{"id":9541,"date":"2011-08-29T01:43:07","date_gmt":"2011-08-29T01:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blacktypebugler.com\/?p=9541"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"oldbtb_99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/?p=9541","title":{"rendered":"How to pwn 3 man, by Blazing Saddles"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ITCH<\/STRONG><\/P>

Mike came up with a good side game years ago with 3 man.<\/P>

For all you rubes out there, 3-man is a contest which puts forth six categories of races: maiden claiming, maiden special weight, claiming, starter, allowance and stakes. Teams of 3 stables must win a race in all six categories to take down the pot, which carries over if nobody hits all six.<\/P>

In years past, 3-man pots would carry over for weeks, as players struggled to put together teams that could win two or three categories, let alone six.<\/P>

No more.<\/P>

Blazing Saddles is teaching the rest of the Sim how the play the game.<\/P>

Since late 2010, the residency has taken down the jackpot on a repeated basis. Blazing Saddles 3-man teams have gone the magical six-for-six a total of nine times. It’s an amazing run of domination that Blazing Saddles members say has been earned through thorough planning and dedication.<\/P>

“Some may be asking what is the secret sauce to 3 man success?” said Skunkbarn, who, along with Gowans, is the principal organizer of the Blazing Saddles 3-man effort. “Well, I know what it is for Blazing Saddles and that is we all know each other as trainers and there is trust when it comes to making teams. We know some stables win at over a 20% clip week in and week out despite what the odds of their runners are. Couple that with the intuitive approach Ben Gowans and myself employ and there you have it!”<\/P>

In chatting with BS member Gowans on a regular basis, I often ask, “Well Ben, did Blazing Saddles take down 3 man again?”<\/P>

It’s amazing how often the answer has been “yes.” Last week, Ben was a little disappointed to report, “only 3 teams with five of six.”<\/P>

But, he was quick to point out, “that’s OK, the prize pool carries over.”<\/P>

These guys have confidence they’re going to hit the jackpot again, and again. It’s like the Mensa group years ago that got banned from Atlantic City casinos for counting cards. They’ve got an edge, and they know they’re going to win with it.<\/P>

The reward is substantial.<\/P>

“I personally have won 33,600 credits (that took a while to calculate lol),” Gowans said. “I am not sure on the bps, at the beginning of this, we kept track of how many bps, but it was a lot of work that really wasn’t needed, so we stopped. But I have to say, you would do 180+ every time we hit the jackpot, and then usually we have 2-3 5 of 6 teams a week, then 2-4 4\/6 teams.”<\/P>

Blazing Saddles members are proud of their accomplishment and say they have done it on the up-and-up, refusing to bid overly restrictive races in order to rack up easy wins.<\/P>

“What I like about it, is we are doing it without (T) starters and such that some folks do,” said BS member Desperado Rob<\/P>

Gowans agrees.<\/P>

“Blazing Saddles members know exactly where to spot their horses, and are agressive conditioners, and bid a lot of races for their horses, but not (T) or CPU races,” Ben said. “We bid open to all, but like I said we know how spot them and their conditons.”<\/P>

One of the things a residency has to do to thrive is to benefit its members, and it’s hard to imagine a better benefit than being part of a group that’s taking down 3-man on a regular basis<\/P>

Leading Blazing Sadlles member MTK likes what he sees.<\/P>

“I believe I was part of winning 3man 6 category hits 3 separate times. Haven’t totaled it but a few times the pot was significant. The res has also hit it several times without me in the team.
BPS is really the significant part though we routinely hit 80\/40 hits with teams every week, ” MTK said.<\/P>

It’s a sacrifice some trainers are not willing to make. To win contests, horses’ running schedules often are compromised. Winning 3 man on a regular basis takes a lot of communication and planning, as well. Not surprisingly, it turns out there is a lot of work involved in taking down the contest pool on a regular basis.<\/P>

“Consistency and balance in 3 man is where it all begins,” Skunkbarn said. “We do this week in and week out bar none. Sure the number of stables changes from week to week with the number of runners in various race types but we field 20+ teams each week. It’s really a great format the way Mike put it together because it does help include more trainers interacting with each other. For example, Desperado and myself tend to have more allowance, stakes and Maiden runners than any other race type so we need those guys and gals who run claimers and starters and vice versa otherwise you can’t get the 5 and 6 race type teams to hit those big extra bps.<\/P>

“It’s for this reason that the trainers in the early parts of their SIM careers have a chance to pair up with experienced players and earn bps faster than by training alone.”<\/P>

The thrill of taking down a big pot with their fellow residency members compares to the ultimate Sim thrill: winning graded races, say the BS members.<\/P>

“The excitement of winning 3 man is completely different from winning a graded race. With 3 man, at least in our rez, it is more about cheering for and congratulating fellow trainers when success is had,” Skunkbarn said. “While you always wish you were the one scoring the credit jackpot I can say we’re all genuinely happy for each other. In that respect it is more Team Blazing Saddles than anything else.<\/P>

“We know that extra credits\/bps only leads to more breeding (and some race bidding) that only helps us improve. We are a competitive bunch and there are rez bragging rights for those who win rez races and our Trainer’s Championship each year. Don’t forget the occasional inter-residency challenges and we certainly don’t want to leave out Equinics and Breeders Bowl.”<\/P>

Yes, ultimately, it is all about building enough resources to breed a champion. Blazing Saddles members agree that the best benefit to dominating 3-man is having enough credits and BPs to afford expensive horses.<\/P>

“Funding some nice credit breeds plus a lot of race bids which is very important and underestimated by some players,” MTK said.<\/P>

With most of their members getting their taste for big-time success originally as members of the powerful GR Simsters, the Blazing Saddles crew has learned to set the bar high.<\/P>

“We descended from GR Simsters and owe a lot to that legacy,” MTK said. “Alot of us learned the foundation of the game there and acquired our desire to win at a high level there. Our goal is to win the 2012 Equinics and I think we are a strong contender so we’d love to pick up a few more members for the quest.<\/P>

“Another good reason is the vast breeding knowledge and especially the understanding of breeding value (how much to spend for credits or bps for any given sire\/combination). I think we have that down better than anyone so there is a lot of collective knowledge within the res. We also have residency meets that are very competitive with a lot of trash talking (Skunk you have no chance in this years BS Showdown as a side note…)”<\/P>

As near as this writer can tell, this success story could not happen to a nicer group of fellows. Perhaps this article will be illustrative to the rest of the community as to a path to group success.<\/P>

Perhaps it will light a competitive fire behind other top-class residencies.<\/P>

As for now, Blazing Saddles pwns 3-man and it’s up to the rest of the Sim to do something about it.<\/P><\/FONT><\/FONT><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rez bosses share secrets of contest success<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}