After completing the manual tracking spreadsheet for 21 days of the pick 2, one thing is fairly obvious, the "lag test" is most certainly NOT a factor. I will include it in the big back test, but I think it is time to shift gears from weekly play to a return to daily play, which will reduce the expense from $14/week to $8/week. So given I am 8 weeks in with a -$96 result so far, this will reduce the expense by $264 and drop the projected cost (past draws included) to a total of $448 for 2026, or the balance of future play down to $352.

I will also split up the Neutral classification into 

NA = neutral above the median

N = neutral equals the median

NB = neutral below the median

That gives 5 categories:

H>NA>N>NB>C

Consideration of the draws out is also helpful to determine where these numbers come from and how to use each of the screens in the app to get a pick.

So the Cycles will remain mostly the same...

4 weeks of Match 6, covering 16 draws instead of 28.

3 weeks of pick 3, covering 12 draws instead of 21.

And 3 weeks of pick 5, covering 12 draws instead of 21.

Follower data, particularly the single appearance of a digit in the last 10 + classifier information, including draws out and drift from the median = the new direction for play... saving money AND having a new combo for every drawing.

The script for the back test will be the largest single script that I have ever written... so that will take some time, but at least I know what information to collect.

Saving money and diving deeper into the stats is the next best step, as refinements can happen between individual iterations rather than on a weekly basis.

None of this possible without the framework I have built... had I still needed to update draw histories and run 2 separate scripts, it may have been dropped already as too labor intensive. THIS is why the app was built.

Tonight ends the week long first cycle of the pick 5. First solo shot at the pick 5 will be Thursday.