Blackjack Tournaments with Elimination Hands

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Blackjack Tournaments with Elimination Hands - Part 8

The concept of online BJ tournaments hasn’t exactly set the world on fire, but at least those who run them are still trying to make it as popular as poker and that’s good to see. The place where I play, UltimateBet.com has revised the daily tournament schedule and added a few interesting twists to some of the games they offer. Here’s an update and some thoughts.

When Elimination Blackjack ™ tournaments began in September, 2006 they ran a monthly tournament with a $25,000 guaranteed prize pool ($215 entry fee), but that’s gone and has been replaced by a $5000 guarantee event which is run every Sunday at 8:30 PM Eastern time and carries a $108 entry fee. Like the 25K event, low-cost satellites are available several times each day. It’s basically the same amount of $$$ available each month, but by dividing it into smaller chunks and making the cost of entry lower they’ll hopefully see more participation. Interesting, isn’t it – a 25K guarantee in poker is modest at best, but it’s a big deal in Blackjack tournaments; in fact, there evidently wasn’t enough participation to keep it alive. We’ve got a long way to go.

Now understand, I’m not criticizing the good people who run these events; they’re doing their best. But as both a poker tournament player and a Blackjack tournament player, I have to admit that BJ tourneys are still as boring as watching paint dry. There’s no bluffing (beyond what may happen with a player’s one and only secret bet); no difficult decisions to be made on which your entire tournament may ride beyond hit, stand or surrender and no huge difference in how each participant plays – a very aggressive player in poker is fun to watch – a very aggressive player in a BJ tournament is usually gone by hand # 5.

The primary drawback to a Blackjack tournament is that it’s not really player versus player; it’s player versus the dealer and the dealer is basically a robot. Consequently, there’s no drama in the tournaments – no mano a mano action, which most of us enjoy watching – just players making their best move possible against the dealer’s up card with only the occasional mistake being the primary point of discussion.

That said, there are nonetheless a lot of opportunities to make good ol’ American $$$ in BJ tourneys and that’s why I play them, period. They are nowhere near as challenging (or as fun) as a multi-table No Limit Hold’em Poker tournament, but I show at least a 10% return on my BJ tournament bankroll each and every month, so no complaints. There are no “big bucks” to be made, like the $150,000 or more one can win in the Weekly Million NLHE tourney at Poker Stars or others of its type out there on the “circuit”, but at least I finish in the money at multi-table BJ tournaments on a regular basis – about once every five tries – and I can’t say that about the really big (1000+ players) poker tournaments where it’s more like 5% of the time.

So, if you like winning $$$ (and who doesn’t?), you should be playing Blackjack tournaments with elimination hands, not only because anyone truly can win, but also because the new bonus tournaments UltimateBet.com is running allows you to make some pretty serious cash with almost no effort. I doubt these will last very long, so get on board now. One of the new tournaments, currently run once each day at midnight Eastern Time is called the Aces Tournament. In this event, which costs $5 + .50 to enter (a minimum of 12 players is needed for it to start), it’s not only the fact that you might win that makes it interesting, but also the $1000 prize you’ll get if, according to the site’s rules, you: “Hit 3 aces of the same suit…” Now remember, this bonus costs you nothing; it’s in addition to anything you might win in the tournament itself. Sure, the odds of hitting 3 suited Aces from a six-deck shoe are pretty slim; about 250,000 to 1 and the value added to each hand you play is just 4/10ths of a cent. But if you were to play, say, an average of 25 hands in each round of a match that has three rounds of play, your expected value is 30 cents per tourney, which covers 60 percent of the $.50 “vig” you pay for entering. That doesn’t sound like much because you don’t collect the bonus on each hand you play, but I don’t want to be standing next to you when you hit it for $1000; the noise you’ll make is too loud for my old ears.

Another new tournament, which is run five times a day, is called the “Lucky Hand” tournament. This also has a $5 + .50 entry fee and, as the name suggests, bonuses are paid for various lucky hands. Again, these bonuses cost you nothing, so not only do you have the opportunity to win the tournament, but you might make some extra cash. In this case, the tournament details say, “Hit any of the following combinations and get extra cash: 777 spades $500; 777 suited $200; 777 not suited $100; 3 of a kind suited $75.” A variation of this game, called Super Sevens has been around for years, so we pretty much know what these bonuses are worth. The probability of hitting 777 spades is 1 in 250,000; any 777 suited, but not spades is 1 in 83,333; any 777 unsuited is 1 in 2710 and any three suited cards of the same rank, but not 7s, is 1 in 6944 assuming you include 10s, Jacks, Queens and Kings in the mix. I bring that up because you might find yourself with a starting hand of 20, in the form of Kh, Kh. Do you then hit it to go for the third Kh? Or maybe split them and go for a third suited King? It all depends of course, on how you stand in the tournament but the probability of catching a third suited King is roughly 4 in 300, depending upon whether or not you see another King of the same suit on the table. I asked the tournament help desk at UltimateBet.com about this and apparently a busted hand will qualify. Note that I said, “apparently” because I sent them a couple of examples and the only one they directly commented on was pair splits.

Here’s what they said: Once you split the hand it does not count anymore towards the promotion... So there you go. Do not split a pair of suited Aces, if it can at all be avoided. If winning or losing the hand won’t significantly affect your standing in the tournament, just hitting the two Aces and then standing with it if you catch the third suited Ace appears to be the best way of cashing in. If your starting hand is a suited pair of any cards or a pair of 7s, I would go for the third card almost every time because these are not tournaments with big prize pools. Also, don’t forget to jot down the hand and table numbers on which this happened, because you have to email that info to the promotions department to claim your bonus. Further details are available in the tournament lobby.

The bonuses I talked about above are longshots, which are fun but the serious opportunities lie in the multi-table tournaments (MTTs) with guaranteed prize pools. I’ve written about this before but as a brief recap, most Elimination Blackjack ™ MTTs pay 6 places, so if the average number of entries is, say, 42 then you can expect to place in the money once out of every seven attempts, just from luck alone. If the entry fee is $33, like the new 10 P.M. daily $1500 guarantee tournament, then the average pay is $1500 divided by 6 = $250, with first place getting $562.50 and sixth place getting $67.50. Play a lot of these and your average prize will be $250. If you were to enter this tournament seven times, your total entry fees will be 7 x $33 = $231, but you’ll place in the money one of those times for a return of $250, which will yield a $19 profit. You might win it and make more or you might finish in 6th place and make less, but if you were to play several hundred of these, the numbers will work out to the averages. That is, unless you get really good at it in which case you’ll only do better. So long as there are fewer entries than 42, these tournaments carry a positive expectation. I’m looking at the $1500 guaranteed for Wednesday, September 19, 2007 and the number of entries was only 35, so one had a 6/35 or about 1 in 6 probability of finishing in the money, which adds to the positive expected value.

A lot of players are not getting involved with these events because they don’t know how to move their $$$ from place to place now that Neteller is gone from the scene. Well, there are viable alternatives; see my Video Update for late September, 2007 for an idea on how to deal with that. The company I talk about in there does offer service at UltimateBet.com.

I’ll see you here next time.

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