone else who had loaded up on San Antonio or Minnesota Timberwolves players. It had been an attractive game from which to draft selections, actually, with a high over/under line of 205. But only around half the guys in our game had happened to take any Spurs or Timberwolves, and we all finished out of the money.

Such a situation is handled much like a rain-out in baseball for the daily fantasy players -- i.e., those who have chosen guys in the cancelled game are screwed, and it’s all chalked up to being “part of the game.”

But what kind of game is this?

I was trying to think of parallels from poker, and the only one I could really come up with was the situation of getting disconnected mid-hand when playing online. Or perhaps we might add a glitch occurring on the site’s side, in which case many times the site would refund entry fees or try somehow to accommodate for the disruption.

I’ve mentioned before how tough it is to bet on injuries, coaches’ whims, or other unexpected vagaries of professional sports. Hadn’t thought of an NBA game getting postponed as being a factor, too, though. I guess daily fantasy sports are still like poker insofar as they combine luck and skill, but a fire in Mexico sure is making it seem like luck matters a lot more at the moment.

Putting it behind me, now -- and everything else for the next 10 hours or so as I wind my way westward. Talk to you on the other side.

Drafting Your Players, Playing Your Cards

At the WPT event this past week in Jacksonville, the fantasy sports betting site DraftKings had a presence as the entity throwing the players’ party, sponsoring the final table live stream, and in other ways.

It’s a relatively new partnership, just announced within the last couple of weeks, I believe. In fact, for the upcoming WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic (where I will also be) there will be some contests on the site via which players can actually win seats into the event.

I’ve gotten an account on DraftKings and have played some free games with friends. I’ve mentioned before having played a little on Draft Day, another fantasy sports site, as well as how I find the games diverting though not nearly as engrossing as some.

It’s kind of intriguing, though, to see how the games on these sites resemble online poker in their formats, with large field games with top heavy payouts being like the MTTs, smaller “sit-n-go” styled games with a limited number of opponents, “double-or-nothing” type games, and heads-up games, too. Even the range of buy-ins and the “rake” resembles online poker in many ways.

There are more analogies. In the games the players (i.e., the pros making up the NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL teams) kind of exist as the cards -- that is, they are the element of the game that unequivocally exists outside of the players’ control. Some of the pros are shared among fantasy players when different entrants select the same players for their teams, much like “community cards” are shared in flop games. Most teams are unique, just like in hold’em when players’ hole cards make their hands unique, although like in hold’em you’ll occasionally have players playing “hands” of identical worth.

There’s a mix of chance and skill, too, in the fantasy sports games, and I’m convinced that those who put in the hours and genuinely research their selections in constructive ways have an edge on the average opponent, in fact a very large one. I’m also convinced the chance element introduces huge variance into the game, with players’ individual performances subject to a myriad of influences including injury, penalties or suspensions, coaches’ whims, and even the weather.

I continue to be intrigued by fantasy sports -- especially this short-term daily (or weekly) version of it offered by sites like DraftKings and Draft Day -- which I guess is like poker but ain’t poker.

Giants or Cowboys?

Was writing yesterday about ESPN’s coverage of the 2012 WSOP Main Event. As it turns out, they didn’t show poker last night, opting instead to air this week’s shows tonight. Of course, by doing so they’ll likely lose a lot of viewers.

That’s because tonight the National Football League finally returns, with the season opener between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants kicking off during prime time. The game would’ve been tomorrow, actually, but I believe was moved back a day so as not to conflict with the last night of the Democratic National Convention when President Obama will again be accepting the party’s nomination.

Once again I’m participating in a pool requiring me to pick every game throughout the season. Thus have I already spent some time this week fretting about my pick for tonight’s game. I’m trying a “Survivor Pool” this time, too, for which I’ll have to select one team each week I believe will win their game, yet won’t be able to choose the same team more than once.

I wrote about the pool off and on last year, including at the end when I happened to end strongly enough to win the sucker. Ended up picking 180 regular season games correctly out of the 256 (straight up, not against the spread), which left me three clear of the field to come out on top.

I much prefer these types of games -- i.e., picking winners -- to the fantasy games that have pretty much taken over the NFL over recent years. I do like occasionally piddling around on the DraftDay site (which offers daily fantasy games), which I wrote about here a while back. In fact, I’ll be playing that PokerNews freeroll on DraftDay this week for sure. But I just can’t get myself too interested in the more involved season-long versions of fantasy football.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the strategy involved with fantasy sports -- i.e., games in which you select certain players (by position) and are rewarded according to their individual performances. It’s just that I prefer watching games in a traditional manner with my rooting interest being focused on a team, not a player.

In poker terms, I’d liken fantasy sports to prop bets such as betting on the flop being all-red or all-black or whether or not the next community card will be a face card or the like. That is to say, a type of gambling that focuses on some particular element of play rather than what is really most important and theoretically the primary motive for the actions of all involved, namely, who wins or loses.

Then again, maybe I just haven’t given fantasy sports a fair chance. Reading Moneyball recently certainly got me in the mood to reconsider them. So before I sign off to go study the Week 1 games further, I’ll end with two questions...

For those of you who play fantasy football, what makes it fun for you?

And also, Giants or Cowboys?

Making Picks, Getting Fix

I’ve mentioned here a couple of times how I’ve experimented a little with fantasy sports, mostly on the Draft Day site started by Taylor Caby and some other online poker-people in the wake of Black Friday.

If you’re curious to learn more about Draft Day, an article appeared on Mashable yesterday in which Caby was interviewed about the site. There we read that after being launched back in September, the site has already attracted 10,000 users, with about a quarter of them regular players.

Caby points out in the article how they are “not going for the people who already spend hours on fantasy sports,” but rather are hoping to attract those “who are more casual sports fans and just looking to have fun.” In other words, the site presents itself as especially attractive to those whom we might call “recreational” fantasy sports players with limited time and/or bankrolls to commit.

That would be me.

Rather than buy into an entire season as some fantasy sports games require, the Draft Day games all last either a single day or in the case of the NFL a single weekend’s worth of games. So, for instance, with the NBA games you draft line-ups of players chosen from that evening’s slate of games, then watch to see how many points your players accumulate and whether or not you come out ahead of the totals put up by others’ line-ups.

The site is especially easy to navigate and I’m really enjoying how simple it is to sweat your teams. Stats are calculated instantaneously as the games proceed, with your ranking within a given game constantly updated as well. And there are freerolls and inexpensive games, too -- as low as $1-- also good for a noob like me who is just becoming acquainted with some of the strategy involved with player selection. You know, like not starting injured guys.

And of course as those of us who’ve spent the last five-plus years fussing over the awful Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 well know, the law specifically (and oddly) identifies fantasy sports as not falling under its otherwise ambiguous definition of “unlawful” online gambling. Which means easy deposit methods (including PayPal and credit cards), fast payouts, and none of the multitudinous money-related hassles to which we online poker players have grown accustomed.

While I’m finding the fantasy sports thing a fun diversion, it doesn’t really satisfy the desire for competition in the same way poker does. Even though we compete against others, it feels a lot more like playing solitaire. None of the decisions we make are controlled by others’ actions. (Not really... although I suppose one could apply some game theory-related arguments to counter that notion.) That is to say, all players are available to everyone, with each player portioning out the allotted salary as he or she sees fit.

And to be honest, I’m not really that into the way fantasy sports force a kind of fragmented rooting interest where you have to pull for individual players to succeed rather than teams.

For instance, last night the L.A. Clippers-Utah Jazz game was the last to complete, a blowout in which the Jazz won by nearly 30. I had the Clippers’ Caron Butler and was hoping he’d add a few buckets late to improve my position. Meanwhile, others still had Butler’s teammate Blake Griffin. Kind of absurd hoping for one player to score over another like that, and even stranger caring at all about what happens at the end of a game in which the outcome has long been settled.

As it happened, Butler did little in the fourth quarter while Griffin sat out. But I did manage to “min-cash” in my game thanks to big nights had by LeBron James, Dwight Howard, and others I’d fit onto my team’s roster.

Anyhow, as I’ve been saying, the Draft Day site is well-constructed and easy to use, and as Caby notes it is particularly aimed at casual players or those who are just curious about how fantasy sports work. If you click here, sign up, then eventually deposit something I get a referral bonus. But like I say, you can play for free, too.

If you do check it out, let me know how it goes. And remember to keep an eye on those injury reports.

Comments from the Peanut Gallery

This has been the week of making something out of nothing for your humble gumshoe.

Told you on Monday about winning some minor scratch after scoring free entries into a couple of tournies on Carbon Poker.

I also mentioned a week ago how I’d jumped into a freeroll on the relatively-new fantasy sports site, Draft Day. Thanks in large part to that offensive outburst by New Orleans on against the New York Giants on Monday night, I snuck into the money in that one, too, meaning I now have another tiny roll ($9) over there with which to try to learn a little more about the fantasy thing.

Then yesterday I hopped into one of those “Fast Fifty Freezeout” tournies on Hero Poker. I had not been faring too well over there of late at the nickel-and-dime cash tables, I’m afraid. Meanwhile, I’ve accumulated a ton of free tickets into these tiny MTTs and so decided to ensure at least a break-even day by trying one of those.

There were 108 entered into the Fast Fifty, called such because of the relatively fast structure (five-minute levels) and fifty-cent entry. As it happened, I went deep and in fact had a great shot at winning but came up short to take runner-up.

Given how the last hand of heads-up went -- I raise-shoved a nine-high flop with top pair, got called by 10-5 for middle pair of fives, then watched tens come on both the turn and river -- it would be tempting to say I deserved to win but fell victim to bad luck. In truth, though, there was a hand earlier in which I’d folded middle pair to my opponent’s flop shove, then he showed he was drawing to a flush. Woulda shoulda coulda.

Still, earned a few more bucks to add to the small Hero roll. Pure profit! Infinite ROI!

I continue stubbornly to add entries (handwritten) into my little ledger of online play. Yesterday I did what I have done at the end of every month since I started playing online back in 2004, tallying up the month’s total and writing that figure down as well. Then I turn the pages back and chuckle when I compare current totals to what I was playing for before.

Not that I had ever really moved higher than low limits previously, but I’m having to make a conscious mental effort now to make the amounts seem meaningful to me. Or “real,” even, given the somewhat theoretical nature of the idea of cashing out. Whereas before, when I’d slowly accumulate and cash out from time to time, such an effort wasn’t needed.

Had an exchange on Twitter a few days ago in which someone referred to having a little bit on these sites with which to play as an “itch scratcher,” and I said I thought that was a good way of describing it. Passing the time is what we’re doing. Just snacking.

Still, it’s fun to play, not to mention win. Even when it’s just for peanuts.

Thx

Looking at a day full of football and food here. Am already settled into my favorite spot on the couch, from which I don’t plan to move very much at all for the next several hours.

I continue to battle in that Pigskin Pick’em league. Three interesting games today in the NFL, all winnable by either team, I’d say. Makes the picking more interesting, since not everyone will be going the same way on every game.

I have also now gotten an account over at Draft Day, the new fantasy sports site started by some CardRunners guys and others to fill the void left here in the U.S. following Black Friday. (And to step through that little carve out for fantasy sports crazily existing in the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.)

I entered a freeroll over there and so will be keeping my eye on how that goes this week, too. The site is expertly set up, by the way, with super simple depositing options if you happen to be into the fantasy thing.

Meanwhile, the eats will comprise the usual -- ham, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, and apple pie. Vera and I are taking this one in together, staying off the roads and saving the traveling and visits for December. A lot different from last year for me, when I spent the Thanksgiving holiday down in Marrakech, Morocco with the World Poker Tour.

We are already starting to hear some reflecting on the fact that 2011 has been one of the more interesting, tumultuous years poker has seen. Certainly is ending much differently than it began.

But a few things have remained the same for me since a year ago. I remain thankful for all of the opportunities I’ve had and continue to have in a wildly interesting field. And most importantly, I’m thankful for all of the great people I’ve gotten to know and build friendships with both through this blog and in other areas of the poker world.

Thanks again, all.