Practitioners of egregious hits may put this under the "Strategy" forum. I'm not so sure. Kind of like others thoughts. If the conventional thought, when playing a session of BJ is, that it doesn't matter what another player does, it's to your benefit the more cards you see and to play your hand by the "book" using your various indices how does one reconcile that in a tournament situation when an opponent intentionally busts a stiff or intentionally stays on a "hit" hand trying to influence the outcome. Popular myth of course of third base, hitting or not hitting "to give the dealer a bust card." It's been a while since I've seen the practice in tourney play but recently it occurred at two tables I was on in a tourney. The first in a preliminary round, third base with 100 bet hit a 19 to a dealer four while I had 1,600 and a six and others had large bets and played "book." Third base caught a 9. Dealer made 19. Second in semi final. One advance Three in contention on last hand. One completely out of running. BR 1 has me by 1200. I have BR3 by 2000. Max bet 10000. Im last to bet. BR1 bets 100. Br3 bets 10,000. Out of contention all in for five hundered. I bet 9,000. Dealer shows a four. BR3 gets 19 with no money back. Out of contention hits a 12 catches a nine. I stay on my15. BR1 stays on 14. Dealer hits a 7 for 21. BR3 is all mad about "out of contention taking the hit when "out of contention" has no shot, believing the 9 he caught would have busted the dealer and erroneously believing he would have won. I saw nothing to indicate BR1 and "out of contention were collaborating, but then again?
The strategy when doing this early may be to put you on tilt. The guy on the last round probably figured since he was out of it he still wanted to affect the outcome. Hitting a 12 v 4 is a really close play. I now last year was pretty frustrating in Tournaments. I kept setting myself up with the greatest chance of advancing when the dealer played his/her hand. Then a low percentage card would eliminate me just before the money round. I finally moneyed in a tournament but even then I was in first place going into the last hand and pushed my 19 while the 2 chasing me won their hands to have me finish 3rd. It was 1/4 the money that I would have won for first. Anyway I don't worry about how others play their hands but when against the odds you keep falling just short it gets really frustrating. I had one I was winning going into the last hand with one player moving to the finals. In the secret bet I bet everything except my $100 lead. Everyone else went all in. The guy that would play before me says, "F*ck me, You made the perfect bet. I need to get a blackjack. Give me a blackjack". You can guess what came next. You guessed it he caught a BJ and the round was over before anyone played their hand. I feel your pain but I wouldn't worry about how the others played. It will help you as often as hurt you.
Thanks for the reply. I really have no pain. Just trying to reconcile the intentional misplays. I know those attempts are just as likely to backfire. But its something I haven't seen in a while. As a member here said, "Everybody pays their money to enter they can do what they want.
Yep, I see this all the time, not just on the last hand but from players who have a big lead mid-round. In some cases, I believe that the purpose was to piss off the other players, but in a few other cases, I believe that the player truly thought that they were making it harder for the others to win their hands. I deviate from basic for other reasons; playing to win, playing to not lose, playing for the same result as an opponent and often, early in the round playing to reduce variance.
ok then, gronbog. Great comment. I guess I'll be aware of it happening but maintain what I think is my best approach and let the chips fall where they may
Noman- You've seen some good comments. There really is no mathematical sense that a player can take an "unreasonable" hit to negatively affect the outcome because it would just as likely yield a positive outcome. Statistics do not apply after the outcome is known, but the players only remember when a player hits a 20 on purpose and gets what would have been a dealer bust card. They forget the nearly equal number of times when the "unreasonable" player's hit card would have given the dealer a good hand. So, don't let those players irritate you. In fact send them to my table because their tournament strategy probably suffers elsewhere also!
