NASCAR STRATEGY: GPP vs CASH

NASCAR STRATEGY: GPP vs CASH

NASCAR STRATEGY: GPP vs CASH, the eternal debate.

It is the battle we face in chasing the top heavy high payouts of guaranteed prize pool contests versus the safer lower payouts of cash contests. You will frequently hear that proper bankroll management means playing 80%+ on cash while limiting your gpp exposure. What a lot of dfs players do not realize, however, is that the structure of your roster construction should differ between these contests.

For cash games, you must have the “chalk” drivers meaning the ones who will be high owned because they are in a great position to score points. For instance, Hamlin missed qualifying at Martinsville and starts 38th. He has an extremely high ceiling and a strong record at that track. Place differential alone makes him a great play but the potential for a top 5 finish and fastest laps make him a must play in cash games. Recognizing the chalk plays as well as the potential lap leader dominators and mixing in 1 or 2 solid upside fillers will give you the foundation for consistent winning in cash games.

The 3 best ways to identify those drivers to add to your roster are to study their recent history at the track. There are many sites that provide loop data of performances by drivers in previous races. Be careful not to look back too far because car styles and packages change and track configurations change with repaves and different track compounds used. I generally use the previous 4-6 races or 2-3 years. Second, pay attention to qualifying and practices. Normally, there will be 3 practices prior to a race. The first will largely be cars in qualifying trim and you can generally disregard this practice session for dfs purposes. The 2nd and 3rd practices will see race trim on the cars and then you can identify which drivers are fast in 10, 15, 20 lap consecutive runs. If you can find a driver starting in the back half of the field who is top 10 in those categories then that driver is a good play for your cash lineup. The final measure I use is listening to the drivers themselves. You will hear drivers talk about who has the car to beat that weekend, or if their car is not set up to their liking. Use those to your advantage.

For gpp roster construction you will want to find ways to differentiate yourself. So while some chalk is good you certainly do not want a popular lineup that many other players will have. It is a little deflating to split the win 75 ways when you could have changed one driver with lower percentage of ownership and claimed the top spot to yourself. So you identify drivers with the same research used in cash and find your dominators and your place differential drivers but your value drivers may differ. In GPP you may take a driver like Quinn Houff and hope for 22 points to be able to top load your lineup whereas in cash you generally look for more of a balanced value approach. The key to securing gpp wins, is recognizing the value that will be overlooked by the masses when it comes down to ownership. One way I like to identify value is to use the Vegas odds. I look more at matchup odds than race winning odds because matchups pair one driver against another. For example, the dfs industry is all over Jones as a top play for the slate and he is starting 21st, meanwhile William Byron is starting 20th and is not mentioned much as a driver to roster for the race. The Vegas matchups are to bet on the highest finisher and the Jones-Byron matchup has Byron favored by quite a bit (-145). As a gpp player, I am going to use Byron over Jones because his upside and potential, at minimum, equal what Jones could provide and he is favored to run and finish higher than Jones. The added benefit is that I am getting him at far less ownership than I would be if I took Jones.

Finally, keep the salaries in mind. You generally want at least 5-6x the points to your salary so if Kyle Busch costs $12k then you will want him to score 60-72 points to pay off his salary. If he is starting 12th and has had the 15th best car in practice then odds are he will not pay off for you. So just because a driver is priced the highest it does not make them worth a play in either format.

In summary, play it safe with your value picks on cash games and utilize the chalk. For gpp you can open your range with value drivers and look for high upside lower ownership plays.

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