BJ tournament EV

Discussion in 'Blackjack Tournament Strategy' started by privador, Oct 19, 2006.

  1. privador

    privador New Member

    Actually we know that BJ counter has edge 1,5%
    Good poker pro makes 1BB/100
    But what about BJtournament edge?
    Has anyone done some statistic how succesful he is?
     
  2. Reachy

    Reachy New Member

    who knows

    As you know tournament BJ is a very different animal to regular BJ. I would argue that regular play is far more predictable, mechanical if you like, and since it is you vs. the house it is much easier to predict your edge. Because in TBJ there are many other factors that have an impact on your success it would be very difficult to calculate what edge, if any, a counter may have.

    The concensus seems to be that counting in tournaments is nowhere near as important as counting your opponents chips, money management and betting strategy. Concentate on those first and when you can comfortably keep track of your opponents BRs then, if you wish, you can count as well. Keeping an accurate count means nothing if you have no idea what BR1 has in his chip stack!

    There is no doubt however that a lot of TBJ players count. How much of an extra edge it gives them is open to debate.

    Cheers

    Reachy
     
  3. KenSmith

    KenSmith Administrator Staff Member

    privador isn't asking about counting in tournaments. He's asking what edge a skilled tournament player has over average opponents.

    The best way to calculate this is to track your table statistics, noting how often you advance compared to how often an average player should advance. I have written about this twice, once in BJ Confidential, and once in BJ Insider. My BJ Insider article was later the basis for a BJI article by MonkeySystem improving on my method.

    A skilled player's edge on a single table is usually between 20 and 40%. In a multi-table tournament, that effect is multiplied, so the edge on multi-table events is often quite a bit higher, often over 100%. In other words, a skilled player might get $1000 EV from a $500 buy-in. Of course, the variance is HUGE! You can play for years and not realize your theoretical EV.
     
  4. Reachy

    Reachy New Member

    Oops!

    Yes you are right Ken. Misread the post. Sorry privador.

    Cheers

    Reachy
     
  5. privador

    privador New Member

    heads up?

    But what about heads up game?
    is it reasonable to play 10-1$ headsup when fee is 10%
     
  6. London Colin

    London Colin Top Member

    I'm not sure, but ...

    I'd have thought the number of players at a table would affect the variance, but make no difference at all to the EV ??

    On that basis, heads-up would be preferable in SitnGos, since you can get through lots of games in a given period of time, and each one is 50:50 before you factor in the skill.

    For multi-table events, heads-up would imply having to play more tables (for a given size of field), so I would suspect the opposite may be true - i.e. more players per table = less variance overall. Or possibly it all balances out, and the size of the field is the only consideration ??
     

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