Secrets of Cracking the 3-Man
Secrets of Cracking the 3-Man
I have won the 3-Man for three or four times now. So I think that at least gives me the right to say something on 3-Man tactics.
You may wonder why I would reveal the secrets. I can keep it to myself and keep on winning those credits, why do all of you a favour? By sharing those secrets I am raising the bar to win.
I have been playing this game since week 40. Mike did a great job in making this game. I have a lot of fun, I learn a lot on the pedigree and I have my share of graded wins. When I joined the game, I knew nothing about A. P. Indy, Forty Niner, Kingmambo. I am from Hong Kong, and most horses here are from Australia and New Zealand. (So at least I knew Danehill, Zabeel) Only in last 5-10 years, there are more US-sired horses coming here.
When I notice the BTB writers, the Equinics organizers, the residency managers devote a lot of their time to this game, I am moved. So I decided it’s time to give something back to the game.
Original Purpose of 3-Man
Mike introduced this game intending to create more interaction and co-operation among Sim-players. The intention is very good but unless you and your partners are extremely well co-ordinated, your chance of winning the 3-Man is slim. I would tell you why later.
How tough is 3-Man?
Getting six wins out of 3 stables in a week is tough enough. Getting 6 wins of different categories is extra tough. Let’s have some working assumptions:
(1) you have 3 stables with 9 entrants in each stable (allowing only one horse currently in little groggy, lay off condition in each stable), making a total of 27 entrants to work with in the 3-Man team.
(2) you have to win at least 8-9 races to cover the 6 categories from my experience. It’s extremely unlikely that you will win one race of each type to meet the 3-Man requirement. Combining (1) and (2), 8 wins from 27 entrants, we are talking about a 30% strike rate. Well, some top trainers in the SIM can consistently do that week after week, but not me.
So we start with:
(A) Balance of Horses
You have 3 stables to work with, so decide which stable will cover which type of races. A stable of 27 stake winners won’t work. You need various type of runners.
(B) Plan ahead
You not only need 27 runners, you need 27 SHARP runners. Even 27 SHARP runners would have a tough time to get a strike rate of 30%. So set your train-for option weeks ahead. Plan ahead which week you wanna launch your attack (Yes, sometimes someone hit the jackpot just one week before your attack. But that’s not something you can control)
(C) The Lock
If you know how to play pick 6, you know how to play 3-Man. Sending out 27 SHARP runners trying to cover 6 categories — that converts to 4.5 runners in each category, not a bad figure, but not good enough. What if I have a horse who is a lock in one category, say I own Allied Assault, Sunnybank Memorial, or Horseshoe Bay and I send him to a normal stake race (instead of a G1), I simply have a lock on the stake category. And I still have 26 runners to cover the other 5 categories, i.e. 5.2 runners/category, life’s a little bit easier. What if I have locks in two categories? That left me with 25 runners to cover the other 4 categories, a quite comfortable 6.25 runners/category.
You don’t need a very good horse to have a lock.
Remember, in 3-Man, a stake-race lock is not much better than a MCL-race lock (It’s still better, but not much better, coz stake quality runners are rare). Look at the below horse and that’s my STR-lock in the recent 3-Man win. Hardly a very impressive horse, but extremely useful one in 3-Man:
http://www.thoroughbredracing.net/hr/runtime/onehoss.asp?hossnum=29855
(D) Plan, Plan, Plan! Finding races for your runners
You must make sure there are suitable races for your runners. You can¡¦t make sure all 27 runners will get into a race with good winning chance unless you spend over 20 hours a week in this game. But you can at least check the races available weeks ahead for some of your major runners.
IF there is no suitable race, be generous, support the game with credits and spend those credits in bidding some races for your runners weeks ahead. In that way, you can make sure your sharp runners will have races suited to their advantage. I would not recommend you bid 27 races for your 27 runners. That would defeat the purpose of 3-Man and you are unlikely to get much fun even if you do win. I normally would bid 3 to 6 races for my runners. (If winning means everything to you, I feel sorry for you.)
(E) A little luck and
Enjoy the game. Even if you have made all the preparations, the Goddess of Luck may/may not smile on you that week. A nose in a starter allowance can make the difference of a jackpot and a near-miss 5-cat hit. Suddenly those MCL, STR, CLM 2000 are as important as your next G1. You will rediscover the thrill of this game if you have lost it somewhere in time. You will jump to the roof when that $850 auction-acquired filly just nosed it out to earn you the last-category MCL win. Good Luck.