UFC 333 DraftKings lineup checklist: ten checks before 10:00 AM ET

The bouts on the DraftKings slate

From the published sheet for UFC 333: Volkanovski vs Evloev: names and salaries. The full read is on the sheet.

• Alexander Volkanovski ($8,200) vs Movsar Evloev ($8,000)
• Merab Dvalishvili ($7,400) vs Petr Yan ($8,800)
• Lone'er Kavanagh ($7,900) vs Ramazan Temirov ($8,300)
• Alexander Volkov ($8,400) vs Rizvan Kuniev ($7,800)
• Aaron Pico ($8,300) vs Losene Keita ($7,900)
• Azamat Murzakanov ($9,000) vs Dominick Reyes ($7,200)
• Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev ($9,400) vs Nikita Krylov ($6,800)
• Abus Magomedov ($8,400) vs Cam Rowston ($7,800)
• Grant Dawson ($8,500) vs Nurullo Aliev ($7,700)
• Asaf Chopurov ($9,500) vs Colby Thicknesse ($6,700)
• Abubakar Vagaev ($8,900) vs Jacob Malkoun ($7,300)
• Bolaji Oki ($7,600) vs Daniel Santos ($8,600)
• Kody Steele ($8,700) vs Noah Gugnon ($7,500)
• Iasmin Lucindo ($9,200) vs Nicolle Caliari ($7,000)

Open the full sheet

Friday night: the build checks

Do the thinking on Friday. These checks need the sheet and a quiet half hour.

• 1. Format. Classic is six fighters under a $50,000 cap. Confirm the contest is Classic before you trust any score or rule in this list.
• 2. Salary. You do not have to spend every dollar. Leaving $500 unused is fine if it buys the fighter you actually want.
• 3. Both sides of one fight. Only one fighter in a fight can win. Rostering both caps that fight's points and usually makes sense only on short cards.
• 4. How they win. Check the knockout, submission, decision and round-one columns, not only the win chance.
• 5. The title fights. Volkanovski vs Evloev and Yan vs Dvalishvili are five rounds. Decide on purpose how much of your lineup depends on them.
• 6. Fight exposure. If you play many lineups, count how many depend on the same fight. One upset should not sink everything.
• 7. Ownership in your room. The field in a single-entry contest builds differently from a 150-entry contest. Read the forecast for the contest type you are entering.

Saturday morning: the last three checks

The DraftKings slate starts at 10:00 AM ET. After the first fight starts, no lineup can be edited, so these three checks happen before then.

• 8. Withdrawals. A fighter who does not compete scores zero. Check the news before the first fight.
• 9. Replacements. A short-notice opponent may or may not be added to the DraftKings slate. If they are not, the original matchup is gone from your options.
• 10. Complete entries. Open every contest and confirm each lineup has six fighters and no empty slots.

Why a checklist beats a last-minute rebuild

Early cards punish late builds. When the first fight is at 10:00 AM ET, a rebuild on Saturday morning tends to be rushed and to undo good Friday decisions. A checklist keeps the Saturday work to what actually changed: who is fighting and whether every lineup is complete.

Write your reasons down when you build. On Monday, compare what happened with what you expected. That habit is how a checklist turns into a better process over time.

Using the sheet for each check

Most of the Friday checks map to a column on the sheet. The win column and the knockout, submission, decision and round-one columns answer check four. The points if they win and if they lose show what each path is worth, which is the practical answer to whether a fighter is worth their salary. The ownership forecast by contest type answers check seven: flagship, Mega, 20-max, single entry and cash rooms are forecast separately because the fields build differently.

The optimizer helps with checks two and six. It builds only from the sheet and your own numbers, respects the $50,000 cap, and lets you cap how many of your lineups any one fighter appears in. Every lineup it produces is yours: it never hands you a pre-built set.

Common mistakes on early cards

Overseas cards create their own errors. The most common:

• Building on Saturday morning out of habit and running out of time before the first fight.
• Forgetting that the deadline is the first fight on the DraftKings slate, not the main event.
• Leaving a fighter in a lineup after a fight-week withdrawal because the change happened late on Friday.
• Entering a new contest on Saturday morning without checking its format and entry limit.
• Copying a Friday build into a different room without rereading the ownership forecast for that room.

Keep it to one page

The point of a checklist is that it fits on one screen. If a check takes more than a minute on Saturday morning, it belongs on Friday. Print this list, or keep it open on your phone, and tick it off before the first fight.

Common questions