Every salary-cap DFS contest is one of two kinds. Cash games pay roughly half the field a fixed amount. Tournaments, or GPPs, pay a smaller share of the field with most of the money at the top. The same lineup is rarely right for both.
Cash games
Cash games include 50/50s (about half the field wins about 1.8 times the entry), double-ups (about 45% double their money) and head-to-heads. Because you only need to beat the middle of the field, you want the highest floor: players with secure roles and volume, even if everyone else has them too. Popular players are fine. Being different isn't the goal; being right is.
Tournaments
GPPs often pay only about 20% of entries, and first place can be worth thousands of times the entry fee. To win, your lineup needs to score more than everyone else's, which means you want ceiling and uniqueness. Correlation through stacks, a few lower-owned players with big upside and avoiding the most popular build all matter. Ownership projections and simulators exist mostly for tournament play.
Which should you play?
Many winning players treat cash games as their steady base and tournaments as the upside. Cash games have lower variance, so a bigger share of your daily action can go there. Tournaments can go months without a big score even for good players, so keep each day's tournament spending small. Our bankroll calculator suggests a daily split based on how much variance you can handle.
Tools for each
- Cash games: accurate projections, fast news and late swap.
- Tournaments: ownership projections, optimizers with stacking rules and simulators.