Blackjack Tournaments

If you love the game of blackjack and are looking for an exciting new twist then consider seeking out a blackjack tournament. Casino tournaments in general have become wildly popular for a reason; they offer players a higher level of competition and a prize pool well beyond what you can expect to earn playing at a regular table.

Many blackjack players also enjoy the fresh playing style offered by blackjack tournaments. A few small rule changes add totally different aspects to the game and how it should be played.

How Blackjack Tournaments Are Played

In a tournament, the basic blackjack rules remain the same with a few obvious changes in regards to betting. You still have a dealer and several players (usually six) at a single table. The dealer still has their own hand which your hand is competing with. This is where things start to get weird. While you are waging your hand against the dealer’s you are also considering the tournament element and are trying to get more chips than your opponents. In this way, you are playing the dealer with your hand and playing your competitors with your bets.

There are minimum and maximum bets that are placed independently of the other players’. They pay out according to the casino pay schedule. The deal now rotates based on the position of a floating button that moves clockwise with each hand, and the betting position moves with it.

There are two common types of blackjack tournaments. The first and more popular is elimination. The second is non-elimination. In elimination blackjack tournaments (as with elimination poker tournaments), players usually pay a buy-in and are given a set amount of chips. They then move to their first table of six, whittling the competition down until new tables must be reformed. The last player standing wins, with other places determined by who went out last, second to last, etc.

In non-elimination blackjack tournaments, the players buy-in at the same amount and may continue to buy-in every time they lose their original stack, so that all players could technically play to the end of the tournament. The winner is the player with the most chips at the end, with the remaining places determined by consecutively smaller stacks.

Blackjack Tournament Strategies

Some players will bet the maximums in the beginning in hopes of leaving the rest of their table behind while others will bet conservatively and try to limp through to the next round, saving their stack for the final table. In other words, strategy varies depending on each tournament participant’s playing style. What remains the same is that you must have the most chips to win, and that the final rounds are the most important. Putting yourself in the best position possible prior to these final rounds is a good way to give you the security necessary to make smart (and not desperate) bets.

The simplest and most aggressive strategy used for blackjack tournaments is called “Win or Bust.” The premise is to bet the maximum (often the original buy-in amount) early, effectively either pumping your stack up fast or putting you out of the game in the first round. Because you are only dealt one card prior to betting, this strategy is very vulnerable and leaves more to luck than skill.

Another popular strategy is called the Quarter strategy. Its betting style is the opposite of the Martingale system. You start by placing a bet that is a quarter of your stack. If you win, you double that bet and hold at this amount for future bets, but if you lose you return to the original quarter bet. Obviously the size of your quarter bet changes with the size of your stack, allowing you to continue with this strategy even on a losing streak until your quarter is below the minimum bet.

The important thing to remember in non-elimination tournaments is that you must have the most chips to continue to the next round, so sometimes betting must be changed accordingly to give you the stack advantage even if it means betting outside your strategy.

Where to Find Blackjack Tournaments

Thanks to the internet, you can play in a blackjack tournament virtually every day. Online casinos specializing in blackjack host several tournaments a week and usually have larger tournaments on the weekends. Because of the resources (space, employees) required to have live blackjack tournaments, they are not as frequent, but many large casinos advertise them in advance and even include room and food in the buy-in making for a much more involved experience.

Previous Article: Win at Blackjack