A DraftKings Flash Draft Tutorial

The NFL playoffs are here! That means NFL island games for weeks. If you love NFL Showdown as much as I do, I know you’re pumped. But this is also prime time for another type of DraftKings contest that can have massive payouts: Flash Drafts. In this post, we’ll be going through our DraftKings Flash Draft tutorial. 

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It is the perfect game style for NFL fans and casual DFS players, because many of the tools used by pros in DFS are not available. Frankly, most pros don’t bother. It is a game that takes a bit of NFL knowledge and some game theory, and most people who play the game play it wrong. 

A quick rundown of the format, for those unfamiliar:

• Contests are for single quarters of game action, and there are typically several different drafts for each quarter of the game, each being unique.
• Each draft typically has several different buy-in levels, from one dollar to hundreds. You can enter at just one buy-in level, or several, but they run concurrently, so your choices will be the same for all.
• Prize pools for each contest are scaled based on the number of entrants.
• The draft itself is a set of five multiple choice questions with three possible answers each, asking who will score the most fantasy points in the quarter. Most answers are a single player, but some questions will have choices with multiple players, or give a multiplier to a player or two. Often, certain players will show up in multiple questions in the same draft. Drafters are given 15 seconds to make each selection.

Editor Note: Hopefully you enjoy Neil’s comprehensive DraftKings Flash Draft tutorial. If so, and looking to get started, DraftKings is currently running several promos you might find beneficial. They can be found here. 

DraftKings Flash Draft Tutorial

That’s it. A pretty simple game. I’ve been playing since it was introduced several years ago. While DFS has gotten much harder over that period while the field has improved, the field has not improved much at Flash Drafts. A few tips that should help you get to the top of the leaderboard more frequently than most:

Correlate

Starting with the most important tip: correlation is key to drafting well in Flash Drafts. Of course, the usual correlations apply, as quarterbacks and their pass catchers are often among the multiple choice options, for example. But there are additional correlations that are often ignored by the field.

• Choose the same player multiple times if possible. There is no greater correlation in DFS. And yet, the field gets it wrong frequently. Sometimes a player will seem like the best option in the first question, but a couple questions later he will be an option again, along with another player who projects slightly better. Let the field pivot, and stick with the player you’ve already chosen. You made the bet that he will outscore two other players. More often than not the best option is to double down on that player’s output, rather than trying to thread the needle and hope he will score more than the two players from the first question but less than a player who comes up later on.
• The inverse is true, too: if you don’t select a player for one of the earlier questions, and then the same player comes up later, pick somebody else the second time, too. The second time the player may even be given a multiplier. Again, let the field pivot. You are hoping the player puts up little to no fantasy points in the quarter, and zero multiplied by any number is zero.
• Less important, but still something to keep in mind, is players who correlate negatively. You might not want two running backs from the same team, or two pass catchers when you’ve already passed on the quarterback.

Track the Game

The extent to which knowledge of the game helps in DFS is an open question, but knowing what is happening in the game can be vital to Flash Drafts.

• In a third quarter contest, you should know which team will start with the ball. This can be helpful for questions with players from both teams.
• Injuries happen in football. Sometimes a player who has been injured during the game will still come up as an option, and you can gain edge by avoiding that player. But even if an injured player doesn’t come up as an option, if you know who else might benefit either by increased opportunities or even an easier matchup, your awareness is helpful.
• It is difficult to predict how a game will play out, but some of these drafts happen close to the end of the quarter and you may be able to get a feel for where the next quarter will open. For fourth quarter contests, knowing the score and trends can also be helpful and anticipating the game script.

Apply General DFS Principles

Many of the principles that apply to DFS also apply here.

• As noted earlier, correlation is key.
• You won’t be able to find projected ownership for these contests, but it’s worth thinking about who the field is likely to pick (the field hates kickers!) and odds of success. Projection can be useful, but in a single quarter of an event-based sport like football, even a top wide receiver might not see a single target. Sometimes it’s best to get contrarian, particularly if your earlier picks are chalky.
• If you can avoid the chalk early, you may be able to gain leverage on the field’s chalky pick later in the draft. For example, if the field takes one running back in a committee and you don’t, you may be able to gain leverage on that pick by taking the other running back later.

Those are the general strategies I employ in Flash Drafts.

Here is an example of what a draft looks like, and how I attempted to employ these strategies this past weekend.

DraftKings Flash Draft Tutorial Example

Question 1:

Given the choice of three Patriots receivers I took Jakobi Meyers, a pick I regretted almost immediately after seeing that he was taken by 79% of us. Since DraftKings shows the ownership immediately after the pick clock ends, I knew that I would need to get contrarian in another pick.

Question 2:

People hate kickers! I was quickly able to recover from my chalk Meyers pick by taking Tyler Bass with just 18% of the field.

Question 3:

Pretty straightforward here: I’ve already made the choice to bet on Meyers. Although the other options both project better, Meyers gives me a clearer path to victory: Meyers having a good quarter, instead of Meyers having a good enough quarter to beat Parker and Thornton but not so good that he outscores Allen or Diggs plus McKenzie.

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Question 4: 

Diggs was easy to cross off the list, since I had already bet against him in the previous question. Stevenson versus Jones was a tough call, but I opted for Jones due to the correlation with Meyers.

Question 5:

There was no obvious answer here based on previous questions, but I chose Cook because I had already made the bet that Jones and Meyers would move the ball for the Patriots, and I didn’t have any Bills skill players yet.

The final ownership for these players:

As you can see here, 79% made a bet on Meyers in the first question, yet only 20% took Meyers in the third question. It can certainly work out, but over the long haul these narrow path choices are not going to be +EV, at least until the field overall gets sharper and duplication becomes a bigger factor.

Despite the apparent mistake on Meyers in the first question, I felt pretty good about this draft overall. So, how much did I win?

Nothing! Important to keep in mind that in these GPP style contests, no matter how well you draft you will lose more often than you win. We can’t control how the players do. We can only set ourselves up for success by making +EV choices. And the lineup that did win was a great lineup! This drafter chose the contrarian option right away, avoided drafting Meyers after earlier passing on him, and paired Davis with Allen rather than choosing a couple other pass catchers who were competing with him for targets.

If you love NFL or DFS and haven’t given Flash Drafts a try yet, I’d recommend checking them out. They’re fun contests with sometimes large prize pools, and the field makes plenty of exploitable mistakes.

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