Hello, Relatively new member here. Great site and very helpful. Haven't seen this question asked recently: Say in a thirty-hand tourney, a player max-bets on the first two or three hands and wins all of them. Meanwhile, I've been betting near the minimum. At what point do I start "chasing" the wildcat max bettor and begin max-betting along with him? Very obviously, can't let him get too far in front, but with 27 or so hands to go, don't want to burn out my bankroll, either. Thanks in advance for your thoughts. Sincerely, blkjkplyr
to chase or not to chase? Ha Ha - I see YOU'VE played elimination BJ lately! Great question. I ran into that last night myself. However something interesting happened this wildbetter had 110,000 on have 5. By hand 20 they were down to 25,000! I don't know the final outcome as I was ELIMINATED on hand 25. But it's a good question. Minimum betting aka Wonging it - Is it out of date for ELIMINATION BJ?
Wildcat Bettor "Wildcat bettor." Hmmmm. I like that term. It's a keeper. There are two breeds of wildcat bettors. One breed gets a big lead but keeps right on going with the big bets, or backs off for a few hands then starts it again. It takes patience but you can usually beat this player by waiting him out. The other breed gets the big lead, then backs off and patiently waits for everyone to bust out chasing him. This one is more dangerous. But in my experience this player usually loses too, because one or more of the chasers manage to catch him. That happened in the last two tournament tables I've played. When to start chasing? If you do it successfully but too soon you're just putting yourself in the same position as the wildcat - as target. If you wait too long everybody will be doing it with you and you're mired in a max bet card lottery. I start chasing when I sense the other chasers are almost to the point of pulling the trigger. 5-10 hands out seems good. In UBT if these big bets are successful, they'll also get you past the third elimination hand. The common denominator here is this big betting player doesn't understand the nature of blackjack, and so is just hoping to get luckier than his opponents. A skilled player needs to get lucky to win a tournament. But he doesn't need as much luck as a wildcat bettor does. Good luck to you blkjkplyr and welcome to our community.
I played 2 Play money Sit N Go's on UltimateBet last night and had a Wildcat Bettor both times. The first time they bet 25K on the first hand and got a BJ while I lost my $500 bet. They kept doing it and by hand 8 I was in first with 46K(Yes, I upped my bet and got the cards). I cruised to the second elimination hand(16) with 46K while everyone else duked it out. At 16 there was only me and another player left. The second time the same player bet 25K again and got a 20. Another player also bet 25K and got a BJ. Both did 25K again on the second hand and won. I lasted 3 hands that time as much because I was trying to catch up as well as it was time to go to bed anyway. Must be because it's Play money but I saw a lot of stupid plays in that first match. I saw numerous 14, 15 and 16s hit when the dealer had a bust card. I also saw a guy with a 2,3 hit it to 20 and then take another hit to bust with 25K on the line.
Always there Agreed you see a lot of stupid play in the free S&G, but it seems like in the real money tourneys we are starting to see some more calculated play. If you play poker online you see the same thing, people who always go all in on the first hand hoping to catch a hand on luck rather than having anything.
I had a similar experience last night. The wildcat bettors are out there for sure. At the 5.00 sit-n-go table we had 1 wildcat bettor go early. The problem is the minimum and maximum bet spread is HUGE. For those used to the measly 10 Global betting this is gonna take some getting used to. I'm glad this finally opened up the EBJT. I had been making some rather large and unusual bets on Global and due to the max limits kept busting early. The "quality" of the play in the money games is much better than in the freeroll tourneys. In fact there was a big difference in play at the 5.00 table vs the 1.00 table.
Luck! Wildcat bettors, not bad. I always called them Rabbits or Slammers, the players who like to start out fast. It is because of these type players that I perfer 2 players advance frpm round one. In most cases with so many players betting big the chances of one of them hitting is pretty good. Then your at a big disavantage having to play from behind. It's like playing an Indain casino tournaments where the locals get more chips then you to start out. Yes I am whining, but it is concern whining...LOL Bottomline is if you don't have Good Luck your screwed. Last two days I advanced in the UB freerolls through the first few rounds only to lose in round where 4 players got to advance from each table, OUCH! In the first 8 hands I lost all but one hand in the first tournament and all 8 hands in the second tournament, whata gonna do?
When I play the UBT 30 hand tournys I like to just try to stay ahead of most of the pack and not worry about the BR1 too much. I figure that BR1 will fall or I will catch up by the final hand. I made to the Semifinal in the 1000 freeroll yesterday with that strategy. It seemed to work. You have to be a little more wary of the BR1 in the first round though with only one advancing. I would like to say that this site has helped a lot in the last few months and I hope to see you guys at the tables I'm at. DachH
Tour de France I've used this analogy for tournament BJ before and I think it still applies in multi-elimination BJ. In the TdF on any particular stage their are "mini" stages for the sprinters. Within the overall stage there were several points where scores would be awarded for crossing a particular line first and this is where the spinters would pick up points. They would rarely win the overall stage and the likes of Lance Armstrong would sit in the peloton until towards the end of the stage where he would then power away. Cyclists who went out in the front or tried to break away at the start would very rarely stay there and the peloton would soon catch up, reeling them back in. Cheers Reachy
Well what happend to me the other night was a woman at my table was wildcat betting and hitting she was like $600.00 or $700.00 a head of me in the 10th round of 20 so i figured i better catch up to make a long story short i busted out at hand 19 if i had of stayed with the min till maybe 18 she would only have been $100.00 ahead of me. On the other hand the tournement before that i stayed at min till 20 of 21 i hit with a max but i wound up $200.00 short.
This is a timely topic, and one that I asked the beginning of the year when I started playing tournaments. Monkey is right.... there are two types of 'wildcats'... one that cant stop betting big, and the other who will sit w/ min bets once they are in a large lead. We see this in every UB SnG and tourney lately, so the question is.... what do you do about it? When I asked this question earlier this year, the best advice was... wait out the players for a few hands to see if they will bust themselves out. If they dont, and especially if they switch to sitting on the lead, its time to make the moves and increase the bets. (This was before elimination hands on UB, where you need to make sure your not low stack on the elimination rounds - play to stay out of last vs bet gangbusters to take first). So with that said, when you need to 'chase', Im doing it by starting w/ 15% to 30% of my chip count earlier in the game then I usually did. Its been fairly successfull, because if you wait for the last two or three hands where you need to split your stacks or hit several max bets to even have a chance, one loss and your chances of catching up may be gone. This became especially painful when I'd loose or push my last few hands and max bet my way to 0 chips. Im loving UB right now with the 'loose' players betting on luck and 'wildcat'n' every bet. Stacks
I have to agree. In every tournament I've played on UB, almost the entire field has shot out of the gate with max bets. Some of lost their bankroll after 3 hands, some have not. Those 2 or 3 of us starting more conservatively have been battling not to be eliminated by hand 8. And when you catch that ace after doubling down on an 11 against dealer 5 with a max bet and the dealer draws out to 20....man, do I hate when that happens.
