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The GameMaster's Secrets:
BJ Tournaments - A New Era?

To the best of my recollection, the Blackjack tournament "industry" has been around for about 25 years. The first tournament I recall seeing advertised was one that was held at the Sahara Casino in Las Vegas, circa 1980 but whether I'm right or wrong about that really doesn't matter; the fact is Blackjack tournaments have not seen anywhere near the growth that poker tournaments have enjoyed recently. While there are some valid reasons why, the industry now has a chance to revive itself - perhaps the best chance it will ever have.

When I say "industry", I mean casinos, both brick-and-mortar and Internet, players who have more than just a passing interest in them (tournament pros and semi-pros) and publications or Websites like this that talk about Blackjack and/or tournaments in general. Like it or not, we're in this together and hopefully we all want the same thing: more well-run, fair (and fun) Blackjack tournaments. Certainly there are more tournaments these days, simply because there are more casinos. But, until lately, there's been very little effort beyond the "local" level to create tournaments of the kind that might rival poker's World Series of Poker, the Legends of Poker Tournament, the World Poker Tour Championship and so forth. Remember, on the poker side of the ledger there used to be only one $10,000 buy-in event each year, the main event at the WSOP; all the rest were $5000 or less. Now there are at least three of that size, with the WPT Championship event having a $25,000 buy-in!

The big event in Blackjack tournaments had been the Las Vegas Hilton "Million Dollar", which as I understand will no longer be held. The big question is why and the answer is simple: The casino did not find it to be profitable. After all, if they had been making a bunch of $$$ on it, I can imagine they'd keep doing it. Now understand, I don't have any friends who work for the L.V. Hilton who told me this, but from all I heard, it was basically a financial bust for them, break-even at best. Oddly enough, the fact that the Hilton has cancelled the premier event of the industry set into motion a lot of other events that may ultimately save "high-stakes" Blackjack tournaments in general. It's an interesting story.

I have written several times about my friend, Ken Smith's website, www.blackjacktournaments.com/. Ken is one of the best BJ tournament players in the world and his love for them inspired him to set up the site, which offers - among other things - readers' forums or message boards. A few weeks ago, there was a post on the forums (under the title "Cancel Another Tournament"), lamenting the demise of the Hilton Million and, being the shy little guy I am (Not!), I offered a few comments. My position was that tournaments like that are going to continue to disappear because they are typically not profitable for the casinos to sponsor. If you've read my series "Tournament Blackjack Training", which is in the archives on the Blackjack page here, you saw that I talked about 100+% equity events as being the only kind you should consider playing. What it basically means is that those events returning 100% or more of the players' entry fees as prizes are what you should be seeking. That's the way it always was in the industry and the casinos wanted to keep the players happy, so 100+% equity tournaments were common. A tourney I attended several times was held by Bally's Casino in Tunica. The entry fee was $500, which also got you two room nights and most meals for the weekend, yet 100% of those entry fees were put into the prize pool. Obviously the casino was relying on losses from "side-game" play by the participants to make up for the room and food costs and I'm sure that happened to one degree or another. But apparently not enough, because a free room is no longer included in the entry fee for this tournament.

Wow, casinos expecting to make a profit - how disappointing is that? (I'm being facetious here, in case you can't guess.) But there is more than one "tournament pro" out there who thinks the casinos should continue to offer events with a 100+% return, because it's a good attraction for the players, which it is, but it's mostly a good deal for those who are capable of winning such an event, namely the pros. Well, here's a news flash: casinos don't like pros or anyone else who can beat their games, consequently a lot of pros have been barred from these tournaments or the casinos have placed playing requirements on those who want to participate in the tournaments. For example, you might get an invitation to the tournament if you play "X" hours of Blackjack with a minimum bet of $200 or $400 or whatever. In other words, most people cannot just show up on the day of the tournament, plunk down the entry fee and play. Who is upset by that? The pros, of course. They had a good deal for many years and now the opportunities are disappearing.

I can understand that they are upset, but it's time to deal with reality. Casinos are in business to make a profit and no one should be surprised if they stop offering events where they don't get a fair return. Oh, the casinos will always hold loss-leader events; giveaways, raffles and so on, but BJ tournaments are time- and labor-intensive, so if the casino doesn't perceive that they're making a profit off them, out the door they'll go. And that's what's happening. Fortunately, the solution is simple and, once again, poker tournaments are showing the way. While the buy-in for the main event at the WSOP is $10,000, the entry fee is $300. In this year's tournament, 5616 players entered, which means Harrah's made $1,684,800 from that event alone! Tagging an entry fee onto the buy-in is the way casinos can make a profit from tournaments, so that's what they should do. Yes, I actually encourage it because the alternative is to stop offering tournaments and nobody wants that.

In light of the fact that Blackjack is the number 1 casino table game, you'd think BJ tournaments would be much more popular than poker tournaments, but they're not. After all, more people play Blackjack than Texas Hold 'em, so there's something wrong with this picture. In my posts at TournamentBlackjack.com I offered my opinion, which set off a storm of rebuttal that really dragged some interesting facts into the sunlight.

The Great Chip Counting Debate

Besides pointing out that casinos will not continue to support 100+% equity tournaments, I also made the statement that some people do not play BJ tournaments because one of the procedures involved discourages many "newbies" from entering the sport. That procedure is the requirement to accurately count your opponents' chips by eyesight alone. In case you don't know, each competitor is required to keep their chips in plain view of everyone at the table, usually sorted and stacked by denomination. Such an arrangement requires you to be able to estimate how many chips each player has so that you can properly size your own bet. Many tournaments provide for a chip countdown with 3 or 5 hands left to play, but that's typically the only help you get. To me, BJ tournaments are all about skillful Blackjack play, not about your visual abilities and I suggested that "public" participation would likely increase if this silly requirement were to be eliminated. Well, some of the "pros" howled - long and hard - in protest.

Their point is, chip-counting is a skill that should remain a part of tournaments, even though it's not a skill one needs in, say, a poker tournament where you may ask for a count of your opponent's chips at anytime or in any "regular" game of Blackjack where you're playing against the casino. Of course, you do not need chip-counting skills in an online tournament, poker or Blackjack, because the casino software automatically provides it hand-by-hand. And that was my primary point; a lot of new players were drawn into brick-and-mortar poker tournaments because of their online experiences, so for Blackjack tournaments to have the same experience, the archaic idea that one must be a chip-counting expert had to go. But the "pros" were absolutely opposed to that because they view the ability to count chips as their "edge" in the game. Well, who said they deserve an edge? Of course, they think they should have one, but no one else does. If the requirement to count chip stacks are keeping people from playing, you'd think the "pros" would want to see it eliminated, but that's not how it unfolded. The message thread got longer and longer as this point was debated, with me and some others calling for chip counts provided by the casino while the "pros" were dead-set against it.

Then, a bomb got dropped. A new thread was started (Chip count down poll), where a poster began reminiscing about the "good old days" of Blackjack tournament play that included tales of players who would "palm" or hide their chips as play approached the final few hands. Naturally, this would throw off any count, be it the casino's or an opponent's visual count and is cheating, plain and simple. Well, some "pros" pointed out that it was basically no big deal; these were "isolated" incidents, perhaps "less than 1%" of the tournaments had any cheating and so forth. Others, including some of the pros, were as shocked as me. I said it at the time: I must be naive, but the thought had never occurred to me that people would cheat in this way. Well, how stupid is that? Of course people will cheat when there are big sums of $$$ at stake. Duh. But what can at least reduce, if not eliminate, the possibility of chip-palming? You got it...a chip countdown, at least for the 5 final hands of a tournament. If the chips are counted with 5 hands left to play and all bets are recorded, anyone who had palmed chips prior to that point would quickly be caught, especially if there's a count with 3 hands left to play and with one hand left, as one poster (a Blackjack tournament organizer) suggested.

The revelations of cheating enabled me to make a final statement on the matter, which was that anyone who wanted to establish any sort of credibility in the BJ tournament industry had to support the idea of a chip countdown by the casino, in some manner, shape or form in order to quell devious schemes like chip palming. I believe that's true and I further believe it will eventually lead to the elimination of the need to visually count your opponents' chips in BJ tournaments. Admittedly, it'll happen for different reasons than I what argued for in the beginning, but it'll happen.

I'll tell you something else that amazed little ol' naive me. Some of these "pros" knew this cheating was going on, but they still fought me tooth and nail against the idea of a chip countdown, which would obviously be a big step toward stopping such behavior. Now, I'm not saying they cheat, but if they knew the cheating was going on and if they knew a countdown might eliminate it, why were they against the idea? Interesting. Oh, and it's also why I use the word "pros" instead of pros; real professionals won't put up with crap like that for a minute.

The First Steps

So, is a new age of Blackjack tournaments dawning? There are some signs that it is, but we're at the beginning of the beginning (as opposed to the end of the beginning, as Winston Churchill so eloquently stated in 1940). The popularity of televised poker tournaments has spawned at least one imitator, "The World Series of Blackjack", which was a made-for-television event that aired on the cable channel, GSN. Hardly a "world" event - participation was by invitation only and there were only about 25 or 30 players - it's at least a start. No, they did not have an automatic chip count (like they do on "Celebrity Blackjack" that airs on the same network), but the show's graphics did keep the viewer abreast of who was betting what, etc. The "color" commentary by Max Rubin was superb and there were some excellent players involved. However, like all shows of its genre, the desire to appeal to the 18-39 male market apparently allowed some participants to be selected more for the "Babe Factor" than the "Skill Factor". But, as I said, it's a start.

What will hopefully be a more serious effort appears to be in the works. Tentatively called the "Worldwide Blackjack Tour", the first event is, again, by invitation only, which is disappointing but perhaps necessary in order to work out the kinks. The place to get more information on this is at Anthony Curtis's site, www.lasvegasadvisor.com/. You'll find postings about it in the message boards section.

The Future

I believe Blackjack tournaments have a chance to become very popular, because games that look easy but have a lot of subtleties appeal to a wide range of participants and BJ is still the most popular casino table game. Here, in note form are some more of my thoughts on the topic:

A. Comparison with poker's possibilities of cheating

B. Why online is better

C. Disadvantages of online events

D. Advantages of live events

E. Disadvantages of live events

If I Were King

What I'd like to see is a series of Blackjack tournaments that are held at brick-and-mortar casinos around the country (or world for that matter), for which players can qualify online via satellite events. Few Blackjack players are willing to pay thousands of $$$ to enter such an event, but if it can be done at little cost (and a lot of luck), then there are many who will give it a shot. After all, that is how the main event at the WSOP got to 5616 players this year; literally thousands of players gained entry via satellite events - the vast majority of which were online. Right now, it appears that only Global Player Casino (a long-time advertiser here) is equipped to host such events for Blackjack, but the rumor mill tells me others are on the way. While the "real" World Championship should probably be held at a brick-and-mortar casino in order to take advantage of television coverage, there's nothing to stop other, smaller events from being exclusively Internet events. Either way, making it easy for players to get involved has worked well for poker and it can work equally as well for my beloved game of Blackjack.

I'll see you here next time.