We have $80,000 in Guaranteed cash headed out the door across three featured cash tourneys on Preakness day. If you like stakes races, Saturday just might be your day as all 14-contest races that day will be of the added-money variety. Pimlico and the Preakness serve as the centerpiece of an exciting weekend with 21 featured competitions with plenty of NHC, BCBC, Flo-Cal Faceoff and Keeneland entries up for grabs as well. The fun begins on Friday.
Xpressbet is coming back at you again this week with a Preakness Challenge on Saturday. It costs $3,000 to enter, but you can earn a spot in it for $177 in our Last Chance qualifier for it on Friday. It’s a Pick & Pray and 1 in 20 will earn a berth for the following day.
During the month of October (yes, it’s October already), online qualifiers to the NHC will be held exclusively at HorseTourneys while HorsePlayers focuses solely on the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge. So the customary (and very popular) Friday $75 NHC Pick & Pray with two seats guaranteed will, indeed, be held this week—right here under the green and gold of HorseTourneys.
There’s also a Friday Pick & Pray qualifier to the Keeneland Fall NHC/BCBC Online Challenge. You can pick up a $3,000 entry to the October 10 competition at Xpressbet for $175 here. The winning ratio is 1-per-20. There will also be a Keeneland qualifier on Sunday.
Also on a Friday/Sunday schedule this weekend are our two qualifiers to the $150,000 Guaranteed Flo-Cal Faceoff on January 8th and 9th. It’s $118 to play, and one of every 15 entries will win. Reminder: The Flo-Cal Faceoff serves as the first leg of the brand new 2021 Tourney Triple series consisting of the Flo-Cal Faceoff, the Players Championship and the Spa & Surf Showdown. As a bonus, tournament seats await the top three overall performers, and if you win two of the three events, you earn a $1 million bonus. Win all three, and you get $2 million.
Cash gamers are never left out in the cold around here. Friday’s featured Pick & Pray accounts for the first $10,000 of $113,500 in guaranteed money to be won this weekend. Entries are $190 each.
Over at HorsePlayers, it’s all about the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge throughout October.
Friday’s BCBC qualifier is a Low Ratio Pick & Pray. At least one $10,000 entry is certain to be won in this $500 event. The winning ratio is 1-per-23.
Did we mention that Friday is opening day at Keeneland? (I don’t think we did.) Friday contest races are the 7th, 8th and 9th (including two graded stakes) at the Lexington, Kentucky oval; the 8th and 9th from Belmont; races 9 and 11 at Old Hilltop (that’s Pimlico for you young ‘uns); and the 7th through 9th from Santa Anita—10 races in all.
There are six featured events on Saturday. All four here at HorseTourneys are straight cash games.
The biggest of the bunch is a Live-format $50,000 Guaranteed, No Limit cash tourney. An entry fee of $395 gets you a reservation at this table. The first-place prize will be at least $20,000.
There’s also a big-money Pick & Pray—a $20,000 guaranteed, no-limit game. An entry fee of $260 gets you in the door for this one.
Then there’s Saturday’s $10,000 Guaranteed Big Bucks tourney…also a Pick & Pray. The entry fee is $1,150, and the field is limited to 20, unless there are any very late entries due to last-minute feeders. As always with Big Bucks events, payoffs go only to the top three finishers—on a 70%/20%/10% basis.
More of a low-risk, high-reward type of person? Then check out the $8 Pick 6 Jackpot tourney then. Saturday’s game has a carryover of $24,079. That is what will be won or shared if anyone can go 6-for-6. Seventy percent of net entry fees get paid out via traditional win/place scoring totals while 30% gets directed to the Jackpot.
The Pick 6 Jackpot races on Saturday are the 5th through 8th at Belmont; and the 7th and 8th from Keeneland. All six races are graded stakes (either Grade I or Grade II), and there are just 39 betting interests—before scratches—across the six races. Start time is slated for 2:55 pm ET.
There are two Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifiers on tap this Preakness Day at HorsePlayers.
Saturday’s “regular” BCBC qualifier has one grand prize guaranteed and carries an entry fee of $179. It’s a live-format tourney with a winning ratio of 1-per-65.
The winning ratio is just 1-per-11 in Saturday’s Super Low Ratio BCBC Pick & Pray. It, too, assures at least one winner—even if fewer than 11 participate. The entry fee here is $1,000.
Because it’s such a big day with so much money on the line—and because the races are so good—we have expanded the number of Saturday contest races to 14, and all of them are stakes races. The 14 are: the 7th through 11th at Pimlico; the 6th through 9th from Belmont; and the 6th through 10th at Keeneland.The 7th at Pimlico is due to jump at 2:42 pm ET…so synchronize your watches and clocks and plan accordingly. You won’t want to get unintentionally shut out of a day like this.
Without question, Black-Eyed-Susans go down easier than any other Triple Crown-themed drink. They definitely go down easier than Mint Juleps (which are awful) and Belmont seems to change its official drink every year depending on sponsorship deals, so who can track the drinkability of their constantly-rotating quaffs? Black-Eyed-Susans, on the other hand, are as reliable as McDonald’s hamburgers. They always taste the same…and they’re as easy to drink as fruit punch. Don’t imbibe too many on Saturday, though, because we have nine more featured tourneys coming your way on Sunday.
The second NHC qualifier of the weekend (see Friday) takes place here on Sunday. It’s a “regular,” $165, live-format qualifier with two spots guaranteed. Perhaps this is a good chance to catch some of the competition nursing a Preakness hangover (literal or figurative).
Sunday also offers your second opportunity of the weekend to qualifiy for the Keeneland Fall NHC/BCBC Online Challenge ($175 entry fee) and the Flo-Cal Faceoff ($118). Both games will be run in Live format.
Also to be run as a live-format game is Sunday’s $15,000 Guaranteed No Limit cash tourney. The entry fee is $195, and the more that enter, the more we’ll pay out…though it won’t be less than $15,000.
The Sunday Big Bucks tourney guarantees a purse of $7,500, though the pot for this Live-format event could reach $20,000 or more depending on how many play. The entry fee is $1,150, and payoffs go strictly to the top three finishers.
Our up-to-$5,000 Exacta tourney with $1,000 Guaranteed is also always run in Live format. In this 12-race game, you pick a three-horse exacta box in each race, and scores are based on the cumulative returns of $1 payoffs across the 12 races. The entry fee is $125, and no payoff caps are in effect.
The second of the weekend’s two $8 Pick 6 Jackpot tourneys is set for Sunday. Check our Twitter feed on Saturday night or our home page on Sunday for an update on what the Jackpot will be. It will be based on how many people participate in the Saturday Jackpot game and whether anyone wound up hitting it. Like the Exacta tourney, the Pick 6 Jackpot competition is always a live-format competition.
Again, the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge has the stage to itself at HorsePlayers on Sunday.
There’s a Low Ratio Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier on Sunday with a winning ratio of 1-per-23. The entry fee is $500 for the live-format tourney, and at least one $10,000 entry is guaranteed.
Is the Low Ratio not low enough for you? Then you may be interested in Sunday’s Ultra Low Ratio BCBC play-in. The entry fee is a hefty $2,200…but the winning ratio is just 1 in 5, and BCBC ratios don’t get any lower than that. Also note–one grand prize is guaranteed in this tourney as well. So if fewer than five sign up, you’re looking at a significant overlay situation for the $10,000 seat.
The Preakness won’t be the same this year without the like of ZZ Top…Wiz Khalifa …Kegasus…and, most of all, drunks getting beer cans thrown at them while they run across the roofs of port-a-potties.
All the more reason on Saturday to play here where we will valiantly attempt to make up for the deficit in fun. Seriously, though, the Preakness is always a great day, and this year’s card (which includes the Black-Eyed-Susan) may be one of their best and deepest ever. We hope you can spend a part of your Preakness weekend with us and, if you do, we wish you good luck and good trips.