I wish it was 30K. That was back in Oct. at a monthly at the HO-CHUNK in Wisconsin. Took 1st there but the prize was just under $4,000. No complaints. I'll take anything they throw my way!
Congrats Toolman I was there to see Toolman advance from the first round with his timely blackjack and then heard he made the final table. Glad to hear he had a good shot at first place too! Nice job Toolman! Hope to see you again soon. Pat
Congrads Toolman Toolman, Glad to hear of you recent win. Sorry you won't be making it to St. Ignace next weekend. Catch you next time, Dan
Way to go! Congratulations and a well deserved victory! He drilled right in, didn't get screwed and hammered the competition. Way to go toolman!
Thanks to everyone for the congrats and well wishes. It was fun to say the least. Had a great time meeting with many of my Blackjack friends which doubled the fun. By PM, some asked for some details so I’ll just take a few minutes to recap the events as they relate to me. In general: The way the betting went and the way the cards fell generally resulted in me not having to resort to complicated head calculations while betting or playing. The end games were pretty straight forward – bet big or small – that was basically it. Accumulation rounds 1 and 2: Start with 5,000 each round. I originally calculated a bankroll of 20,000 would be needed to advance. I started the first round with 100 minimum bets and my cards were a total disaster. Since I was not drawing anything decent, I minimum bet the whole round and ended up with 4,100. This means, with 2 pushes, I lost 16 hands and won 7. Round 2 was a little better card wise but not by much. Since I played last in each round (which I planned), I was able to watch most of the play in round 2 before I played. In the session just before mine I noticed a lot of players accumulate high scores. The tables were relatively hot for that session. As I was walking to my table I decided that 20,000 was not going to make the cut. So I decided to up my goal to 22,000. I managed to get my bankroll up to 10,000 going into the last hand then I bet it all. Got a BJ for a round total of 25,000. That plus the 4,100 from the first round gave me 29,100 – a sure advancement as far as I was concerned. Semi-Final Table: One advance per table to the finals. 25 hands played. There were no seasoned players at my table – lucky for me. Being a conservative player, I minimum bet most of the way while 4 of the players busted out. I took the lead at about hand 23. I bet last on the last hand but the bets before me were such that there was no way to take the high and low. If I took the low, I would have locked out BR3 so it would have been a 2 player game. However, the cards were falling good for me in the end game so I decided to go against the odds and go for the high. So I went “all in” for the high since I was only a few hundred ahead of BR2. BR3 had the low with holding back all his bankroll except for his couple of hundred bet and was not a challenge for the high. BR2 played first, got a 17 and stood against my natural 20. A seasoned player would have hit the 17 since standing on 17 meant BR2 could not win the table. He couldn’t beat me and BR3 had the low so he locked himself out. I felt real good at this point since the only way I could lose the table was if the dealer drew to exactly 21. Dealer busted and I’m on my way to the final table. Final Table: Two or three ploppies did make the final table. The others were seasoned players with varying amounts of skill. Fast forward to hand 23. I had 6,200 and needed at least 2,000 more to take the lead. I bet 3,100 and pushed. Hand 24, I bet 3,100 again. I had a 20 and started to think that the $100,000 first place prize was within grasps but the dealer drew to 21. This dropped me down to BR4. If not for this bad beat, I would have won the tournament since a win would have made me BR1 and my plan was to go “all in” on the last hand and I did win that one. On the last hand BR1 took the low with a minimum bet. BR2 bet half his bankroll. I don’t remember BR3’s bet. BR4 (me) bet it all at 3,100. I couldn’t win at this point. Just trying to get as high as possible. BR2 doubled on a hard 13 and drew an 8. WOW. This gave him the table victory. I was glad for him since he was a friend. BR2 was a ploppy who walked away with the $50,000 second place prize and guess what. He ended up tipping the dealer $200. Yes $200. He had the cash to tip more since the prize money was paid in cash – not check. Nobody could believe that. To Summarize: It was a good time had by all. Well run in general except they did nothing to stop the players from “playing” with their chips which made chip counting a little harder. I was able to keep decent chip counts so I never raised the issue. In retrospect, I think Ken Smith would have had a good time here since he was disappointed by the Palms and this was closer to home with cheaper transportation and entry fee. But who knows how his presence would have affected my outcome. We’ll never know. Well, it’s on the Orleans this weekend. Can always hope for more good news.
Yoo da (tool)man! Congrats on you big win, I'm really pleased for you. What are you going to buy with your winnings? A big diamond encrusted drill maybe? Or a new goldplated toolbelt? Since you've been posting on the subject of accumulation TBJ my interest in that format has gone up; it sounds more technical than I expected and it sounds like you need to have solid strategy and tactics to be successful. I'd like to give it a go sometime. It's a shame they don't do this sort of format online. Or do they??? Cheers Reachy
Can't buy a diamond - they won't let me buy chips at the BJ table with that. The money stays in my "gambling fund" to finance future play - both live and tournaments. This is the beauty of this hobby. It costs virtually nothing while I travel and meet with the friends I've met along the way. As for accumulation format, contrary to most on this site, I like this format. The big plus is that when you win you normally go directly to the semi-finals and sometimes directly to the final table. It involves different skills than table elimination. Some think it involves more luck than table elimination but that is not true in my opinion. It's different skills and if one is not willing to learn those skills then they call it luck. That's OK with me - makes it easier for me to win.
As a participant at the Tunica event I learned several valuable lessons, one is that the accumulation format isn’t as “luck” based as I had previously believed. There is skill and strategy involved – if you take the time to do it. All my prior experiences with Accumulation Formats were short and un-sweet. One hand, all-in, bust or lose to the dealer and out. That SUCKS big time. Now with two (2) accumulation rounds and the total scores it was more of a challenge. I differed from Toolman in my calculations and over calculated. That caused me to be too aggressive (no nothing caused me to be anything. I played too aggressively) at the close of Round 1. In my opinion this format benefits two (2) different kinds of players: (1) the “lucky” ploppies who simply bet big and have the dealer’s dumping and (2) the very astute, paying attention to all the details players. Let’s face it in a TBJT where there is 1 or 2 players advancing all you have to do is to pay attention to the people at your table. Who cares about what happened before or after your table? In this format that attention to detail really benefited Toolman. My only critique of this format would be the additional chip re-buy at hand 22 in Round 2. This is an interesting twist and in my simplistic, naive thought process was too little – too late. I would have placed the chip rebuy at hand 10 in Round 2. Why? It would have had more takers. With 15 hands to go and an additional 2,500 chips I would have likely done the re-buy. On hand 22 of Round 2 with the leader board demonstrating a need for 22,000 the odds of 3 all-in wins in a row wasn’t too appealing to me. The second thing I would like to see is to switch from a shoe game to a double deck game. Overall this tournament, along with the advice that I received, has led me to change my opinion from “I hate accumulation tournaments” to “you know with a little more studying a practice this might be very beneficial”. WHY? Well a majority of players who advance in these accumulation tournaments (50% and I’m painting with a broad brush so forgive me) aren’t as adept at TBJT or heads up play. So any TBJ.com member, such as Toolman, I feel would have an advantage at the semi-final table and as he demonstrated progressed to the final.
fgk42, You obviously have a desire to improve your game (as do I) irregardless of format. You picked up on a lot of things that occur in accumulation format games. If I can make one suggestion. The next time you play in this format, hang around the pit while you're not playing. You can then talk to many members of this site who will feed you with a wealth of information. They love to talk strategy as do I. I learned a lot from these folks and so will you. GOOD LUCK on your future play. On another note, I've never seen an accumulation tournament played double deck. I think the reason is it slows down the game. Using 8 decks normally means no shuffle time and of course no time wasted by players handling the cards. Keeps the tournament running on time.
