Blackjack Tournaments

[mitch]

I am considering playing in a blackjack tournament. Anyone got any ideas how best to play in these?

As an example the tournament I am thinking of entering has a prize fund of £10,000 with a first prize of £5000. The entry fee is £5.00. You start with £2100 play money and the maximum bet is £500. The time period is 30 minutes maximum play to achieve the best possible total.

Currently 243 players have signed up and are playing.
This therefore seems a no-brainer bet, 1/243 chance of winning but 1000/1 odds!

However, the current leader has achieved £28,000. (God knows how in only 30 minutes!)

So how would you go about trying to beat this figure?

Mitch

[largeeyes]

I am considering playing in a blackjack tournament. Anyone got any ideas how best to play in these?

As an example the tournament I am thinking of entering has a prize fund of £10,000 with a first prize of £5000. The entry fee is £5.00. You start with £2100 play money and the maximum bet is £500. The time period is 30 minutes maximum play to achieve the best possible total.

Currently 243 players have signed up and are playing.
This therefore seems a no-brainer bet, 1/243 chance of winning but 1000/1 odds!

However, the current leader has achieved £28,000. (God knows how in only 30 minutes!)

So how would you go about trying to beat this figure?

Mitch

Pray?

[virtualted]

I was in a tournament and the player who won, did it by doubling down when he got a blackjack treating it as an 11 instead of a winning 1.5. Remember winning and losing is not as important as just beating the other peoples scores.
Good Luck

[ExSparr]

I´ve already played several tournsments at different Cryptologic Casinos. The best results were 2 times 4th place .
If I´d know how to play I´d rather raise my own funds instead of playing these tournaments .
At least u should turn off all sounds an animations while playing and try to be alone at the table otherwise it takes too much time especially when player enter and leave the table permanently...that´s really annoying.

ExSparr

[ScurvyDog]

I am considering playing in a blackjack tournament. Anyone got any ideas how best to play in these?

As an example the tournament I am thinking of entering has a prize fund of £10,000 with a first prize of £5000. The entry fee is £5.00. You start with £2100 play money and the maximum bet is £500. The time period is 30 minutes maximum play to achieve the best possible total.

Currently 243 players have signed up and are playing.
This therefore seems a no-brainer bet, 1/243 chance of winning but 1000/1 odds!

However, the current leader has achieved £28,000. (God knows how in only 30 minutes!)

So how would you go about trying to beat this figure?

Mitch

I've played in a few of these, haven't won any but watched the ultimate winner in one play.

Usually they have a time window in which the tournament runs, typically for a week or so. I'd suggest waiting towards the end of the window to play, just so you know what you're up against. There's no advantage to playing early so I'd wait until the end, unless you plan on re-entering multiple times, etc.

The guy I watched who won the Will Hill BJ tournament I entered doubled everything that was <17, hard or soft, no matter what the dealer showed. And I mean everything. Even hard 16. Since there's no possible way you can win these tournaments by playing optimal basic strategy, you have to get lucky. If you have to get lucky, then double everything. I don't know the math behind it but it worked for him. I'm sure there's a much more reasonable variation of the strategy that still gives you a decent shot at winning (like doubling everything <14, etc.), but I have no clue what it is. Long story short, you can't win these by playing in a "normal" fashion.

Once he was in 1st place, he then purposely slowed the action down at the table, sitting at the table but letting it time him out without betting, getting up, sitting back down, timing out, etc. Annoying, yeah, but it worked for him. Why these tournaments are set up for multiple players at the table is beyond me, as it just encourages people to use such tactics. They could easily be set up to use single private tables where you play alone and avoid such shenanigans.

[vgyhnji]

'Why these tournaments are set up for multiple players at the table is beyond me, as it just encourages people to use such tactics.'

When I played the Will Hill tournament recently this issue f*+kd me off big time. After logging in and out many times, at all times of the day without ever finding myself alone at a table, I conceded to bet £500 a time from the off. Not my usual strategy I can tell you, thank God its not as I lost the first 10 games 7 to 3 and was basically out.

I guess if you get lucky with table time and your wagers you deserve the prize money, which I think at Will Hill was £3000 to the winner.

At the other end of the scale I recently led the UK Betting tournament for a few days. With a lower number of contestants, table time was no problem (I only met up with one other player once and having left the table was alone again on my return), and with an hour of playable time I made over £10K. My problem was, that having set this level too early in the tournament, my target was there to be shot at and I was passed by several others. Next time I shall leave my entry a lot later as I guess it's an advantage to see what you have to beat and adjust your tactics accordingly. I did leave myself a five minute back up session but only hit losers in final desperation - I finally dropped back to finish 6th.

Mitch - which tournament are you looking at playing? and best of luck

[mitch]

[I]Mitch - which tournament are you looking at playing? and best of luck

The tournament is running at Littlewoods Casino until 31/01/05.

There are currently 2 players at £28,014. That means they are 52 units of £500 ( maximum bet ) ahead after only 30 minutes. This seems amazing to me and would appear to need incredible luck to achieve, given the number of bets you can make in just 30 minutes.

Mitch

[vgyhnji]

mitch

Did you play? If so, how did you do?

[colin563]

Howdy there

Ken Smith ( he runs http://www.blackjackinfo.com/ ) runs a excellant tournaments site: http://www.blackjacktournaments.com/ and
Global-player casino have real good tournaments that eventually all tournaments will be like
http://www.global-player.com/pages/0...ournament.html
it has a kind of a poker feel about it, with all the tables in the touraments starting at once, each round is about 15 -30 rounds, with bloody good USA players playing there as well ( Henry Tamburin who wrote "Blackjack: Take the Money and Run "
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...754609-9472450
was playing one night I was playing, chatting a way to him in the chat room function ) well worth checking out for the experience, I had great fun as I managed to get through to a semi final table, came 3rd, with only the first 2 going through, close but no cigar take care and be lucky

Cheers

Colin

[GrandMaster]

The tournament is running at Littlewoods Casino until 31/01/05.

There are currently 2 players at £28,014. That means they are 52 units of £500 ( maximum bet ) ahead after only 30 minutes. This seems amazing to me and would appear to need incredible luck to achieve, given the number of bets you can make in just 30 minutes.

Mitch

I managed to turn £2100 into £17850 and I was one maximum bet away from winning a prize, but then I hit a losing streak. Very frustrating.

I also just realised that it was a multi-hand BJ, so I could have played several hands.