Saturday Slate Strategy- Approaching a Two-Game Slate
2 game slates are always difficult and are almost never advisable for cash games, so this article is going to take a GPP focus on breaking down the two-game slate for Saturday January 7th.
The challenge with a two-game slate is that the risk of overlap is even greater than a showdown contest, so you really need to assess your playing style. In terms of expected value, you’re almost always going to get a higher expected return of value with the minimal amount of overlap compared to your competition, as the higher you score, the greater upside you’ll have with a unique or semi-unique lineup. Going with a unique build can often come with its own risks however, as there are smart unique builds and then there are ones that simply are taking on too much risk. One suggestion is to intentionally underspend of $500-$1,000 can be smart as many optimizers and casual players will want to fill their salary to the maximum spend. Going beyond that $500-$1,000 range on most slates will often mean that the upside you get from additional uniqueness is likely not worth it, as most of the time you’ll find unique lineups by leaving that $500-$1,000 salary especially if you’re not taking all chalk. Remember, you can’t guarantee uniqueness in a mass-multi entry contest, and you also can’t be extra unique, so leave a little bit on the table while also potentially fading
One additional thing to consider on a two-game slate is the smaller GPP’s or even the single-entry contests. Playing in something such as a 100-person tournament may not have the life changing upside, but it can be good to balance your lineups especially if you’re typically a cash game type player. In these types of contests, you really shouldn’t need to worry too much about uniqueness at all as in a 100-person sample size while it is possible to have overlap, it is unlikely especially if you do something as simple as leave $300-$500 on the table or just avoid one of the highest rostered players.
On a two-game slate while stacking for correlation is important, doing a complete game stack is something that often is not advisable. There will be a somewhat sizable amount of people who will take every player on their roster from this Chiefs/Raiders game and only fill in a defense from the Titans and Jaguars. The problem here is that the way a game stack works is you’re really hoping for 60+ points in a game and on an average week, there often times are at least one game that hits that mark, but on a two-game slate, what you really need is almost every touchdown between the two games simply because there are less options and more ways to cover all of your bases.
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