Lifetime Grand Slam

[TGJB]

Roger Neubauer just won the Santa Anita real money handicapping contest. To follow his win in the Hollywood contest last year. And mine the year before at Del Mar.

Retire the trophy, or call it the Thoro-Graph trophy.

[Mall]

Just saw the interview on HRTV. Talk about cha ching. From $800 to $50k in the finale, not to mention enough points to take the Tour lead in the clubhouse. Winning this kind of contest three years in a row is quite an accomplishment.

Congrats all around on a job well done.

[TGJB]

How does the points thing work? Are all contests worth the same?

[Mall]

The link to the Official Rules explains it pretty well, and while the total number of people who earn points and the amount of those points depends on the number of entries, the points awarded to the winner is the same in all contests where nhc spots are awarded, i.e., 3,000.

Given the Tour cash awards and the potential $2 million bonus, as well as the qualifying spots for Jan 2011, one of Roger\'s first orders of business when he gets back has got to be checking the balances in his frequent flier accounts.

[TGJB]

Yep. Hello, New Orleans.

[Mall]

Although I\'m obviously not helping myself telling you this, in the event you and Roger didn\'t get the email, sign ups for the Kee contest start by phone tomorrow at 10 a.m.

Also, if team Tgraph is looking for a unique way to celebrate and Roger is going to be in the Big Apple anytime soon, I saw something which I\'m assuming is pretty unique Sat night in Columbus. By now everyone\'s presumably seen one of those unintentionally hilarious commercials for the so-called \"snuggie.\" If you think the commercials are funny, imagine being in a bar and seeing 25 or 30 people in snuggies come in together doing a pub crawl. I can just imagine the reaction if you, Alan, and Roger walked into one of those bars in the Village wearing snuggies...

[TGJB]

Thanks for the Kee heads up.

It\'s one thing for Roger to go in looking like that, but Alan and I want to be able to go back to the places round here.

[Silver Charm]

TGJB not that your ego needs any help but word is,

Without you and Alan there are no places in NY.

[BenevolentDictator]

That wasn\'t a win, that was a beat down.  Congratulations, put your money where your mouth is haters.

[miff]

Congrats on winning a real handicapping contest.Bet the clueless blind stabbers did NOT participate. Shame that he has to compete at years end with people who risked little/no money to qualify.


Mike

[analizethis]

The Keeneland tournament sold out in two hours.

[TGJB]

SC-- Not sure that\'s a good thing.

Coincidentally, there\'s an article in today\'s Daily News bout a reporter who did a club crawl in one of those Snuggie things. She took a lot of abuse. A guy would get maybe ten times as much, except maybe in Chelsea.

[Mall]

Very happy to hear that the new Kee contest generated the kind of response I was anticipating.

If you did get in, you\'re going to want to read the rules very carefully, as even excluding what I\'m pretty sure is the first ever coat and tie dress code, there are at least two items which are different than most cash contests, starting with the first tiebreaker, which is the total amount wagered.

Of potentially far more importance is that unlike yesterday, in the event of a signer which triggers withholding, a player\'s bankroll is only credited with the net amount collected. You can dilute the impact somewhat the same way you do when wagering, namely through 50 cent tris, although depending on the circumstances, that can obviously take quite a bit of time at the windows.

Finally, for those of you with little to no contest experience who are thinking about getting your feet wet, you should know that there is no evidence to support the idea that there\'s a relationship between handicapping ability and the amount one spends to enter a contest or get qualfied. If anything, any relationship which does exist is exactly the opposite of the one suggested, as in you will earn the respect of the best players if, in addition to everything else, you\'re able to figure out a way to qualify on the cheap, so to speak. Although this isn\'t my personal opinion, the reality is that a majority believes that those who pony up $5k to compete against less than 50 players for five spots are in some respects trying to buy their way in.

But don\'t take my word for it. You can ask any number of the \"clueless blind stabbers\" who made up the majority of those who entered the SA contest, starting with two gentlemen who qualified yesterday, namely: (1) Dennis Decauwer, who collected $150k for finishing 2nd at the most recent NHC after qualifying last year in a contest with a zero entry fee, and (2) Richard Goodall, who won $500k and the NHC the year before last after qualifying online in one of the last of the $400 single day nhcqualify online contests.

[TGJB]

Mall-- No comment on the last part. But on another subject, did you have anything to do with the drug testing stuff CD just announced?

[Mall]

No, but it\'s hard not to notice that it appears to be the strictest and most comprehensive program anyone\'s committed to so far, more even than what is contemplated by the NTRA\'s Safety and Integrity Alliance.

The obvious hope now is that CDI is big enough that the rest will follow, so that the real reform we\'ve all been waiting for will finally start.