Strategy To Win Blackjack Tournament

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Practice Basic Strategies. The key to winning a blackjack tournament is to be the best player possible. Most tournaments will consist of many experienced players, so it is essential for players to master the basic strategies of the game. This can be done by playing standard online blackjack games or even free games, where there is no risk. Basic strategy is not enough! We get emails from people all the time talking about how they downloaded our blackjack charts, took them to a casino, and won some money. That’s great news for them, but it could have easily gone the other way. Basic strategy cannot overcome the house edge even if you get lucky with it from time to time. Like most types of informed gambling, effective tournament strategy is all about Risk Management. To win a table, you’ll usually have to risk much of your bankroll at some point. The key to long-term success is to make sure that you get full value for every big bet you make.

Strategy To Win Blackjack Tournament
Best Strategy To Win A Blackjack Tournament
Strategy To Win Blackjack Tournaments

Most of today’s major casinos, online and on land, offer blackjack tournaments. These events are very popular among some crowds. The rules of the game are the same, but the tournament format makes it much more interesting, and more profitable, to those who finish high enough to make prize bubble.

How to Play Blackjack Tournaments with Strategy

Blackjack tournaments are a fantastic way to enjoy the game of 21, with a shot at winning far more money than you might make in a standard game. The following information is intended to help you play a more strategic game that focuses not only on traditional blackjack tactics, but meeting the winning criteria for a blackjack tournament.

Standard21 vs Tourney: Playing in a blackjack tournament is nothing like playing the standard game. It’s less about win rate, and more about survival…
Types of Tournaments: There are two basic types of blackjack tournaments you can enter – Elimination, and Non-Elimination, playable in Scheduled, SNG, and Live Money formats…
Round by Round: Your goal in each round of play, leading up to the final round, is to survive each shrinkage of the field. This means maintaining an above average chip stack…
Final Round: The last round is unlike any before it. This is your time to shine. You’ll need to take risks to come from behind, or mimic others to retain the lead…
Watch the Stacks: You need to keep up with how many chips your opponents have at all times. This makes it easier to keep your own stack above surface level…
One to Grow On: When things are getting iffy, and everyone at your table is betting all-in to stay afloat, do the same, but hold onto one chip in case the dealer scoops…
Final Hand Tips: The final hand can be the trickiest of all, depending on how you stack up against the remaining players. These tips will help you make the right move…

Disclaimer – Not all forms of gambling are legal in all provinces of Canada. The legal age to gamble also varies by province. Breaking the law is a serious matter. The information provided on this website is meant for educational purposes only, and we will not be held liable for any irresponsible / illegal activity on your part. Know the gambling laws in your province and follow them. The following pages provide more information on Canadian gambling laws:

Alberta – British Columbia – Manitoba – Newfoundland & Labrador – New Brunswick – Nova Scotia
Northwest Territory – Nunavut – Ontario – Prince Edward Island – Quebec – Saskatchewan – Yukon

Difference Between 21 and Blackjack Tournaments

This biggest mistake people make in a blackjack tournament is playing their hands the same way they would at a standard game. Yes, the rules of play are the same, but winning takes a completely different strategy. In a standard game, you’re competing against the dealer. In a tournament, you have to outlast the other players to win.

Most tournaments are won by the player with the most chips remaining. Instead of playing to win money in each hand, you are playing to have the most chips left. This means you can win the tournament, and the money, even if you end with fewer chips than you started with.

Like a typical game of 21, you want to use basic strategy and, if you aren’t already familiar with it, learn how to count cards. These strategies will give you the maximum return against the dealer, and an edge over any opponent that is not employing the same tactics. Note that there are certain situations – especially the final hand of any round – where you may need to deviate from basic strategy. We’ll talk more about that below…

Types of Blackjack Tournaments

There are two main types of blackjack tournaments you need to be aware of. These include Elimination tournaments and Non-Elimination tournaments. Additionally, they can be played with variable fields and cash types. An event can be Scheduled or Sit’n’Go events, and it could have a Live Money chip count.

Elimination Blackjack Tournaments

This is by far the most common type of blackjack tournament. An elimination event has numerous, timed rounds of play. At the end of each round, the half of the field with the lowest chip stacks remaining is eliminated. There will be as many rounds as are needed to drop the field to a final table of play. When time ends in the final round, the player with the highest stack wins.

Non-Elimination Tournaments

Non-elimination tournaments usually have smaller fields and only a single round of play. The tournament will end when either a) all other players run out of chips, or b) time expires (i.e. the highest stack wins). Non-elimination events usually take place in SNG format.

Scheduled vs. SNG

A scheduled tournament is one that is advertised in advance. It has a specific start time, and registration is open for an extended period of time leading up to the event. These are usually larger tournaments, played in elimination format.

Sit’n’go (SNG) tournaments, found mostly at online casinos, are smaller tournaments where registration is always open. As soon as enough players join, the tournament begins, and another one is always waiting for enough entrants. Due to the smaller fields, these are sometimes played in non-elimination format.

Live Money Chips Count

Most casino and poker tournaments require a standard buy-in and fee, then give all players an equal amount of chips to begin with. In a live money tournament, the chips you play with are your own real money.

Blackjack Tournament Strategy by Rounds

Every elimination-style tournament must be played on a round by round basis. You cannot look at the bigger picture. Surviving the current round is the only thing matters.

In the early and middle stages of a round, you’re working to win as many hands as possible. Employ basic strategy on all hands, and use card counting to increase your win rate whenever possible.

In the late stages of each round (except the final round), your only concern should be staying above the average-stack mark. If you finish the final hand of a round with a below-average stack, your game is over. If you’re behind, you’ll have to bet more and/or take more risks to get ahead. Depending on the table limits, you may have to bet max, then double down, regardless of basic strategy, just to ensure your survival.

Strategizing the Final Round Based on Position

Once you reach the final round, that’s when things can really get hairy. At this point, you need to be in the lead. Or, if it’s a prize pool event, you have to finish high enough to earn your share. Often times, basic strategy goes out the window. If you’re in the lead, your job is to stay there, even if it means making a bad move.

For example, if the only person with a large enough stack to catch you bets 3,000 chips, you must also bet 3,000 chips. If they stand on any total between 12 and 16, you must also stand on any total between 12 and 16. If the dealer busts, you both win and you retain the lead. If the dealer wins, you both lose and you retain the lead. See where I’m going here?

If you’re in a low position, your job is to play opposite of everyone else. You need them to lose and you to win. If you have to take more risks to get there, do it. It’s the only way to jump into the lead, and therefore worth the risk.

Know Where Your Opponents Stand in the Count

You should always know how many chips your opponents have. If you lose track of where you stand in respect to everyone else, you may slip below the average chip stack. Wait too long to count them, and you may run out of time or hands to recover.

Don’t Follow Everyone All-In – Keep One to Grow On

It’s not uncommon for a full table of tournament players to go all-in at the same time, especially in the second half of a round. Once a player does this, it tends to scare others into following. If you keep betting small, you could fall way behind, but if you go all-in, you could lose everything. The best move is to follow them, but to keep one chip back. This way, if the dealer beats the table, everyone else is eliminated, but you’re still in the game.

Tips for Winning the Final Hand

When the tournament is almost over, the dealer will call “Final Hand”. It’s easiest to play if you’re in late position, because you can see what everyone else is doing first. In this case, you do whatever it takes to give you a chance at finishing in the highest position. From early or middle position, you’ll need to do some calculating.

If you already have the lead, bet enough to beat the second-highest chip stack, even if he bets max. If you’re coming from behind, you may have to bet everything you’ve got. If you’re in the first seat, don’t go all-in. Keep one or two chips back, just in case everyone else shoves and the dealer scoops. How nice would it feel to win it all with a single chip remaining?

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Allstar Gambling USA / Guides / Best Blackjack Betting StrategiesAllstar GamblingJuly 3, 2019TwitterFacebookWhatsApp

For centuries, the strategic potential of blackjack has defied the chances and reduced the house edge to the point of complete elimination. The advanced card counting strategies were fought off by the casino operators through a gradual increase of the card decks inside the shoe.

Nowadays, it is next to impossible to find a live blackjack variant played with 1, 2, or even 4 decks; instead, 6 and 8-deck blackjack games are dominating the market, thwarting the beginner-level card counters. This, along with the RNG (Random Number Generator) blackjack, has created the need for alternative solutions, and a number of players resorted to blackjack betting strategies that exploit the winning and losing streaks, focusing on money management rather than trying to predict the next card. At the same time, these are much easier to master than some of the advanced blackjack techniques, such as Shuffle Tracking, Zen, or Omega 2.

Where to Start – The Most Popular Blackjack Betting Strategies

The complexity and dedication are not the only reasons people shy away from card counting techniques. Casino operators frown upon any skill that will give you an unfair advantage over other players (and the house), which is why advanced budget management methods are your safest resorts. They can also be arranged according to the difficulty level, starting with the simplest form of betting (flat) and gradually advancing to the complex patterns used by experienced players (Labouchere):

Flat Betting
Martingale
1-3-2-6 System
Paroli
D’ Alembert
Oscar’s Grind
Labouchere

Apart from the complexity level, each of the systems can also be classified according to the risk degree and the type of progression it entails – negative or positive.

Flat betting

Flat betting is somewhat of an exception, and many do not even consider it a strategy at all. The only requirement of this “system” is to remain in the game by constantly submitting the same size bet. Ideally, the player needs to establish a budget and divide it into equal portions of up to 5% of the total balance. Clearly, flat betting will not make you rich, but the strategy is deemed successful if you manage to generate around 10-20% profit.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Flat Betting

Apart from the extreme simplicity, the strongest suit of flat betting is the damage control it delivers. The fixed stakes will prevent you from suffering a sudden, substantial loss that some of the other methods are prone to.

On the other hand, the results that flat betting can produce are modest and rest on the assumption that you will win more than 50% of the time. This is why most players outgrow this strategy fairly quickly. The monotony makes it quite easy to abandon this process and move onto potentially more profitable (and riskier) blackjack betting strategies described below.

Risk Rate: Low

Positive Progressive Betting Systems – Definition and Popular Variants

Positive progressive betting systems are designed to get the most of the players’ winning streak, commanding a bet increase every time you score a winning blackjack hand. The stakes are raised systematically and lowered after the first losing hand. The most popular representatives of positive progressive strategies are Paroli and Oscar’s Grind.

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Paroli

Paroli is often defined as a reversed Martingale system, prompting the players to top the stake after every winning hand. Every next bet should be doubled and re-set after three consecutive winning rounds. For example, if we are to start our betting session with a $1 stake, the next two stakes should be increased by 2:

$1 > $2 > $4

For the sake of illustration, let us assume that you have placed a $10 bet and your hand trumped the dealer’s, resulting in an even money payout. Your next bet should, therefore, be $20, which is your base bet + $10 that you have won in the previous round. If you manage to win that hand as well, the follow-up stake should amount to $40 – again, the $10 base stake, plus the winnings from the previous rounds. The third win will result in an $80 bet, after which you will need to go back to the initial $10 bet, regardless of the outcome. Looking at the starting point, we can easily deduce that a $10 starting bet generated a total of $160.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Introducing Paroli Betting System to Your Gameplay

As you can see, the Reversed Martingale is very easy to use, as it requires the player to press the bet only 3 times and revert to the original wager in two cases – after a loss or when a series of three winning hands in a row is completed.

An added value of Paroli is that you do not need to have a substantial budget to implement this strategy, which is the main drawback of some other progressive betting patterns.

On the downside, three linked winning hands are not that easy to land, and the players may find themselves operating at a loss before long.

Risk Rate: Medium

Oscars Grind

A medium complexity system with a low-risk rate, Oscars Grind (aka Hoyle’s Press) starts off with a single unit bet and aims at generating an equivalent profit amount. The losing hands will follow the flat betting pattern whereas the winning hands will be followed by the bet increase – but only if it will result in the desired profit of one unit. Otherwise, the bet size is decreased to assure that the accurate amount is acquired, as shown in the table below:

Bet	Outcome	Return	Your next move
$1	Loss	-1	No change in bet
$1	Loss	-2	No change in bet
$1	Loss	-3	No change in bet
$1	Loss	-4	No change in bet
$1	Loss	-5	No change in bet
$1	Win	-4	Next bet increases by 1 unit
$2	Loss	-6	Bet remains the same (2 units)
$2	Win	-4	Next bet increased to 3 units
$3	Win	-1	Next bet adjusted to 2 units needed for a single unit profit
$2	Win	1	Round completed

The desired result is a single unit win on every session as well as the increased damage control during the losing streaks.

Pros and Cons of Oscars Grind

The method is not aggressive which means that you will be able to sustain longer losing streaks without suffering irreparable damage to your finances. The proceeds, although modest, will gradually accumulate, recuperating the losses incurred across ten rounds in no more than 4 wins.

At the same time, you may find the system frustrating as it requires a lot of self-discipline and restraint.

Risk Rate: Low

What Are Negative Progressive Betting Systems?

As opposed to the progressive betting methods, the negative strategies demand that the bets are increased during the losing streaks; the idea is to recover all that you have previously lost and to gain a profit. By default, negative progressions are more aggressive than their counterparts and they carry a somewhat higher risk rate. The representatives of this methodology are Martingale, D’Alembert, and Laboucher systems.

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Martingale Betting System

When you first come across to Martingale, it may seem like a heaven-sent system that simply cannot fail. You will soon discover that not all share your initial enthusiasm; there will be those who might urge you to avoid this strategy, especially if your gambling budget is limited.

As a negative progression system, Martingale mandates that you double the stake after every losing hand and go back to flat betting after a win. In the perfect world, this should generate a series of cumulative winnings and recuperate the losses in a course of a single losing streak.

But what happens if the streak prolongs and you budget dries out? Even if you start wagering with the betting minimum, you are running a risk of leaving the table empty-handed. To illustrate, let us assume that you begin the session with a $5 wager and start losing. To get back on the track, you will now need to double every next wager, which means that it will take no more than 8 consecutive losses to find yourself short of $1,275:

Bet	Outcome	Total in Losses
$5	Loss	$5
$10	Loss	$10
$20	Loss	$35
$40	Loss	$75
$80	Loss	$155
$160	Loss	$315
$320	Loss	$635
$640	Loss	$1,275

If the trend keeps up, you can soon end up with a considerable debt, which is probably not what you have signed up for when joining the blackjack table and introducing a betting structure to your game. High rollers will, of course, be able to disregard the elevated risk rate of the Martingale system, but average online or land-based casino visitors will probably need to adjust their strategy to the amount of money they can afford to lose. For most of them, this means that Martingale is off the limits.

The benefit of using Martingale is that it can produce excellent results in a relatively short time span.

Pros:

Can be effective in short-term sessions
Simple to use

Cons:

Uncomfortably risky
More suitable for high rollers
Possibility of the stake amount exceeding the payout rate
Table limits can easily stop the progression

As you can see, the cons, in this case, outweigh the pros, which means that you may want to leave the strategy to those with more money to waste.

Risk Rate: Extremely High

D’Alembert

D’Alembert is a great alternative to Martingale, since it offers a reduced risk rate but has the same complexity level, which makes it suitable for beginners. The system has an alternating pattern, urging the players to increase the stakes by a single unit after a loss or deduct one unit from the follow-up wager after a win. So, if you should happen to lose $5 bet, the next amount that you need to wager is $10 and the one after that $15 (as $5 is considered a single unit). Should the $15 result in a win, the subsequent bet should be re-set to $10. Example:

Bet	Outcome	The follow-up bet	Total Balance
$1	Loss	$2	$99
$2	Loss	$3	$97
$3	Win	$2	$100
$2	Loss	$3	$98
$3	Loss	$4	$95
$4	Win	$3	$99
$3	Win	$2	$102

Pros of D’Alembert Betting System

The entire scheme is very easy to follow through – all you need to do is remember your previous bet and act accordingly. Also, since the increase is moderate, you will not risk losing a large portion of your budget. Last but not least, thanks to the controlled variations in bet size, you are less likely to hit the table limits.

Cons of D’Alembert

The main defect of this system is that it’ll take forever to recover the lost bets, not to mention the perils of the long losing streaks that are likely to severely affect your balance.

Risk Rate: Medium High

Labouchere Betting System

In Laboucher, the players start with any sequence of numbers, where the first and the last number in the chain determine the bet total. Let’s say that you select the following string:

2 – 3 – 4 – 6 – 9

When you add up the first and the last number, you will get a total of 11, which should be the initial bet. If you happen to win, the relevant numbers should be eliminated from the sequence, leaving you with 3 – 4 – 6.

Assuming that you win again, the remaining number (4) should be doubled.

If, on the other hand, you lose the initial bet, the total must be added to the chain:

2 – 3 – 4 – 6 – 9 – 11

The bet will now amount to $13 (2 + 11), adding the number $13 to the string if the player loses again, or removing both 2 and 11 if the outcome is favorable.

The sequence total will depend on the target amount, which means that the players whose objective is to make a profit of $20 will create any sequence that can add up to that sum.

Pros of Laboucher

The increased control of both the budget and the progression of your bets is the main perk of Laboucher, but the players should make sure to use it at high limit tables.

Cons of Laboucher

Just like Martingale, this system threatens to hit the table limits, although, not as fast.

Risk Rate: Medium

The “In-Between” Split System: 1-3-2-6 Blackjack Betting System

Seemingly complicated, the 1-3-2-6 blackjack betting strategy is actually much simpler than it looks at first glance. After deciding on the betting unit, the players will just need to make sure that the system is executed correctly, in accordance with the 1-3-2-6 sequence. On a $5 unit bet, the process would look like this:

Step 1: bet the single $5 unit. If you lose, repeat. If you win, proceed to Step 2.
Step 2: bet 3 units ($15). If you lose, start over. If you win, proceed to Step 3
Step 3: bet 2 units ($10). If you lose, start over. If you win, proceed to Step 4
Step 4: bet 6 units ($30)

Pros of 1-3-2-6 System

The upside of this betting pattern is that you will have no difficulties mastering it – the formula is in the name itself, so it does not get any easier than that. The losses will not be severe, and you will be quite happy with the results this system provides in the short-run.

Cons of 1-3-2-6 System

You might not need a huge bankroll to execute the 1-3-2-6 betting scheme but bear in mind that the system’s “expiration date” is just around the corner. While the maneuver is efficient enough to be included in the list of the best blackjack betting strategies, it will not eliminate the house edge and provide lasting results.

Risk Rate: Low to Medium

Conclusion on the most successful Blackjack betting strategies

Adding some structure and limitation to your gambling routine might be just what you need to handle your money more efficiently. Still, you will need to remember that these systems are flawed, especially in the long run. As they have zero effect on the house edge, the end results they produce will be modest, but some of the low-risk systems mentioned above will prove quite handy in cutting down the unwanted losses.