Fornatale: Real handicapping lies in 'live' format

There is an eternal debate among online contest players as to which format is better of the two commonly used on DRF Tournaments: live, versus all-in. At present, most of DRFT’s action is all-in events, in which all of a player’s picks must be submitted before the post time of the contest’s first race. The live format, in which picks can be changed before each race, is reserved for the biggest weekend events.

Proponents of all-in play will invariably cite the purity of these events - and they have a point. These contests are one person’s ability to pick horses pitted directly against another. Outside of the first two races, there is no direct connections between horses played and prices on the board. There is no game theory involved.

Many experienced players love these aspects. They can multitable – that is, play in many contests at once – with great abandon in all-in contests. They don’t have to worry about changing strategy midstream because all the picks are already in. Better yet, they don’t have to worry about players beating them by picking horses late in the game whom they don’t actually like and are just picking because of their prices on the board.

If I’m an experienced player, I want to see more all-in contests, and I wouldn’t mind if the contests on DRFT with bigger prizes used the format more regularly.

All that said, this article is not meant to espouse the benefits of all-in contests over live events. The all-ins have their drawbacks as well.

I’ll start with my personal opinion. As a player and as a guy who covers contests for a job, I find all-in events dreadfully boring. When I was writing The Winning Contest Player, the thing that really drew me into the contest world was the excitement and game theory of live-contest play. They reminded me exactly of poker tournaments. The things I remember most from my playing days – executing a perfect block, sneaking a well-paying second by playing chalk in an anchor leg – could have never happened in all-in contests. If all contests were all-in, I’d be in another line of work.

There’s also something I don’t like about the picking part of the contest being divorced from knowing the actual prices on the board. When there are no prices, you are no longer handicapping, merely picking. For the term handicapping to apply, a player must be weighing the chance of the horse with the price of the horse. In that sense, the name “handicapping contests” is a misnomer for all-in events.

If we really want to market contests to a new audience, live formats are a better way. They allow the players to think and react and actually do something during the gameplay. Gameplay in all-in contests involves only watching and waiting and might be great for seasoned players, but it’s not a way to put a hook in potential new players the way live play can.

At the end of the day, I am glad that both formats exist, and I do see the case that there should be more all-in contests with bigger prizes and more live contests for newer players. Whatever your preference, you’ll find many games to choose from on tournaments.drf.com