Blackjack Strategy

[antibes]

I entered a blackjack tournament today for the first time and busted shortly after starting.

Normally when I play I flat bet - but what is a good strategy - when to increase or decrease your bet size?

[BlackjackInfo]

My articles are more appropriate for live multi-player tournaments, but there is a lot of good tournament advice here:
Blackjack Tournament Strategy

There are also active message boards at http://www.blackjacktournaments.com

[antibes]

Tks.

It wasn't a live tournament - Littlewoods gave you £100 and an hour to play.

Top 10 won something.

[BlackjackInfo]

Ah, the Cryptologic tournaments. Unfortunately, there's not much strategy involved in those. Generally, it takes quite a large chip count to win. Numerous max bet wins are required.

The best strategy in that case is to make max bets until you get to first place. I usually go all-in on hand one and either bust out in a hurry or do well.

[Tumbleweed]

Betting your whole balance on one hand isn't that good because you can't split and double. Betting around 1/3 of your balance is probably a better idea.

[antibes]

Forgot to mention max bet was £10.

[BlackjackInfo]

Ick. This may as well be a slot tournament. With a 10 GBP max, there's no good way to get an edge over the competition. Perhaps deviating from basic strategy to increase variance via more aggressive splits and doubles would help a little. But basically, this tournament will just reward whoever gets better cards.

For now, if you want to play a real multi-player tournament, the only place available online is Global Player. At least, that's the only place yet. I expect a new tourney site to launch in early '06.

[antibes]

This month I have busted out of quite a few monthly bonuses.

I flat bet only £1 or $1.

I use the WoO chart but haven't stood a chance when the dealer gets 20 or 21 or pushes every hand.

I start off ok, but after 30 minutes or so start to go continually down and never get back up.

When you hit a bad run, is it best to stop and come back later. I continue hoping to get better cards, but just go from bad to worse.