AOL Tournaments

Looks like AOL has started nightly blackjack tournaments. Right now they are freerolls (actually $100 play money buy in). Not sure what the prize structure is, but they mention you win passes too, so maybe the passes will be for bigger tourneys. Maybe this is a preview for things to come with GSN.

Tourneys begin at 9:00 pm EST. Max 2000 players, but only about 160 so far tonight (25 minutes prior to start).

 

where is this tournament located, and how do you get to it?

 

So I take it you have to be an AOL member right?

Any possibility you can give some more info so I can decide if I want to join AOL just to compete in a play money freeroll?

PS You missing the Monday Night Tourney at BJ21. Don't forget their Thursday night multi-table too!

 

AOL Blackjack Tournament

Start here.
http://games.aol.com/blackjack

Complete Tournament Rules
http://fungames.aol.com/help/bjtourneyrules.html

 

At the final table!

I will post my impressions later, but you don't have to pay to have an aol account to play. Just sign up for AIM (instant message /chat) and you can use that to sign in to play.

More later....

Pat

 

Impressions

Looks like AOL has been running these daily tournaments for a while now. I don't recall seeing any discussions before on this.

Bankroll $5,000

Bet $100 - $2500

30 hands played


Elimination format, first rounds 2 per table advance, semifinals one per table advances

No wildcards to fill tables. Final table only had four players. Semifinals had six players (I think this was a full table).

When your table finishes, you have to wait till other tables finish. It will tell you number of tables still playing and what hand they are on, but no easy way to go to lobby and watch or see how other tables are progressing.

5 minute break between rounds in addition to whatever time you wait for tables to finish.

No double down on blackjacks. Surrender offered. DAS up to four hands. Split aces up to four hands.

20 second counter. When it is your turn, the buttons appear to make your bet and to play the hand. If it is not your turn, there is nothing showing on the table, so it is kind of weird to figure out how to play until you go a few hands. Bet is made by sliding marker left and right to change bet, which can be difficult. Bets appear to be made in $100 increments.

Watch out for the timer. If you fail to make bet, the default is for you to sit out hand. This means you make minimum bet, but do not get cards, you just forfeit your hand. This happened to me once on final hand, but luckily I had the low in spite of the play and it worked out.

My first table had six players showing, but only three of us were playing. I finally figured out that the other three must have been no shows. They just made minimum bets each hand, got no cards dealt to them, and forfeited hands. It was weird because the button stopped at each of the ghost players. I don't know what would have happened if everyone had busted out and one of the ghosts had won the table to advance.

The only sounds are the sound of chips being paid or cleared from table by dealer. There is a visable sign showing who is playing (star under name rotates around table). The other odd item is that chips are not removed from betting circle unless you lose. Under your name it shows two lines, the top bottom line is your bankroll, and the top line is your bankroll after your bet. To figure out what was bet you have to take the difference between the numbers. Since the chips stay in the circle till it is your turn to bet, it makes it kind of difficult to watch bankrolls. You have to watch to see if the players have made a new bet yet (which replaces their chips in circle) or if it is from their last payout. Pretty confusing at first, but you get the hang of it after a bit.

There is an option to Sit out a hand, but I think that only means that you forfeit $100 and skip the hand.

Not sure what you do with the funny money you win on their site, and what the pass cards are for. I guess they will tell us later. I didn't find any record of what you have in your account either, but I must have had $100 to play since it didn't restrict my play.

Good luck to anyone else playing.

Pat

PS: I just read the rules from the link above. Check out the tie breakers. This is almost as bad as high card draw!!!!

 

Final hand

Well it came down to the final hand, needed something to dd on being BR3. Got the 20, split got an 18 and 20, but dealer pulled a 19, so not enough to swing. It was fun, but Deb informed me that our marriage can't stand 3 hours of tournaments every night, so guess I won't be playing as much as I would like....



Third place was $2300, first was $9300. Don't know yet how you spend the funny money on AOL. I just hope it will buy a seat for a WSOB 2007 tournament later on.

 

More observations

I didn't get to play on AOL last night, but did notice a few things. They had a little over 300 players last night. You can sign up until the last minute, or you can sign up beginning 24 hours in advance.

I had mentioned the "sit out" button. I actually saw someone use it last night at the final table. They sat out four or five hands, just forfeited their $100 bet, got no cards, just skipped their turn. Really weird. It seems like you should at least play your hand instead of just giving up with no chance of even pushing or winning.

Also general observation.....most people had no clue on how to play BS much less tournaments. People were standing on any stiff hand, doubling for no reason, and the one everyone loves, splitting their 10's just about any time they could for no strategic reason. You love it when the leader splits his 10's and gives up the lead!

Speaking of leads, most people had no clue that the objective was to be first or second on the table to advance. Leaders were making big bets and giving up their lead, while people who needed to bet big to get into the game seemed content to just make small bets with no hope of being close at the end.

Of course it still comes down to getting the cards to advance, but at least your chances here should be good!



PS: I think the first tournament on this site was July 21st, so they have not been playing very long. At least there is somewhere new you can go and kill three hours each night if you like, assuming you don't get killed by your better half in the process....

 

Ptay,

Thanks for the low-down on this.

I registered and will try my first AOL tourney tonight! The prize is 2 passes! What the heck does that mean? Hopefully I'll win one and let you know!

 

Could the passes be for their invitational tournament where the prize is a seat to the WSOBJ?

 

well I busted out in the semi's. They had 144 tonight. The set up is difficult compared to BJ21 and global.

The play in the first round was hideous. Just bet minimum and since two advanced most of the people would likely bust out. That's what happened at my table.

Round two was better play

Round three was good play

thirty hands per round

 

AOL Tournament

I checked out the AOL tournament also. 268 people played, which made for a long tournament that lasted over three hours.
I made it to the end of the third round and was glad when it was over. For my effort, I recieved $130.00 in play money, a Blackjack Initiation Pass and 2 wonderfull prize cards. :joker: I have no clue what thay are used for.

 

Congratulations Perg,

For busting out IN the 3rd round I got the $130.00 in play money, a Blackjack Initiation Pass too. I also got big black bags under my eyes from playing until 11:30!

Was it just me or was it hard to figure out peoples bets and BR's? Overall I didn't have any dropped lines, it WAS free and good practice however the play that I encountered was sporadic - especially in the first hand. After 10 hands the BR1 at my table had 25,000 to my 6,000 and he/she busted out around round 23-24!

 

11:30 an early night for me!!

Lightweight!!! Over in Blighty that's when these things start for us! At the earliest! I'd love to give one of these AOL games a go as I am unfortunately one of their customers but I don't think it'd start till 2am Somerset time.

Maybe next week when the missus takes the kids away for a few days.

Cheers

Reachy

 

AOL software

As noted by others, the play of others in the tournament is really bad, so just playing min and waiting for everyone to bust out is a good strategy. As I posted earlier, hopefully the prizes can be used for buy ins to other tourneys or something.

I looked for a link to send comments to AOL, but could not find one. If someone finds a link, maybe they can post it here so we can send questions and recommendations. Hopefully they will expand this out later if they get more participation and run multiple tournaments daily, so that Reachy can play!

As far as figuring out bets, read my earlier post.

The bottom number is the bankroll, the top number under the name is the bankroll after deducting the bet in the circle, so the difference is the bet. The catch is, when you win a hand, the dealer pays you, but the chips remain in the circle till it is your turn to bet at which time the chips change to your new bet.

The problem is you have to watch what are "real" bets versus chips from the last hand which are in the circle. You can do this by watching the star move around in betting order from the button. Another clue is that the max bet is $2500, so if you see a $5000 chip in the circle, you know that is from the prior hand, not a bet this round.

I'll probably play tonight. Hope to see some of you at the final table!

Pat

 

Hey Pat,

Thanks again for the info about this. Especially about the play and bets, etc.

It would be nice to know WHAT the passes are for. As for me, I'll be at BJ21 tonight and probably wait a few more nights until I go back to AOL.

Hopefully I see you there one night next week.

PS to those members doing this AOL event plan on 3 hours at least. And make sure your significant other knows about it in advance. (ouch )

 

3rd Place

So I ended in 3rd place... Hope to find out soon what the $$ and passes I won mean?

TY Ptaylor for the info!!

Maria

 

Great job Maria,

Remember to keep us posted when you find out!

 

Nice job Maria

I'm glad to hear that others on BJT are benefiting from my post. AOL can be very confusing at first when you have played on BJ21 and Global regularly. I am looking for a way to send comments to AOL about how to improve their game and also find out what the dollars and game pieces can be used for in the future. I got a response from some guy in India to find something called "feedback" on AOL, but that just points me back to the one place I found to ask questions to Tech support. Now that AOL is cutting their staff it will probably be even harder to find anyone.

I didn't get past round 2 last night. Had one player who kept firing off big bets and would jump out to a big lead just to lose it back. He busted out before the end. Problem was some of the others decided to follow his style and they didn't lose, so my only hope of advancing was to DD 16 on last hand, but didn't get lucky. Oh well, I got to bed about 2 hours earlier than if I had advanced.



BTW, see my post about ghosts in round one. This seems to be a big problem, people signing up to play and not showing up at the table. Evidently if you sign up ahead of time for the tournament you are assigned a seat at a table regardless of whether you actually make it to play or not. The computer will automatically deduct a $100 per hand for each hand that you miss and even if you "win" the table because everyone else busts out, the rules state that you are ineligible to advance. The ghosts slow down play a bit because the computer still takes a few seconds to go around the table to each of the positions to take and settle bets. The rules also state that you can join your table up to the last hand and get credit for play in round one. As long as you play one hand per round you are eligible to advance. There was someone who joined around hand 20, but promptly busted out making max bets. So beware, you have to be aware that one of the ghosts could suddenly appear and present a threat near the end of the game to whatever strategy you are playing.

PS: You can also identify ghosts because they have brackets around their names if they are not in their seat.