Trust me, you're not alone. There are others are also finding it more difficult to cash in double ups and 50/50s. It happens this time every summer. There's always a confluence of factors that thin out the minnows, leaving primarily sharks. Initial deposits have dried up, Basketball and hockey gamers have cashed out their bankrolls. School's out and it's vacation season. The soft money has left the building, leaving the grinders. Don't worry, the tide will turn in August when football is in full force, but for the next six to eight weeks, padding your bankroll via DFS cash games won't be quite as easy as it's been for the past two and a half months. Well, it's never easy.

Adding to the scenario, at least this season, is the ridiculous manner pitching has yet to be more homogenous on a slate-to-slate basis. We're in a pattern of two days with a treasure trove of aces, two with sludge and one that's fairly representative of how every day usually is by this point of the season.

The bottom line is it's more important than ever to manage your bankroll wisely. This is especially true for cash games, since it's cash games that take the best advantage of soft money.

Here's the key. Whenever the wheels start turning in your head and the conclusion is you need to use a contrarian lineup to win a cash game, don't play the cash game and instead enter the lineup into a tourney. I know, you're supposed to use your cash game winnings to support your tourney darts. That's based on having ample success at cash to fund your tournaments. However, without the dead money, the odds may no longer in your favor in cash. If the odds are no longer in your favor, why not shoot the moon and go for the big prize?

Odd as it may seem, the time to do this could be when an ace stands above the rest, It's boring, chalk and lemming-like but the optimal approach to cash games is to use the best pitcher on the board, regardless of price then fill in with hitters with favorable matchups in one of the top five spots in the batting order. The idea is to let others get cute with a cheaper arm and rely on the fact the elite pitchers exhibit less variance than any subset of players. They may have more to spend on sticks but there's so much variance with the hitters, you have an edge with the ace pitcher almost every night.

If you're not confident you can find the requisite bats to support an ace with a very high usage percentage, then don't use a lesser pitcher with more pricey sticks in a cash game, use them in a tournament. You're asking your bats to

1. Make up the difference between your pitcher and the ace

2. Also beat the other team's offense

If part of the motivation is you feel the lesser pitcher is in a favorable spot and may match the ace, this is the very definition of a tournament pitcher.

Just don't go overboard with playing tournaments. Play less of your bankroll. On nights you're especially confident with your cash lineup, play it a little more than normal. You don't need to keep your cash to tournament ratio every night, just keep it over the long term.

As an aside, you may note I'm using the terms tourney and tournament where others will use GPP. This is a little pet peeve of mine. I know GPP is synonymous with a tournament with a big first place prize, then scaling down until about 20 percent cash. It's just that the G in GPP stands for guaranteed as in guaranteed prize pool. The thing is, some 50/50s and double-ups are "G". I just think it's confusing.

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With the disclaimer what follows is unsolicited and has nothing to do with any promotional partners we have on the site, I was recently asked by several of my Tout Wars cohorts that are just getting into DFS, what's my favorite site?

The answer is Fantasy Aces. Here's why.

I don't play a particularly heavy volume. I'll play just about every night, but if I have six or eight contests running concurrently, that's a busy night, That said, even though I'm playing limited volume, a goodly amount of work goes into the preparation. I usually identify a group of players I feel will excel and want to get some exposure to each. With their lineup flexibility, Fantasy Aces facilitates using everyone in a minimum of lineups.

For those unfamiliar, not only does Fantasy Aces use two pitchers, it combines 1B and 3B into two corner spots as well as 2B and SS into two middle spots. Plus, they have a utility spot for any hitter. This means I can use Freddie Freeman, Paul Goldschmidt and Lucas Duda in the same lineup assuming I like them all better than a third baseman. If there's no shortstops I like, I'm not forced to use one.

Some may say this takes away from the skill and strategy. Who cares. It adds to my enjoyment and that's what matters. I'm able to get exposure to all the players I like on a particular ledger in far fewer lineups than other sites. Maybe it's coincidence, maybe it's not but I've enjoyed my greatest success at Fantasy Aces.