There are especially two rules you need to know about and know how to handle, if you are playing daily fantasy tournaments/pools at Bethard: Stacking penalty and Safety net.

If you do not have an account on Bethard and are interested in playing Fantasy Sports, click here for a valuable beginners guide on how to play big fantasy tournaments on Bethard.

If you pick more than one defensive player (GK/DEF) from a club, the points awarded for clean sheet will decrease by 1 point for each additional defensive player from the same club (max penalty for a player: -3).

4th-6th defensive player: -3 penalty points

The players will be sorted by price from high/low, the most expensive player = 1st defensive player (0 points stacking penalty), second most expensive player = 2nd defensive player (-1 point stacking penalty), ans so on.

If you pick one of the defensive players as Captain, this player will be the 1st defensive player (0 points stacking penalty, and the rest of defensive players chosen from same club as the captain will recieve stacking penalty, sorted by price from high/low, as explained above.

Tournaments/Pools as Weekly Monster, Full Round etc, with team requirements of minimum 1 GK and 3 defenders

As a guideline you’ll need all of your defenders + GK to keep a clean sheet to win the tournament, unless you get lucky and your GK saves a penalty (+5 points) or a defender scores a goal or provides an assist. Only a few teams will keep a clean sheet, so it will be tempting to pick 3 defenders (or 2 defenders and one goalkeeper) from same team to reduce the risk for having players without a clean sheet, and get maximum points if that team only keeps a clean sheet.

Because of the stacking penalty we’ll recommend to avoid this strategy. If you pick 3 defenders from same team or 2 defenders + 1 goalkeeper you will need one player from another team anyway (with 3 defenders you will need a goalkeeper from another team because you can’t pick more than 3 players from same team, and with 2 defenders + 1 goalkeeper you will need a 3rd defender because you need at least 3 defenders in your team). In this example, you will get 0 penalty points for the 1 defensive player from the additional team, but you will get -3 penalty points for the 3 defensive players from the same team (0 + (-1) + (-2) + 0) = -3

Our advice is then to pick no more than 2 defensive players from same team, to keep the minus points on a minimum. A recommended strategy is to play with 3 defenders, and pick 1 defender + 1 goalkeeper from one team, and the 2 other defenders from a second team. Then you will need 2 teams to keep a clean sheet, same as example above, but this will only give -2 points compared with -3. (0 + (-1) + 0 + (-1)) = -2

The Pursuit format is a format used in tournaments/pools for 1 match or a few matches only, without the strict formation requirements as the classic tournaments/pools

In Pursuit tournaments/pools your Vice Captain also recieve points (x1,5). If you pick one of the defensive players as Captain, and a second defensive player from same club as Vice Captain, your captain will be the 1st defensive player (0 points stacking penalty), and your VC will be the 2nd defensive player (-1 point stacking penalty), regardless of price.

If you are planning to stack up with 3 defensive players from the same team in a tournament with pursuit format, you should consider to replace that 3rd defender with a midfielder from the same team instead

Let’s look at the total points the defender and midfielder will recieve

(given their team wins, and keep a clean sheet);

Team wins (when player is on pitch)   = 0.3 points

Stacking penalty (because of this 3rd defensive player)    = -2 points

Team wins (when player is on pitch) = 0.3 points

The 3rd defender and the midfielder will end up with the same amount of points given the outcomes described in the example. If you can find a midfielder with cheaper than the 3rd defender, you should pick the midfielder. But keep in mind there are some extra variables which can affect these players total points, as cards, blunders etc, and the midfielder may not play the full match. Before you make your decision you should study the probabilites for each outcomes and the player prices.

If a player does not start his match, he will be replaced by an automatic sub if possible. The system will look for a replacement player who;

1) is from the same club as the original player
2) plays in the same position as the original player
3) costs the same or less as the original player

Safety net finds a replacement for you if you get unlucky and a player in your team is not in the starting lineup. Nice to have. But, if such a situation occur with one of your players, do you know which player will then come in as a substitute for this player? Do you know if there are any replacements available who fulfil the criterias 1,2 and 3 above? This is something you need to be in control of when you are picking players for your team. It is crucial if your player does not play and there are no subs available.

Because of this rule and the players prices you should do the work and go through all the players available in the same position as the player you are planning to pick for your team. And as you will see in the examples below, it may affect your choice of player.

It is important to know that the players who are shown as available players are not all players in the squad in that position for that team. Bethard are showing as default the players who are Expected/Confirmed to start the match. See table below.

In this example there are 5 defenders from Newcastle expected to start the match, according to Bethard.

If you switch to «All player statuses» you will see all defenders in Newcastle squad. See table below.

Now you can see the complete list of defenders, sorted by price high/low. Schar and Willems are marked by Bethard as «will not start». According to the list in table 2 you should feel safe to pick Fernandez at 4,3M. If Fernandez is not in the starting lineup, he is ranked as number 3 of the defenders, which means you will have a cheaper backup and safety net will replace him with Clarc or Yedlin. But can you trust Bethard? A good fantasy player seeks and has control of all information available. Some players marked red with «will not start» are banned and will definitily not play, but some are injured. Managers usually talk they players down, and are saying players are not able to play because of an injury, but suddenly they show up in the lineup. That happens time to time. If you pick Fernandez and he starts at the bench, and Schar and Willems start the match in a back four together with Lascelles and Rose, the safety net will not have any players at equal or lower price to replace him with. The way to adopt this rule, is to buy insurance. If you know that there is a chance that Schar and willems will be able to play, you should pick Schar if you have 4,5M available. If Schar and Willems do not play, the safety net will replace him with Fernandez, if Fernandez play from start, and you will get the player you originally planned to pick, for an insurance of 0,2M extra cost. If you have only 4,3M available you need to take a chance on picking Fernandez, or look around for another safer option from another team at the same cost or cheaper.

As you can see in previous example, the safety net rule will affect the way you pick players. Your competitors will think the same way, and seek for safe options. Because of this rule and the way people will act according to this, it opens up for some opportunities to find some differential players (Players with a low «team selected by %», who may perform well), if you are willing to take the risk.

Let's look at the previous example. Now, let’s say that there is no chance Schar and Willems will be in the squad. You get the information before tournament deadline that they are definitely ruled out of the game, and same goes for Manquillo, Lejeune and and Krafth who are confirmed as longterm injuried/banned. You also now that there are no midfielders available to fill in to the back 4 or 5, so you are (almost) 100 % sure that at least 4 of the players in the list will be picked for the starting lineup. Then we are back to this list from Bethard, which we now can trust 100%

Yedlin priced at 4,0M could be a differential. If Clark and Yedlin both play, you will know that most likely your competitors have chosen the safe option Clark for the equal price 4,0M, because if Clark is not in the starting lineup, they will get Yedlin as a replacement (in this example they actually buy insurance for free). But, if Clark is in the starting lineup, their player will be Clark if they chose Clark. If you choose Yedlin and both Yedlin and Clark are in the starting lineup, you’ll have your differential player. And if you get lucky, Yedlin will play the game as a midfielder and gain some offensive points, as you know he sometimes does.

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Stacking Penalty & Safety Net Bethard