Hard Rock Biloxi 121821 Tournament Recap

Discussion in 'Blackjack Events (USA)' started by ptaylorcpa, Dec 19, 2021.

  1. ptaylorcpa

    ptaylorcpa Member

    Thought I would share my experience at the Hard Rock BJT on 12-18-2021. I have am posting the rules and hopefully the pictures showing the cutoff scores and the final results.

    First observation, this turned out to be an accumulation tournament instead of the normal win your table format that we played in November. I don't think anyone knew they had changed the format until we got there to register. I was told that they used to play this format, but it requires a whole lot more luck, different style of play and uncertainty on where you are. When you only play against your table to advance, you know exactly your status when you finish your table. In accumulation you are playing against everyone in the tournament trying to get to an unknown cuttoff score to advance.

    You can read the rules attached, but here are the basics. Play 10 hands at table with total of seven players. $100 minimum bet, no maximum. Blackjack pays 2-1. No insurance offered. Dealer blackjacked a lot. The only time you saw players with chips left is where dealer busted last few hands or someone got incredible cards and dealer did not hit out to 20 or 21.

    Going in had no idea where the cuttoff would be for top 30. They were running six tables with full players (42) per round starting at 10:00 am and playing every 30 minutes. Unlimited rebuys at $100 each. My first attempt was 10:30 and everything was full. They had screen set up showing top score and what you needed to beat (lowest score) as you progressed. Lowest score after first round was 7000. Top score was 112,000. They had a scrolling list of names of qualifiers, but no individual scores. Found out after asking that the list was in order from top score to lowest. Noticed there were not a whole lot of names on board. Found out that the 7000 posted was lowest person with any chips. Majority of players busted out.

    On my rebuy round at 11:30 the minimum was up to 17000. Still really low, but they did have 30 nmaes on there now, but could not tell where anyone really was since individual scores not listed. One BJT player said she got to 30,000 but thought that would not make cut and pushed and then lost that. I had another bust session so I thought I would just wait till final round and play when you could see what the real bottom score would be. Final preliminary round would be played at 3:30. In the meantime I overheard a pit person tell someone that the cuttoff was around 40000 the last time they did this format.

    Took a break and came back at 2:15 and changed my mind and thought I would give it two shots instead of just one. By now the board showed the minimum score was 44000, so that presented a better idea of what I needed to do. This time I got better cards but was still only at 20ooo at hand 9. Everyone else had busted off the table. I shoved it all and caught a blackjack. That got me to 60000. I figured that should hold, but still bet 2500 thinking 57500 should be safe if I lost. I did lose, so I knew I was on the board. When my name showed up, the I was fourth from bottom which told me that the final round four people would have to top 57500 to knock me off. I don't recall how many tables there were for the 3:30 round, but it was not six. I think there were only 3, so I felt my odds were good. Several players busted out right away. By midpoint most were gone except one table where the dealer was busting a lot. There were only about four players left, but they had shots to catch me if the cards did not turn. At hand 8 the dealer blackjacked and wiped all but one player out. I remember standing next to the lady saying she was worried because she was the lowest now at 48,000 and this guy would knock her out. Well the guy did hold his money and finished on the board. Here is a screenshot of the cut off.


    cutoff.jpg


    Ok, now the format shifts to two rounds of accumulation. Everyone plays two rounds and you combine your scores to determine top seven spots. Everyone starts with zero score. Same rules 10 hands. Since they only had 30 players for six table they drew 12 wild cards to make it 42. Our BJT lady who missed the cut with bad luck got lucky and caught a wild card seat.

    First round went as expected. Majority of people busted, but one person knocked it out of park with score of 119.900. Since this was top heavy payout: $15,000 first place, $5,000 second place, rest of five places $1000 each, figured people would bust trying to catch top spot. The question then became what would it take to get spot 7 for $1000. I am not an aggressive bettor, so I just tried to get to the cut. That turned out to be a mistake. I got great cards and might have had a chance to be in the top two or three had I pressed, but by the time I thought about it, the cards turned and then I was in preservation mode. My total for two rounds was 33500. As you can see that fell short. Here is the list of final scores. Spot seven had 40,000.

    cutoff.jpg final.jpg final.jpg

    I don't know why it posted multiple copies of the images, maybe someone can edit them out.

    Well the next tournament at Hard Rock Biloxi will be February 19th. Don't know which format they will use. There were lots of complaints about going accumulation versus winning table format, but will have to see. I don't think they took in as much as they expected in rebuys since they were not running all six tables the whole time. They also comped a lot of players since they had a special shootout for them at the end of the tourrnmant where they could win promo chips.

    Although I didn't finish in the money I did have a great time seeing everyone again. I will miss February. Will be cruising - working on my tan, but will be back after that for another try.
     

    Attached Files:

    KenSmith and gronbog like this.
  2. KenSmith

    KenSmith Administrator Staff Member

    Thanks for the detailed post Pat! Very helpful for people who may encounter this format next time.
     
  3. ptaylorcpa

    ptaylorcpa Member

    Thanks Ken. I always found this site had great information on it and learned a lot from everyone's posts. I think I remember Wong having something in his book about trying to predict cutoff points in accumulation tournaments. If anyone has their book handy or remembers the formula that might be helpful as well.
     
  4. KenSmith

    KenSmith Administrator Staff Member

    IIRC, Wong’s formula had you find the ratio of total players to the number who will advance.

    For example, if you want to be in the top 10 players of a field of 90, the ratio is 9.
    He advised a target of the starting bankroll times the square root of that ratio. In this case, sqrt (9) is 3.

    If your starting bank is $5000, his target would be $15,000.

    Obviously there are a lot of assumptions built in to this idea, and it can be heavily affected by multiple rounds, max bet limits, etc.

    I know there are a lot of excellent but ancient threads here about accumulation events.
     

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