Those who play Daily Fantasy Football know what I’m talking about. With the hopes of merely $1 you can make 500k! How American boot-strap is that? This same feeling that permeates DFS is also booming in the cryptocurrency and blockchain sectors currently. Irrational exuberance has infested all facets of life. DeAndre Hopkins: 8 receptions, 78 yards; current FanDuel price: $8400– say WHAT?!? Dogecoin ($DOGE) now trading with US dollar pairing: the height of crypto hubris?
Emotion runs rampant in all facets of life and it’s the daily fantasy football manager, much like the trader, who maintains consistent rules to govern these biased emotions that in the long run will come out ahead. You need to understand where your decision-making can go wrong.
Confirmation/Information Bias
You think Nick Foles is going to go off, so you talk to people from Philly to see if it makes sense. You might think you have the second coming of Jesus by the time the conversations are over. Your job as a DFS manager is to question the status quo. Hey, maybe $XRP, not to be confused with Ripple, is not going to trade anywhere near $589 at any time in the future. Always be skeptical and source your information from the whole spectrum. Nothing is worse than tricking yourself into thinking you have a lock, committing a large portion of your salary cap to it, then whammy. BLINDSIDE. Stats can be useful here.
Rules of Probability
Past performance doesn’t guarantee future success and it gets pretty damn expensive on the salary cap. It’s a nice indicator, but realize a pendulum swings on trends, and a trend change reversal can swing right back into your beer gut when you least expect it. It’s a gut check moment for those all time high hodl’rs of Etherium ($ETH). Be objective. Howling winds and heavy rain? Maybe a visit by Jalen Ramsey? Odell Beckham might not be pulling in the pill as much. Be aware of factors that can kill a trend.
Loss Aversion
You’re a pansy. You know it, your fantasy football league knows it, and your decision making shows it. But, fortunately, DFS does not. You’re not going to have a roster full of Tyreek Hills, get over it. Don’t be afraid to find value in the lower tier – and cheaper – players. That’s how monster weeks are made and it perhaps frees up your cap space for a few Tyreeks. I repeat: do not be afraid to trade against the market when it makes sense. If markets think alt coins are going to die, maybe you should find value there and hedge a bit. That’s how you beat the market and your fantasy competition.
Disposition Effect
Seeing the DFS landscape as black and white is rarely a benefit for you. Good or bad? It’s all gray, baby; don’t fool yourself. Antonio Brown is a baller but he doesn’t always earn that premium price tag. Likewise, pre-mined blockchain projects can’t be 100 percent bad all of the time and maybe there is value there. You need to prevent yourself from looking at opportunities as strictly good or always bad so you can see what is best for your roster.
Familiarity
Playing 3+ Patriots in a week rarely leads to success. Yes, you like them. Yes, they’re your team, so you know ‘em. Yes, Tom Brady to you is God, but just zip it. Your comfort zone can only be so big. Challenge yourself to fish outside of it. Playing matchups is an easy way to test your toe here. The Bills are looking soft and Philip Rivers could be labeled a terrorist in Buffalo after Sunday. Bitcoin ($BTC) is great, Bitcoin will never die, but it doesn’t mean there isn’t room for other coins to enjoy somewhat similar success. Don’t close your mind off to the “what-ifs”. You might just end up catching Catfish Hunter fishing this way.
The ability to utilize capital conservation along with making consistent decisions understanding you have underlying biases will lead to a greater rate of success over the long run. Be greedy with your salary cap! Conserving capital is never bad. You got a couple sneaky $6k range running backs you think have great matchups that to you seem undervalued. Great, why wouldn’t you consider that? This lets you load up at wide receiver. Who cares if they aren’t big names on big teams! Big names don’t translate to big points (ask Week 1 Matthew Stafford). I know it’s tough to make hard calls like this when money is on the line and it’s YOUR team.
Since immersing myself into the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector, understanding the markets and trading has become an interest – not that I’m great at either. The stories candlesticks can sometimes tell: capitulation, hardwired emotion, overreaction …. Oh the humanity! Days of Our Lives: Bitcoin Cash ($BCH) edition! Damn, how could this Wild West not remind you of Daily Fantasy Football.
Take away this one DFS concept if I’ve been fortunate enough to keep your attention this long. Be greedily objective. Seems easy enough advice, right? The white swans or unicorns are indeed out there. Your chances of picking them, in my opinion, will be greatly increased if you create a system for yourself that revolves around always evaluating the players who have earned and will earn their cap space, and what outside factors might get in the way of their performance. Apply this consistently, knowing where your decision-making might be biased, and you have a recipe for success.
For those who will lose money to us, WE SALUTE YOU!
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