That's okay-if the o.p. is picking that many that often, and they are falling in the same line of play as 3 and 4 out of 6 number wins he/she is doing something right. I think the other side of the coin-and just as hard or harder to figure-are what numbers to eliminate.
I've been able to pick up to 4 winning numbers-I played a set once where all my tickets were winners for pick 5-I've mentioned this before.
What I've asked myself a while back-and when I get a chance I look at this, is what about the winners that I didn't pick-what stopped me from picking them? Usually because their is no pattern or something that stands out about them.
What I look at are bottoms: double, triple, quads-etc., steady patterns of them. If they tend to skip longer than the 7 avg that Gail mentions-lets say 9,10,11 or more but the pattern is steady-I'll pick that number. If it is hot and hitting with fewer skips-4 or 5 in a steady pattern I'll use that too. I also look at the total hits these have.
No matter what pattern I look at, total hits are not always a reason for me to pick or leave the number out. I find that any biases can go either way. Gail mentions that what happens most will usually repeat and happen again, but this is not always true, the key word being "most".
I do look at what I call mirror patterns. Here's an example, this I look at on chart 4 and 4f4 (abbreviated) in Advantage plus:
-------x-------------xx-----------x--------------------x----x----------x-x-x---- out 4 #4 tot hits 67
------------------------x----------------xx---x----------------------------------- out 35 #5 tot hits 48
---------------x---------x---------x---x--------x---------x---x----------x------- out 7 #6 tot hits 66
look at # 6: the 4f4 chart would show something like this:
15 9 9 3 8 9 3 10 7
Actually, this is what I'd call a double mirror-the 3 being the center and the 9-9 before it then the 8-9 after, and the 2nd 3 skip with the 8-9 before and the 10-7 skips after. If the skips are off by one or 2 but you see the definite mirror I'll play it because I've noticed I've gotten hits from this. These are patterns of bottoms, but I've noticed mirror patterns with bottoms.
This is similar to our pick 5. We've only have had around 380 (app) draws so far. Our longshots tend hit somewhat regular so I may or may not pick the 5.