UB tournament blackjack question

[KSOT]

If I am heads up going into an elimination round with a small lead, should I always bet $500 here under the assumption that the dealer wins more than 50% of hands? Or should I bet the maximum based on the fact that players tend to share wins and losses since they're both against the dealer? I always seem to decide on $500 and then I watch the dealer bust and my opponent win 25k while I win $500 and lose the game. If I am first to bet I always get afraid that if I bet 25k first my opponent will go with $500 and reverse my own strategy on me.

So what is correct? I'm sick of deciding for myself [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Also same question for when there are two or more people just under you going into an elimination round.

[Thremp]

[ QUOTE ]
If I am heads up going into an elimination round with a small lead, should I always bet $500 here under the assumption that the dealer wins more than 50% of hands? Or should I bet the maximum based on the fact that players tend to share wins and losses since they're both against the dealer? I always seem to decide on $500 and then I watch the dealer bust and my opponent win 25k while I win $500 and lose the game. If I am first to bet I always get afraid that if I bet 25k first my opponent will go with $500 and reverse my own strategy on me.

So what is correct? I'm sick of deciding for myself [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Also same question for when there are two or more people just under you going into an elimination round.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll probably say refer to Wong's book on this topic?

General rule: Do opposite of everyone else?

[Hollywood Dave]

Traditional tournament strategy (ie from Wong's day) will often tell you just to bet the min here in a heads-up final hand situation, but that only gives you better than a coinflip edge. Modern day tourney strategy has found a few other answers to this dilemma, especially for use in elimination-style blackjack like in the UB tourneys you're playing:

first off, it depends on what position you have to bet. if he bets first, the best option is usually to just mirror his exact bet and playing decisions (ie if he bets 10k, you bet 10k. if he stands on a 16 vs dealer 10, you stand on all stiff hands as well, guaranteeing the same result). If you must bet first -- or he's acted already but used a secret bet -- then it gets more complicated...

if you've already got over double what your opponent has, you can bet min to force him to get a blackjack, something that only happens less than 5% of the time.

if he can catch you by betting big, then bet enough to cover his 'high' (ie, what he could get to by doubling his stack) -- but only if you could surrender back your bet to beat his push. This gives you either 1. the 'high' and 'low,' or 2. the 'high' and 'surrender low'...

if your lead is too small to take the high while retaining either the low or surrender low, then making a min bet certainly becomes a strong option. however, you can still gain a little bit of flexibility on the high side here by betting twice your lead minus a chip, which gives you the surrender low but puts you in a better position to gain a high over your opponent if he hasn't bet enough, plus gives you more range to strike for a potential high by doubling your own bet.

notice that betting with a lead is still all about keeping some form of 'the low' but there are many options for keeping the low that give you more room to keep some form of 'the high' as well. And anytime you can get both the low & high, you've got a pretty strong hold on winning the damn thing! barring getting f!@#ed by the dealer, of course...

The key here is just to never give up the low for the high when acting from the lead, or as you said, they can just reverse it on you and get the low back from you by betting min...

rock on--

-hd.

badboy of blackjack online
www.HollywoodDave.com

[KSOT]

Wow thanks for the information, everything you said is extremely helpful to me! One question for you. You mention working the surrender low into the equation for elimination hands a lot. Should I be surrendering more liberally in these situations depending on what my opponent and the dealer have? Like any stiff hand if the dealer has a 10 and the opponent doesn't have 20? How about something tricky like 2-3 with a dealer 8 showing and opponent has 18?

Also, I can't believe my thread brought Hollywood Dave out of a year and a half lurking streak [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Hollywood Dave]

Ya got me...Holly Deezy in the digital flesh. Long-time lurker here, used to post more extensively on some other blackjack-specific boards, but too many flamers there even for this smack-talkin' bad boy! 2+2 may not have blackjack-heavy content but i appreciate the professional level of discourse & as i move more & more into the poker realm as well it seems like my energy would be better spent posting here instead...

Liberal use of surrender is a very good thought, but while one of the strengths of advanced tournament strategy is the creative use of surrenders & doubles (or the threat of surrenders/doubles), for this particular situation you would only be invoking the surrender option in situations where you couldn't duplicate the 'same result' as your opponent & needed some kind of escape hatch.

Since we're talking about betting from the lead, the option to invoke surrender is based on whether or not you still have a high available & how likely it is that you can create the same (or better) result as your opponent. Typically surrender is used when you end up having no high due to being too close in chips & having your opponent overbet you. This takes away any value you have in trying to win your hand, as now it only matters that your opponent LOSES. So surrendering back for the low buys the push, which itself can be an additional edge of more than 35% (in the case where dealer has a 10 and the other player has a 20, for instance; dealer will have a made 20 about 30% of the time and will HIT to 20 another over 5%)

So you see rather than surrendering back when your opponent has an 18 vs dealer 10 up, you are far more likely to do it when he has a made 20. Bottom line is, if you have no value left in keeping the high, then your only value in not surrendering back to beat a push comes in based on how likely you are to create the same win/win or lose/lose result as the other player.

if he's stood on 16 vs dealer 10 for instance, you're a lock or better with any hand, as you can hit to 12 or better and then stop. Worst case scenario, you both lose (with you retaining your chip lead) but best case, you turn your 5 into an 11 and then a 21, dealer flips a 20 and you get a positive swing in the process!

Rock on --

-hd.

badboy of blackjack online
www.HollywoodDave.com

[Armadillo King]

DISCLAIMER: Never use anything I say over anything Dave says, but I just wanted to point this out about your 'strategy'...

[ QUOTE ]
I always seem to decide on $500 and then I watch the dealer bust and my opponent win 25k while I win $500 and lose the game. If I am first to bet I always get afraid that if I bet 25k first my opponent will go with $500 and reverse my own strategy on me.

[/ QUOTE ]
If your strategy doesn't work, wouldn't you be happy if your opponent took it for himself? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Armadillo King]

Heh...ironically enough, 'Holly Deezy' here tried to use this surrender low trick on me last night, but I was too smart for that! I busted my 16 and lost all my chips before he even got the chance! :P

[Hollywood Dave]

I thought that was you! Tough match, but thankfully your bust made it a little easier on me that hand. If i remember correctly, everyone had secret bet what i knew would be ridiculously huge bets, so taking a surrender low over you was about the only bet i had short of just blindly max betting that made any sense!

You bring up a good point though about noticing when an opponent tries a surrender low on you....there's another 'move' in tourney blackjack called a Surrender Trap, which you can pull against someone who is savvy enough to recognize highs/lows but not much else. For this kind of competitor, you can bet twice your lead minus 2-3 chips (or, more effectively, just overbet your lead by 2-3 chips), then when your amateur opponent bets min to 'take the low,' you can just surrender any two cards (except a blackjack, of course) to completely lock him out. Really dirty, but when you find the right mark, absolutely deadly!

I don't know how many of you read All In Magazine, but I write a monthly column for it on the blackjack side called 'Head Games with Hollywood Dave' and in next month's issue (the November one, due out early October) my column is all about some of the new tournament blackjack tricks and traps I've developed that are unique to playing online.

Of course, now that I'm publishing them, they won't be as effective! But just like in poker, you can tell people how to beat you 1000 times and most of them still won't listen lol...

Rock on --

-hd.

badboy of blackjack online
www.HollywoodDave.com