Any game therory guys look at Elimination Blackjack?

[Shroomy]

I recently looked at the ads for "elimination blackjack" in some poker mags.

It seems like something designed to be beaten by a good game theory person.

basically .. from bet21.net

Elimination Blackjack™ is a unique tournament format of blackjack that pits you against the dealer and other players to avoid being eliminated. One player is eliminated on hands 8, 16, and 25. You have a total of 30 hands to determine if you have what it takes to become the next champion.


In preliminary tournament rounds, each player starts with $25,000 in chips, which is also the maximum bet. The minimum bet is $500. At the final table, each player starts with $100,000 in chips, which is also the maximum bet. The minimum bet for the final table is $1,000.
Action starts on the button and rotates clockwise every hand.
Each player has 25 seconds to make a decision. The timer will start to count down when you only have ten seconds left to act. On Elimination Hands, players have 45 seconds to make a decision.
Hands 8, 16, and 25 are Elimination Hands, at the end of which the player with the least amount of chips is eliminated.
Each player has one Secret Bet that can he can use at any time during the round.
Whoever has the most chips at the end of hand 30 wins.

[repulse]

I have seen more than a few advertisements for this that are really starting to irritate me. Tournament blackjack is a perfect information game easily solved by a modest programmer -- adding a single secret bet to it does NOT make it comparable to poker. It's also not exactly a good time in our world to be having poker compared to derivative casino games by some of the "big names" in our game, but I'm getting way off topic...

Surely the game theory at hand in when to use the secret bet would be much, much simpler than any imperfect information poker scenarios. This is a game that should have a fairly simple equilibrium strategy and equally simple optimal-exploitive strategies.

I can't pretend to actually be interested in this game -- has anyone actually taken this thing and smacked it over the head with the math? Seems like it'd be a reasonable exercise for someone in the field.

[Shroomy]

agreed, and exactly my point .. just a beatable game .. (and I like beatable games)