Larejo is a mid-stakes tournament mastermind who specializes in outmaneuvering 150-max players with a small number of entries
It was around 2016 and I was walking home from work on the sidewalks of New York City. In my ears, I was listening to the DFS Edge, hosted each week by Adam Levitan with co-hosts Peter Jennings and Al Zeidenfeld. Three of the best, and they kept me company at least one walk home at the end of each week. These three were part of the reason I got into DFS. I related to them, and at the time each of them had a slightly different playing style that rounded the discussion nicely. When you have a group of people with similar interests, and in this case playing styles, it isn’t the best breeding ground for interesting discussion. But with Adam, Al, and Peter, they were all different kinds of DFS players. Adam (again, at that time) was a major cash game player. He was dominant at it from what I could gather, but was always reluctant to play the lottery of GPPs (he’s since dominated GPP life as well). Peter was the high-stakes guy, always present in the big-money lobbies, having taken down live finals and more than a handful of over six figures wins. Al was the elder statesman of the group who literally won the Milly Maker during the show’s heyday, and he was always willing to take stances and let it fly in lineups. Cash, GPP, and high-stakes. Many of us who have been playing DFS for a long time know these three well. And I’ll tell you why I am bringing this show up here, now. I’ve never agreed or disagreed with everything a content producer brings forward. Even with these three who I admired (and the early days of some guy named JMtoWin at RotoGrinders), I always found myself wanting to argue some of their takes. It’s why I eventually started writing on my own.
But back in 2016, one thing I could not understand was how or why we should be building different lineups for different contests, even cash lineups vs. GPPs. Then small-field GPPs vs. large-field GPPs, and so on. In my mind, you want to build lineups to win. If there were 20 other entries or 200,000 other entries, I never felt like I should adjust my strategy. The name of the game is to be different and have the lineup that wins, right?! In cash games, where you had around a 40% chance of winning, I rarely found myself caring about ownership. I knew who the chalk would be, just like everyone else, but I didn’t naturally gravitate towards it. My overconfidence got me in trouble. I never won in cash games, like ever. I think if I pulled my ROI back in say 2019, I was a profitable GPP player by a long shot, fueled by a few big (by my standards) wins, but my cash game ROI was dragging me down. I would tinker with my approach from time to time, but in hindsight, I was way too stubborn to listen to guys like Al or Adam tell us about how to build for cash vs. large-field GPPs. So I simply lost money in one contest style (H2H, 50/50s), all the time. I ended up giving up the cash game dream and figured you know what, I am in this for life-changing money, and some thrills along the way, so I guess in a way I found my niche playing mostly large-field GPPs at lower stakes. It comes with a lot of losing but each week, the slate stares you in the face and you feel ever confident in how to attack to win a large chunk of change.
Fast forward to 2024, and I am having a blast bringing you content on OWS for a fourth straight season. Willing to Lose feels like a baby of mine, as it is the article derived from years of failure attacking small-field GPPs and 50/50 cash games. And I took you on this journey (kudos to you if you are still reading along) because this week, Week 9 of the 2024 season is one of the best large-field GPP weeks of the season. For that reason, you’ll only see me in the large-field streets this week, no single entries, three-max or anything in between. It’s going to be all or nothing, and hopefully, I don’t min cash. Join me in diving into a few lower-owned strategies where I’ll be willing to lose…
