Kinchen has target on his back in Santa Anita qualifier

This Friday, DRF Tournaments will be running a special contest event. The game, which will be broadcast on live.drf.com, will be a feeder for the last chance qualifier for Santa Anita’s Autumn Championship.

The contest will utilize the live format, meaning players can change their picks as they go along. This is a rare opportunity for players on the DRFT site to play in a live game for a low buy-in (most low-cost games use the all-in format). The feeder will cost just $25 to play and one in 10 entries will win their $230 buy-ins to the Saturday qualifier. From that contest, one in 26 will win prize packages worth over $5,000.

Additionally, DRF Tournaments will also be hosting feeders from Wednesday through Friday that cost $54 and allow one in five entries to proceed to the qualifier. The Santa Anita Autumn Championship itself is two separate contests which will take place Saturday, Oct. 7 and Sunday, Oct 8. On Oct. 7, the buy-in is $3,000; the Oct. 8 contest costs $2,000. Qualifiers will also receive two nights in a hotel near Santa Anita.

The broadcast of the contest – the first of its kind for Daily Racing Form – comes with an added wrinkle: the outplay JK bonus.

Jonathon Kinchen, noted tournament player and my co-host for the DRF Players’ Podcast, will be playing in the contest as we host the show. Any player finishing ahead of Kinchen will get his or her entry fee back.

DRFT has also started running qualifiers for the Del Mar Fall Challenge, a two-day event taking place at Del Mar on Nov. 11-12 at the legendary seaside oval. This week players can put up $24 and one in four will win into a Round 1 contest that will take place on Sunday, Sept. 30.

Check back later in the week on DRF Tournaments and drf.com for more details on the live broadcast and contest. And as always, the DRF tournaments site is the place to go for a full list of all the games available.

Kingma king of the hill

On Saturday, Gregg Kingma became the latest player to win into DRF’s World Championship of Handicapping, a $1 million, no-takeout event scheduled to take place online early next year. Kingma finished with $84.80, best in the field of 18. He had managed just $2.20 through five races before connecting with It Tiz Well ($17.20 win-place combined) in the Cotillion at Parx, Chlobee ($39.20) in Arlington’s ninth, and Return of the Rock ($22.80) in Arlington’s 10th.

Second-place finisher Ed Peters collected $1,600 in site credit but still had to feel somewhat unlucky. He finished with $81.20 and after six contest races his total was ... $81.20. He managed to take a zero for the whole second half. Don’t feel too bad for Peters, though. He was multi-tabling – playing in the WCH event online while also playing live at The Big One at Laurel. Peters ended up winning that contest and netting prizes worth over $50,000.

Also on Saturday, two players won their way into the upcoming Keeneland Challenge, a live-bank contest that takes place Sunday, Oct. 15. Cheryl McIntyre ($68.30) and Mark Urbanski ($66.90) finished best in the field of 24.

McIntyre, a most-familiar name to contest players based on her long history of success, cashed in six of the 12 races, with her longest price being Cammack ($23) in the second contest race. She had a nice lead two-thirds of the way through and watched that lead slowly slip away as the pack caught up. She needed critical place points in the anchor leg from Brockmininoff ($4.10) to hold on to her qualifying spot. Urbanski ($66.90) also started off well with Cammack, and from there had a streak where he collected in six of seven races. He didn’t earn another dollar after that but was able to hold off contest vet Brian Herrity by 90 cents.

On Sunday, Ken Jordan ($96.70) punched his ticket to Lexington with a win in a Keeneland qualifier. Jordan had three winners that returned over $20: Table for Six ($24.60) in Belmont’s sixth, Proper Freud ($22.90) in Belmont’s seventh, and Miss Maserati ($26) in Gulfstream’s ninth. Jordan, a regular in Monmouth’s popular series of contests, has a contest résumé that includes multiple top-10 finishes in important Las Vegas contests. He’ll be another one to watch at Keeneland for sure.

For more tournament news and information, go to tournaments.drf.com.