Keys to playing Saturday's DerbyWars Survivor contests

On Saturday, the featured DerbyWars Survivor games are at Belmont Park on races 1-8 (post time 12:54 p.m. ET) and at Keeneland on races 1-7 (post time 2:44 p.m. ET). These tournaments feature a low buy-in of $5.75 with the chance of winning $300 or more.

The basic rules of a Survivor contest state, “Each race is single elimination. Your selection must finish first, second, or third for you to move on to the next race.” The winner(s) are the player(s) that survive for the most races. Sometimes there is one winner that scoops the entire top purse, or a small group shares the winnings.

I encourage you to give Survivor a try and take the chance to turn just a few dollars into hundreds. To help, here are my 3 keys to success when playing Survivor:

1) Remember that odds do not matter in Survivor. Your horse just needs to finish in the top three. There is no bonus if your horse is a longshot.

2) It is not easy to survive and win one of these tournaments. To help your chances, players are allowed up to 10 entries. Multiple entries allow you to use more than one horse in difficult races, with the goal of getting to the final leg of the contest with more than one shot at winning.

3) Basic handicapping principles apply in Survivor, too. Does the race have a lot of speed and sets up for closers, or could a lone speed horse steal it? Ultimately, you want to choose a horse with the good chance of hitting the board -- not necessarily just to win. A horse that's normally a bad bet to win because it always seems to finish 2nd may be a great Survivor selection.

Survivor is my favorite type of contest because of the strategy involved while not having to pick horses with big odds to get a return on the investment. My screen name is andyscoggin, so please say hello in the chat window if you find yourself in the same DerbyWars Survivor contest.