Kevin “Duke” Matties, a 46-year-old professional gambler from Laguna Beach, Calif., took the lead during the first day of competition and didn’t look back, holding on for a near wire-to-wire victory in the 2018 Orleans Fall Classic, held October 11-13 at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
Sometimes, when a player has a really good day, you find yourself thankful that he or she didn’t play every single tourney. There were certainly some who may have felt thankful in that regard on Sunday…but not so much on Friday.
Time’s getting short to win a spot to the NHC. And time’s getting really short to win a $10,000 seat to the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge. We’ll help you in that race against time with NHC and BCBC qualifiers every day this weekend, plus three new entries in the weekend lineup to further help you in your NHC quest. It all gets started on Friday.
One person you know will be firing away with impunity on Breeders’ Cup weekend is top-notch contest player Ken Jordan. That would likely have been the case regardless, but after the events of this weekend, it is a certainty.
There are plenty more Breeders’ Cup preps this weekend at Belmont, Santa Anita and, now, Keeneland, where the Fall Meet opens this Friday. That means some terrific races to serve as the foundations for this weekend’s featured tourneys, which include a last chance, entry-only qualifier for next week’s Orleans Fall Classic, a final opportunity to get into the Keeneland NHC/BCBC Challenge, and first opportunities to earn your way in to the NTRA Super Qualifiers to be held at Fair Grounds (December 22) and Santa Anita (January 5).
As we get closer to the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge (BCBC) on November 2-3, HorsePlayers will be devoted exclusively to BCBC qualifiers and feeders during the month of October. But that doesn’t mean that NHC fans will be out of action.
The latest upgrade to the HorseTourneys website has just been unveiled. It’s a new “Cart” option that allows players to purchase entries in multiple tourneys, add those purchases to his or her “cart”, then purchase all the entries in a single payment transaction.
When Ronald Peltz captured the first featured tourney of the weekend, our $5,000 Guaranteed Friday Pick & Pray, it meant $5,128 to his bankroll since the purse wound up growing all the way to $10,257. Little did we know that he was just getting warmed up.
It’s Super Saturday weekend with all kinds of Breeders’ Cup preps (and quite historic races in their own right, including the Jockey Club Gold Cup) at Belmont and Santa Anita. To mark the special nature of Saturday, we’re stepping up the day’s big cash tourney and also putting forward another special qualifier. But first things first, and where this weekend is concerned, that means Friday.
There are some things about The BIG One that, each year, I find myself appreciating (or chucking over) only after a couple of days have passed. Here, in no particular order, are a few:
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