Play This hand

J

Joep

Active Member
Final Table Final Hand

1st Prize 30,000
2nd 15,000
3rd 8,000
4th 5,000
5th 2,500
6th 1,500


You are Br 1 betting last Min Bet 5 Max Bet 100 Surrender is Available


Br 3 bets first Bankroll 140 bets 100 gets a Blackjack

Br 2 Bets second Bankroll 200 bets 100 hand 6-2 Doubles Down 8 for 18

Br 1 bets last Bankroll 300 bets 97.50 Hand 10-10


Dealer has a 2 up

What should Br 1 do with their 10-10

Br 4 bankroll is 120 has 10 bet hand 18

Br 5 & 6 have less than 50 left and are out of contention

I'm sorry there was a typo on Br 3 original posted Bankroll they had 140 and not 180.I realizes my error when I read the first response.So for the readers who read this post before the correction I'm sorry .
 
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Split

My initial reaction would be to split as by standing I could only win with a dealer 18 or 19, or almost 27% of the time.

Doing some math, by standing, I figure that I would win about 27% and get 2nd 73% for an expected value of about $19k.

By splitting (and taking only 1 card each), I figure that my odds would be as follows:
Win 47%
2nd 22%
3rd 25%
4th 6%
A total expected value of about $500 higher, so split seems to be the better answer and if prizes were more top heavy, splitting would even be better.

Now, question seems to be, what to do if you get a 2 on one of the 10s.
 
to split or not to split?

Another question would be what to do if you split the 10's get the 2 on 1 and an A on the other?

I'm not capable of keeping up with all the math.

I'll use the 27% chance to win $30,000 by standing. I assume that's worth $8,100.

By standing with the 10's: All win Br1 gets 2nd
All lose Br1 gets 2nd

I feel that standing locks 2nd which is worth $15,000. Therefore; standing is worth $23,100.

If this is correct as Br1 I would choose to stand.

The older I get the denser I get.(denser in many ways)

tgun
 
Stand

Dealer will get 18 to 21 52% of the time which will enable you to win. If you split you must win both bets, only 43%.
 
interesting

I hadn't thought about doubling if you received an A or possibly splitting if you get another 10, although, while this might increase the percentages for a 2nd place, I don't think it would help increase 1st place percentages and may actually be worse as could turn a 3rd or 4th into 5th or 6th.

Tgun - I agree standing puts a lock on 2nd, however, overall value would be $19k not $23 as 27% chance at $30k and then 76% chance at $15k.

Delta - I think BR1 only wins with 18 or 19 as 20 or 21 would have BR3 winning as they will have $330 after BJ

Good question Joe!
 
blackjack usually only pays 3 to 2

Where I play blackjack pays 3 to 2. So $100 bet is $150 win plus the $40 he has left = $290.00. I want to play in your casino if you are getting $190 for your $100 blackjacks :)
 
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did BR3's bankroll change?

I thought BR3 had $180 and thus I calculated him having $330 after BJ. With BR3 having only $140, standing definitely seems like the right thing to do!

Joe did you edit the bankrolls?
 
I just saw Joe's "edit" remarks...

Standing now has an expected value of almost $21k and 39% chance of winning with dealer 18-20 and 2nd with dealer bust, 17 or 21.

If 1st place paid much higher than 2nd, such as Hilton Million, then I still say split.
 
I can't calculate either

I neglected to see that a dealer 21 would give BR3 the win with his blackjack, Therefore I change my vote to split, since there is only a 39% chance of dealer getting 18-20 and a 46% chance of winning both splits.
 
Neat one.

Great to see you guys working on real staff, and using real numbers.

For those who want to come up with precise answer I am giving you numbers that I worked out some time ago, and hopefully they are okay. This is for TC 0, s17.
Spilt Tens vs. dealer deuce, hit once:
win both hands 44.3%,
win exactly one bet 3.47%,
net result zero 19.54%,
lose exactly one bet 9.23%,
lose both hands 23.48%.

When BR1 wins both hands he wins the tournament.
A net win of one bet means that the other hand pushed, and the dealer made her hand. You could take about three-quarters of this number as the first place winner because BR1 wouldn't collect 30G's only if the pushed hand was seventeen. Dealer making a hand ends up having seventeen just a bit more than 1/5th of the time.
However, most of the pushed hands would be both, the dealer and the player, having twenty. But then, the other “winning” hand would have to be twenty-one, so the situation rather balances itself out.
A net push means both hands pushed, or one won and the other lost. This will be similar to the situation described above – three-quarters of the time gets the first place.
A net loss of one bet means one hand pushed and the other lost. That would result in taking the second place in all cases except pushing dealer’s seventeen.

Even the worse case scenario of losing both hands, would mostly result in BR1 ending as the second place winner.
(To have fun with this number we have to do the following:
Let’s find out how often BR1 ends up with at least one hand of eighteen or better. The chance for the first hand being less than eighteen is 6/13th. Both hands being less than eighteen is 6/13th times 6/13th, which equals 21.3%.
78.7% of the time BR1 will have at least one hand total of eighteen or better. For BR1, to lose both hands the dealer needs to have more than eighteen, which means that BR2, and BR4 would lose their hands. When neither hand is eighteen or more, the dealer nineteen to twenty-one (56.7% of made hands) affords BR1 the second place. Altogether, when BR1 loses both hands he still takes the second place over ninety percent of the time.)

Any doubts which play is the correct one?

TC,
S. Yama
 
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BR 1 to BR 4

Actually Yama if Br 1 spits and loses both hands he will fall to 4th place as he will have only 100 left and Br 4 has 110 held back.Trust me I know this is a hand that I played at the Final Table at the Frontier in 1998 .Its a hand that I go over time and time again .I did not split the 10-10 and locked up 15,000 and if the dealer makes 18-19-20 I win 30,000 .I have heard many opinions on this hand from some of the top players and they all agree to disagree as to what the better play was .I felt this was a good hand for some on the new players to work on.He falls to 4th if the dealer makes 17-18 and he comes up stiff on both his splits.I would have come up stiff on both hands as the dealer hit 3 times before breaking and I acted last.
 
Definite decision

Indeed, if you split and lose both hands, BR4 gets ahead of you, and you drop one place down from the second or the third place. I guess, subconsciously, I assumed that once you were not betting $100 to push your straight win against BR2 winning his double/split, you got cover against other payers.
All you needed to bet was $67 to get all the benefits on the up side. This would also protect you against BR4 winning quadrupled bet when you lose your double/split.
There is no room for agreeing to disagree. It is a hands down split.
Try to add it all up and come up with a rough estimate, and you (we) will see.

S. Yama
 
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Locking Up 15,000

The reason I didn't bet 100 was I didn't want to give up the lose/push .I could always double to get the high back with my bet .Once I saw the hands I chose to lock up 2nd and 15,000 and still have a good shot at winning 30,000
 
Closer

Joe, I see the reasons why you opted for the decision you made.
Actually, the results of the different plays and their values are closer than I thought.
I looked at rules where dealer stands on s17 but if I remember right, at the shop you played, they hit it.

If you stay on your twenty you win 50.6% and get second place 49.4% of the time.
If you split you get first 61.3%, second 14%, third 20%, and fourth about 5% of the time.
Ev for both plays is in mid twenty two thousands (it is a couple hundreds higher for standing).
He, he, another extremely close call.
The difference in dealer’s outcomes, up card two, for s17 and h17, is one percent less seventeens and 0.2% more of the other outcomes when hit soft seventeen. Dealer’s 17 hurts you in both plays, but even more when you split, so less seventeens benefits your split and makes this play’s EV a few hundred bucks better.

The best bet was from the range of $67 to less than $70.
Have you had bet that, your Ev for standing would be the same but splitting would grew to about $23,800.

S. Yama
 
Luck vs.Skill

I feel so much better that Yama sees what I was shooting for .I believe anytime you can lock up second and have a good shot at first place that is the way to go.Keep in mind its a lot easy for us to work on the numbers later but these close decesions need to be made in most cases in 1 minute or less which I believe is a major skill factor.The players who believe that blackjack tournaments are all luck may see here that luck had nothing to do with this sitution,It's all about seeing a sitution and reacting to it in a quick manner.You have conrtol of your bets and the way you play your hands that is part of the skill factor.The element of luck that enters in to a tournament is all about the dealer and what hand she will make or what card she will give you on your must win double down this you have no control of.If you position yourself to make the play to advance or win the round this is where your skill factor comes in to play.I have seen players make a bet on the last hand that even if they won the hand they didnt bet enough to win.When you make plays like that is when it will be all about "LUCK"
 
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