This is a one round winner take all tournament were each player plays 10 hands. Top score takes the entire prize pool. I don't play many of these tournaments as I don't like the format and usually anyone can play for free but the few I have played in you played heads up with the dealer no shuffling between rounds and those asian ladies dealt much faster than I have ever seen at a BJ table.Originally Posted by bigplayer
Yeah -- what you have at Atlantic City is a large and experienced field of competitors many of whom are betting big from the start. That's the only way they could turn $2,000 into $200,000 within 10 hands. In order to have any chance at all, then you would need to do the same there. I see the same kind of thing at accumulation-style events in Vegas.
However, I still want to stress that the actual goal for your event could be very different, especially if the field is inexperienced. There is an event local to me for which the starting bank roll is $5,000, 25 hands are played, no max and yet the typical threshold is only about $12,000. This is because it is an extremely new event and the field bets very low ($100-$200) until the end at which point a small percentage of them go all in on the final hand. A very large percentage of them don't make the big bet at the end, giving them no chance at all. Because of that, this event is very good EV for me. I only need to compete against the small percentage of players who give themselves a chance, while benefiting from the entire prize pool. Add to that, the strategy of betting all-in at the start gives me multiple ways to reach the goal.
1) Blackjack on the initial hand
2) 2 shots betting $2000, and then $4,000 if that loses after winning the initial hand
3) Still a chance to make it from $4,000 if step 2 fails.
Even the best of the rest of the field has to get much luckier than that by drifting up by 5 to 10 units over the first 24 hands and then winning their all-in.
The point is that every event is different and it is critical that you find out how the others will play either by networking and by observing. Then try to play late in order to get a solid estimate on what the actual goal will be. Then keep your own records should you play this event multiple times. Once you've done that, give yourself a further advantage by betting max until you're within range, and minimizing the number of hands you need to win to get there.
Oh yes, I almost forgot -- good luck!
The best way to win these kinds of accumulation tournaments is to bet the max or all-in until you reach your goal. How do you calculate your goal? The best source of information for calculating your goal is your own experience in this tournament. If you've never played in this tournament, the best source of information for calculating your goal is other players who have played there before (and hope they're not lying to you).
A mathematical way of calculating your goal is to divide the number of winners by the total number of players. Then figure the odds of winning x number of hands in a row so that you get a fraction close to the proportion of winners. Pushes don't count, so the odds of winning a hand before losing one are 0.47. If one-tenth of the players will advance, you need to win three all-in bets in a row, or three max bets. In a spreadsheet the formula for this example is =0.47^3. So you need to finish up by three max bets. Actually I would want to finish up by four max bets because there are more ways to finish up by three than winning your first three, and other players will find those other ways. In an all-in tournament this means you need to increase your starting bankroll by 8X (2-cubed).
This mathematical method isn't perfect, but it gets you in the ballpark.
Last edited by Monkeysystem; 12-07-2014 at 07:22 AM.
Are you referring to the formula presented in chapter in "Chapter 3 -- Setting Your Goal" in Wong's book? If so, then the formula calls for taking the square root of this fraction. I'm not trying to call you out here on your first post. I know that you're familiar with this formula and I just want to make sure you posted what you intended to.
For those not familiar, here is an example. If there are 100 participants in a tournament round and 25 of them will advance, then a reasonable estimate of the threshold for advancing would be sqrt (100/25) = sqrt (4) = 2 x the starting bankroll.
As Monkey and I have both said here, though, the best information is gained from experience with the event and socializing with the regulars. It's amazing how willing people are to help you if you appear to be clueless!
I've played in a few tournaments like the one you are describing but there were quarter, semi and a final round thrown in instead of just 10 rounds dealt and then a winner is announced. It's hard to turn down a free entry if the house is offering it. The thing that gets me with this type of tournament format that I played is if you don't make it to the next stage of the tournament because a player doesn't have the most chips at the completion of 10 rounds, is it worth chasing the prize money if you have to re-buy? I guess that would depend on the field of players chasing the money and the cost of the re-buy.
The all-in strategy sounds good if you win but if you lose 1 hand and get bounced out the re-buy seems like a pain. The few times I did enter I would finish close to the chip leader after 10 hands. Luck seemed like it played a big part in the tournament because of the low number of rounds dealt. Since I didn't use the all-in strategy up front I thought in the beginning it was helpful to be the last one to post my bet to see what the other players are going to bet because the dealer can't start the deal until you post your bet. After that first hand and depending on what happened I would gauge what I had to bet to be close to the chip leader or bet an amount to try and overtake the chip leader.
It would be nice to see BJ tournaments for specific games like SD, DD, or 6D tournaments with no limits on the max betting where everyone started with $10,000 and then after 4 hours of play or so the top 21 advance to a semi-final round where they wittle the field down to the top 10 players for the final 2 tables to find out who would really be the winner of a BJ tournament. Or carry the tourney out over a few days where players play for up to 8 hours in the beginning stage and begin with $10,000. They need to have a World Series of Blackjack just like they do in many poker games where all-in betting is encouraged.
Last edited by Blitzkrieg; 12-07-2014 at 09:24 AM.
I like the format where you are always playing against your table. The strategy is determined by what is right in front of you. I think it takes the most skill and therefore can give the biggest edge if you are the most skilled.
Last edited by Three; 12-07-2014 at 09:33 AM.
My answer to this is that if it was a good idea (i.e. +EV) for you to enter the tournament in the first place, then it is +EV to do so again. In some events, the price of a rebuy is less than the initial entry making it an even better bet. For events where the initial entry was free, then you have to assess the value of the tournament and decide whether it is worth the price of the rebuy. This is the same evaluation that you would make if paying for the initial entry in the first place.
There was a televised World Series of Blackjack many years ago, but it didn't survive. As a blackjack tournament enthusiast myself, I do have to admit that it didn't translate well to TV. The table elimination format only gets interesting in the final few hands of each round and, even then, it would only be interesting to knowledgeable viewers. An extended multi-hour format would probably be even less interesting to watch and definitely far less interesting to play in.
I never did watch the World Series of Blackjack. I didn't even know that such a show was even televised or existed but I would have to agree that it would probably only be interesting to people who know and play the game of BJ. I did watch a few shows of the UBT however. I think I could endure to watch an extended multi-hour format of a televised BJ tournament, as long as the camera switched to examine a multitude of players and the decisions they make while at the table. Like an all-in situation, or watching the chip leader play. I guess the producers of such a show would have to come up with a way to make the game interesting for TV viewers.
If I can handle watching golf for hours I could handle watching a BJ tournament easily.
The reason that I think that a multi-hour bj tournament would be boring (to watch and to play in) is that I think the early rounds would turn into card counting session with the players playing and betting hands automatically. Absolutely nothing interesting about that, even to the ones playing. The big moves would only be made near the end when time was running out and these would tend to be all-in moves out of desperation more than out of any interesting strategy.
A similar problem applies to table-elimination formats. Only the final few hands are strategically interesting. UBT tried to mitigate this by having elimination hands every 7-10 hands or so and by only showing these hands and sometimes the hand before. The WSOB tried to make things interesting using elimination cards (like the cut card only it signalled that the following hand would be an elimination hand). The idea was to force the players to maintain a decent bankroll position at all times. This was not entirely successful.
I think that poker tournaments are interesting throughout for a TV audience because the players are generally trying to maximize the outcome of every hand and that this is done by applying complex strategies throughout. It's easy for the producers to find an interesting hand in progress at any given time.
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