For the first time, a major, all-cash competition will be held in the format held most dear by the majority of online tournament handicappers. Welcome to the Pick & Pray Classic.

The inaugural Pick & Pray Classic, the final leg of the HorseTourneys Grand Slam, is now less than a week away. Since people are scrambling to land their $2,000 seats to the $300,000 Guaranteed competition, we have lately been offering a wider variety of qualifiers, including Low Ratio and single-track play-ins.

These increased options worked especially well last Sunday for Earl Pratt.

Dave “Gambling Actuary” Nichols killed it on Sunday. His final score of $172.80—built on five double-digit winners (during a day in which there were seven such victors hiding out there)—was $46.50 higher than anyone else’s and $78.50 more than anyone he played against. 

And yet…Nichols wasn’t the only person to have a really big day on Sunday. Thanks in part to aggressiveness, Andy Asaro did too.

While Steven Wells was winning six figures in the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge, quite a bit of money was also changing hands right here at HorseTourneys via the always-much-loved, mythical $2.00 win-place format. 

The biggest winner here among many was Kevin Cox.

We can’t say it’s never too late to qualify for the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge—because by Friday morning, it will be. However, it’s never too late to have a big day—or weekend—that can potentially make your entire year worthwhile. That was the case last Saturday and Sunday for Jonathan Socolow.

Two weeks ago, we began running $179 “Happy Hour” Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Qualifiers on Thursdays at HorsePlayers. So far, there has been just one winner.

It would be hard to do much better in the HT Tour than Eric “B Connected” Boyd has done. Coming into this week, Boyd had recorded 8 victories on the year—a number made all the more impressive given that only a player’s top 10 scores count in the year-end standings.

Make it 9 victories.

A few years ago, we introduced the HT Tour. As part of the deal, in addition to mid-year and year-end prizes, we started offering bonuses to anyone who recorded multiple HT Tour victories on specific days of the week.

One lives in New York. One resides in California. Both are NHC Hall of Famers. Both won a lot last week here at HorseTourneys.

One of the more noteworthy featured tourneys of the week took place on Friday when Kirk Rockwell finished first in the day’s Keeneland Fall BCBC/NHC Challenge qualifier.