Fake cheat sheet strategy

Live fantasy drafts are the most exciting type of draft you can have. The camaraderie, the friendships, the facial expressions, the ability to walk up to a draft board and make your picks, the snickering and bickering, the food, and the atmosphere is unmatched. Live drafts are the ultimate fantasy football experience!

During a fantasy draft, every little advantage you can gain, is a huge advantage. How far are you willing to go to win? Are you willing to put time and effort into a fake cheat sheet to bring to your live draft? You should be. All's fair in love and war? Right? A live draft is a "war room" of sorts. A fake cheat sheet can serve a number of different purposes.

One of the best reasons to bring in a fake cheat sheet is to throw off your competition about your player rankings. Your opponents want to gain every advantage possible. While you are up grabbing some chips and salsa, leave your cheat sheet lying around for wandering eyes. The guys drafting around you may take a peak and try to "look ahead" and predict your next few picks. A fake cheat sheet will surely throw them off. Sometimes they will look at your cheat sheet to get some ideas, especially if you have been dominating them in this league.

The fake cheat sheet strategy will still work even if you have a computer and are using a drafting software to make your picks. You can still have it as a "back up" cheat sheet in case your technology fails. You can write at the top "Jim's Backup". Or just leave it blank. Make sure you use a big font for the names so that it will be easy for wandering eyes to catch a glimpse.

The second use for a fake cheat sheet is to print off a bunch of them and leave them lying around or stash them in your opponents piles of cheat sheets. I have employed this strategy in the past. You print off a few fake cheat sheets that look legitimate. They have a website logo at the top and the rankings look believable. To make this more believable, the first 2 rounds of rankings should be pretty realistic and close to the usual rankings. Where you can really get creative is after the starters have been ranked. Everyone knows you don't win a fantasy draft in the first 2 rounds. Where you really win a fantasy draft is in the 4th through 13th rounds. And that's where this strategy comes in.

After the first few big name receivers come off the board, no one really knows too much about the rest. You can rank third and fourth string WRs ahead of lesser known No 1 WRs and have people start drafting off of the fake sheet while preserving the real WRs for you to pick off. This also works great for kickers and defenses. If there is a defense you are targeting, move them down to the bottom of your fake sheet. Also, people draft kickers toward the back of drafts, and may not put too much thought into their kicker. A fake ranking comes in handy here as well.

After the obvious picks that everyone makes in the first 3 rounds, most live drafts start to go fast and managers will be flustered and confused. They can easily pick up your cheat sheet and start using it. Which is what happens in most drafts. Managers lose their focus after the first few rounds and start scrambling. Take advantage of this situation.