One of the more interesting live-bankroll tournaments of the year to date will take place on Saturday, May 1st. It’s the Derby Day Challenge at Xpressbet, where plans call for you to start out with a stake of $2,000 and go to town on the full, Kentucky Derby Day card from Churchill Downs. 

With one notable exception on Thursday, it was a very competitive week of featured events, with plenty of close scores and the grand prize winners well distributed (again with one notable exception…this time on Friday).

With the ink barely dry on Dan Wilde’s $213,000 Players Championship check, it’s time to turn our attention to—and begin trying to qualify for—the third and final leg of the 2021 Tourney Triple, the $300,000 Guaranteed Spa & Surf Showdown here on August 14-15.

When Dan Wilde woke up on Saturday morning, he knew he had a long road ahead.

Things weren’t looking too good for Dan Wilde when Day 1 of the $555,346 Players Championship concluded. After 15 plays in Friday, the 58-year-old electrical engineer from Cedar Park, Tex., was mired in 137th place with a score of $37.60—$99.20 less than the leader Chris Bertolucci.

Alan Levitt has a whole lot to play for this Friday and Saturday.

After capturing January’s Flo-Cal Faceoff, the Baltimore doctor not only won $205,000, he earned a shot at at a $1 million bonus should he win either this Friday and Saturday’s Players Championship or August’s Spa & Surf Showdown with his designated entry. A clean sweep of these three Tourney Triple races would mean total bonuses of $2 million. No wonder this man is smiling.

It’s not uncommon to see players win multiple tourneys on a given day. What was unusual last week was how many captured grand prizes on multiple days.

We’re raising the stakes on Saturday, Florida Derby Day. Instead of a $25,000 Guaranteed featured cash tourney, we’re upping the guarantee of this live-format event to $45,000—and tossing in a $10,000 Guaranteed Pick & Pray as well. 

That’s not all. For the first time, we’ll be hosting tourneys on the Dubai World Cup card from Meydan. And with the Players Championship (current purse up to $279,660 and counting) set for Friday and Saturday, April 2-3, it means that this weekend is your final one in which to qualify for the all-cash middle leg of the 2021 Tourney Triple. 

Does Live Chat among players belong on a site like HorseTourneys?

It’s a question that we’ve grappled with internally off and on for the better part of… well, only the last decade.

The case for allowing Live Chat is that it adds to the entertainment value of the product, creating a higher level of engagement and fostering an even greater sense of community among our player base.  Anyone who has played tournaments at on-site, brick-and-mortar locations has witnessed the kind of camaraderie that typically comes along with a major tournament event.  While online chat could never replicate that experience, it would at least bring some of it to online play.