Planning to play in a BJ tournament over here in Jackson Racheria. I am looking for any advice I can get on playing it. ANy would be appreciated.
Planning to play in a BJ tournament over here in Jackson Racheria. I am looking for any advice I can get on playing it. ANy would be appreciated.
Read Wong's Casino Tournament Strategy. If you don't, it's unlikely you will win since some of the other players will have.
It's an excellent book. I've read it a couple of times. Also used the associated software. Very simplistic by Casino Verite standards, but still a useful tool.
> Read Wong's Casino Tournament Strategy. If
> you don't, it's unlikely you will win since
> some of the other players will have.
Its unlikely you will win wether you read Wong's book or not, since I am assuming that there will be more than 3 or 4 participants. Wong's book increases your odds of winning dramatically, but the variance is a killer at these things. Don't expect to win very often.
Every time I play, it seems like I lose to some moron who has no clue about basic strategy and hasn't got a clue about tournament betting strategy either. That being said, I do tend to win more than my fair share of these things.
> That
> being said, I do tend to win more than my
> fair share of these things.
With the small number of hands and the wild betting that can occur, I guess this is all one can hope for. When I first put together the tournament section of CV, I found that it was extremely difficult to win if each of your opponents played in a different style ? even if they all had goofy styles of play. In any round, one of the goofy styles is likely to match well with the particular hands and end up with lots of chips for the end game. Obviously anyone serious about tournament play must thoroughly understand end play. But if someone?s goofy play has resulted in a significantly larger BR for the end game, you?ve got a problem. Particularly given the high correlation between player hands. All players face the same dealer card and the dealer busts or not for all players. But then, it?s a lot easier than playing a no-limit hold ?em tournament against a table full of pros
Without going to in depth Wong recomends just what I said in his book. It has been a while since I read it since I tend to shy away from tourneys . However Wong says it is more often right to bet big on the last round when you are in doubt of what to do. The other thing he stresses in his book is to end up chip leader or go broke trying since if you get too far behind it could be too late to catch up hope this helps but I would still buy his book if I were you SM
Planning to play in a BJ tournament over
> here in Jackson Racheria. I am looking for
> any advice I can get on playing it. ANy
> would be appreciated.
> Wong's book increases your odds of winning
> dramatically, but the variance is a killer
> at these things. Don't expect to win very
> often.
Coug Fan is right. I play my fair share of tournament BJ. Everytime I sit down and look at the rubes I'm playing with, I hear myself saying "I can't lose!" But you do. Probably for the reasons Norm related earlier.
It's maddening when some old gal splits tens on the first hand, then doubles her twelves, and draws to twenty and twenty one. Or some dude bets it ALL on the first hand and draws a natural.
It's a bummer.
[Probably not the same feeling Phil Helmuth has knowing he lost the 2003 WSOP to some guy who got in on a $40 internet poker buy-in .. but close.]
Most will tell you counting is of no value. I don't fully subscribe to that. At least if you know the TC is -12 you don't feel so stupid near the end when you are doubling down with all you got .. on nineteen.
> Coug Fan is right. I play my fair share of
> tournament BJ. Everytime I sit down and look
> at the rubes I'm playing with, I hear myself
> saying "I can't lose!" But you do.
> Probably for the reasons Norm related
> earlier.
> It's maddening when some old gal splits tens
> on the first hand, then doubles her twelves,
> and draws to twenty and twenty one. Or some
> dude bets it ALL on the first hand and draws
> a natural.
> It's a bummer.
> [Probably not the same feeling Phil Helmuth
> has knowing he lost the 2003 WSOP to some
> guy who got in on a $40 internet poker
> buy-in .. but close.]
> Most will tell you counting is of no value.
> I don't fully subscribe to that. At least if
> you know the TC is -12 you don't feel so
> stupid near the end when you are doubling
> down with all you got .. on nineteen.
I think there are two things that throw off a counter, especially when first playing tournaments. The first is making plays that would be poor or even absurd in normal BJ. The second is the tendency to view a tournament result much the way a ploppy in normal BJ views one hand.
But in tournaments there's no payoff on an individual hand and, in that sense, the play with the best expectation is immaterial (that's not to say it isn't often the correct play). The payoff is in the final tournament standing and the intervening bets and playing strategy are so choosen (not easy and dependent on the specific situation). If played correctly, then losing the tournament is not any more meaningfull than losing an individual hand in normal BJ.
When you've lost (no-payoff) tournament after tournament while someone who appears to play poorly wins, think about how many times you've lost hand after hand in normal BJ while another player is cleaning up with some of the worst plays you've seen in months.
SM is right. Wong's basic advice is to bet the table max on the last hand. The other part of this advice is that going in to the last hand, you either want to be the chip leader or have busted out, so that by betting max, you will win if the entire table wins. This basic philosophy gets you a huge advantage over most tournament players. There are also a number of advanced variations for playing the last couple hands that are very beneficial.
Definately get Wong's book if you are interested in learning how to play tournaments well.
A couple of other things that aren't covered in much depth in SW's book are estimating chip totals and understanding the rules/procedures.
Every tournament has different rules and procedures and it is important to understand these in detail. Avoid tournaments that do not strictly enforce basic rules like no talking to players (from spectators), no chips leaving the table, need to keep chips in neat stacks and not hidden behind drinks, etc.
Normally, a tournament will have ONE count and announcement of chip totals 3 or 4 hands before the end of the tournament. It is important to remember the chip totals of the key players at your table and calculate their totals prior to the last hand based on the intervening bet results. This minimizes the need to estimate stacks of chips. Also, some players attempt to get all of their chips in red so that they can have huge stacks of 47 or 49 chips, making it more difficult for other players to accurately estimate their chip totals. Whether or not players are forced to color up should be spelled out in the rules of a well run tournament.
I once had a dealer reach over and break down my stack of chips before the final hand at another players request. Unfortunately, I was not quick enough to stop her, but I did get the PC to require a recount of every players chips as consolation. It also gave me a good reason to stiff that dealer out of a tip when I won the $1,200 first prize.
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