Blackjack Tournaments with Elimination Hands

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Blackjack Tournaments with Elimination Hands - Part 4

There's nothing quite as exciting as a "Hail Mary" pass to end a football game or getting a blackjack when you've bet all of your chips on a hand, but both are acts of desperation that fail more often than they work. Prayer might work in a football game, but I know for sure that it doesn't work at Blackjack. Either that, or the Blackjack gods are ignoring me because I've called upon them too many times in the past. I know, because I get "blackjacks" (or 'naturals' as we prefer to call them around here) only about 1 hand in every 21, on average. Of course, that's the mathematical expectation for receiving a natural and, for the life of me, I haven't been able to improve on that probability. So, if you need a natural in order to survive, say, an elimination hand, your probability of success is less than 5%.

However, you might be able to improve your probability by making a bet that is less than all-in; what I call a bet with a choice. Unfortunately, such a bet has a cost associated with it. For example, if you have only T10,000 in chips (the "T" means tournament chips), bet it all and receive a natural, you'll have T25,000 in chips when the hand is finished. If you were to split your bankroll instead, then receive a natural, you'd have only T17,500 at the most when the hand is finished, unless you double the natural (which you can do in most Blackjack tournaments) in which case the most you'd have is T20,000, assuming you win the hand.

By going all in on a hand, you're guaranteeing that you'll multiply your bankroll by 2.5 times about 5% of the time. Sure, it might be your only chance and if it is, you've got to go for it. But in my experience, it seldom comes down to such a desperate situation. In other words, most of the time you can give up the opportunity to get an all-in natural and still come out of the hand as a contender in the match. First, if you bet all of your chips and lose, you're out of the tournament, plain and simple. However, if you bet only a portion of your chips, you may still lose, but someone else might bet all of theirs and they'll go out, even if it's not an elimination hand. The problem is that you might still be in the match but you're basically crippled if you have only T1000 or T2000 chips left.

This situation leads us to an area of analysis that a lot of players new to the game miss. There's not a lot to be gained by surviving an elimination hand with just a few thousand tournament chips left, so you need to remember that you can't lose what you don't bet. Of course, if some or all of your opponents are using their secret bet on the hand, you cannot ever know for sure just how much to bet. But as you gain experience, you'll likely discover that many experienced players will bet as little as possible on an elimination hand because of two factors. First, they recognize that the odds of the game favor most of the players losing the hand and secondly, they do not want to end the hand as the short stack at the table. Unfortunately, there's no absolute here; the probability of the dealer getting a natural to wipe out the table is only the aforementioned five percent and even that won't happen all the time because some lucky stiff (not you or me, of course) will also have a natural and push. So, it's very likely that some of the players will win the hand, particularly if the dealer busts - something that will happen about 30% of the time - in which case everyone might win the hand. These numbers imply that it's not a smart move to bet the minimum (assuming you're more or less in the middle of the pack, chipwise) because you'll benefit against all of your opponents only when the dealer gets a natural and gain some benefit when you bust yourself (about 23% of the time when playing proper Basic Strategy, as I recall), although the latter case may still see you eliminated if others have taken the "low" or if they win their hands.

What's most likely to be the case is that you'll have to bet something more than the minimum in order to remain competitive. At the same time, you want to bet just enough to "squeek" by, thus not giving up too much ground should you lose the hand. If you bet no more than 50% of your chips, a lot of options are available - not the least of which is being able to split a pair. Oftentimes, pair splitting results in you winning one hand and losing the other if the dealer doesn't bust, so doubling is usually a better play than splitting if your cards permit. Of course, you're probably not going to double a hand of 10-10 because you can split them in order to get more chips on the table, but there are times when I'll double rather than split, even though I've bet no more than 50% of my chip stack. Take a hand like 4-4 versus a dealer's up card of 10 as an example. Naturally, hitting is the best play, but if I need to get more chips on the table, were I to split, there's a chance of me busting both hands but that cannot happen if I just double. Sure, I still probably need the dealer to bust, unless she has a 7 in the hole and I catch a 10 or Ace, but by splitting my expected value (EV) is to lose 61.89% and my EV from doubling is to lose 74.5%; not great, but at least I won't bust the hand, which really hurts when the dealer goes on to bust her hand.

Another good reason to bet no more than 50% of your chips is what I call the "confusion" factor. Let's say you're the low stack at the table, LB1 (see Part 2 of this series for an explanation of HB and LB) with T18,000 in chips and must bet first. Everyone else at the table will likely size their bets to cover you doubling up to T36,000, should you indeed bet your entire stack. But what if you bet only half, which is T9,000? Now, somebody's confused, I assure you. Most players will still figure you'll double, so they'll likely bet enough to end with more than T36,000 if they win the hand, but some will bet just their lead over you and others will bet enough to cover your total should you get a natural on the T9,000 bet. You see how this works? Bet all of your chips and it's easy for your opponents to calculate your probable ending total, plus you're out if you lose the hand. But if you bet only 50%, you can still bet your entire chip stack on the hand - either by splitting or doubling - but you can also surrender or perhaps survive elimination, even if you lose the hand.

I'll see you here next time.

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