experimenting with automation worked... still no backtesting, would probably need a VB routine or database for that.

The basic idea is to look at the numbers drawn last night (example 3-2-6) and the numbers drawn tonight (example 4-7-8). this yields the positional vertical pairs

P1 = 34

P2 = 27

P3 = 68

I created a chart that fills itself in when you add draws (using excel, also works in open office). the first row contains 00 thru 99, the columns are from 0-9 for each position... so, you would look in the first position in the row for "34" to see the highest count of the followers 0-9.

still devising a backtest, but it does yield an interesting chart AND was a great exercise in formula creation with creative cell-referencing.

more on this if I can develop a backtest...