Grand Slam Bet

[tywizard]

I've played the Grand Slam pretty regularly for almost 2 years.

I agree with most of what's been said but here's my approach.

I like the Grand Slam primarily because the "payoff" leg is almost always the feature race and it allows you to avoid the night cap - which is often some impossible maiden claiming event.

I will only play under when the following circumstances appear to be present based on my opinions:

1. At least 1 vulnerable favorite in the first three legs of the bet (important, vulnerable here means off the board)
2. Strong opinion on Payoff leg - regardless of price/likely post time odds
3. The only time I'll play a ticket and not single a horse in the payoff leg is when the second horse is likely to be 8-1 or higher
*Getting a heavy favorite off the board in one of the first three legs will often boost the payouts much more than having the favorite lose the payoff leg. Put differently, I often use the favorite in the payoff leg if I think I found an earlier race when a horse that's a heavy favorite might run out.

My typical ticket structure is 1x1x1x1 and occasionally I'll play 2x1x1x1 - I will use two horses in Maiden races, especially with many FTS. My typical investment is $25-75

This meet has been rough to say the least. The one place where I've had some success is the Grand Slam.

Sunday is a great example of how this bet can be useful. I singled the Admission Office ($3.60) but the maiden race knocked me out...My approach was the following -

Race 6 - Used 7 We Should Talk - I thought Vitsal was vulnerable and this was the main reason I played.

Race 7 - Used 8 Flatter My Heart - Knocked out here

Race 8 - I used 6 Petrov and 3 Behavioral Bias - I used two horses here. I liked Petrov best and my thinking was that if he hit the board and BB was off the board, I'd have created a ton of value. At the same time, BB didn't really look vulnerable and I thought I would have enough value already if Vitsal didn't hit the board in leg 1, so I included him to avoid getting knocked out. As an aside, this leg was particularly frustrating for me because I used Petrov as a Double Down play in the Huddie Contest and managed to extract $0 from his win.

Race 9 - Singled Admission Office - Again the idea is to use this bet to turn a 4/5 shot into something much more....

It paid $228 for $1

My play for today would be:

6 / 8 / 1 / 9

I think Mrs. Orb could be vulnerable in the second leg - I also think that Chad could get overbet in Race 6...Seems like he's leaving the horse in because they want him claimed away. Jerkens has been on fire the past few race days and Rocketry should be fine with the ground and distance. If the other horses hadn't scratched in the payoff leg, I'd have considered a smaller ticket using Focus Group too.