Here was the situation at last weekend $500k blackjack tournament in Vegas. Semifinal round, started with 6 people at table but 3 had busted out and there was only 3 of us left. Max bet is 100k, minimum bet is 1000. BR1: 210k BR2 (me): 182.5k BR3: 180k Secret bet last hand and after that we will act in the following order: BR2, BR1, then BR3. Top 2 advance and order of finish/final chip count is irrelevant. My thought was this: if I bet minimum-ish, I can secure the low from BR3 and he has to win the hand. Plus if BR1 overbets, he has to win (or push) also. Whereas, if I bet a larger amount, then they have position advantage over me and could possibly surrender to a win depending on the situation (surrender was available as an option). I bet $2000. As it turned out BR1 bet $25k and BR3 bet $75k, they both won the hand and I lost -- crushed my soul because this was huge money and my odds were very good once the secret bets were revealed. Would you have done it differently? Both players were decent tournament players -- reasonably smart and calculating, but definitely had no idea of proper tournament betting strategy/Wong/etc. I guessed properly that they would bet a large amount, but was really worried about position dis-advantage.
Yeah, that was a busy weekend in Vegas, three big tournaments and a couple of nice promos to top it off. I am assuming no-surrender rule. If you push then the amount of chips you bet is not important, except influencing playing strategy for your opponent. The difference between winning or losing your hand is about 5%. But that 5% shortfall occurs only if your opponents bet in such a way that they both have more unbet chips. You would like to “middle” them, so if you all win or all lose you will be in the second place. There are benefits of having somewhat bigger bet that would give you a chance to beat one of the opponents with a double, but still have low to one of them if double was not a good option. Depending how your opponents played, I would like bet of 32K. The first choice, though, probably would be bet of 59K. Assuming that BR1 bets no more than 30K – which is his lead over BR3, winning your bet of 59 gets you ahead of BR1 betting up to 30K and ahead of BR3 betting up to 61. If BR3 uses similar analysis he could come up with very nice bet of ... 61, lol. Also, you advance if BR1 bets more than 87K and loses, or BR3 losing 57K or more. S. Yama
Surrender was an option and remember I was acting first. The problem I saw with betting big is that, especially with surrender out there, I would probably need to win or push the hand to advance... and that is at most ~50%, whereas with a small bet I advance if BR3 loses/push (more than 50%) and if BR1 overbets and loses (obviously the loss is correlated to BR3 losing, but still the odds of either of these things happening was over 60%).
Another strategy review - final hand of round I was in Round 4 of the LVH 100K tournament 2 weeks ago. At stake was advancing to the semi-final round and a guaranteed $1,000. Going into the final hand, BR1 was way ahead and out of reach. I was BR2, approx $2,000 ahead of BR3. (I had approx $8,500 to his $6,500) Top two advance. Usual LVH rules: Min. bet of $100, max bet of $2,500. I was on the button: 1. I bet $2,500. Was that my best betting strategy? 2. BR3 then bet $2,500. I assumed he would do that, but now if we both win or both lose, I advance. I'm dealt a total of 12. BR3 is dealt two "3's." The dealer is showing a 4. My move: I anticipate that he might split the pair in order to get more money on the table, but I'm reluctant to hit the 12 and bust. That would allow him to pass me with only a push and one win on a split hand. So, I stand. As expected, he splits the 3's and receives a 10 on each. He stands on each hand. The dealer turns over her other card - a "10." As BR3's rooting section began cheering behind him, the dealer then took her next card - a "7!" So, possibly better to be lucky than right. But were my betting and playing decisions correct?
details of min, 57K, and 32K bets Masonuc, Perhaps I piled too much betting and playing and planing possibilities at once, so in response you just repeated your first statement. But before I take it one thing at a time, still trying to capture the whole picture, which will confuse/bore some/many readers Iam writing the conclusion, so the rest of the post can be left unread, lol. By betting 1K or 2K you guarantee yourself advancement when BR3 pushes or loses, which are about 56%. You may get even higher chances if BR1 bets big and loses, but this is unlikely, so your total chances are about 60%. This is a good, “safe”, bet that eliminates (not likely but still a chance) possibility of having to win, win double, or at least push, which may drop you to low forties. By betting 59K you increase your total chances to about 70%. This may be the best bet, where your result will be spread depending how your opponents bet. There is a very small chance that their bets will reduce your advancement to as little as 40%, but in most cases it will be over 70%, and if BR3 bets 55K to 61K and BR3 less than 25K (which are quite likely for good players) you would advance more than 80% of the time. By betting 32K your chance will be, rounding it, about 65%. This is bet that really is minimizing getting into situation where your chances are below 50% but also no chance to get to high 70%. And if anybody cares: 1. If you bet small (less than your lead over BR3), you advance when at least one of the two things happens: BR3 loses or pushes, or when BR1 bets more than his lead over you and loses. The chance of BR1 betting big is rather small; nevertheless it is a chance. For further discussions/clarification, you are welcomed to input percentage you believed he could bet more than his lead. Based on your statement that your opponents had some tourney experience, I would give it, let’s say 10% chance. Also, I put chance of BR3 betting less than 6K, so you could neutralize his win by winning your 2K bet double, at less than 5%, which means we will disregard this option at this point. In this scenario, by betting small your chance to advance would be BR3 losing/pushing – about 56%. If BR3 won, then you still could advance if BR1 had bet more than his lead over you (plus amount of your bet if you too were to lose your bet of 1K or 2K), that happens slightly more than 35% but giving only 10% chance that he made big bet, this would contribute less than 4% to your total chances. Your total chances of advancing while betting near minimum are about 60%. If you bet 59K your chances of advancing will depend on your opponents’ bets. Let’s take a few reasonable scenarios. 2. BR3 has a good reason to worry that both opponents bet less than their lead over him, so even if his opponents lose their bets, without winning his own bet, he may be locked out. Since he has to win his bet he should bet as much as possible (which often times will be eithe max or half the bankroll) except for a miniscule chance of somebody betting max and giving him “low”. Since BR1 has 30K lead over him, and can safely bet 29K (but often times even experienced players bet exactly the whole lead), BR3 needs to bet at least 61K to beat BR1 winning his bet. BR3 should consider betting less than 70K, so if either BR2 or BR1 for a strange reason bet maximum and lose, his loss may give him advancement. Of course the smaller, and closer to 61K bet the better BR3’s chances for the low. If BR1 bets anything less than 30K, and BR3 bets 55K to 61K than for BR2 (masonuc) we have: Surrender all bad hands, and “okay” hands if BR3 is also weak, making it a situation slightly better than our case number one, with more than 60% chances of advancing. Stay on good hands (more than 20% of all hands), which forces BR3 to either surrender or double, and on hands that are okay when they correlate to BR3’s. He will not surrender if his chance of winning is better than your chance of losing. Your chances would be impressive. If BR3 wins a double, your win still advances you if BR1 pushes or loses. Your total chances of advancing in this case are over 80%. 3. If BR1 bets 62K or more and BR1 less than 30, another very probable scenario if your opponent is not precise with his bets, your chances of advancing will be probably around 70%. Much better than the first case because you have low to BR3 by surrendering, low to BR3 if his hand has a better chance of winning than losing and BR1 doesn’t have good double, and you have high to BR1. 4. The worse case scenario would be if BR3 bet 6K or less than you, taking away chance of surrendering. Against my bet of 59K BR3’s bet of 41K to 51K would be really bad (even my win can be taken away by BR3’s bj or double), but I still advance in most of pushes and wins, unless your opponent. Against skilled player chances would be in low forties. S. Yama
bet a chip less than the lead Esposo, (Do you mind my asking , is your nickname of Castilian or Portuguese origin?) Back to blackjack, Even having a strong feeling that your opponent will bet max, if your lead was 2K, bet a chip less than your lead (there are even a better bets, but that’s something for another post). By betting a chip less than your lead, instead of betting 2,500, you retain most of the benefits of betting max but you also advance when you lose and your opponent pushes, and when you lose split/full double hand and your opponent loses single bet. On plus side if you get a blackjack you advance even if your opponent wins double max bet. S. Yama
Castilian, I think Esposo was my nickname during my former marriage to a Puerto Rican woman. As for blackjack, I love your analysis. What an eye opener!
