🌴 The Best Part Of The Internet Is IRL

In this week's P.O. Box:

I spent last weekend in Miami with Underdog Fantasy at their first ever live final and it was an absolute blast:

The event was top notch, but it was the fact that there were so many friends and family from the Deposit Kingdom and our collective corner of the fantasy internet that made it particularly enjoyable.

As Sackreligious described on this week’s Stat Chasing, the final had a much more communal vibe compared to other live finals with so many of the qualifiers knowing each other and sweating together.

It really did feel like a typical Sunday of shit posting and sweating walked off the Discord screen and into that bar in Miami.

And with as much time as we spend online together, I’ve come to value these live experiences more and more.

Some of my favorites over the past few years:

• Club Top Shot trip to NBA Summer League

• Annual Ship Chasing meet up in Vegas for high stakes drafts

• Underdog Super Bowl weekends

• Fantasy Life meet up before the Fantasy Expo

• Underdog Cardio Club event in NYC

• Dinner with Club NGMI during an NFT NYC event

• Gambling Olympics event with the 3 Donkeys Crew

So much of playing fantasy sports is a solitary exercise. It’s something we’ve discussed on LOLz previously with guests like RikkiDee and Youdacao.

I feel grateful that I get to socialize online regularly via Discord and doing shows with friends, but nothing is a one-for-one substitute for hanging out IRL.

One of the only downsides to this recent Dawg Bowl event is that it was for only a select few (36 entries, 33 qualifiers) who won a seat to the tournament.

Based on the feedback we got over the weekend, there’s clearly a demand for larger Underdog/Deposit Kingdom community events that are open to more people. I even started brainstorming some possible ideas with Hayden, Josh & Jon this past weekend that would be very fun.

The rub, of course, is that successfully planning large scale events is no easy task. Even seemingly simple stuff like a dinner reservation or renting a party space can take hours of logistical work to organize. I have so much respect for people like Kristin and Oakes, who did the heavy lifting for organizing the Dawg Bowl festivities.

Still, I need to remember how energized I feel after these weekends next time I let some logistics slow me down.

So where should we have the next Deposit Kingdom meet up? I’m open to about any idea other than Vegas…

With the fantasy regular season coming to an end, I figured I’d share my final tally on some of my best ball and high stakes results from this season since a lot of you have been following along on my channel and Ship Chasing.

This ended up being probably my best regular season ever:

🐶 UNDERDOG:

• Best Ball Mania: 33/150 teams advanced (all streamed)

• Big Board: 44/150 teams advanced (pre-NFL Draft contest)

• High stakes contests ($100+): 7/9 advanced

🚢 FFPC W/ SHIP CHASING:

• Main Event: 7 teams - 3 league titles & one 2nd place

🚢 NFFC W/ SHIP CHASING:

• Primetime: 4 teams - 1 league title & one 2nd place

• $2500 Super League: league title (w/ Leone)

• Silver Bullet: 3rd place

For a full rundown of our high stake teams, check out Steph’s most recent newsletter post.

Now let’s chase some ‘ships and Kerrane…

💎 Playoff Best Ball primer. Playoff best ball on Underdog is my favorite fantasy format. There is a huge edge in simply understanding the unique structure of the tournament. I wrote up a primer for Fantasy Life:

🤑 The Jags Employee Who Stole $22M To Play DFS. We broke down the wild “ParlayPicker” fraud story on LOLz.

☕️ The Final Best Ball Push & Week 14 DFS Review. Reviewed DraftKings GPP lineups that we trusted the sims on, as well as the Deposit Kingdom contest. We also discussed why RB volume is still king and why the double TE meta is alive and well. We then do a final recap of the Dawg Bowl live final and the winning lineups, as well as my Week 14 drafts on Underdog. We wrap up with a Best Ball Mania IV portfolio review before MNF.

🏆️ Fantasy Life roundup. Recapped a wild Week 14, losing Justin Herbert for the year, and the end of the Bill Belichick era in New England.

💪 Swolecast: Draftkings Week 15 DFS picks. Liam joins to explain why Josh Allen, Stefon Diggs, James Cook, and Dalton Kincaid are great plays.

🚢 An Epic Beatdown, Playoff Drafts & Dynasty Buy Lows. The Ship Chasing crew persist through another wild TNF game and discuss some game theory with setting your lineups in the playoff sprint. We somehow ended up with a kicker in our Pick 'Em core and sweat that. Danny Kelly from The Ringer joins to talk about Arthur Smith, Seahawks play calling, this golden age of TEs, what the Bears should do with Justin Fields, and some dynasty buy low targets. Later, Steph joins us to discuss our high stakes teams in the playoffs and to rip a couple playoff best ball drafts (The Gauntlet) on Underdog Fantasy.

🍾 BBM4 Review & Playoff Best Ball Strategy. The Club is back to recap our weekend in Miami, preview the BBM4 playoffs, and talk some playoff best ball strategy.

📈 Week 15 DFS Targets & Playoff Best Ball Strategy. Drico & Sack return to breakdown all the usage and trends heading into week 15 to prepare for the new playoff best ball contests such as the Gauntlet and the Mitten on Underdog. Sack also shares his experience in Miami after finishing in 3rd place in the Dawg Bowl.

We got 4 shows on tap before the Week 15 main slate kicks off:

🧩 Block Party: Week 15 DFS Plays & GPP Strat w/ JMToWin

⏱️ Off & On The Clock: Week 15 Draft Party w/ Badge Bros

🥃 DFS After Dark: Interview w/ Pat Kerrane

🤓 Week 15 DFS Cram: Top GPP Plays & Hidden Gems

🔤 Cooterdoodle gives The New York Times an ultimatum. DO IT, COWARDS.

📈 Awesome year for Fantasy Life. Fun fact: our two most read newsletters featured headlines about picking up Trey McBride.

🧮 DFS and Best Ball Made EZ. Check out EZ’s new site. Everything is free for now.

👕 New Patrick Laird shirt. Gonna win The Spy this weekend.

🤮 Sometimes the worst picks…are the best picks.

🤑 The regular season best ball payouts for BBM4 have hit. S/o to the $500,000 winner.

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