Not sure if there are that many people in the forum that play fantasy, but I’m interested to know whether you use our projections + optimizer, or take our projections and use an outside optimizer.
Thanks!
I personally mostly use your projections but use DFSArmy’s optimizer. Main reason being that I can set min/max exposures to individual golfers there. I’d love if you guys could do something like that, but understand if it’s a ton of work and not many folks here use it, that it might not be worth it.
They have some other cool features like forcing X amount of players under X Projected Ownership. Attaching a screengrab here in case you haven’t seen theirs.
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I’ve used your projections/optimizer for years and have done really well. Other sites like ETR and RPS basically just copy all of your projections which shouldn’t be a surprise.
I’ve never played DFS contests but I’d be very interested if someone wants to teach me how to do it with DG lol.
When I played I used your projections with an outside optimizer because I was used to it for other sports.
Circling back on this, just to update on a couple things…
I DID decide to use your opto for the Valero, instead of DFSArmy opto w/ your projections. Had a really good week. Going to stick with the hot hand this weekend. 
Had Denny been able to win the playoff, I would’ve done even better, as I had better leverage on the field with Denny at 5.5% owned vs Akshay at 14.5%. Would’ve cleared 1K for sure.
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going to dabble and play DFS for the first time. Will use DG optimizer …any tips ? LOL I have no clue what I am doing. Is the 10$ million contest the best one to play?
That’s the worst one to play. Enter some teams in the single entry tournaments or 3 max. I suggest using the optimizer and locking in a few guys you like who project a little lower than other guys around them because they will likely be lower owned. Good luck!
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ok thanks. I am able to play in beginner and casual contests. I guess I will fill those first.
Should I want variance in my lineups spread across all these contests or should I just play the same players almost everywhere ?
For Single entry and cash games (Double up, 50/50, H2H) I would go with minimum variance (focus just on making the best possible lineups.) You’ll want higher variance for those multi-entry contests, though. Last week I did 20 entry contests, and set max ownership of any player at 25%, which I wouldn’t do for a single entry type contest.
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This is a mostly a risk tolerance question. You can make your pool small if you want and rotate those into combos of 6 across all your buyins but you’re upping your variance.
If it is your first week I’d say make a couple LUs with a very small player pool, rotate the cheap guys and take a stand on one of the big boys you like. Enter a single entry contest $33 or under. Also look at the DG optimal lineup (just hit ‘generate lineups’ and see the highest projected) and avoid having 4+ guys from that LU.
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thanks for the help. not sure it’s worth it I even try lol I will get murdered.
Good week on Draftkings using the DG optimizer! I pivoted off the McCarthy/Si Woo/Hideki chalk and got some really good ownerships in the $1500 SE and the $888 3 max. Few things as sweet as a Masters double ship! Props DG!
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Wowza! Nice job, man!
(And to think I was thrilled with my 60% ROI on DK contests this weekend, and you got ~ 650% 
)
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wow congrats man ! thats awesome, crazy money.
I finally decided to give DFS a chance and try it. Got lucky …I entered contests for $225 and got $805 out of it.
But I love it lol. I’m not 100% sure my process was right. Don’t know if I did it the right way or just got lucky, but it was fun.
Lineup in 2nd picture finished 239th in the big contest I think, for $400. Could have been a bit more considering Bryson, Hatton and An all finished poorly and were low ownership.
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Just getting into DFS myself - wondering what goes into the DG ownership projections?
the data golf optimizer is generally poorer than most
the one thing I really like is the “declump” which I have no idea what it actually does but somehow jerry-rigs a manageable result
I almost always used fantasycruncher but out of laziness/cheapness have been fighting through using the data golf optimizer lately, because it’s included without paying extra
a couple of main points that really would smooth things out, based on my 10 years of using various optimizers for DFS every single week
-the ability to make lineups in “batches” I.e. … what I would like to do is say, lock in player A, create 10 “scheffler” lineups. then I would like to un-lock him, and lock, say, Rory McIlroy, and make 10 McIlroy lineups, and be able to generate 1 file of 20 lineups, and have the overall ownerships between those two “batches” shown as one. if that makes sense. like basically being a ble to:
run an optimization, change the settings, and then ADD the next batch of optimized lineups to that first one. and also not duplicate lineups between these two efforts, so all 20 will be unique. if that makes sense. this is just a simple example its usually done with several different “batches” to make a full, say, 150-entry GPP file
-to be able to set a minimum ownership percentage, as well, although using the “batches” thing above is kind of how I jerry-rig this result, but takes a lot more effort
-there are some more intricate things that I use much less frequently but are also useful for more advanced users, that fantasycruncher does … like being able to make “groups” and say “I want all lineups to have at least 1 player from ____ group” or “I want each lineup to have no more than 1 player from _____ group” and make that group be "all players under $6500 because, lets say, I don’t want to create any lineups with double punts, or I want to make sure I only have lineups that have at least one $10k+ golfer. not saying these are the best strategies, just examples of options other optimizers have that help more advanced users accomplish what they want
or the ability to say “I want every lineup to have at least 2 players under 10% projected ownership” rather than just saying “I want to exclude all lineups over 100% total team ownership”
ultimately just throwing ideas out there, some might be more annoying to implement, others might be trivial, but if there had to be ONE change it would definitely just be the ability to generate x-lineups, and then “ADD” to that batch rather than creating a new one. that would give a lot more ease of use and flexibility. the other really handy one you can do on FC is … generate say 100 lineups, sort them by projection, then say “okay this looks great but I really wanted 5% exposure to … Nicolai hojgaard as a punt flier that doesn’t really show up as optimal on the projections, but I want him” so what’s really nice to be able to do on FC is just instead of wrestling with trying to manipulate the optimizer for half an hour to get exactly that or pasting together multiple csvs and calculating your own exposure% list in spreadsheets off-site … on FC you can just “delete” lineups by hand, delete 5 you don’t like from your 100-batch, change the settings to generate 5 lineups, lock hojgaaard, and click to tack those lineups onto the 95 you already have queued up. voila. you have your optimals, and have added your 5% hojgaard punts very effectively and easily, and immediately can see the updated ownership %s etc. … might be simple for one, but this ability makes it a lot easier to kind of fine tune your exposures when playing mass-entry …
2 cents
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Thank you for the detailed reply. Ya we haven’t put any time into improving our optimizer for a couple years now, but I’m going to think about adding some of these features.
It would probably make sense for us to partner with one of the dedicated optimizer sites… that was why I started the thread initially. We are a bit hesitant to do that though.
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If I were to vote, I would vote for keeping it in-house. Yeah, it may take some more work to run lineups and get exposure the way you’d like, but I’d rather have a unique option vs something that all the other sites are using (for example, I see that DFSArmy and RotoBaller have the same opto these days…)
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yeah I’m with you on keeping it in house. I don’t really have a lot of good arguments lol, I just like the fact that it’s unique and maybe a bit less popular than I guess?