This past Saturday, I attended my first blackjack tournament. The day I signed up for the tournament (last week), I read and studied every article that I could find on the internet. I found Ken's articles help me the most. I guess his most helpful advice was not to bet medium bets and bet extremes instead. My strategy was simple; I bet minimum in the first 14 to 16 hands and increased my bet if necessary after the spot passed me in the last few hands. Since we do not have many tournaments here, most people were new to tournaments, and they did not know what they were doing or they did not have a strategy. This simple strategy got me through the first 3 rounds. I was the winner in all three tables. The final round had 7 people. This time my strategy failed and here is the reason. The table was so hot, the dealer only won a few hands. I continued betting minimum and everybodyelse were betting between 500 to 1000. By the 13th hand I started to panic and increased my bet. The bad thing was that everybody was also betting high. The result is I got the 5th place. I made $500 in my first tournament which is not bad. My question is "when should I start increasing my bet?" "Should I even increase it if everyone else is betting high?" The worst part is everyone telling me that I should not bet minimum after the tournament is over like I could know that the dealer was going to lose that many hands. Any advice is appreciated.
Yigit:tourney play First, i'm not as seasoned a player as Ken or many others who could give you advice better than what I will offer. I do have one major win in less than two years of tournament play. But that someone would have at least responded to some of my questions early on I'd had more to work on then my own narrow analysis. There are on this site many great contributors to the now defunct black jack confidental magazine. I found many or all of their suggestions more helpful (and oh blasphamey) than master Wong's. The main point of my reply is: The numbers, the statistics, the probablities will get you so far. You do have to know and second naturally have basic and history down. But the numbers alone don't cut it. Your situation proved the point. McKelvey suggested attending rounds you don't play in to gauge the tone, the rythem, if you will of that particular tournament. You go into any tournament with your pre-planned strategy of how to bet, but ready to adjust, depending on (again numbers folks will get p.o'd) to the particular tone of that tournament. You can start as you did, you adjusted but the others were way out ahead. given that. At an earlier point you would have had to make the decision that in order to stay in contention you would have to risk larger bets. One because, if you didn't you lost or were out of the running anyway. Two because, with all the higher bets you have to match or exceed them to win. You never want to play yourself out of contention, where the smaller bets make sense, but you have to gauge the table, so that at the end or in the final five hands you can take advantage of all the special plays that Ken, or Rick Jensen, or others have thought out. which, long and short is you have got to be within the maximum bet at least in the last three hands. You've got to look at your play in terms of outcome without fear. Because. if you don't make the play, or bet you lose anyway. if you DO! make the play, or bet you could still lose. But! If you DO! make the play or bet you win. In two years time, i've seen maybe five people who are veteran tournament players,racking up consistent large wins. They know someting special the rest of us won't know until they retire and write their books. In the meantime, analyze your play, your game and again gauge the tone of that particular tournament to adjust your strategy. Depending on your bankroll for entries, the more you participate, the better your chances. Again. I'm not a strict numbers person and I'm not math friendly. If you, are there are reams of equations out there to tell you the best way to play.
Yigit, Congrats on a nice showing in your first tournament! As you've noticed this can also be a frustrating pastime. If the chip leaders with big stacks are still making big bets, I still recommend betting small and hoping the dealer helps out your cause. You just need to bet opposite them. If they move to smaller bets, you should then take the opportunity to make large bets. Unfortunately, whichever way you go, the cards can always fall opposite. It is indeed frustrating to get up from a round where the dealer has busted on almost every hand, and have everyone around the table look at you as if you're an idiot, because you stacked up a huge number of minimum bet wins all through the round. But, if the leaders were betting big, that was your best chance of lessening your deficit. As you point out, there's no way to know that the dealer will keep busting hand after hand. In fact, it's nice to know that your opponents think that way. If they believe in the idea that the dealer is on a streak (whether hot or cold), their bet sizes will often be inappropriate, and that gives you an advantage. As noman points out, this game is not all about the math, but I think most player's notions of the 'rhythm' of the game hurt their chances. I agree that a player must be flexible, but I think most of the non-math concepts that are useful have to do with predicting your opponents. In answer to your question about when to raise your bets, particularly if the other players are also betting big, I'd say simply this: Bet opposite as long as that gives you a reasonable chance of overtaking the leaders if the dealer suddenly gets hot. Once there are too few hands for this to be realistic, you'll have to join the fray, bet aggressively, and play your hands more aggressively than usual to try to swing the leaders. At that point, you'll really need some good luck to succeed.
