DeRosa Diaries: Debut in national contest mirrors career

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Las Vegas

My debut in the National Horseplayers Championship went a lot like my career.

I started strong, but a few clever ideas late could not overcome critical errors along the way, and it ends in failure.

Yes, great expectations can portend bigger disappointments, but those disappointments bring reflection. As I reflect on my first-ever NHC, I can’t help but smile through the pain of a mid-pack effort.

The NHC rightfully takes its lumps for a qualifying format in which players have a murky-at-best understanding of what each entry is worth, but the event itself is a paean to the horse-playing experience. If the National Thoroughbred Racing Association figured out how to bottle the energy in the Horseshoe Las Vegas event center, it’d be the best-selling product on the industry Etsy. 

In “One Night in Bangkok,” lyricist Tim Rice calls chess “the ultimate test of cerebral fitness,” and that line ran through my head many times this weekend thinking about the game of the mythical $2 win-place format.

Monitoring a score of races and choosing three dozen to play over two days is a grind. But in the best kind of way. Playing and strategizing this tournament reminded me of how I feel during a big-money poker tournament. The mind always is working, and if I had been fortunate enough to cash, then I definitely feel as if I would have earned it with this format against this group of players.

And it became kind of cliché to me to hear many of the NHC regulars talk about the camaraderie, but I get it now. The ballroom atmosphere rivals a big day at racetracks, and being able to talk handicapping with some of the best minds playing is a real treat.

This is an experience I would like to repeat, with better results, of course. I think my calculus on the types of horses to bet to reach a target score was a little off. I was looking to cash six horses worth 30-35 points. I think that was a little non committal. Three cap horses would have been enough, or seven 10-1 horses.

In order to repeat the experience, I’ll have to qualify again. Tournaments like what Hawthorne offers, live money with no entry fee, are the best value when pursuing that goal. I’m not retiring yet. From writing about racing or the NHC.

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