Did I make the right move?

2nd to last hand. I'm 2nd base. As you can see, I get a by-the-book double, so I do it and get a 4 . At the end, dealer gets a 17 and beats everybody. 1st base advances because of the unbet chips. Did I have a good shot at advancing if I didn't double?

 

There's really not enough information here to answer your question. We would need to know exactly how many chips everyone had, how much they bet, the order of play and what cards everyone had, including the dealer's up-card.

However, whether you make a double in these situations or not almost never has anything to do with basic strategy (by-the-book). It has more to do with whether you need to get more money on the table in order to cover someone else's potential result and whether betting the extra chips puts you more at risk. In this case, if making the double is what caused you to have fewer unbet chips than 1st base, then it was probably a mistake. I am a bit confused, since you said that it was the 2nd to last hand, but you also said that 1st base advanced when the dealer beat everyone.

 

Thanks for the prompt reply gronbog. Maybe you didn't check out (click here) the linked image I posted in my first post. Here are the numbers:

1st base: 71 unbet 25 bet
2nd base (me): 38 initial bet, 76 doubled (all in)
3rd base: 73 bet (all in)
4th base: 64 bet (all in)

Remember this particular tournament didn't allow doubling for less and blackjacks paid even money.

 

Heh --- I've never seen a photo of a blackjack tournament strategy situation posted before. Describes the situation perfectly. It might have been fun to post only the photo so that we could use our chip counting skills!

With these bets and cards it looks like your choices were to stand on your soft 18 and hope no one ellse makes a hand and the dealer draws 17 or 18 or to double. My 1 minute choice would be to make the double, especially with your soft hand. It gives you the high (i.e. you finish first if you win your hand) and takes the 3rd and 4th players' actions out of consideration (the player on the button bets/acts last according to the game described in the OP's introduction post).

 

Wow, this is cool picture. Did you have a friend taking these pictures? or was it the casino?
Any way my understanding that going to the next to last hand you were BR2 (second in terms of chips). You were behind BR1 by 2o chips. Generally, in this hand you would like to bet big (41 chips which is twice the difference +1) to become BR1. However, there is an exception to the rule here because 1) there is no max bet and 2) you will be betting after BR1 on the final hand. So, BR1 bet 25 and you bet 38 which is fine. Now you got soft 18 and every one else had a stiff. Everyone else other than BR1 had no unbet chips. My 30 sec answer would to not double. By doubling you gave BR1 the chance to advance if the dealer makes a hand on 4 which is about 62% of the time. Now, I can understand why there was no final round. By not doubling, even if you lost along with everyone else, you will go to the final hand still as BR2 and betting after BR1, which is not a bad situation.

 

There's a lot that we could talk about here, beginning with the bets (good and bad) and the way the cards were played (also good and bad). Anyone care to get things started? (looks like The Professional did just that while I was typing!)

 

Not quite true, because by doubling he could have also made a hand with an Ace, 2, 3, 9 or face, which has the chance of beating or pushing the dealer. What we need here are the chances of winning a doubled soft 18 vs a 4.

 

Well, I will try to look up the chance of winning a double on soft 18 vs 4 but I am not clear how to use that information though. This is because regardless of that %, the chance of winning soft 18 against a 4 is higher without a double down than with a double down, as 3 cards will make it better, 4 make it the same but 6 will make it worse. So, by doubling down the chance of winning the hand is reduced but the amount of potential win increased ( that is why the book of BJ said to double) but this will happen at a big expense in this situation.

 

hehehe yeah, I was lucky enough the casino staff took a picture of the hand and uploaded it to their page. Nice memorable moment of my very first tournment ever.

Just to remind you guys: double for less wasn't allowed and blackjack paid even money.

I hope we come up with some good strategies for these particular rules (no max bet, even money blackjack, player on the button bets last, 20 rounds, no doubling for less: I call them 3rd world rules lol). So I get a good shot at the next tournament hehe. Thanks again everybody.

 

You can check the chip count, maybe I miscounted in the picture. I was convinced I made the right move till today, according to what you guys say I'm starting to think I messed up: If I didn't double, and taking into account the dealer got 17, I would have won and could have started the final hand as the chip leader (leading by 5 chips) right?

 

You were 20 chips behind BR1. If BR1 lost his hand of 25 chips, you would have been 5 chips ahead if you pushed or 43 chips if you won. However, you did not know that the dealer would get 17, so that information is hind sight. If you did not take the 4, the dealer could have gotten something else. I still could not find the exact % win for soft 18 against the 4 but I am guessing it is about 59% if you stand and 55% if you hit or double. So, it is not really a big difference but that is always the case in tournament probabilities. You can optimize your chances as much as possible but good luck is very helpful. Just to clarify why in regular BJ it is a double. In regular BJ, we are interested in the long term. In other words, if you got soft 18 against 4 say 1000 times. If you double every time, you will win 5% less times but because you have more money on the table, you will end up with say 10% more money after the 1000 time. In a tournament, most of the time, we only interested in the outcome of this specific hand; long term is not that relevant. Therefore, the win frequency becomes more important than the long term expected return.

 

This situation is a bit more complex than it appears on the surface, because it is the second last hand. To analyse this situation, we really need to enumerate all of the possible outcomes of doubling vs standing along with their probabilities and then analyse the probabilities of prevailing on the final hand from each of these positions. However we can perhaps simplify things based on a few observations:

• If he survives this hand, no matter what happens, Diestro will be acting/betting first on the final hand since spot 1 will have the button (the player on the button acts last in this game and spot 4 has the button on this 2nd last hand according to post #3 in this thread -- a bit ambiguous in the photo).
• Because of this, Diestro really needs to be BR1 going into the final hand, even if spot 3 and spot 4 bust out. So we can go a long way by examining this goal. i.e. we can treat this as the final hand with 1 advancing.
• A quick simulation has the ballpark percentages for standing on his soft 18 vs the dealer's 4 as: win: 52.4%, lose: 35.1%, push12.5% and for doubling: win: 52.4%, lose: 40.0%, push: 7.6%
• Note that the percentages for winning are the same (52.4%) for both actions. However, winning his soft 18 does not make him BR1 unless the dealer beats or pushes the other players whereas winning his double does guarantee that he will be BR1.
• Pushing in either case has value, provided that the dealer beats or pushes the other players. Standing has the edge here, but still no guarantees because ...
• Spot 1 has stood on a stiff, which is good, however Spot 3 has a free hit (soft 13) and spot 4 has a stiff, but could also hit (he didn't), so we can not assume that their hands will remain stiff and that a dealer 17 or 18 will be sufficient to beat or push spots 3 and 4.

Given that the probabilities are close for winning or pushing from soft 18 by doubling or standing, I think that I would rather take the guaranteed BR1 position offered by winning a double here.

 

Gronbog
Thanks for the anaylsis. I think the button is on 3rd place. So, he will play after 1st base unless 3 and 4 busts out. The win rate for soft 18 vs 4 cannot be the same for standing and doubling; there is something probably not correct with the simulations. I would also say that he had a good hand soft 18 while 3 and 4 had stiffs. So, essentially bringing it down to him and BR1 and that case taking the low, in my view, is better given that BR1 also had a stiff.

 

Yes, the actual position of the button does make a great deal of difference and your comments above hold true if the button is indeed at spot 3, except that spot 3 would not yet have stood with a stiff. He would still be in it with one or more free hits with his soft 13. This is a significant consideration given that Diestro needs everyone to lose or push if he stands, not just spot 1. I based my assumption about the button on the order of the bets given in post #3 of this thread. However, he may have just given them in order from spot 1 to spot 4.

Unfortunately, you can't just count the number of card ranks which make things better/the same/worse in order to make this determination. This is because each rank has a different strength/weakness when drawn. For example, the probability of drawing an Ace or a 3 are roughly the same, however you will clearly win more doubles if you draw a 3 (88.8%) than if you draw an Ace (65.0%) . You need to multiply the probability of drawing each card by the probability of then winning vs the dealer 4 and then add these sums to get the probability of winning the double. The sim was a quick one (only 39 million hands). I have now let it run a little longer (~411 million hands) and the results are now:

double: win 52.5%, lose 40.0%, push 7.5%
stand: win: 52.4% , lose 35.1%, push 12.5%​

I'm very confident that these numbers are correct to within 0.1%.

 

Thanks Gronbog- I appreciate your analysis and insight.

 

Thanks both of you guys for the analysis. Those last numbers pretty much sum it up for me. It was a very close decision but in the end I think I should have stayed.

 

hehehe... It looks like the tournament was a big hit for the casino, they just started a 2nd tournament !!! Any advice pals?

 

Likewise!

 

Diestro, can you clarify for us who had the button on that second last hand?

 

The 4th base player, which means 1st base had the advantage of betting the last in the final hand, as you said (player on the button bets last).