Over the weekend, I drafted a $50 Super Chop guillotine league team over on guillotineleagues.com. In most ways, Super Chop leagues play like the regular guillotine format. Super Chop contests are comprised of 12 guillotine leagues, each with 12 teams, resulting in 144 total teams. If you win your league, you redraft against the other winners in late November. If you’re lucky enough to win it all, the payout is $3,000.

Here are three tips I learned from my Super Chop experience last year:

Bye weeks are crucial

Since the league you start in has only 12 teams, you play only until Week 11 (leaving one to advance to the finals). Players with byes from Week 12 on have an advantage because (if healthy) they won’t miss any games. Eight teams this year have the byes after Week 11.

Week 13: Ravens, Bills, Bears, Raiders, Vikings and Giants. Week 14: Cardinals and Commanders

Elite players from those teams who have enhanced value in Super Chop leagues: Lamar Jackson, Mark Andrews, Josh Allen, Stefon Diggs, Justin Fields, Davante Adams, Justin Jefferson, Saquon Barkley.

Use these bye weeks to your advantage and as a tiebreaker when deciding between two players in the same tier. If you think Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts are in the same tier, for example, you should definitely side with drafting Allen (with Hurts idle in Week 10), getting an additional game from a foundational player. Remember, the winners of each of the 12 leagues redraft new teams a couple of days before Week 12 kicks off in late November. So the same advice applies when drafting your final team, but in reverse. You’d want to devalue players with late byes.

Be aggressive with your FAAB

We know that we’re playing until Week 11 in a Super Chop guillotine league, so we don’t need to hold onto it as long as we would in a standard 18-team guillotine league. Every team is going to be stacked come Week 8. Don’t break the bank, but also don’t play scared. Spend up and try to be one of those elite teams.

Two-Hour Time Limit Per Pick

Great news, you’re on the clock! Don’t rush to your pick selection. Go over tip No. 1, making sure you’re getting a later bye week player, if possible. Don’t necessarily overreach and select a worse player a couple of tiers down just because they have a late bye week. Be sure to read

the guillotine league draft tips article to make sure you’re methodically making the best choices with each draft pick. If there is breaking news or a preseason game going on with a player you’re thinking about drafting, use as much of that two-hour timer as you need, just in case an injury happens while you’re on the clock. It may seem annoying to some of your league members, but we’re playing to win, not speed up the draft. I’m very responsive on X (previously known as Twitter) if you’re on the clock and stuck between two players.

—Colt Williams

Williams is working towards a degree in economics and statistics at Sonoma State. A United States Air Force veteran, he’s been playing fantasy football since 2012. Follow him on Twitter @_ColtWilliams

For an overview of this style of game, see his Introduction to Guillotine Leagues article.