Yet again Hollywood Dave make it two for two making the finals in a made for TV Gambling tournament. This time on the Travel Channels "Vegas Challange III". Four contestants playing four differant games play against one another in two thirty minute time periods. After the first thirty minutes they switch games, a roll of the dice was determind to see who gets to choose what game they would play next. The four games are: 1) Blackjack, 2) Dice, 3) Roulette, and 4) 3 - card poker. Dave (Hollywood) started out with Blackjack, and with a small lead moved to Dice for his second game. In one of the closest TV tournaments I have ever seen, Dave edged out a win by $80 dollars. Dave played very smart with the lead, once on Dice he stalled as much of the 1:30 per hand or roll as possible. By doing so he was able to sit back until he needed to make a bet and possiblly watch the others bust out (as two of the players did). Hopefully my buddy Skip "You gotta talk to the cards" Samad will have simular luck on next weeks show as well as fellow tournament player "Ken Eninger" (not sure which week) who is also in the "Vegas Challange III". Hollywood, Skip, & Ken were all on GSN's World Series of Blackjack this passed January at Mohegan Sun in CT where Hollywood grabed 2nd place for $25,000 (plus $5,000 for 2nd in the prelims). Congradulations Hollywood on tonights win, lets see if you win this one that is about ($40,000 for 4 - 5 days work) nice job if you can get it...LOL.
Hollywood, It's kind of a goofy show, but you came out looking good! I really liked the profile segment on you, especially the do-it-yourself Hollywood star. Well done under the circumstances!
Thanks for all the love, peoples! Yeah we all had a lot of fun shooting that, and overall I was happy with the quality of the show. As you probably noticed, it wan't too tech-heavy (appeals more to the general gambling public than us true blackjack nerds), and unfortuneately that lead to some overgeneralizations of playing & betting strategy. I came across as a progressive bettor, but of course I am not one -- but under the circumstances I had no choice. The 21 game I played had an awful 6-deck CSM in use (Shufflemaster was one of the show's sponsors) so counting would do no good (especially since I could only play one bet at a time). Likewise, traditional tournament strategy (flat-betting, etc) was out the window because I was the only one playing 21. What this created for me was an interesting series of correlations I scribbled out the night before, in terms of the relative strengths of each game and in particular the % advantage the house had in each. it was interesting to think of the universal truths between the games, and to sort of play the game as if it was all on one big table, discarding the different rules of each type of game & playing as if there were only universal elements of chance affecting outcome, and of course at blackjack i had the best of it (-.5%), whereas at craps the player would have -1.4% for each trial, 3-card poker something like -4% and at roulette a godawful ~-6%. So as long as I was 'up' I could limit my propensity for loss, but when down I had a greater chance of catching up than did the other players at the other tables. Anyway, that's probably more analysis than this game deserves, but there it is anyway. Won't it be fun to dissect the play (or mis-play, rather) of the stars starting next week when 'Celebrity Blackjack' airs? -hollywood dave.
Vegas Challenge And they threw you out of the stardust?.Send Stan Roth that tape he can watch it with Linda Gordon over a bottle of wine.They might let you back in!!!!!!! LOL.You belong to a fine group or was it a short list of us who cant play the Stardust.Who needs that Tournament they keep most of the re-buy money.
Good ole days Ah yes, the big crowds of 400 to 500. The 50 hands double decks tournament with the counters's bets rising in unison with the TC. The run across the street to the Riviera for the midnite madness tournament. Etc. The Stardust had it all! Those were the golden days! And who can forget Joe Pane's 100K first place win at the Stardust to be followed immediately by his barring. Very classy!
Remember when BJFAN, remember when we could win a $1,000 bonus just for winning our session and round winners could win $10,000 to a new Caddilac and those were just the bonus prizes. Now were hoping a casino will host a tournament that everybody can play in with at least a $20,000 first prize.
Stardust Tourn. I guess it could have been worse they could have barred me before i won the 100,000.But yes they were the good old days.Everybody was welcome,now it's like a Nazi prision.With Stan Roth as the warden and Linda Gordon as the director who took the Tournament from 450 people down to 200 maybe that's why she was shown the door.If only the stockholders knew what was going on over there.
