Last night's monthly Victory Points tourney on blackjack21.com saw a strategy unique to that site. In the first round Blarneystone stayed offline for all 15 hands and came in second. This site is unique in that there is no penalty for not actually playing your hands. If it is possible to say that I correlated bets with a ghost, that's what I did, flat-betting $100 on each hand. By last hand BR1 was at $1300, I was at $1150 and Blarneystone was at $1100. Looked like a lock for me but on the final hand I got an 18, dealer made 20 and Blarneystone pulled a 21 (yes, the program will even hit for you if you don't get over 10 on the initial cards and Blarneystone got an ace on his 10.) Final score, me $1050, Blarneystone $1200. So Blarney, did you stay offline and win the tourney as well?
Actually he won in the finals I signed up for yesterdays VP tournament and forgot about it, then while sitting at my computor last night I remembered and went to the site. I was shocked to see my name in the semifinals still playing since I had not been playing. I got in with just a few hands left, (I was BR4 or BR5 at the time). I was win enough to pull out a 2nd place and advance to the finals. In the finals I was BR2 going into the last hand and bet enough to take the lead only to lose to the dealers BJ, giving Barney the win, with me 2nd. I did notice a few players offline last night, once I got on. Guess it is hard to beat plan dumb luck...LOL
Dang If I had remembered I would have come in 1st! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: Rando I can do it to man LLOLOLOLOLOL
Hey you got first ...I only got second....lol Im mad now because I signed up for the orginal VP tournament ...which was canceled (they really need to fix that as it seems to happen every month) but I was only notified yesterday that it was being held that very night....I didnt check my email until after it was too late to register... Heck I think I could have beat you no shows....maybe not.... I dont know if I would have posted and complained that I couldnt beat an absent person....lol Actually when we have absents at UB/Bet 21 they are often ahead of me at hand 5 when they are auto removed from the game... Its funny becasue I play poker at a site that has low stake free rolls and odd times so I sign up but often miss the game....I check game summary and I am usually in the top 25% .... I think there is something to be said for conservative play in both BJ and Poker...
Oops, my mistake, I thought TxTourplayer finished first (I finished 4th). Well, congrats for your hard work Barney
Is that your new BJT strategy? Sign up and don't play :laugh: What book did you get that out of? Wait don't tell me - the new HD BJ Book?
HD has a book? It would be about poker right As for the absent players, if you cant beat the, join them, and win like them :eyepatch:
measure This thread has got me thinking whether an "absent player test" can be used to compare the relative skill levels required for different TBJ rules/formats. An absent player is clearly playing without skill since no betting strategy is employed and BS isn't even followed. And yet such a player can still win a MTT!!! So how would this test work? Well, you'd have to play many 1000s of games with an absent player included employing minimum bets standing on everything less than H11 and see how they perform. Using one of the measures that have been previously described on this forum to assess the level of expertise of a player, we could measure the level of skill of the absentee and compare it across formats. The higher the score the less skill is required for that particular game format. I realise there are many practical problems associated with this sort of test which probably renders it inoperable but it's food for thought. Maybe there is some way we can infer a skill level by not playing an absent player but comparing actual results with the potential result if the "absentee" strategy were followed. Or we could use a simulator of some sort but of course that if fraught with problems, not least that a decent TBJ simulator doesn't exist yet. Maybe the latest version of Casino Verite will have something we can use? Just some ideas..... . . . . . Cheers Reachy
