50/50 Strategy:
50/50s are contests where you win if you scored in the top half of the entry size. For example, if you entered a 50/50 contest with an entry size of 100 participants, placing 1 through 50 will double your entry fee less the rake. That’s it.
Creating lineups for 50/50s will take a different approach in strategy than GPP strategy. The difference in strategy here is unlike the GPP lineups with the “swing for the fences” high risk/high ceiling players, 50/50 lineups may have less of these types of players but with more lower risk/high floor types of players. Remember, you don’t need the top score in the contest, just a top half score, so creating a solid lineup that is expected to score enough points at every position would be the objective here.
After playing in a few 50/50 contests, you will find an approximate median average score you will need to beat at minimum to land in the top half of all the entrants. Each daily fantasy site has a different scoring format, so these median scores will be different across the various sites. Created lineups should project to at least meet this median average score with some upside potential per site playing on.
Stacking players from the same team, as mentioned previously as a popular strategy in GPP, could also apply to 50/50 and Head-to-Head contests. (If you haven’t already done so, see the GPP strategy page to learn about Stacking). If you have previously created lineups for a GPP tourney, you could use one of those lineups you believe to have the highest floor as a 50/50 play. Or you could take that highest floor GPP lineup and tweak it a little to make it less risky but with a lower ceiling.
When first starting out with some low entry fee 50/50 contests, try to target the largest entry sized ones. You will get to see a broader range of scores and the users entering them. This will help establish an approximate median average for larger domain contests. The larger sized contests may have more inferior players as well, making the median average score to beat a little easier. Whereas, entering a 10 player 50/50 contest, where the other 9 entrants just happen to be sharks, will probably have a higher average median score.
Your weekly bankroll budget should be spent on a variety of different types of contests. Diversify your contest types with lower risk types like 50/50s and some higher risk ones like GPP tournaments so you have the potential of making money, even if you happen to strike out on the GPP tourneys that week. Over time, try to find an optimal balance of what percentage of your weekly budget should be applied to lower risk and higher risk contests that work for you.
Head to Head (H2H) Strategy:
Head-to-Head (H2H) contests is simply your single lineup entry vs. one other player, the highest score wins the total of the entry fees, less rake. This type of contest is essentially the same as 50/50 contests, except for the number of entrants. The Strategy applied to 50/50 contests may also be applied to H2H as well.
A word of caution here: especially early in your dfs experience, it is not advised to create H2H contests open to the public. Sure, if you want to compete against a friend in a private contest, that’s different. But creating H2H contests open to the public may find yourself having these contests all being swooped up by sharks, who in turn, may teach you a H2H lesson the hard way.
It would be advisable to choose your H2H contest and opponent, not the other way around. If at all possible, find out as much about your opponent and their track record before engaging them on the various dfs sites.
After some experience, you may want to keep a record with notes on specific players to target or avoid. If you happen to see familiar good or bad users from previous GPP tourneys or large entry sized 50/50 contests, this may be a good place to start documenting potential users to target or avoid for a particular dfs site in H2H contests.
Strategy Links:
Fantasy Football Strategy Main Page
Basic DFS Fantasy Football Strategy
Guaranteed Prize Pool (GPP) tournament strategy
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