I just spent the past few hours crunching the $25K Fantasy Draft data, salaries, and past scores. I then ran 1,000,000 simulations to gain some insight into building my ODB Fantasy teams and my PokerOrg Fantasy Freeroll Team.
I broke each players stats down for the mean (average) points returned and the peak score returned on average, Then I calculated the expected value of the points per dollar spent for both data points.
Example: Jeremy Ausmus is going for $141, so if he returns 388 points like last year his EV would be $2.75/dollar spent.
High floor, high upside
For my ODB teams, I am looking for high floor and high upside lineups. For the PokerOrg Fantasy Freeroll team, it's winner-take-all, so I am looking for max upside across the board.
Being able to play more than hold'em is one of the most important factors here. I am looking for mixed game players who also have upside in two-card but are capable of scoring in any game.
The mixed game fields are typically smaller, so you have a better chance to score. If I am building around one star salary, I want them to get me about 3pts/$ return on the upside, and I think we have about ten good options to return more than 300 points.
Yuri Dzivielevski, Shaun Deeb and Daniel Negreanu are my three highest upside players for peak score. Ausmus looks a little too high for me at 141, but I expect his floor and ceiling to be very high points-wise.
Texas Mike Moncek is one of the wildcards who announced he was playing a big schedule but doesn't have the same kind of 25K Fantasy scoring track record as other legends like Phil Hellmuth, Scott Seiver, and Nick Schulman. Nevertheless, I expect him to have a big summer.
Dzivielevski is the highest raw upside player with a potential to hit 430 points. He has only played three years and scored very well each time. Seiver has been looking ready for another major summer and to top his 2024 performance, so I will be paying close attention to him.
Best bet: Shaun Deeb
At the top of the salary I have Shaun Deeb at $99 as one of the best bets coming off a bounce-back year. He has been a scoring machine in years past, and I am expecting him to be locked in.
He had a down year last year returning 1.32pts/$ but still had 25 cashes, so he is always in the hunt.
My main lineups will probably be built around Negreanu or Deeb, and then I am looking for other crushers with high upside who can score between 200-300 if they do well and who offer a high pts/$ upside.
In the $20-$50 range I see great upside in Ben Yu at $31 who has been a scoring machine in years past. Calvin Anderson and ODB Baker at $51 also stand out for their high pts/$.
Brian Rast ($57) is always a stand out name to me, someone who can really press his upside if he is locked in. It's always good to know more about who is feeling ready to grind, who is on a massive downswing, who is playing terribly, etc. for all price ranges.
In the $10-$20 range I see big upside potential with John Monette at $19, Ben Lamb at $15, Paul Volpe at $14 and Dan Zack at $13. All of them fall in the 200-300 point range potential to me and would be getting a phenomenal pts/$ at that cost.
Yueqi Zhu is a name ranked very highly at $13, and I'm expecting big things from him. Ben wants to go harder to help promote his new brand, and Jeff Madsen ($11) always looks ready to crush when I see him lately.
For the bargain $1-$9 price range - Brian Hastings at $1 seems very low, but after last years five-point performance, maybe the sharps drafting know something, because his EV is one of the highest for that price range.
Mike Gorodinksy, the mixed game legend, said he might play about 15-20 events and is also ranked high for his 200 point upside and $6 salary. Mike Matusow ($3) and Mike Leah at $3 have some of the highest peak upside for their price range. The Year of Matusow could be upon us, and Daniel picked him for his main team.
Tomasz Gluszko at $1 was taken by Pads, and he looks like a mixed game chess wizard who can make final tables. So, he is someone standing out to me. Lucky Chewy at $1 had a twinkle in his eye when I saw him last, so he might put up a run at that price as well
Ryan Laplante, Tsang and Dong Chen give some upside with a tolerable floor for that price range and EV return on pts/$.
Joey Ingram's Winner-Take-All strategy
My core five would be Monette ($19), Zack ($13), Hastings ($1), Gordo ($6) and Yu ($31). After that, I have plenty of budget for one luxury player like Negreanu, Deeb or Yuri.
Yueqi Zhu ($13), Calvin Anderson ($51), Paul Volpe ($14), Sam Soverel ($4), ODB ($51) and Ben Lamb ($15) also show up in my highest scoring projections.
My personal projected top scorer will be Scott Seiver.
So, if I was building my winner take-all-team around him, it would look like this:
- Scott Seiver
- Paul Volpe
- Ben Lamb
- John Monette
- Dan Zack
- Brian Hastings
- Mike Gorodinksy
- Mike Matusow
I'll be submitting my teams soon!
