The Blackjack Page

Blackjack Tournaments with Elimination Hands - Part 1

The new Ultimate Blackjack Tour (tm), which is currently airing BJ tournaments on television (CBS on Saturdays) uses a format where the player who has the lowest chip count at the end of certain designated hands is eliminated. This approach to a tournament keeps the action lively and adds a certain amount of drama, which I find very appealing. Having played in literally hundreds of tournaments where the chip count after the final hand is all that matters, I think I can fairly say that watching or playing those events is very much like watching paint dry. I've done it myself plenty of times - make the minimum bet until one or two hands before the end, then let it rip. Well, most of the time that's the proper strategy so unexciting or not, it's certainly one way to win.

Now, with the addition of an elimination hand, one cannot just sit there and bet the minimum because you might very well find yourself in last place and gone in hand # 8 of a thirty-hand match. Consequently, you have to try and keep up with your opponents, especially the "rabbits", as I call them; the players who are seriously over-betting their chip stacks. This makes for some wild swings, and big bets are always exciting in a Blackjack tournament. A tip of the ol' GameMaster's hat to those that came up with the idea! Not only do elimination hands make the tournaments more fun to play, but they also make the tournaments harder to play.

Any advantage player prefers complicated games when competing against other players, because the average person will not take the time to learn or understand the nuances of it all. Most players would rather try to get lucky than put in the time and effort learn a proper strategy, which is why "normal" Blackjack games have continued to be available even after it was shown that most of them can be defeated by counting the cards. There are enough players out there who can only hope to win to pay for the players who know they can win. And it's no different for BJ tournaments in general and BJ tournaments with elimination hands in particular.

If you think about it, an elimination hand is really the final hand of a tournament where N-1 players advance, with "N" being the number of players in the hand. Let's say there are seven players at the table and this is an elimination hand; perhaps hand #8 of a thirty-hand match. That means six players will advance because one is going to be eliminated. The bet you should make on this hand is dependent upon several factors, like what position you're in (Will you bet first? Last? Somewhere in between?), the size of your chip stack, the size of your opponents' chip stacks, the minimum/maximum bet sizes and so forth. The goal is not so much that of coming out of the hand as the chip leader, but more one of coming out of the hand as something other than the low chip stack - the player who will be eliminated.

I'm currently doing a lot of simulation work on this topic and will, over time, present my findings. For this installment, I'll discuss some general approaches to playing an elimination hand where you are not the low-chip total at the table. Surviving the elimination hand is the priority; nothing else really matters and most players will think that way, which might allow us to improve our position at the risk of being eliminated and we'll discuss that in the future. Win or bust out trying to win is a general strategy that will always apply to BJ tournaments; there's nothing to gain by having a lot of chips and not advancing (or being paid, whichever is the case) and most players know that, so it's not exactly a big secret. But, at least in the 100 or so elimination-type of BJ tournaments that I've played in up to this point (some for $$$, most for play-money), I've noticed that my opponents are of two main types. The first is the "rabbit"; they bet all or at least half of their chips on the first hand in an effort to get way ahead of the pack - especially in the play-money tournaments - and when it works, they're usually in pretty good shape when the first elimination hand comes along on hand # 8. (This is a good time to mention that you can play elimination-style BJ tournaments for free at www.playubt.com/ until the cows come home. Because it does not offer real-money play, there should be no problem with this site, no matter what happens with the new legislation here in the U.S. But you can win the opportunity to appear in the next season of the Ultimate Blackjack Tour there, so it's worthwhile visiting. I play there under the name Aceten1, so if you see me, say hi.) The other major type of player is the one who bets only a small portion of his or her bankroll on each hand, which is what I'm inclined to do, especially in a real-money tournament. But when an elimination hand comes up, all bets are off, so to speak. What I'm going to do here is show you what I believe is the most important betting technique one should learn, because it will apply to probably 80% of all the situations you'll run into when playing elimination-type Blackjack tournaments. It's usually called:

The Lock Out Bet

As I see it, there are three types of Lock Out Bets: the Guaranteed Lock Out (GLO), the Low-risk Lock Out (LLO) and the High-risk Lock Out (HLO), which are listed here in their order of preference. If you can make a GLO, that's better than making a LLO, which is better than making a HLO, as you'll see. Probably best explained by examples, these bets are not necessarily going to fit every situation every time, but I'll save more complicated situations for later chapters of this series. Let's go.

The Guaranteed Lock Out Bet

Regardless of your position for betting, if you have a big enough chip lead over the low stack at the table you can make a bet that guarantees you'll not be eliminated. For the moment, I'm going to ignore all of the other players at the table and focus only on the player with the least number of chips. Let's say you have T33,000 chips and the low stack has T12,000 in chips ("T" means tournament chips with no cash value). If the minimum bet is T500 and the maximum bet is T25,000, the very best that player can do is bet all of his or her chips and receive a 'blackjack' (or "natural", as I prefer to call it), which will leave him or her with 2.5 times T12,000 = T30,000 in chips. This obviously means you can bet any amount up to T2500 in total and, regardless of whether you win or lose, you cannot end with a total lower than the low stack. Notice that I said "T2500 in total", which means all of the bets you make on your hand. If you bet T2500 as your initial bet and then double an 11 versus the dealer's up card of 6, you'd be betting T5000 in total and could finish the hand as the low stack and be eliminated, should your opponent receive a natural when you lose. That's not a good thing, so plan your GLO bet accordingly; in this case I'd probably bet T500 and split or double if called for, but would not bet more than T2000 total if I split pairs and could double, etc. By keeping my total bets less than T2500, I am guaranteed to get through the elimination hand.

The Low-risk Lock Out Bet

The probability that any player will receive a natural on any one hand in a game that uses six decks (like those at playubt.com) is 4.5% or about 1 in 21, which makes this easy to remember. (Get it? "21" - BJ is usually called 21 by the casinos.) Okay, so let's say you have T29,000 in chips, the low stack at the table has T12,000 and you must bet ahead of that unfortunate soul. If you bet T1500, the only way the low stack can beat you is to bet all of his or her chips and receive a natural, while you lose your bet. If the low stack does get a natural, his or her final total for the hand will be T30,000 but you'll know that before you must play your hand, so you can at least double, in a desperate attempt to get to a total of T32,000 chips. If the low stack does receive a natural, but you win your hand, you'll have T30,500 chips to your opponent's T30,000. I call this a "low risk" bet because you're not guaranteed to stay in the match, but it's over 90% probability that you will.

The High-risk Lock Out Bet

If you do not have a big chip lead over the low stack, but are still ahead, then you'll need to gamble a bit, so this may not really be a "lock out" bet by the strictest definition. But it fits here and this is my article, so that's what I'm going to call it. Let's say you have T20,000 and the low stack has T12,000 in chips. If you must bet first, you have to guess what your opponent might bet and that's never a sure thing. But, you can make some reasonable assumptions and hope (prayer doesn't work at Blackjack - I know, I've tried it many times) that your assumptions are correct. First and foremost, you have the lead, so at a minimum you can bet in such a way that your opponent must win his or her hand in order to avoid being eliminated. If you bet T12,000 (not something I necessarily recommend doing, but it's not the worst bet you can make), your opponent goes "all-in" with a T12,000 bet and you both lose the hand, you will have T8,000 and your opponent will have zero chips. If you lose and your opponent wins one bet, s/he will have T24,000 chips to your T8,000, but if you win one bet and your opponent receives a natural, you'll be ahead, T32,000 to T30,000. Obviously, you would prefer to make a bet that allows you to remain ahead of your opponent even if s/he wins the hand and you lose it, but that's not possible in this situation, so you have to make a "high-risk" bet, which is only an attempt at locking out your opponent; it'll be up to the cards if that happens or not. If you assume your opponent will go all-in with a T12,000 bet, then your bet can be T5000, which will leave you with T15,000 if you lose and T25,000 if you win a single bet. Obviously, you have not protected yourself against the low stack receiving a natural, but if you were to make a T10,500 bet, even that situation would be covered. However, by betting less you'd cover a push by your opponent (leaving him or her with T12,000) and that's actually a better play - from a percentage point of view - than covering against a natural. The probability of pushing in Blackjack is 8%, the probability of one receiving a natural is, as we saw, about 5%, so guarding against a push is a slightly better deal. In this case, if you were to bet T7500, your total after losing one bet would be T12,500 so if you lose and your opponent pushes, you'll still avoid elimination. However, if the low stack goes all in, gets a natural and you win just one bet, you'll be eliminated, but you will advance if you both win one bet or lose one bet. You'll even advance if you win just one bet (ending with T27,500) and your opponent has bet in such a way that s/he can double (ending with T24,000). This brings us to another feature that we'll explore more in future chapters:

The Secret Bet

In the tournaments offered at playubt.com, each player has the opportunity to make one secret bet at each table of the tournament, which means one at a sit & go match and one in each round of a multi-table tournament. This is a very powerful tool and a topic that I'll cover extensively as we go along in this series. In the situation we're discussing here - one in which you are not the low chip stack at the table - the secret bet is probably best saved so you can use it later in the match. One possible exception is when you'll be making a High-risk Lock Out Bet and must bet first in the hand. But bear in mind, that if you make the proper bet, the low chip player will really have very little choice but to go all-in, so be sure you know what you're doing before you burn up your secret bet.

Practical Application of a Lock Out Bet

On the specially-designated elimination hands, the game at playubt.com allows you extra time to place your bet. While it's normally 30 seconds before a minimum bet will be placed for you, on the elimination hands, it's 45 seconds. If you take the general approch I've outlined here, it won't take you nearly that long to come up with a good bet - not necessarily the ideal bet - but a good, solid bet that'll work 80% of the time. It's really simple, even if you must bet first. Just multiply the low stack's chip count by 2.5 and subtract that total from your chip stack. If the remainder is more than 500, bet that amount, minus 500. For example, if you have T28,000 chips and the low stack has T10,000 chips, multiply 10,000 x 2.5 = 25,000. Subtract 25,000 from 28,000 = 3000. Subtract 500 from that = 2500, which is the maximum you should bet. You will not be eliminated, so long as you risk no more than T2500 on the hand.

If your stack is not at least 2.5 times that of the low-stack player, then do the same calculation, which will leave you with a negative number. For example, if you have T22,000 in chips and the low stack has T10,000, the result will be -T3000 and you cannot make a guaranteed lock out bet, (unless the low stack bets less than all-in, something to bear in mind if you're betting after him or her) so you have to gamble a bit here. My first choice is to bet enough to cover a double by the low chip stack, which would put him or her at T20,000 so your bet of T1500 is still a lock out to everything but a natural. So, if you get a negative number, multiply the short stack's chip total by 2, instead of 2.5 and subtract that number from your chip total. If the result is now a positive number, subtract 500 from that and you'll have your maximum bet.

Should your stack be less than 2 times, but still more in total than that of the low-stack player, then bet the same amount the low-chip player will bet if s/he goes all-in. By "correlating" your bet, you win if you both have the same result. Depending upon your actual chip totals, you might be able to finesse the bet a little to cover a natural by your opponent, should you win a single bet. For example, if you have T14,000 in chips and the low stack is at T10,000, a bet of T11,500 chips will put you on top, even if the low stack receives a natural. Of course, by betting first, you run the risk of the low stack holding back more chips than you, so this might be a good place to use your secret bet, if still available. If you've already used your secret bet, don't complicate matters; just bet as though the short stack will go all in.

Please remember that I've assumed you have a chip total higher than the low stack on this hand, even though you may not be the table chip leader, because the strategy will undoubtedly change if you are the low chip stack yourself. We'll cover that, plus a whole lot more in future parts of this series. By the way, I used a copy of Microsoft Excel that I programmed for Blackjack tournaments to calculate most of the numbers you see here. I also use it in online BJ tournaments and it seems to work well for me. If you'd like a copy, just send me an email with "Blackjack Calculator" in the subject heading, so I know it's not spam and I'll be happy to send you a copy. I'm at aceten1@mindspring.com.

I'll see you here next time.

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