A live player’s strategic genome

Contest history was made last week when the Breeders’ Cup released the plays from this year’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge. This was the first time that plays in a live-bankroll event have been made available to the public. The document was originally released in PDF format, but thanks to the work of software engineer Robin Howlett, they are now available in a much more user-friendly spreadsheet form via horseracingdatasets.com.

The idea of releasing the plays was first mooted by players interested in transparency, as a way to show that the contest was being conducted on the up and up after the controversy surrounding last year’s event. But the glimpse into how players approached the BCBC – including the biggest names in the contest world – has had another effect as well, promoting conversation about handicapping, ticket construction, and strategy that will hopefully increase interest in contest play moving forward.

It’s important to note what the plays do not show as much as what they do. They are not an unvarnished look at how the best contest players and professionals play on an everyday basis. The top-heavy prize structure of the contest changes the nature of value within the BCBC, creating a situation where more risk is required. The best players are more likely to finish with zero in a live-bank contest as opposed to just out of the money.

Also, the contest rules, which require a certain number of wagers over the two days, mean that players can’t be as selective as they are in real life. Because of these factors, you can’t look at Paul Matties’s plays and have an idea of how he approaches his quotidian betting.

That said, there are still plenty of lessons to be gathered, specifically when it comes to contest strategy and the specifics of bet-writing. Starting with the obvious, it’s very clear that the players who treat their real bankrolls like mythical money – chips in a poker tournament, if you will – have a big advantage. Likewise, the edge of a second entry is significant as those players have twice as many chances to hit it big.

It’s also clear that one can succeed in the tournament in a variety of pools. Winner Chuck Grubbs made excellent use of double-keys in trifectas while second-place finisher Ed Abel played almost exclusively in the win, place, and show pools. Some of the biggest swings were taken in the double pool, especially in the last two races. Doubles were the only horizontal wager available, and had things gone a little differently, that bet may have swung the contest.

Longtime leader and eventual fourth-place finisher Ryan Mueller, admittedly new to contests, took an approach to trifectas that was at once tight and scattershot, a result of his creativity and lack of comfort making larger wagers. I can’t explain the plays, so I’ll just show them. In the Juvenile Turf Sprint he played $100 trifectas: 2/5,13/5,13 8/10,13/10,13 5/2,8/2,8 8/2,4/2,4 2/1,5/1,5 and 5/9,10/9,10 The last of those netted him $72,635. Mueller kept up the unusual but effective ticket structures in the trifecta pool and didn’t hit again but still ended up with $71,085 and an additional $75,000 from the prize pool.

◗ This past weekend, Mark Streiff won the Del Mar Fall Challenge. The Mission Viejo, Calif., resident was down to $1,300 heading to the last when he hit for more than $52,000, ending up best of 61 entries and netting him an additional $30,000 in cash plus a seat for next year’s BCBC.

He scored huge with a series of trifecta wagers keyed by two longshots in first and third paying more than $52,000.

Dan Kaplan from Las Vegas finished second with a $100 late double for an $18,000 payout.

Players began the contest with a $3,000 live money bankroll in the two-day Challenge. The Challenge buy-in was $4,500 with $3,000 going to the player bankroll and $1,500 to the prize pool, all of which was distributed back to the players with Del Mar adding a $1 million bonus opportunity, which will be paid to Streiff if he goes on to win the BCBC.

◗ Another contest that concluded with the Breeders’ Cup Classic was the six-month long Public Handicapper Challenge, which takes place at publichandicapper.com. It was won by veteran handicapper Harris Factor. Factor, 82, has been playing horses for 65 years and has been in contests since their advent – he played in the old Penn National World Series of Handicapping seven times.

“As for handicapping angles or betting strategy, over the many years I’ve been a player I’ve developed my own way of doing things and there isn’t any one angle I’d say was my favorite,” he said. “I early on developed and began using my own speed and pace and figures, long before Beyer [was available to the public] and derived mostly, probably, from the Tom Ainslie and Steve Davidowitz philosophies, as explored in their books, and my own observations.”

Factor wins a trip to the Horse Player World Series as well one year of unlimited DRF past performances. Action returns to publichandicapper.com on Dec. 1 with the Winter of Our Discontent contest.

Players looking to join Factor at the Horse Player World Series, a three-day, mythical-money contest held at the Orleans Las Vegas from March 28-30, have a chance to qualify this weekend at DRF Tournaments. The all-in game costs $94 and 1 in 19 entries will win a $1,500 seat.

For a look at all the games happening this weekend, go to tournaments.drf.com.