Current Online Blackjack Tournaments
Blackjack is one of the most popular games in the casino. Each Player's wager is a bet against the Dealer's hand. The object of this card game is to have the total point value of the cards dealt to you exceed the point value of the Dealer's hand without going over 21. If you draw cards that total more than 21, your hand breaks and you lose. Blackjack tournaments were out of favour from the late 1980's until the early 21st century, partly because casinos did not want to encourage the development of card counting skills. The tournament idea was revived in 2002 by the Las Vegas Hilton with its Million Dollar tournament. Live Casino Blackjack Tournament Basics You have probably played Blackjack before. Even if you are familiar with the game rules, you should know that there is a difference between the classic game you can play at a virtual or live dealer table and a tournament on it. These are the basic blackjack tournament rules we’ve found: Generally, the top two players will progress to the next round There will be between 20-30 hands dealt. Blackjack Rules. I overhear a lot of bad gambling advice in the casinos. Perhaps the most frequent is this one, 'The object of blackjack is to get as close to 21 as possible, without going over.' The object of blackjack is to beat the dealer. To beat the dealer the player must first not bust (go over 21) and second either outscore the.
Online casino tournaments data supplied by CasinoListings.com.
About Blackjack Tournaments
In the last decade, poker has gone through a tremendous boom thanks to the rising popularity of poker tournaments. In fact, for many people, high stakes tournaments might be the first thing they think of when they think of poker. On the other hand, blackjack is mostly known as a table game played in the casino, not a competitive endeavor where you compete against fellow players.
But blackjack has a tournament scene too, and it’s one that’s just as exciting and competitive as the world of tournament poker. In a blackjack tournament, the goal isn’t just to beat the dealer – though you probably will have to do that more than a few times to win. Instead, you’re competing against the other players at your table to see who can amass the most chips in a certain number of hands.
Typically, a blackjack tournament will consist of elimination rounds (though single table blackjack tournaments do exist), in which the top one or two finishers out of a table of about five to six players will advance to the next round. At the beginning of each round, each player starts with the same number of chips. Typically, a round will last somewhere between 20-30 hands, after which the players are ranked by the number of chips they hold.
Immediately when sitting down and playing in a blackjack tournament, you’ll notice that some things are different from your typical blackjack game. For instance, the dealer doesn’t always start dealing from the “first base” position (the player to the dealer’s left). Instead, the first position changes from hand to hand, with a button moving around the table, much like the dealer button in poker. This helps keep the competition on a more equal footing; players who act last are at a significant advantage, since they can see how much their opponents have bet, and see how their hands are doing before they need to make any decisions of their own. This is an especially critical advantage on the final hand.
Blackjack Tournament Strategy
Not surprisingly, blackjack tournaments require very different strategies than when you’re just playing blackjack against the casino. Since your goal is to accumulate more chips than your opponents, it is sometimes wise to do things which you would never do when simply playing blackjack at a regular table.
One of the key strategic concepts in blackjack tournaments is that players will tend to have very similar results in terms of winning or losing hands. While it is far from a guarantee, hands where a few of the players win against the dealer and a few lose are less common than hands where the whole table beats a busted dealer, or the dealer defeats all (or nearly all) of the players. This means that when you gain chips, you can expect the other players to be generally gaining chips as well; and when the dealer is running over you, chances are that the other players at your table won’t be faring much better.
Las Vegas Casino Blackjack Rules
This concept led to the discovery that one very effective strategy in blackjack tournaments was simply to do the opposite of what the rest of the table was doing. For instance, if the rest of the table is making small, conservative wagers, this strategy suggests that you should make large wagers instead. This works because, in general, the players making bets of similar sizes will end up with a similar number of chips. Meanwhile, you – as the only player at the table trying something different – will likely find yourself with a very different amount of chips. This might put you in first place, or it might put you in last, depending on how the dealer treats you. But having a 50/50 shot at first at a table of five or six players is a pretty good deal.
These days, blackjack tournament strategy has evolved to the point where these easily exploitable tables are less common, which means more advanced strategy is required. Most good players will generally bet small, but look for some good spots to make larger bets, especially when they can act last and see what their opponents are doing first. When in the lead, players often switch to bets of moderate size (especially when acting early), so that their opponents can’t get the full benefit of playing in an “opposite” manner. As round progresses, it also becomes important to calculate just how much you’ll need to bet to get yourself into a position to advance, without risking so much that you won’t have later opportunities should you lose a given hand.
Blackjack tournament strategy eventually comes down to a balancing act: you must take enough risks to win, but only when the rewards are big enough to justify taking those risks. Advanced blackjack tournament strategy goes even further, taking steps to optimize bet sizing, pointing out when to ignore basic strategy because you need to take bigger risks (or need to play extra conservatively), and much more.
Major Blackjack Tournaments
In recent years, several blackjack events have gained considerable notoriety. Perhaps the most well-known to television audiences was the World Series of Blackjack, a competition televised on the Game Show Network. This mostly closed tournament does allow players to enter through satellites, and the top prize – which started at $100,000 in the show’s first season – rose to $500,000 over subsequent seasons, the last of which was aired in 2007. GSN also briefly aired a series known as the World Blackjack Tour, and UltimateBet ran the Ultimate Blackjack Tour for two seasons.
However, unlike with poker, most major blackjack tournaments are not televised. Still, blackjack tournaments are commonly held in major casinos around the world, often with large prize pools that can range into the hundreds of thousands of dollars or more. Blackjack tournaments are also spread regularly at many online casinos, meaning you can play in an exciting tournament from the convenience of your own home!
Related News
This page is partly based on information from Shay Shevach.
Introduction
In the traditional casino game of Blackjack or 21 each player plays against the bank. The game involves almost no interaction between the players. Each player wins from or loses to the bank - all players might win or all might lose.
Tournament Blackjack is an adaptation in which the players compete with each other. The tournament format is similar to that used for Texas Holdem poker tournaments. Each player begins with an equal number of chips, and the objective is not to win chips from the bank but to end with more chips than the other players. There is an entrance fee and a fixed prize or a scale of prizes for 1st, 2nd, 3rd place and so on. Winnings do not depend on the absolute amount chips you have at the end - only on your ranking relative to the other players.
The first such tournaments were run by Ed and David Fishman at the Sahara hotel in Las Vegas, beginning in late 1978, under the name 'The World's First Blackjack Tournaments Championship'. Donald Catlin reports that there was a $250 entry fee and buy-in was $500, players using their own money to buy chips. Bets were from a minimum of $5 to a maximum of $500. Shay Shevach tells me that Ken Smith confirms the total $750 cost to participate, but says that buy-in was $250. There were about 2000 players in each event, and each round lasted about 55 minutes. Since the bank in such a tournament does not mind whether it wins or loses chips overall, fairly permissive rules for splitting and doubling could be used. Also, there was no reason to take measures against card counters, so cards were dealt from a single deck. Over these relatively long sessions of play the best players and card counters would win.
Blackjack tournaments were out of favour from the late 1980's until the early 21st century, partly because casinos did not want to encourage the development of card counting skills. The tournament idea was revived in 2002 by the Las Vegas Hilton with its Million Dollar tournament. The advantage of card counting was reduced by having rounds of only around 30 deals and by using multiple decks. This format proved popular and tournaments are now held at many casinos, notably the Million Dollar tournament and the televised World Series of Blackjack at the Las Vegas Hilton.
Tournament Types
There are two main types of tournament: single table and multi table.
A multi table tournament lasts for a number of rounds, each of which consists of a predetermined number of hands. Each player begins each round with an equal value in chips. As in poker, the players take turns to be the starting player - the player who receives the first cards in the deal and makes the first betting decision. The role of starting player passes to the left after each hand. There is a minimum and maximum bet per hand, and all cards dealt to the players are visible to all players. At the end of the round, the player with the most chips at each table goes through to the next round. In many tournaments the runner up at each table also goes through. The remaining players are eliminated. Players do not keep their chips from round to round: all players start the new round with an equal value of chips.
As players are eliminated, the number of tables in play decreases. In the final round there is just one table, and the player who ends the final round with most chips wins the tournament. in many tournaments the prize pool is divided between the winners and runners up according to a payout schedule which sets out the prizes for first, second, third place and so on. In general, the more players take part, the more players are entitled to a share of the prize fund.
In a single table tournament there is just one round. The player with most chips at the end wins the whole prize pool.
Rules Of Blackjack 21
Some tournaments include other methods of player elimination. In the World Series, the dealing shoe includes two 'knockout cards'. When one of these appears during a hand, the player with least chips at the end of the following hand is eliminated, and the minimum bet is then increased. In Elimination Blackjack, which is played in the televised Ultimate Blackjack Tour, the players with the lowest chip total at the end of the 8th, 16th and 25th hands of a 30-hand round are eliminated.
Some tournaments, including those of the Ultimate Blackjack Tour allow 'hidden' or 'secret' bets. This option can be used once by each player in each round. The amount of the player's bet is not disclosed to the other players, and all that players subsequent actions on that deal are also hidden until the play of the hand is complete.
Surrender, in which you give up and the bank returns half your stake, is an important tactic in tournaments, especially in the late stages when you want to retain your chip lead over a player whose turn was before yours.
A different type of blackjack tournament is one in which every contestant plays separately against the house. Each player is dealt the same sequence of cards, and the house also gets the same sequence of cards. The winner is the player who ends with most chips at the end of a series of deals. This duplicate blackjack style eliminates the luck of the deal to some extent, and the winner should be the player who makes the best betting decisions. The duplication of cards required for this type of tournament is really only feasible in an online game in which the cards are dealt by computer.
Links for further information and online games
Rules For Blackjack
Donald Catlin's article What Goes Around gives some historical background on the evolution of Blackjack tournaments.
The Wikipedia has detailed rules for Elimination Blackjack.
Blackjack Ace Rules
The tournament page of the Blackjack Hero site has information and tips on blackjack tournament play.