Blackjack Tournament Training

Blackjack Tournament Training - Part 3

What I want to cover here is how I play hands 1 to 13 of a 25-hand match. If the match consisted of 50 hands of play, this would apply to hands 1-25 or so, but I'm sure you know what I mean. As an update, I won the latest Global Player Casino "GameMaster Blackjack Challenge", but the match at my local casino was cancelled due to a poor turnout.

Size up the competition

There are two primary ways of "measuring" the other players at your table, how they bet and how they play their hands. First of all, very few play proper Basic Strategy, primarily because the tournaments use "play" money and, besides, darn few players know proper Basic Strategy, anyway. But there's something about the use of play-money that seems to drive some people crazy. I have never seen so many strange moves!

Most will, at one time or another split 10s in an effort to get more $$$ on the table, (I suppose). Now understand that splitting 10s isn't the worst play one can make, especially if they're counting cards and I wouldn't hesitate to do it on the last few hands if I needed to, but you'll see players doing it on hand # 5 and all throughout the match! I think these people wouldn't dare split 10s at a "real" game, not because they think it's the incorrect play, but in fear of drawing the ire of the other players for "messing up the order of the cards." Whatever their reason, they are tossing away a 20 and I just love to see that. Sure, sometimes it'll work, but most of the time it won't. Here's another beauty:

In one recent match a guy was betting $25 a hand and he would hit his 17s and 18s in order "to take the dealer's bust card." Yes, he honestly thought he could cause the entire table to lose by doing that! It wouldn't bother him to lose a $25 bet, but it sure would hurt the others, who were betting $200-$500 a hand. Or so he thought. I hope you know by now that how others at the table play their hands has no effect on you. They'll help you as much as they hurt you so just ignore all that. I'll tell you what it did do, though. It upset several of the other players and they began complaining to this guy, which is good for those of us who don't get emotionally involved with the game of Blackjack. I'd much rather compete against players who are upset, than against serene competitors.

The lesson here is that you should always, always, always play the proper Basic Strategy in the early part of a match. And I watch to see who does that at my table and start putting them on my "genuine competitor" list. I don't completely write off those who don't know how to play the game, but I do know that they're relying mostly on luck to win.

The other way to size up the competition is to observe their betting patterns. At nearly every table, I have run across what I call a "chunker" or two. Most players over bet their bankroll anyway, but chunkers will bet 20 or 25% of their entire bankroll hand after hand. Of course, it'll scare the tar out of you when they win two or three hands in a row, but all you can do is ignore them at this point in the match. You'll see other players begin to "chase" them if the chunkers get ahead by $500-$600 or so and I'm the first to admit it's tough to bet $25 or $50 when some guy is that far ahead of you. But let me tell you a little something about chunkers: They keep doing it.

I was at a table and a woman had hit a bunch of $500 bets and was $3000 ahead of almost all of us at hand #10. Had she been smart, she would have cut back to $25 a hand and made the rest of us chase her. But she didn't and, as you can imagine, she started losing some of her hands and her lead was cut considerably. Well, at that point, she naturally had to keep betting big in order to make back her losses and she was broke by hand # 20.

Remember the story about the tortoise and the hare? If you play my way, you're a tortoise. Don't chase the rabbits! Keep betting minimum at this stage of the game and grit your teeth. Instead of worrying about everyone at your table, start watching the person or persons who are: A) playing the proper Basic Strategy and B) not betting more than 3 or 4 times the minimum bet. They will likely be your competition at the end of the match.

Helpful hint: Watch the players at other tables when you're not playing. If there are breaks between the matches, use that time to watch other tables that may still be in competition and start sizing up the players there. At some point, you'll likely be playing against them.

Practice your chip count

In my training for Blackjack tournaments, I use Stanford Wong's software "Tournament Blackjack" and it clearly shows how much money all of your competitors have. It's not that easy in a real-life match, so "chip calculation" was a skill I had to develop. The tournament I play the most starts each player with $2000 in play-money: two $500 chips, five $100 chips and twenty $25 chips. The rules state that we have to keep our chips separated by denomination and in "plain view" on the table. But you can go crazy trying to figure out how much each player has and, while I haven't yet found an easy way to do it, I'm getting better. In the early part of a match (which we're covering in this lesson), just where each competitor stands in relation to you isn't all that important, but it is a good time to "calibrate" your eyeballs. Rather than adding up everyone's chips and then subtracting my holdings to gauge where I stand, I developed what I call the "cancellation" system.

Let's say I have $1825 in chips, composed of two $500 chips, five $100 chips and thirteen $25 chips. Since we're all required to keep the chips separated by denomination, I just compute the differences between our piles. If a competitor has three $500 chips, nine $100 chips and ten $25 chips, I know that s/he is ahead of me by one $500 chip, four $100 chips and I'm ahead by a few $25 chips, so I estimate s/he's ahead by about $800 or so. At this point in the match, that's close enough. I'll get into more accurate counting of the chips as we get closer to hands #20-25, but now is a good time to start practicing.

Helpful hint: Learn the size of a pile of 20 chips. While they use special tournament chips where I compete, I took home 25 $1 chips for practice. Have someone set up different-sized stacks across your dining room table and then try estimating the total value.

If you're a counter

I'm a counter, but I don't use the count for sizing my bets, although I do use it at this stage of the match for the play of my hand. Since I'm usually betting the minimum, I don't really need the count for insurance purposes and, quite frankly, whether to hit or stand with a 16 against a 10 doesn't matter that much if you have $25 bet. I think counting isn't necessary to be a great tournament player, but it's like chicken soup: It may not help, but it can't hurt.

Helpful hint: In a 25-hand match each player; including the dealer will get, on average, one Blackjack.

Blackjack Tournament Training - Part 3

The Early Game

Size up the competition

Practice your chip count

If you're a counter

2007 Articles

2006 Articles

2005 Articles

2004 Articles

2003 Articles

2002 Articles

2001 Articles

2000 Articles

1999 Articles

1998 Articles

1997 Articles