Played my first BJ tourney...

[SleightOfHand]

and lost in the first round in last place :laugh: It was a freeroll tourney, so I decided to try it out, and from what it looks like, there is a good deal of variance. Not really much to say, I read the articles on the bjt site and I guess it was just not my day.

Question: Lets say for a tournament with 100 players. What would the probability for a good tourney player to win? A few percent? Just curious.

 

[fr600]

and lost in the first round in last place :laugh: It was a freeroll tourney, so I decided to try it out, and from what it looks like, there is a good deal of variance. Not really much to say, I read the articles on the bjt site and I guess it was just not my day.

Question: Lets say for a tournament with 100 players. What would the probability for a good tourney player to win? A few percent? Just curious.

This probability depends on how many good players there are. For 10/100 good players, I'd say 3~4% each.

 

[Shoofly]

and lost in the first round in last place :laugh: It was a freeroll tourney, so I decided to try it out, and from what it looks like, there is a good deal of variance. Not really much to say, I read the articles on the bjt site and I guess it was just not my day.

Same thing happened to me. Free entry so I thought I'd give it a try. Got wiped out in a hurry. Guess I'll have to read more.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

If you lost quickly, you probably did something right. The bet-to BR ratio in tournament play is higher than anything we are accustomed to in a cash game.

 

[BrianCP]

Judging by these descriptions, I would draw a comparison to super turbo sit and gos on fulltilt. Only 3 or 2 places get payed, 9 players start with 300 chips at 15 and 30 blinds.

Ready.....set.....SHOVE!

 

[bjcardcounter]

I gave it a shot at Wild Wild West, a free one. To quality for second round, we need to make 200K in 15 hands starting with 20K chips. Ended up about 170K.

 

[alwayssplitaces]

Does card counting even help that much in a blackjack tournament?

Sure, if the tournaments were 10,000 hands, the counters would have a big advantage. But in the length of a normal tournament, only a few hundred hands are played. It's about a coin flip as to who wins.

I'm thinking of doing a freeroll blackjack tourney at my home casino this week.

 

[Coach R]

Does card counting even help that much in a blackjack tournament?

Sure, if the tournaments were 10,000 hands, the counters would have a big advantage. But in the length of a normal tournament, only a few hundred hands are played. It's about a coin flip as to who wins.

I'm thinking of doing a freeroll blackjack tourney at my home casino this week.

I agree. I played in one tourny at a casino in my home state, dumb luck mostly. Players risk everything early to jump up. plays I would never make.

 

[MangoJ]

I agree. I played in one tourny at a casino in my home state, dumb luck mostly. Players risk everything early to jump up. plays I would never make.

For such a small number of hands, you should not focus on EV of your play.
You should focus on your variance of your play.
The target of the tournament is to come into top positions of your table, not to increase your chips. The chips are worthless if you are not in top positions.
If you play high-risk, most of the time you are (heavily on) -chips, but if by chance you are +chips you are very much likely to be on top of the tables (not by chance!).

The only way of consistently winning tournaments is play tournaments where a decent percentage of people have no idea of how to play variance, and will thus dramatically lower their chance for the finals - increasing the chance for all others.


Let's make up an example. There is only one table, 3 players. The game rules are in favor heavily for the players (i.e. 2:1 on blackjack), let's say by 5%. 10 hands play, top ranking player is payed on odds 2.9 (i.e. $290 on a $100 entry fee. Casino makes $10 in any case). Initial chips: 100.
No max bet, min bet 1.

2 Players know very well how to play EV but have only an idea about variance. They choose a full kelly bet of 5% of their current bankroll, because that's what the book says on playing +EV games.
Even if they win ALL of their 10 hands, they come out with 100*1.05^10 = 163 chips.
Now there is the hero (you) who knows how to play variance. His strategy is simple: double up and grind out.
So he bets his full bankroll (100) on first hand. He has a 42% chance of winning, getting 200 chips. Then play min bets (1) for the remaining 9 hands.

If hero wins his first hand (42%), he has 191 or more chips. The kelly player only have 163 chips maximum. Hence hero wins the tournament with chance of 42% for prize of $290 - minus $100 entry fee he makes $21.8 in EV!

Of course he loses his bankroll 58% of the time in the very first hand. Those kelly bettors will never lose their entire bankroll, but they won't win the tournament with that strategy. Each of them will win the tournament at a chance of 58%/2 = 29%. Winning $290 while paying $100 in fees is $-15.9, they play with negative EV.


For the observer it looks like the hero won the tournament purely by luck. But this isn't true. If he won by luck, he would win with chance of 33%. But he wins at 42%.

 

[London Colin]

It varies

and lost in the first round in last place :laugh: It was a freeroll tourney, so I decided to try it out, and from what it looks like, there is a good deal of variance. Not really much to say, I read the articles on the bjt site and I guess it was just not my day.

Question: Lets say for a tournament with 100 players. What would the probability for a good tourney player to win? A few percent? Just curious.

As well as the quality of your opponents, the rules and structure of the tournament itself can make a big difference.

I assume you are talking about a table-elimination format.

The ability to surrender, double/insure for less will increase the skilled tournament player's edge.

The number of hands to be played, and the starting bankroll and betting limits also have an impact.


Then there is the number of players advancing from the table to the next round. More is better :- You can follow strategies specific to the number of advancers, and don't necessarily care if one player achieves a huge lead by betting big early on.

More advancers also implies that there will be more rounds (tables) to be played before you get to the final, which amplifies your advantage.

I'm not sure if it has an impact on the variance. Conceptually, you are faced with a long series of low hurdles to be cleared, compared to a shorter series of high hurdles.


[I was going to sum up with some guesstimated figures, but decided that the guesswork portion was going to be too great.:grin:]

 

[London Colin]

For such a small number of hands, you should not focus on EV of your play.
You should focus on your variance of your play.

In an accumulation format, that would be the case.

In an elimination format you focus on your opponents' bankrolls, how many hands remain to be played, the position of the button, and other such situational factors.

Taking a lead early, while it would be welcome if it could be guaranteed, is generally not worth the risk of falling behind early. Timing is everything.

If you do take the lead, your opponents are not going to just sit back and make Kelly bets; they are going to give chase! (At least if only one player advances from the table.)

And, as with regular blackjack, the vast majority of players you will meet at a tournament table have never heard of Kelly, EV, or quite possibly even Basic Strategy.


Ken's link in the menu on the left, and his https://www.blackjacktournaments.com/ site is a great resource for learning all about tournaments.

 

[MangoJ]

I totally agree with you Colin. I was just making a statement that EV play (especially if your number of hands you are allowed to play is much smaller than N0) is not much of an issue when meeting target where you don't care about losses.

Of course you can wait behind, hope that your opponents bust when making high-risk play. If they gain, you can try to chase. Obviously this depends on max bet, how many hands are left, and who is the one to make his last bet.

I'm sure one can analytically evaluate best bet sizes for tournaments, it should be fairly easy for the last hand to play. But then if you have an exact estimate of your position on the last hand, one can also analytically evaluate best bet size for last before last hand....
There must be a perfect strategy, of course hard to calculate. And certainly not allowed on the table. But should be worth for training.