this is a tough one, having to convert 3000 draws at a time (for each position, no less) and copy the values over the formulas to get recalc time to near zero... I am heading in the right direction, just slowly... in contrast, v-trac mirror backtest was a 10 minute affair, while I have been thinking of the SB backtest logic for DAYS until today it clicked. so far backtest results to beat for PA are 13 straight hits in v-trac (vs 11 in pure MODE()  ) best ever was 26 hits over PA history in a variation of 111, but there are too many variations... they all fail cyclic hit ratio so far.

right now I am in a recalc cycle on the pick 3 sheet that will most likely take 20 minutes, but I only have to do that once (wheew). I will convert ALL formulas to just values save for the last few rows so I can add new draws and generate new picks, but much quicker than leaving all the formulas in place.

the light came on when I realized I didn't need the count of EVERY precursor/draw pair for each drawing, just the count for the precursor/draw for that individual draw at that point in history, so I can now change system pick variables without needing to recalc the whole darn list.

I don't know how well the system will test, but if there is bias to be found, this is the system to find it...

the first backtest will be to pick the highest number of announcer occurences for the digits 0-9 for EACH precursor/draw vertical pair (will pick one number for each position, this system isolates the 3 digits and has different rolling data for each) for example, if one draw was 0-9-4 and the next was 5-2-7, looking at the first vertical pair (0-5) it will give me a count of how many times each digit (0-9) followed 0-5 vertically over history TO THAT POINT (hence the power of backtesting without hindsight--- data presented at each line is only for cumulative history, not ALL of history). IF 0-5 was followed by a 7 more times than any other number, then 7 will be picked for that position as part of the pick combo for the next game (in history, and at the end, for the next draw). When a tie occurs, I am allowing excel to deal with it and return the FIRST highest number (this will be explored in subsequent backtests).

since it works by position, it will be an easy port to the pick 4. I don't plan on using mid-day data since it is CPU drawn and I wouldn't play it anyway, so SB is just for PA evenings for now.