Lighting the fuse for July 8 qualifiers

DRF Tournaments is running an extended holiday schedule this weekend. There will be contests both Monday and Tuesday of next week, meaning there are more opportunities to play and more opportunities to win.

Most of the long weekend’s action will be focused on feeding players into the monster day of action on the contest platform on Saturday, July 8. That day will have three major qualifiers: a Grade 1 event for the World Championship of Handicapping, a qualifier for the Wynn Challenge, and one of the last chances for players to win into Del Mar’s Handicapping Challenge on July 29-30.

Every day there will be round-one qualifiers for the WCH. They cost $95 to play and one in seven will go on to the Grade 1 qualifier on July 8. Alternatively, players can buy in directly to the Grade 1 for $580, where one in 10 will win their $5,000 buy-ins to the $1 million, no-takeout finals.

Wynn feeders cost $12 and one in 10 entries will win their $108 entries to the July 8 qualifier. The Wynn Challenge is a major Las Vegas contest that takes place Aug. 4-5. In a throwback to Vegas contests of years past, there is no continuously updated leaderboard. The only updates come after day one and at the contest's conclusion. Other notable aspects to the Wynn contest are that there are only two tracks -- Del Mar and Saratoga -- and players are allowed a double bet each day to capitalize on their strongest opinions.

To win into the Del Mar qualifier on July 8, players have two options. For $44, one in 10 get their $400 buy-ins for the July 8 event or for $90, one in five will advance to the same event. Del Mar's contest is among the biggest and most popular live-bankroll events of the season. Players compete on the Del Mar card only. The winner will be eligible for a $1 million bonus should he or she go on to win the Breeders' Cup Betting Challenge.