The Flo-Cal Faceoff is finally upon us.
Already we know that the purse for this year’s event will exceed last year’s—by a lot. In 2020, Thomas Blosser won $87,000 from a final purse of $225,000. As of Thursday afternoon—with over a full day of qualifying plus buy-ins still to go—the pot sits at $338,512.
One programming note: this year you can follow the Faceoff live with Scott Carson and NHC Hall of Famer Chris Larmey from Sport of Kings by tuning in The Flo-Cal Faceoff Show on Saturday and Sunday from 5:45-7:45 pm ET each day at the HorseTourneys Youtube page. There will be special guests (including fellow NHC Hall of Famer and 2019 Spa & Surf Showdown winner Paul Shurman), handicapping and more. Should be fun!
Anyway…we’re already looking at a Flo-Cal grand prize in excess of $130,000 (since the winner of the Faceoff gets 40% of the purse after day money is carved out). You can certainly buy-in directly for $1,500 per entry. Note that there is a maximum of two entries per person.
If you want to win your way into the Faceoff, then your last chance to do so comes on Friday.
There will be eight (!) Flo-Cal qualifiers on Friday—four $118 qualifiers on the full cards at Aqueduct, Gulfstream, Santa Anita and Charles Town; an afternoon $118 multitrack qualifier, and an afternoon $350 Low Ratio multitrack play-in; and lastly both $118 & $350 Last Call qualifiers on four races each from the Friday night cards at Charles Town and Sam Houston. The Low Ratio qualifier has a winning ratio of 1 in just 5, as opposed to the usual 1 in 15.
Our more customary Friday featured schedule is extra good too…because the day’s richest cash tourney is now extra rich.
What used to be a $10,000 Guaranteed No Limit Pick & Pray is now a $15,000 Guaranteed No Limit Pick & Pray. Here’s more good news—the entry fee for this one has not been raised. It remains at $190.
Another lucrative Friday affair is our up-to-$20,000 Big Bucks Pick & Pray, which guarantees at least $7,500 in the kitty. The entry fee is $1,150, and payoffs only go to the top three finishers on a 70/20/10-percent basis. Total entries are capped at 20.
In addition to all of the Flo-Cal Faceoff opportunities, there is a chance to win a $6,500 package ($6,000 entry plus $500 for travel) to the Pegasus World Cup Betting Championship. Friday’s qualifier is a Pick & Pray, with an entry fee of $384. One of every 20 entrants will move on to the live-bankroll Pegasus event that can be played from either Gulfstream or Xpressbet on January 23rd.
There are two featured tourneys at HorsePlayers on Friday—one a qualifier to the NHC and the other a play-in for the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge.
The NHC game is a $75 qualifier. It’s a Pick & Pray, with two berths guaranteed.
The BCBC qualifier is a Low Ratio Pick & Pray with an entry fee of $500, and a winning ratio of 1 in 23. One $10,000 seat is guaranteed to be awarded regardless of participation.
Contest races for the Friday features are the 7th and 8th from Aqueduct; the 2nd through 7th at Santa Anita; and the 9th and 10th from Gulfstream—10 races in all.
Saturday, of course, is Day 1 of the 2-day Flo-Cal Faceoff.
Each day, players in this live-format contest are required to make a $2.00 win and place selection on one horse in each race from both Gulfstream and Santa Anita. Day money will be paid to top scorers within each day.
Direct buy-ins, at $1,500 each will be available right up until post time for the first race at Gulfstream.
The Flo-Cal Faceoff is the first leg in the new 2021 “Tourney Triple” series that also includes April’s Players Championship and August’s Spa & Surf Showdown, and there’s a bonus program tying the three events together.
The top 100 finishers in each event get points and the overall best performer based on point totals gets a $10,000 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge entry plus a 2022 NHC seat. Second best gets a BCBC entry, and the third-highest point-getter receives an entry into the 2021 The BIG One.
There’s more.
If someone wins two of the three legs of the Tourney Triple, he or she earns a $1 million bonus. A clean sweep of all three is worth a $2 million bonus.
We have other features on Saturday in addition to the Flo-Cal Faceoff.
In deference to the Flo-Cal, we are lowering the guarantee in the $260 game to $15,000 for this week only. It’s a Pick & Pray and, as per usual, there is
no limit as to how high the purse can grow.
Another Saturday Pick & Pray is our “up-to-$20,000” Big Bucks game. The purse is guaranteed at $10,000, and entries are limited to 20 (unless we get a late arrival or two via last-minute Saturday feeders). Payoffs go strictly to the top three finishers with the winner earning 70 percent of the net pool, the runner up getting 20 percent, and the third-place finisher scooping up the remaining 10 percent.
Saturday’s $15 Pick 4 Jackpot tourney begins with a carryover of $8,058 after going unhit again last weekend. If you go four-for-four in this Pick & Pray, you win or share the Jackpot. Meanwhile, 70% of the net pool gets paid out to players via the traditional $2.00 win/place scoring system. (The other 30% goes to the Jackpot pool.) Note that there is a maximum of three entries per player allowed in these Jackpot Pick 4 games.
The Pick 4 Jackpot races on Saturday are races 8 and 11 from Gulfstream and races 4 and 6 at Santa Anita.
The Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge again shares the stage with the NHC at HorsePlayers on Saturday.
The BCBC qualifier is a $179, live-format game with at least one $10,000 entry/prize certain.
The Saturday NHC qualifier is also a live-format tourney. It’s a 1-per-50 play-in with two seats guaranteed and an entry fee of $210.
The Saturday contest races for our traditional multitrack features (i.e. all but the Flo-Cal Faceoff and the $15 Pick 4 Jackpot tourney) are the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th from The Great Race Place (Santa Anita), the 7th through 9th at the Big A (Aqueduct); and the 8th through 11th from Gulfstream (no track nickname on file).
On Sunday, we’ll be crowning a Flo-Cal Faceoff champion…and hosting some other tourneys that are pretty fun and rewarding in their own right.
Earlier we mentioned that we raised the guarantee on Friday’s featured cash event. Well…we did the same thing with Sunday’s marquee cash game. The $15,000 Guaranteed No Limit tourney has been bumped up to a $20,000 Guaranteed No Limit tourney. It’s a Pick & Pray this week, and we’ve held the line on the entry fee. It’s still $195.
The Sunday Big Bucks tourney has a guarantee of $7,500, and the final pot could reach $20,000 if we reach the maximum 20 entrants. The entry fee is $1,150, and prizes go only to the top three. Sunday Big Bucks games are always run in Live-format.
Another “always-Live” competition is Sunday’s up-to-$5,000 Exacta tourney with $1,000 Guaranteed. You pick a three-horse exacta box in each contest race, and whoever has the best overall score (based on $1.00 payoffs with no price caps in effect) earns the top prize.
There’ll be another $15 Pick 4 Jackpot tourney (Pick & Pray again) on Sunday. Check our home page or our Twitter feed on Saturday night for the Jackpot carryover amount. It will depend on how many played in Saturday’s Pick 4 Jackpot tourney—and whether anyone went 4-for-4.
The important qualifier on the Sunday HorseTourneys schedule is our Pick & Pray play-in to the Pegasus World Cup Betting Championship. The entry fee is $384, and one of every 20 participants will garner a $6,500 Pegasus package.
At HorsePlayers on Sunday, there will again be one NHC featured tourney and one BCBC feature.
The BCBC game is a Live-format, low-ratio qualifier. One grand prize is guaranteed, and the winning ratio is 1-per-23 in this $500 event.
There’s also a Low Ratio qualifier on the NHC side of the street. It’s a $500 Pick & Pray with a winning ratio of 1-per-17 and one “Bally’s Berth” guaranteed. (Note that, per NHC Tour rules, there will only be NHC Tour points if two seats are awarded.)
The NHC qualifier also guarantees one seat. It’s a Live-format, $165 game only for those who have yet to earn a 2021 NHC berth. Since this is a restricted-entry affair, no Tour points will be available in this one.
Good luck to everyone this weekend—especially those “Facing Off”. We are eager to see how it turns out…and even more excited to present another six-figure payout to one of our skillful players. Don’t forget about the Sport of Kings guys and the Flo-Cal Faceoff show Saturday and Sunday evenings at our YouTube page. If you’re lucky, and good, maybe Scott and Chris will be talking about you.