A tournament at the Silverton will have a quarterfinal round in which 18 of 48 advance in accumulation format. Starting bankroll is 500 with betting range 10-500. The target bankroll using the formula in Stanford Wong's "Casino Tournament Strategy" is roughly 800, but is says this formula breaks down when 20 or less advance. Any thoughts on how to play this?
I would predict the actual cutoff bankroll here to be around $650 to $700. Targeting anything around $750 to $800 sounds like a reasonable plan. Here's an idea that can be informative in considering the situation. If half the field were advancing instead (24 of 48), then the cutoff bankroll would probably be very close to the starting bankroll of $500. Whether making small bets or large bets, half the field is likely to end up with a net loss while half end up with a profit. Let us know where the actual numbers end up.
accumulative scores In accumulative tournaments where the necessary score is a few times bigger than the starting bankroll experienced players achieve most of their edge by correct estimation of what is needed to advance. This requires specific betting plan, part of which is utilizing progression in a way that there is no excess winning when last “do or die” bet is made. Scores of accumulative tournaments will vary depending on type of players and the widespread of consensus of what is needed. It is usually better to slightly overshoot than trying to just meet the number, especially when a high multiplier of your starting bankroll is needed. For example, you got an idea that the desired number is five times your original bankroll – this still may be not enough because of a “fluke” of others being extremely aggressive/lucky and 20% of the times you will not advance even if you reach your goal. If you set your goal at five and half time of the starting bankroll you will get there 10% less often but others would beat you only 5% of the times – overall a better strategy. Still, you need to come up with a right number to begin with. In tournament you inquire about setting the right number is a bit tricky. Without any additional information of the scores made in the previous tournaments and type of players I would set it at $750. You can wait a few hands for a better deck(s) composition, bet 250 until your bankroll is 750 or you bust. You will reach the goal about two thirds of the times and this will get you advancement in more than 90% of tournaments, so you total chances are well over 60%. An average player would advance 18/48th, which is 37.5%. You will be almost twice as good as the average. Good luck, S. Yama
My Results My wife and I played this a couple of weeks back when we spent the week in Vegas. After making it through the first round I started out shooting for $600 once I heard reports of previous weeks qualifiers. This was the first time that I played in an accumulation style format. Well, out of the 20 hands for this round I lost 17, pushed 1 and won 2. I started out with small bets figuring I would stay around the starting $500 mark and then try to get to $600 by hand 15. Needless to say with that type of win record (the two wins occured at hand 18 and 20) I ended up with $250 left. The cut off for advancing through this round was $360.
Cutoff Was 900 I qualified for the quarterfinal and got 770 in it. I was shooting for 750. A guy who plays that tournament every week told me he usually shoots for about 600. The tournament PC's told me after the round that the cutoff is usually around 600-700. They told me about the low cutoff of the week before, and that 900 was one of the highest cutoffs they'd seen. I only bet higher than the minimum of 10 once, on the 14th hand when the KO count finally got into positive territory. On that hand I bet 1/3 of my bankroll, a bet of 160, and got a blackjack for a 2:1 payment.
One More Thought If I had taken Yama's advice and bet 250 (or 240 which was half my bankroll) on the 14th hand instead of 160 I would've probably won the round with a score of 970 or 950. But this tournament only gives you ten seconds to think so I forgot. I'll remember that advice about going for the whole thing in one bet next time I play an accumulation tournament.
