Daily Fantasy Sports - How to Play Head-to-Head – Best Strategies, Payouts

FanDuel.com blog writer offered up an excellent explanation on how to play head-to-head daily fantasy sports and the best strategy to employ, noting it is the most popular and easiest for a new entry into Fantasy play.  Head-to-head is often referred to as H2H.

Head-to-head is exactly what it sounds like: One opponent is pitted against another. Braden Horn of FanDuel calls it “the most basic type of gameplay”.

Fantasy points are awarded based on how one’s players perform in a given day or week and whomever has the most points at the end of play is the winner.  Gambling911.com now covers the whole fantasy gamut, incorporating player values into its own game betting previews, so this is often an excellent way to decide on which player to select in a given time frame.

The payout breakdown at FanDuel.com appears below and, as you can see, the higher the entry fee, the larger the payout potential. This is very similar to sports betting and other forms of gambling.  All fantasy sites offer H2H but not all entry fees are the same.  Here is a sample:

A $1 entry fee pays $1.80; a $10 entry fee pays $18; a $25 entry fee pays $45 and a $270 fee pays $500.

Probably the best strategy used in H2H would be research and selection of a well-rounded team.

Horn explains:

In H2H you want to evolve a well-rounded team that has the potential to score high but also is a “safe” team. Safe meaning they aren’t a risk to possibly do bad, they have a great matchup, history, health, everything that you might not think about. You’ll formulate your team just like you would year-long leagues, and expect the “stud” player to play like you know they can.

Rotogrinders.com offered this example of how to correctly choose a daily fantasy quarterback as opposed to one in a season-long league:

Here is an example: You are playing in an NFL league and you are comparing two different quarterbacks that are in the same price range. You are debating between taking Cam Newton and Andrew Luck.  On the one hand, Newton can have those huge fantasy performances where he tops the 30 fantasy point mark, but he can also put up a dud and end up scoring less than 15 fantasy points. Luck, however, is a much more consistent fantasy QB. While he doesn’t have the upside of Newton, he’s much less of a risk and you can expect between 16-20 fantasy points.

I bring this up to point out two things: In a head to head matchup, Luck would be the better play because he is the more consistent of the two and has less variance in his fantasy production. But if you are playing in a GPP, Newton would be the better play because his ceiling is higher than Luck’s. This situation is assuming that both matchups are equal.

It’s one thing to pick your daily fantasy team, now you have to select your head-to-head opponent.  You do have the ability to hand-pick your opponents and it is best not to choose someone who is a veteran fantasy player or an individual with a winning track record. Just as you would research a particular athlete, you can do the same when it comes to a prospective opponent. Clicking on a potential opponent’s name provides you with his past experience and winnings.

- Tyrone Black, Gambling911.com