My First Live Tourney

Great can't wait to meet you so now there are three musketeers :joker:
I have another meeting this week and then will be in a postion to make an announcement which will change the world .......
Or at least make the UK's first BJT Circuit event a massive step closer to being a reality.

 

Episode IV

Closer still; this time the cigar was cruelly snatched from my mouth.

I had 20 on the final hand; I was BR1 and would win the tournament if I pushed or won the hand. Dealer made 21.

Second place paid £50 in points, plus my first ever BJ trophy to put on the mantelpiece!

 

I will try again

I did inform Colin and mace via pm that I had cocked the date up for the November tournament so would not be going.

Hopefully I have got it right this time and the Blackjack tournament takes place at the London Gala Casino on Sunday 7th December 2008 at 4p.m. If I have got this wrong please let me know.

The plan has changed and I will be with my work colleague Neil Gagg who accompanied me to the Seattle tourney.

Because of rail maintenance at the weekends we have given up on trying to book advanced train travel from Manchester to London so Gagg has offered to drive. This means that we will be leaving the Casino straight after the tournament, so if any of the Brits on here want to meet up for a chat or drink get there early.

Andy

 

Ouch man. Congatulations on being in such a position to win the whole thing though. It's not like you need five of the other players at the final table to die or something before you had a chance at winning.

Don't let it get lonely...

 

You have it right, this time. Mace couldn't make it either in November, due to last-minute car trouble. Hopefully we'll all manage to meet up in December.

Thanks for feeling my pain. I'm just about over it, now.

 

Episode V

Finally got to meet Andy, together with his chauffeur, aka Neil Gagg. Mace made it too, so this was a real bjt.com get-together.

Mr. Gagg couldn't be persuaded to take part in the tournament, but came away from the regular BJ tables in positive territory.

In the tournament itself, Andy didn't have much luck. We played at the same first-round table (in fact we drew adjacent seats). I scraped through in second place, but Andy missed out.

[An interesting quirk of the rules which they seem to have now settled on (at least so long as the number of entrants stays within similar levels each month) is that first place is guaranteed a place in the final, and second place goes into the semi-final round, if there is one, or also straight into the final, depending on the eventual number of qualifiers. So I didn't yet know what my second place was worth to me.]

In his rebuy round, I watched Andy get dealt a couple of good double-down hands in consecutive rounds, with largish bets out each time. Doubling on both, and losing out each time was a blow he couldn't recover from.

Mace took second place at his second rebuy table. The total number of qualifiers meant that we now had quite a strange semi-final, needed to eliminate just one out of four players.

Unfortunately, our friends from the North had to set out on the long car journey home at this point.

Mace had no problems getting through the three-from-four advancement, but I managed to make a meal of it. Thanks to a silly error, I contrived to tie for third place. It was then announced that the tie-breaker would be a further seven rounds, as long as the game itself had been!

I also managed to screw things up in the tie-breaker. I believed I had the lead going into the last hand, only to discover that I was in fact half a chip behind. I was first to bet, but still had my secret bet available. I had the low when the bets were revealed, and fell over the finishing line, into the final.

In the fourteen-round final, Mace made a big move quite early on and had no luck, busting out. I hung on until about hand 10 or 11. I made a fairly large secret bet when I had the button. The leader was on my immediate left. He also made a large bet and received a BJ. I had 11 versus dealer 10, and went for broke with a double-down. Lost that; all-in next hand; all over.

At that stage, BR1 had a big lead, but he was eventually overhauled, to finish second. The standard of play does seem to be on the rise, although there will probably always be a substantial group who don't really get the concept of tournament-specific tactics.

Mace gave the casino plenty of side action, and in finacial terms he had the best night out of the group of us. A good time was, I think, had by all.

One more detail - The roulette tournament, the day before: :1st:

 

London Tournament

A good time was certainly had by all at the Gala casino. The only disappointment for me was that I had to leave early and then reading today that the remaining bjt.com boys had not won the final.

It was great to finally meet Colin and Mace who welcomed me to the casino and were really friendly and supportive. Colin has reported on the tourney and alas it was not about to be my day.

When I arrived in London the nerves started to really kick in and my mind went to a blank because of the numbers and playing scenarios running through my head. I suddenly couldn’t remember how to act on a soft 17. I knew that I needed to compose myself and indirectly Ken Smith came to help me. After ordering a pint of beer in a pub a few doors down from the casino I spent 20 minutes on my own going through a basic strategy table printed off from this site that was in the pocket of my coat from ages ago. I’m not sure if it was the pint of beer or the printed table that worked, but I quickly remembered everything about basic strategy that I knew anyway and felt okay after that.

Playing in the tournament was great fun and I will definitely be coming back.

London Colin was nailed to the wall while I was there (just his picture for winning the roulette tournament).

“Hell Mace did not Go” when I shouted to him to shove it all in on his first hand.

The funniest thing was the secret bet slip. Imagine a small postage stamp and then tear it in half. Trust me I am not exaggerating because if London Colin had not told me I would have flicked it off the table as litter.

Andy

 

Episode VI

I was the only forum representative this time.

From this month forward, they have made the tournament a freeroll for the first round, but with rebuys still costing £10. The prize pool has also been changed. It is now entirely in 'Fortune Points' (which is not really a problem, as the points are essentially worth their face value as gaming chips), and the structure is 1st:£500, 2nd:£200, 3rd:£50.

As you would expect, the numbers were higher than previous months, now that it is free. I played both the BJ and roulette, rebuying in both. Got nowhere in the roulette, but managed 3rd place in the BJ.

Like this month, the March BJ tournament is again scheduled for Sunday the 8th. (i.e. the weekend of 7th/8th counts as the first weekend of the month, the previous weekend straddling two months)

 

Congratulations

Congratulations on 3rd place in your first live tournament, way to go LC. Hopefully you'll be running over those events on a regular basis, good luck, keep us informed.