Basic Betting Strategy for Blackjack Tournaments

Blackjack tournaments differ from traditional blackjack play in that players are not just competing against the dealer, but other players and the clock as well. Because the goal of each round of a blackjack tournament is to get through the last hand with more chips than your competitors, betting obviously plays a major role in advancing to the next round.

Different players will recommend different strategies, but the general consensus is that players should bet relatively conservatively at the onset, and make bigger bets as necessary. As play progresses, your chip count in relation to the rest of the table will dictate how aggressive your betting will get. If you are trailing a chip leader, then a big bet is the only way to achieve the big swing you need to catch his or her lead and advance to the next round. Similarly, a chip leader will likely want to simply match the bets of his closest competitors. That way, if both lose the hand, the lead remains constant.

Blackjack Tournament Strategy – Be Aggressive

Of all the blackjack tournament strategies out there, the least effective is to play conservatively. While this may work great for normal blackjack play, the short-term dynamics of tournament play make it a poor choice when competing for the biggest chip count. Conservative tournament players are essentially hoping all the other players will be dealt poor hands. This is hardly ever the case.

Basic Play Strategy for Blackjack Tournaments

Though tournaments require you to compete against other players to win the round, each hand remains a competition between you and the dealer. As such, traditional card playing strategies hold true for blackjack tournaments. Expert players know which hands to hold on, hit on and split on. For beginners, having a basic blackjack strategy decision chart on hand will help you hold your own against the pros. Such charts are easily available online.

Here’s a lead to the first step.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I disagree, you can use your skill to lower the house edge against you.  Take on the house and beat that dealer!  A good bonus always helps and it helps to shop around, keeping the online casinos on their toes.  But that doesn’t mean that you have to ruin your online gambling experience by continually site hopping.

You can develop and master your blackjack strategy until you become a pro.  Them nasty casinos that take all our money, gonna be shaking in there boots!  You show’em.

Federal Law Makes It a Crime to Bet Online

Yep, the feds can come after anyone involved in online gambling practices, and that has almost completely stifled the Internet gaming industry, shutting off a number of sites’ access to the lucrative US market. So while there remains a high interest in online gambling, especially for games like poker, the law clearly makes it a crime to transfer money over the Internet for the purposes of gambling. Modeled after other gambling regulation legislation, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) attacked the money as it crossed over certain boundaries, which made taking bets through cyberspace virtually impossible.

Smart Sites and Players Find a Way

In the face of the federal government’s anti-Internet gaming laws, some online casino and poker sites simply shut down. But some schemed to devise a way around the legalese of the national law. So instead of transferring money for gambling, some sites offered visitors the ability to purchase credits or some other sort of unit of value, which could then be used to make bets. Other sites have developed simple fantasy leagues for games like poker, where the money is all fake. But rest assured, intrepid gamers in seek of gambling can inevitably find something online. Whether it is illegal or not according to the federal law is a sticky question that is often up for interpretation.

Where Does the Law Stop?

Many think the federal status of online gambling in the US could cause problem for the rest of the gaming world. If a foreigner wants to move money from his offshore bank account into another international bank that makes deposits on his behalf, but he uses a computer in the US to do it, should it be illegal under the spirit of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act? Is the user or the site liable? What about the bank? These types of questions hound those in the online gaming industry, and the industry and the government still have a long way to go to find the right solutions and implement regulatory systems that make sense for everyone.

Counting Cards in Online Blackjack

In most cases, you shouldn’t bother trying to count cards in online blackjack. Card counting is based on knowing the composition of the deck, knowing how many ten-point cards relative to other cards, and in most online blackjack scenarios, the deck is effectively infinite, so card counting techniques will not work.

Basic Strategy in Online Blackjack

Basic strategy, on the other hand, works in any blackjack game. If you don’t know basic strategy by heart, you can always call up a basic strategy chart on the Internet and keep it next to the playing screen for easy reference. Using basic strategy, even if you don’t know it by heart, is perfectly legal, and keeps the house edge down.

Hunches in Online Blackjack

Playing hunches will only lose you money in the long run. Hit, stand, double or split based on correct strategy, not on what you “know” is coming. The random number generator in the software doesn’t create a card until you act, so there is nothing “coming” for you to know; the card simply springs into existence when you ask for it.

Insurance in Online Blackjack

Under conventional blackjack rules, insurance is a sucker bet. You should never take it under any circumstances.

The Rules of the Game

A game of elimination blackjack is usually thirty hands long and it each player will start the event with chips worth between $10,000 and $100,000 – all depending on the one organizing the game. The rules of the game are as follows:

·    The house must stand on hard 17 and above, and it must hit on soft 17.
·    Pairs may split up to four times. The only exception is aces.
·    Six decks are used.
·    All the bets have to stay within the allowed minimum and maximum betting numbers.
·    If the player surrounds their hand they get half of the original bet back.
·    If the house’s card is an ace you are allowed to buy insurance.
·    You can only double down with two cards.
·    No more than seven players can play at the same table.
·    You have to make a decision within twenty five seconds if it’s not an elimination hand – in this case you have forty five seconds to make up your mind.

The eliminations part

There are three ways to get eliminated from an elimination blackjack tournament:
·    You lose all of your chips
·    You don’t have enough chips to meet the minimum requirements
·    You are the player with the fewest amount of chips after a certain number of played hands.

The Winner

The last player left at the table, or the player with the most chips left after 30 played hands, is the winner!

Social media has spread so fast and especially with younger users, who will be driving the business of the future.  So I’m sure we will use social media more.  Seems pretty informal to me.  But then I suppose that email must have seemed very informal after all the formal typed business letters that used to be used for inter-business communication.  I somehow can’t imagine a CEO twittering to a business colleague… it just sounds crazy!!

I’m sure that hand held devices will get used even more and develop even more fancy applications or functions.  Mastering the funtions on an iPhone is difficult enough for me!!

Yet despite all the gadgets sometimes communication is no better!

Energy will be generated onsite by a natural gas generation plant.  The construction process will recycle construction waste that is left onsite and re-used in the new building.  Water conservation techniques will be used, saving up to 39% of water consumption inside the building and 60% outside in landscaping.

It just goes to show that every industry can do their part for the environment.

The casino is always going to look after themselves first with their house edge.  If you do some research and find out which are the best casino games you can play to reduce the house edge and then what tricks to turn the advantage to you.

I know I sound like some cheesy salesman… but that’s what you have to do if you want to reduce the edge.

Easy aint it???

Poker rooms must see a huge spike in poker interest due to WSOP.  After watching all the action they would want to try their own luck at a poker tourney.  With all the money that gets spent on advertising and promoting the WSOP, its become a big thing.  S’pose that a lot of people are now aware of poker thanks to the WSOP being televised and promoted.  All that money spent does manage to get the word out.

I enjoy the social aspect of poker and the interaction that you can have with a few friends whilst playing.  Its also a mentally challenging game that keeps you thinking of how well your hand can do compared the other players.

Its a long time to wait until November to see who will be the overall world poker champion…