$100K tournye @ Harrah's Rincon - SD

BughouseMaster

BughouseMaster

Banned User
Playing in this event and have some questions.

. They're taking Top 120 in the preliminary rounds to move on to the next round. i will findout close to the exact # of ppl in the tourney and will apply Wong's square root computation to findout close to how much I need to get to have a good chance to be in Top 120....

MY QUESTION IS:

With MIN 100, MAX 5K and only 15 hands (last 5 hands are max 10K), what' would u recommend is the best way to reach my goal? If the max participate (480) then that means top 25% move on so the book suggests to double bankroll so waht's best way to bet my 10K to reach 20K? was thinking a simple 2000-3000-4000-5000 proggy but problem is if i lose 3 in a row then im out of luck already....

SUGGESTIONS WELCOME!
 
All In on Hand 11

The optimum play is to bet the minimum for ten hands and then go "all- in."
 
Really? Where did you get that idea from? And what's the rationale for doing that?

Dealer could be cold through the 10 hands and I'd be missing out on chances to get my goal total by a positive progression.....
 
It would've been great if Wong specifically mentioned that in his book.... because againts all other competitors section, it's really quite empty and he doesn't go into that much detail at all as far as reaching the goal total besides "you'll have to make an aggressive bet sometime" but that is as vague as saying, "you will win and you will lose at blackjack"....

Thinking about what you recommended more deeply though, and it makes perfect sense though... I think I will go ahead and do that. That way it just takes 1 shot to get it to 20K aside from multiple.
 
moving on to Qualfying Round (rd 2)!!

So I finished with 21,100, good enough to move on as cutoff was only 15K...

one thing for sure, the square root method is POWERFUL!!! with 378 total contestants and 120 moving on, i needed to get around 17,700 to have a great shot moving forward....

Now I'm in qualifying and they take top 40 out of the 120 in it.... so that's even easier... 33% move on, square root method indicates i need about 17,350 so what im going to do on hand 11 is bet whatever i need to bet to end up with 17,400 (cant bet less then 100 denom chips)... THAT WAY, if i lose i can bet my remaining chips and hopefully keep winning until i double the 10K max to get back in it.... i strongly feel this is the best chance at me advancing to semi's tomorrow.....

But as usual, thoughts welcome!!

And thanks Moses for the great suggestion!!!

**Btw, does anyone know how strong Wong's square root method really is??? Is it just a general # to shoot at, or what? Bec many ppl had 30-40K and 1 even finished with 64K.... so it was a little scary.... In other words... what exactly makes the square root method so powerful?

Thanks in advance!! Will report results later!!
 
Alright just got done with my round and I'm happy with how I played but wanted to ask this to all your BJ pros out there....

At the end of the 10th hand, I had 10,200 so I bet 7200 on hand 11, pushed with a 20. Hand 12 something interesting happened: I got dealt a soft 18 vs 3. B.S. says to double of course, but what would you do? Since my goal was just to finish with 17,400 I just left it alone, since there's little difference between 17,400 and 20K & knowing that I'd have another shot @ hand 13 to go all in @ 3K. (and potentially finishing with ~19k after doubling hand 14 and 15 winning) .

Since this was tournament atmosphere though, can someone brake down the % chance of doubling vs. just standing?
 
BughouseMaster said:
**Btw, does anyone know how strong Wong's square root method really is??? Is it just a general # to shoot at, or what? Bec many ppl had 30-40K and 1 even finished with 64K.... so it was a little scary.... In other words... what exactly makes the square root method so powerful?
Click to expand...
From what I understand, Wong's formula is an approximation of the normal distribution (bell curve) for the given percentage of advancers. It would therefore hold up fairly well with large numbers of participants and break down with smaller numbers.

When the number of participants is small, then your best bet is to talk to other folks who have played the event before (if possible) and find out what the typical advancing threshold is. I have found that playing dumb, as if you have no idea how approach the situation, is very effective in prompting people to tell you exactly how much they think you will need to advance. After a few conversations, a consensus often emerges.
 
Nice, Gronbog... thanks a lot.... yes it worked great for the 1st round, the formula said around 17,300 was needed to advance and 15K was the limit....

And I love the "playing dumb" part.... hahaha!!! Did you happen to know the various %'s of my soft 18 v 3?
 
BughouseMaster said:
Alright just got done with my round and I'm happy with how I played but wanted to ask this to all your BJ pros out there....

At the end of the 10th hand, I had 10,200 so I bet 7200 on hand 11, pushed with a 20. Hand 12 something interesting happened: I got dealt a soft 18 vs 3. B.S. says to double of course, but what would you do? Since my goal was just to finish with 17,400 I just left it alone, since there's little difference between 17,400 and 20K & knowing that I'd have another shot @ hand 13 to go all in @ 3K. (and potentially finishing with ~19k after doubling hand 14 and 15 winning) .
Click to expand...
I like your bet. Sure the chance of recovering after a loss would be slim, but I would take the slim chance over no chance, as long as I was confident in the goal. If there was no chance of recovery after a loss, then you would go all-in.
BughouseMaster said:
Since this was tournament atmosphere though, can someone brake down the % chance of doubling vs. just standing?
Click to expand...

The following are for 8 decks dealt to 75% penetration. For A,7 vs 3 and the goal of winning your hand:
When doubling, you will succeed 49.1% of the time
When standing, you will succeed 51.1% of the time
When hitting once, you will succeed 50.6% of the time (i.e. you should not hit a subsequent 12 vs the dealer's 3).
 
Hmm, so i did the right move then? So even though doubling in non-tourney play was the right move, I was right NOT to double in the tournament? Funny though because if I did double I would've won that hand.... :(
 
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