The Road to Vegas: Professional Strategies to Help You Qualify. For the 2016 National Handicapping Championship

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1 The Road to Vegas: Professional Strategies to Help You Qualify For the 2016 National Handicapping Championship TTE STRATEGIC PAPER #1: Success in the NHCQualify.com Free Online Contest

2 The Tournament Edge has teamed with the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) / National Handicapping Championship (NHC) to help increase your odds in qualifying for the 2016 NHC. In this paper, you ll learn: The average winning score for a 2015 NHC free online contest How to substantially improve your odds of success in the Sunday, free online contest at NHCQualify.com Strategies for success in NHC online tournaments all year long About the NHC and the NHC Qualify Free Online Contest Each year some of the world s best horse handicappers gather in Las Vegas to compete in what is considered the Super Bowl for handicappers, the National Handicapping Championship (NHC). Qualifying for this illustrious event is not easy, but there are numerous opportunities to qualify throughout the year at live contests across the nation. However, if you are unable to be part of the traveling NHC tour there is some excellent news - you can qualify from the comfort of your home each week online. This week is no different, and thanks to the NTRA, this week s contest is free to enter at NHCQualify.com. About The Tournament Edge The Tournament Edge (TTE TheTournamentEdge.net) is a collaboration of top horse racing tournament players and featured guest bloggers who provide coaching and advice to put you at the top of the contest leaderboard. As a group, the Tournament Edge pros have won thousands of horse racing tournaments, and are now partnering to share their inside knowledge of the tournament game and give you an edge in the NHC 8/2/15 Free Contest.

3 With up to 2,000 entries in the contest, you will have to be at the top of your game to do well and finish in the top four. This doesn t mean you need to find the winner in each race, but you will have to have an exceptional day. Our pros are here to give you insights and strategies on how to get in the game. Our Pros Michael Beychok (aka whodatchok), 2012 NHC Champion, gives you expert strategies for winning mega contests. Barbara Bowley (aka Sophia), $100K game winner, gives you a strategy for getting those scores on a Sunday card like the NHC free online contest including tricky turf races and lower-level claiming races and what you can do if you don t start off strongly. (Hint: don t panic) Anthony Trezza (aka Youare2020), top tournament strategist, gives you a comprehensive statistical analysis of what scores it will take to win a berth to the 2016 NHC through the NHC free online contest. Michael Beychok and the Mega Tournament Strategy Mega Tournaments The mega tournaments and contests are special situations for players that require a bit of a specialized strategy. Let s look at the set-up for these mega entry tournaments. First is the number of players. A usual NHC online contest features anywhere from players playing for 2-5 spots in the National Handicapping

4 Championship. The free tournament for members of the NHC Tour usually draws around 1500 or more players. The question we must answer is how does the larger number of entries effect the score needed to win a spot and the answer is that the score required to win a spot in these larger format tournaments is on average higher than a usual contest. And that stands to reason. More players equal more opportunities for a player or players to hit that long shot winner or hit two long shot winners during the course of play. Of course, this is not always the case as the March and May free contests produced a winning score of $ and $ with over 1600 players. My good friend and great tournament player Sarah Weiner won the May contest by cashing in 7 out of the 10 races. So, the first place to start formulating a strategy is to set a points goal for the tournament and based on history at least recent history a points goal of 100 should place you in the hunt based on past results. But, here is where it gets a bit trickier. In the two contests mentioned above there were no long shots or cap horses so a player could stick with a strategy of working his or her way to 100 points through a slow and steady sequence. But in a large field when a cap horse hits there are going to be dozens upon dozens of people who have that horse and the slow and steady strategy of getting to 100 points needs to quickly go out the window because now the player has to jump over dozens of people to win a spot. Slow and steady is probably not going to be enough to do it. The people who have the cap horse would all have to blank out the remainder of their picks and not score any points for you to succeed with your slow and steady. In a normal entry contest, you may need 2-3 people who hit the capper to blank out for the rest of the day and that happens many times believe me, I know. But in a mega tournament, there is little to no chance that the dozens of people who will have picked the capper horse blank out, meaning a wise player must change his/her strategy if they are on that cap horse earlier than in a normal size tournament. The way I play these tournaments and I ve had a little bit of success recently by finishing in the top 15 twice is to start out with a bit wider selection process in making initial picks because in such a large field and in a small field picking short priced horses just won t get the job done. This effect is magnified the larger the field. So step one is to widen your selection process a bit even if it means eliminating the morning line favorite or the horse that you think will be the favorite at post time.

5 Step two is to be nimble in changing your strategy as well. This is a live tournament so players are allowed to change picks. If a long shot horse - or capper - comes in early the smart player must start looking for longer priced horses sooner rather than later or risk the possibility of getting caught up in the herd rather than trying to get out in front of the field. I m not suggesting panic mode if a $66.00 horse wins the first race but I am suggesting that in order to catch up a player needs to start looking for those catch up horses sooner rather than later. My advice on constructing a winning strategy for the large entry format tournaments is to start by widening your odds window and be ready to quickly widen the odds window even more if early results warrant. Best of luck to everyone playing. Barbara Bowley s Keys to Success: Sunday racing: This will not be an all-stakes card, as you would find on a big Saturday racing day. It will be a Sunday racing card with a good mix of races, including some lower-level events. How to approach this mix? Read on: Claiming races: By their nature, most claimers have less predictable form than top-level horses. Have in place your personal key to getting winners in claiming races. Do you look for good recent form? A horse that who has a form-cycle advantage due to a reasonable layoff? A good trainer/jockey combination or hot barn? A distance or course specialist? A drop-down in class? Whatever your key to claiming races is, you will need it Sunday. If you haven t mastered that part of your handicapping, then you ll need to hope that luck is on your side. Or, you can tune into The Tournament Edge for more particular advice and coaching to augment your game. Expect some turf racing. Love turf races? Hate them? Get used to them during the summer NHC contests. They are part of summer racing. Why is turf racing so

6 different than dirt racing? One key to turf racing is to understand how horses move on the turf vs. dirt: most of the best turf horses are physically different than dirt runners. They tend to need more power in the front part of their conformation than the rear. That is why you will often hear that turf horses are built downhill. Look for a good deep shoulder on your turf horse. If you want some pointers on turf racing, especially for turf distance races, watch this video on physicality handicapping turf milers from The Tournament Edge s Barbara Bowley. Now that you have a sense of what kind of races you ll be handicapping, here is a recommended strategy: Handicap backwards Your end game should be in place even before you start the contest. What will you do if you are farther behind than you d like with only three races to go? Have your plan in place. Find the Trojan Horse: I call those horses that few players have, but put in a big price (8-1 or better), Trojan Horses: they will be a key to this contest. If only few contestants are on a horse with a strong price, they can put major daylight between themselves and the field. Find that horse that has a chance at winning at a price. Be forgiving of problems in past form. Think creatively. You will not win this contest by picking a string of favorites that all other contestants can find just as easily. Identify at least one potential cap horse: One of the keys to winning this contest will be finding any cap or top-paying horses that come in. With this many contestants, every cap horse will be covered, almost guaranteed by at least someone and more probably many people in the field. You will need to find that horse or horses to stay in the mix. Don t be afraid to take a risk, but don t just stab either. Find a race where things may fall apart from a pace standpoint, or where the favorite is vulnerable and don t be afraid to take a stand against the favorite. Remember The Tournament Edge s Acronyms: ABC and GiP. TTE s Anthony Trezza is great at reminding us to Always Be Collecting (ABC). Get the winners in every race you can. If it means you really think that 5-2 horse will be a lock, take it. Collect and move on. You will need to collect in the majority of races to have a chance at the big prize. Mid-Tournament Strategy: Take stock of where you are mid-tournament. If you have, let s say, half as much as the leaders, you will need to be flexible. Don t panic and stab at every long shot. GiP: Get in Position by hitting some solid winners to move up the board and give yourself options to hit with some price horses toward the end of the contest.

7 Anthony Trezza s Analysis: Game of Zones Perfection: Some of the top tournament players will be competing online this Sunday for a spot in the NHC and a chance to take home a piece of its $2.5 million prizes winner John O Neil qualified late last year and took home the grand prize of $800,000. And with a packed house of nearly 2,000 expected online it won t be easy to capture one of the four NHC spots awarded this Sunday. The winners of this tournament will need to be nearly perfect. So what will it take to win? Will it take cashing every race? Will it take hitting bomb after bomb or a combination of favorites and bombs? Some say it will take luck and yet others bank on the fact that it s all about the handicapping. Well, we probably won t know any of these answers until after the tournament on Sunday when the winners are declared and we look over their race cards. But I have never been a person of patience so I decided to find out what it will take to win by casually looking at all of the online contests that NHC Qualify ran in I wanted to see what kind of numbers it would take to win this qualifying contest. As usual, I wanted to see if I could gain a tournament edge. Here is a breakdown of key elements of the 2015 NHC online contests: Date 2015 No. of Entrants Winning Score Total Races Average Points/Race 1/ / / / /

8 2/ / / / / / / / / / / / / * * 5/ / / / / / / / / / AVG: 331 AVG: AVG: *FREE ONLINE CONTEST Since the beginning of 2015, there have been a total of 28 contests run. Here are the highlights: the average tournament size was 331, the average winning score was , and the average price per race on the winning ticket was Most of the tournaments revolved around 12 races from a mixture of 2-3 racetracks. What does this all mean? For some it means nothing. Some handicappers will discard these numbers and rely on the fact that you still have to be sharp and pick winners all day. But for many others these statistics may make a difference especially for a tournament of this size. As one glances over the data, it is clear that there is terrific consistency in the winner s scores and average price per race (APR). With twelve races from different racetracks, one would have to average about a $11.40 payout per race over the whole card to win a spot. Does this mean one would have to win every race or a series of races? Or did the winners look for huge price horses to make up the difference? I decided to go deeper and analyze the winners scores even further.

9 Date in 2015 Races Races Cashed Races Cashed % Top Win/Place Payout $ 1/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /02 10* / / / / / / / / / / AVG: 54 AVG: $48.82 *FREE ONLINE CONTEST After gathering the winners stats over the last 28 NHC online qualifying contests, it became a little clearer what it would take to win a contest of this size. The winners of these contests had at least one winner payout of (on average) $48.82, but more amazing was the fact that they were cashing tickets on an average of 54% of their races. In other words, stabbing at long shots all day is not an option; you still need to be cashing along the way. With a field of 2,000, I am expecting the winners numbers to be even greater. Based on these statistics I would expect the winners (based on 12 races), to have at least a minimum of 2 long

10 shots (15-1 or better) and to be cashing along the way. A final score of $ or more is projected. The fact is, whether there is a field of 20 or 2000, competing in these contests requires some incredible handicapping skill, but winning one of these contests requires a distinct edge. It s not just about picking winners but also incorporating top contest skill as well. Every handicapper competing on Sunday and throughout the year will have their own data and their own style of play. No matter how they achieve it, the four winners will be well rewarded with a seat to the Super Bowl of handicappers in January. For the other 1,996 contestants, they will sharpen their pencils, charge up their calculators and continue to look for a tournament edge. It s why we love this game. Good luck to all of you from The Tournament Edge. Visit our site any time for coaching, advice, blogs, and tournament news.