Welcome to the 2016 version of The Daily Grind, a look at Daily Fantasy Football from several vantage points. Together we will look at many different topics this season – from managing expectations and bankroll to what Footballguys has in store for 2016 and how to best use what this site has to offer to maximize both your enjoyment and your bankroll by Super Bowl LI. So let’s jump right in with some thoughts on both expectations for playing this year and also a first take at a guided tour for Footballguys’ DFS coverage this season:
DFS TETRIS
For those who are not familiar with the classic game of Tetris, I will quickly explain. Tetris is a simple game where groups of blocks (“pieces”, or “tetriminos”) fall from the top of the screen and fall downwards on a rectangular playing field. The object is to create horizontal lines of ten blocks (without gaps) with these pieces. Once the line is created, it disappears, creating room for more pieces to be placed. Scoring increases when multiple lines are completed simultaneously, with the highest score occurring when four lines are finished all at once – which is called a “Tetris”.
Getting a Tetris = Winning a Tournament
Getting a Tetris
While Tetris is one of the greatest games of all time, the stroll down video game history is not my purpose today. Rather, I wanted to give you the best analogy for building DFS lineups that I could find, and it has taken me a while to come up with the best explanation. I believe that DFS is very much like Tetris. Both games are puzzles with boundary conditions - DFS has a salary cap and a set of roster positions for a valid lineup, while Tetris has the rectangular playing field board (analogous to the salary cap) and several different types of shapes to fit onto the board (which can be compared to both the roster positions and they types of players put on a DFS roster). Both games involve “stacking” – one literally with blocks on a board, the other combining players that should perform well together. The goal of both games is to not just play within the limits of the contest but to maximize your score, obtaining a big reward for achieving the best possible results. In Tetris, this would be completing four lines as quickly as possible, starting the game with a perfect Tetris, while in DFS it would be to take down a GPP contest, finishing atop the leaderboard in a tournament. That is why I believe the best analogy for winning a DFS tournament is to complete a Tetris, and that is how I think about building a GPP lineup.
Setting Up for a Tetris
After playing Tetris for a little while, it becomes apparent that there is a general strategy for aligning the pieces and getting a high score. Pieces need to be stacked so that one column on either side of the board is left blank, leaving the opportunity to land the skinniest stick-shaped piece down the side to complete four lines at once and to score the Tetris. That sounds easy, but pieces appear in a random order and they do not always fit perfectly together. Careful planning and skill are required to keep up with the changing elements of the game, as well as some good fortune for the right pieces to appear to help build the board. Again, as in DFS, the more skilled players are often rewarded for their efforts, but some luck (or “variance”) is still involved.
Setting Up for a Tetris
The best setup strategy is to build an assembly of pieces that constructs a 4x9 rectangle on either side of the Tetris board. This leaves room for a Tetris to be completed by dropping one straight piece vertically down the empty column, completing the Tetris. The 4x9 shape can be built a number of ways, but because the shapes are all four blocks each and come in different patterns, fitting them all into a nice and neat rectangle can be challenging. The simplest path is to create a 4x6 rectangle and then put together a grouping of three pieces to complete the remaining 4x3 area. Different combinations and permutations are certainly possible to complete, but the larger the assembly required for a rectangle with an odd number of rows, the higher the difficulty in completing that group.
The 4x3 Area for a Stack
The nice correlation of a 4x9 assembly in Tetris and a DFS lineup is that nine is quite often the number of players required in a DFS lineup. To make a Tetris, all nine pieces have to come together just right to set up the board in advance of hoping to land a Tetris. The same can be said for a GPP lineup – build a group of nine players and hope that everything goes just right for that lineup to succeed.
The Pieces of Tetris
Soon after the game of Tetris first appeared, all of the pieces were given names based on the English alphabet letter that they most resemble (See below). There are seven different shapes in the game, and I believe that each of these different types has a corresponding type of player in the world of DFS. Rather than consider each shape a positional player (such as a quarterback, running back or wide receiver), I think that each shape corresponds to a type of player selection for DFS contests. Let me explain by walking through each piece and illustrating how each one matches up with each type:
The Names of the Seven Tetris Pieces
A Square Piece in a Square Hole - The O-BlOCK
First comes the “O-block”, which is sometimes referred to as the square or cube piece. This is the simplest piece to put on the board, as it fits everywhere on a clean playing field with no pieces. Ideally this is the first piece that appears when you start the game, but it is not mandatory. The DFS comparison I like to make to the “O-block” is a chalk DFS player for a contest – a player that everyone is going to have on their cash game roster for that week. It could be the running back with the best matchup or the quarterback facing the worst pass defense or a backup player getting a spot start due to an injury, but for whatever reason this player is going to be highly owned and probably achieve cash value. Just like the placement of the cube at the start of a game of Tetris, the placement of this chalk DFS player on your roster is a simple, easy, straightforward choice that can be a starting foundation for a lineup. Just take the “free square”, put it on the board and move on, planning the next pieces.
“L-Block” and “J-Block”
These pieces closely resemble “Capital L” or “Capital J”, and they are mirror images of one another. I consider them one of the easier pieces to place, as they fit with many other options that appear, including another of the same type (an “LL” or “JJ” stack). The type of DFS roster player that they most closely correspond to in my mind are higher-owned players, but not chalk options. Think “stud player in not the perfect matchup” when it comes to these pieces. While it would be nice to put them on your roster, they may not fit perfectly. They could cost too much or have a tougher matchup, but the upside is there. I picture the longer side of the Tetris shape as the “stud player” portion, while the extra square on either end is the “upside”.
The “T-Block”
This piece is similar in a way to the “L-Block” or “J-Block”, but a little harder to fit into the puzzle. Just like the description I gave for “L” and “J” above, this piece has three squares in a row and one “spur” off of that row of three. The problem with this piece is that it does not fit well with other pieces, including itself, to make a nice square or rectangular stack on a Tetris board. Something else has to be added to it to “square it up”. For that reason, this piece is tougher to use in a perfect Tetris, but it is not impossible to use. The DFS analogy here to another player is a lower owned stud player with a bad matchup (think “Antonio Brown” or another stud wide receiver against the Denver secondary or a shutdown corner), or a secondary player that has a reasonable matchup but may not get as many chances (such as a WR2 or a WR3 for an NFL team facing a below average defense, but the receiver only gets a handful of chances each week).
The “S-Block” and “Z-Block”
Our last group of pieces are the ones with the most irregular shapes, the “S-Block” and “Z-Block”. These groups of four smaller blocks do not build easily with the rest of the pieces because they do not have any truly flat sides, and they need a lot of help to be built into a rectangle or square shape. In DFS, I find that these pieces are your bigger GPP plays – the very low owned tournament players that have big upside but are even more likely to underperform. Deep threat wide receivers are the prime example here. Darrius Heyward-Bey and Ted Ginn Jr are “S-Block” and “Z-Block” receivers. In most NFL games they either score a long touchdown and reach GPP value or they put up next to nothing.
Getting Some Luck with The “I-Block"
There is one more Tetris piece I have not discussed yet, and I saved it for last for a reason. The “I-block”, or “stick-shaped piece” I mentioned earlier, is the only piece that can produce a true Tetris. With four squares all in a row, this is the ultimate and final piece that you want to complete your Tetris. If you have built the perfect pre-Tetris assembly of four rows and nine columns all tightly packed and ready on one side of the board, you are sitting there, just hoping that this piece comes next. You have demonstrated your skill in building this beautiful assembly of 4x9, and just need that final piece of the puzzle to complete your goal. The “I-Block” is the “luck and variance” piece you are hoping for, just like you hope your perfectly assembled DFS roster has everything fall into place when the games kick off on Sunday. No Tetris can be completed without this piece, so an element of good fortune is needed. The luck of getting this piece at just the right time can push you over the top, getting that high score and winning the game.
Stacking
Tetris is all about stacking blocks. Literally. That’s the game. Take blocks and build stacks of them. Practically everyone has done this since childhood, either with Lincoln Logs, Legos or other blocks. Stacking is almost a part of our nature. In DFS, stacking is also a big component. You want to build groups of players that come together in just the right way for maximum results. Tetris has the same concept, and some of the assembly of stacked pieces along the path to a Tetris are very similar to the same stacks DFS players consider each week for a GPP contest. Let’s consider a few:
The "cube stack"
First, the cube stacks. I don’t have a better name for this one (“CheeriOOOOs”? “OOOO-no?”), but it is a series of an even number of O-Blocks that are grouped together to form a bigger square or rectangle. That sounds like a great idea – they stack neatly, nice and clean – but the end result leaves much to be desired. Not only are all the players highly owned, but look at the formation that is left when you only use square pieces – you cannot build a 4x9 assembly. Instead, it looks more like this:
Two I-Blocks are now needed, and that is asking for too much luck to win a GPP. In truth, if you build a highly owned lineup for a tournament, you have a shot at winning, but so do about 2% of the rest of the players in the contest, meaning you are going to be splitting the winnings with a ton of other players. While this lineup structure can work well for cash games, it is not a plan for success in tournaments.
"LL" CoOL "JJ" - Two-piece stacks
There are two stacks that are similar that involve two of the same Tetris pieces that can build up a 4x2 group of blocks on a Tetris board. These are the “JJ” and “LL" stacks, which I mentioned briefly in the section on these piece types. Pairing two strong players together with corresponding upside make a lot of sense, such as a quarterback and his top receiver or tight end. If one of them performs well, the upside and value should be there for the other player. This is one of the most basic stacking concepts in DFS lineup construction for tournaments. It is not just for a QB/WR or QB/TE, however. It can also represent a running back and his defense, which often has a high correlation of success.
Three-piece stacks
There are several groupings of three Tetris pieces that can be done to put together a 4x3 shape. I believe that each one of these groups has a corresponding NFL stacking strategy, and I will give some examples for each. As I mentioned earlier, the 4x3 shape in Tetris is the simplest one to create in order to build out the 4x9 overall shape needed to get ready for a potential Tetris. Let’s break each one down:
The "JOL" stack
This stack involves a chalk (O-block) player and two players with upside (L-block and J-block). This group of three is one of the easier assemblies in Tetris, and it is similarly easy in DFS. Take a chalk player and add two strong players with upside that correspond well to that chalk player. A simple example would be if the Pittsburgh Steelers were favored to do quite a bit on offense in a given contest, and either Antonio Brown or LeVeon Bell was a chalk DFS option for the week. Adding Brown and Ben Roethlisberger to Bell would round out the stack of Steelers, with the clear correlation in place (if Pittsburgh scores a lot of points, all three are likely to succeed). The downside to this stack is that these players are going to be reasonably well owned (one chalk, two studs) so using them in a smaller-sized GPP tournament is preferable.
The "TTL" OR "JTT" stack
This stack involves using two T-blocks and either an L-block or a J-block to complete the 4x3 assembly. The two T-blocks have to combine just right to make the L-block or J-block fit in the 4x3 grid, but it certainly can be done. This stack is going to be a little less owned than the previous stack, because no chalk players are involved. Three studs are still in the mix, but only one is in a favorable matchup (the L or J). The two T-block players are going to be players in the lower ownership range (say 5-10%) of larger field GPPs, but still have enough upside to be worth a roster spot if that player was in a better matchup. This is a good contrarian option stack, where you can combine three pieces from three different games that might be reasonable “pivot players”, such as taking a stud running back that is not going to be a common choice with two other chalk options that week. This example also works with a contrarian game script stack, where the consensus might be that David Johnson will run all day long for the Cardinals, but if Arizona falls behind, Carson Palmer and Larry Fitzgerald could put up strong numbers. Another example that works in this case is taking a game that is expected to be low scoring but winds up being a shootout, and selecting three players from that game (a “game stack”) that wind up outperforming expectations.
The "LSL" or "JZJ" stack
This one is a little bit elegant, and a little bit risky all at the same time. As I mentioned earlier, one of the hardest pieces to work into the grid is the S-block or the mirror image Z-block. Building a “sandwich” around one of these pieces with either two L-blocks or two J-blocks to make a solid 4x3 block assembly is one method that can work, but there is certainly risk involved. The Z-block or S-block aligns to a DFS player that is a “boom or bust” type performer, but putting two players that can support the case for when that player would “boom” makes for a solid game stack scenario. For example, it would surprise no one if Aaron Rodgers and Jordy Nelson have a big game, but expecting Richard Rodgers to also put up GPP numbers is a bold call. If Richard Rodgers has a big game and Aaron Rodgers winds up throwing for four touchdowns, all three players may hit value and pay off the entire stack and help that particular lineup win a GPP.
Bigger Stacks
There are certainly many more possible stacks than I can cover in just one article, but I will give one last example. Let’s take a 5-player / piece stack such as the example I show below:
These five pieces combine very nicely for a 4-row, 5-column rectangle, but everything has to come together just right for it to happen. The pieces have to show up at the right time, and in the right order, and they all have to slip into place just so. A stack of 4-5 (or more) players in a GPP can be very hard to predict, and it is also difficult to pay off given that there are only so many fantasy points to be had in one game. Of course you could break up this stack across more than one NFL contest, but that only increases the challenge of getting all of these players right. This type of GPP approach is probably only even worth trying in the biggest of GPPs, and possibly only those that are very top-heavy (such as a qualifier for a live event, or a free roll). That said, I still do not recommend going for such a large stack approach, and I dare say that I would recommend not even attempting them – possibly, ever.
Well, there you have it – a look at GPP roster building in the context of the classic video game Tetris. I bet that you were not expecting that today, but I hope that this analogy and all the examples within help you to picture how to build stacks and lineups, and eventually take down a big tournament. Now start stacking those pieces, and go hit a Tetris this weekend!
A GUIDED TOUR TO FOOTBALLGUYS’ DFS 2016 COVERAGE (FINAL EDITION)
Over the first three weeks of the season I have provided you a guided tour to all the DFS coverage Footballguys is providing this season. Here at Footballguys, we have dedicated a good amount of the staff and resources to give you the best DFS content possible, and the intent of this tour was to highlight as much of the content and how to use it as possible. As a courtesy to you the reader each week, I will leave this placeholder so you can find the tour in the future and can find the articles and tools you use the most. Just remember to check the week number in the link, as it will take you to Week 3 content.
Here is the final version of the tour:
Good luck to you in all of your contests!
Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com.