⛏️ My New Favorite Fantasy Game

In this week's P.O. Box:

I thought for sure I was getting dusted in fantasy last week.

I ramped up my volume after my big Week 9, but things were not going well.

Some of my biggest fades (Cowboys passing game, Chargers/Lions, T.J. Hockenson, etc.) were all smashing and a lot of my big stands fizzled out (Jaguars, Seahawks & Commanders pass catchers, etc.).

I was ready to eat my Ls, lick my wounds, and move on to Week 11.

And then I realized that multiple Pick ‘Em entries I had built on Underdog throughout the week were live for 20x cashes as the main slate came to a close.

Even better, three of the pick ‘em entries were all built on stream —two on Off & On The Clock on Friday with Nez and one on my Sunday morning DFS cram that I do for Youtube members—so a bunch of the Deposit Kingdom was sharing the sweat.

Two of the three ended up hitting (damn you Tony Pollard) and I turned $150 in entries into $2,000 in pick ‘em winnings, salvaging an otherwise rough day:

If you’re not familiar with the format, Underdog’s Pick ‘Em contests allow you to string together anywhere from 2 to 5 fantasy picks where you take higher or lower on a player’s performance in a given category and the payout increases with the more picks you include:

I barely played these contests last year, but this year they are quickly becoming one of my favorite weekly game formats.

Not only are the very fun for communal sweats where everyone has the same rooting interest (this has become one of the best parts of the weekly TNF #ShipCast), but you can approach the 5-leg entries with the same correlation principles you’d apply to an Underdog draft or Draftkings lineup.

But unlike when you play tournaments, you don’t need to be perfect to win a pick ‘em.

This pick ‘em entry we built around the Seahawks/Commanders game on OOTC is the perfect example. I had truckloads of all these guys in my tournament entries, but couldn’t sniff a prize because so many other games also went off.

But being correct that this game would have a ton of passing volume allowed us to hit on a 20x score where we didn’t have to contend with a bunch of other game environments.

With five picks in an entry and a 20x payout, your probability of cashing is 5%. The math says you’ll need each pick to have around a 55% win probability in order to break even. That is hard to do, and yet the correlation element can help mitigate this dynamic.

When Tyler Lockett goes higher than his receiving number, it greatly increases the chances that Geno Smith will also go over his. And in those scenarios, it also likely means the opposite QB—specifically one chucking it at an absurd rate—will also be more likely to clear their yardage total.

So not only is it fun to tell a logical, correlated story with your entry, it also reduces the number of things you need to get right when that story comes to fruition. For this entry, it was getting essentially one thing right—there’s a ton of passing in this game.

Of course, when your entry gets blown up by injuries or the script doesn’t unfold as you wrote it—like the misguided story I weaved for MNF—you will completely brick:

That’s okay, though. The entire point is to get all of the entries moving in the same direction and some times that correlation will work against you.

I certainly don’t have everything figured out with Pick ‘Ems, but I’ve found myself devoting more and more time to it each week.

If you want to dive in with me, here are a few tips/resources for getting started…

• I like using the Run The Sims Underdog tool and ETR Underdog Pick ‘Em Table for finding the most mispriced numbers relative to their projections:

• I also tail smart people with their favorite picks and then build around it. The guys at Fantasy Life have been on a heater lately, and I’ll always see what they have posted on the Pick ‘Em page. My buddies Ben Gretch and Dalton Kates have been dialed in with their selections at Stealing Lines and I’ll often use their core picks (last week they went 3-for-3).

• Use your macro takes on games and players and build around it. We talk about the slate for an hour+ on Off & On The Clock every Friday afternoon and then target the players we think our mispriced on drafts. That line of thinking has put us on a ton of great selections.

• On this same line of thought, take the stacks you are building around in DFS and drafts, and build them out via a Pick ‘Em Entry as well.

• Bounce ideas off people you respect. I huddle with Gretch and Pat Kerrane every Thursday afternoon for our #ShipCast picks and we essentially mash up all of our favorite ideas…At the end of my GPP crams, I always crowd source a few of the chat’s favorite picks for an entry and curate them into an entry and that’s also had a ton of success, including this winner in Week 10.

Let’s see if we can keep the good times rolling in Week 11. Here’s an entry exclusive for P.O. Box readers that leans into the Browns/Steelers game being one of the worst games ever:

💎 Week 11 Hidden Gems for Battle Royale & DFS. Wrote about two stacks I love in Underdog Drafts this week:

☕️ RB Busts & Big Pick ‘Em Wins (Week 10 DFS Recap). Week 10 was a mixed bag across the portfolio. We recap it all, including our GPP teams on DraftKings and the Deposit Kingdom contest, our Underdog Fantasy drafts (Battle Royale and Dawg Bowl), and our top Best Ball Mania IV squads.

🏆️ Fantasy Life roundup. Recapped the Tony Pollard pain from Sunday, got hyped about 4 impact players returning, and prepared everyone for a historically bad game on Sunday.

☣️ DFS Teaching vs. Picks & What Motivates Touts. Eric Haber aka 'sheetspwns' joins the show to talk DFS, content that teaches, his site's relationship with StakeKings, and why so many anti-tout people have turned into touts recently.

💪 Swolecast: Draftkings Week 11 picks. Tune in for illuminating discourse on the true meaning of “DTR” and which teams held player-only meetings.

🚢 The TNF Game From Hell (Injuries & Pick 'Em Pain). The Ship Chasing crew hang out for a brutal Cincinnati Bengals vs. Baltimore Ravens TNF game where their pick 'em entries quickly get blown up by injuries. Fantasy Life's Chris Allen swings by to give us an energy boost, a state of the union on the Bengals, and tales from the life of a brewmaster. Later, Blair Andrews and Hasan Rahim from Rotoviz join to review their Main Event squad and Ben gets drunk.

🏀 NBA Strategy Tips From An Underdog Shark. The Club welcome Underdog Fantasy crusher 'npamlanye' on to talk hoops, beginner tips, and the Tuesday slate, plus the crew hop in an early Week 11 NFL draft.

📈 New QB1 & TE1 Challengers + Week 11 DFS Targets. Drico & Sack break down all of the important usage and trends from Week 10 to prepare you for Week 11 waivers, DFS builds and Underdog Fantasy drafts. Topics discussed: Rachaad White vs. Josh Jacobs, a committee in Seattle, Jonathan Taylor workhorse szn, wheels up for Trey McBride, Adam Thielen crashing down to Earth, and the continuation of short king summer.

📊 Ship Chasing High Stakes Team Reviews & Week 11 Waiver Roundup. Steph recaps our high stakes teams and outlines who it’s time to start stashin’:

We got 4 shows on tap before the Week 11 main slate kicks off…

🧩 Block Party: Week 11 DFS Plays & GPP Strat w/ Hilow

⏱️ Off & On The Clock: Week 11 Draft Party w/ Badge Bros

🥃 DFS After Dark: Interview & DFS Build w/ Kyle Dvorchek

🤓 Week 11 DFS Cram: Top GPP Plays & Hidden Gems

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