Golden Nugget June '23

This was very accurate and appears to still be the format as of May 2024. I inquired about the June event. Thank you!

 

The odds of cashing in this tourney is something like 35/x

37/x = n where n is percentage of players that cash. if the average player enters 1.5x, this will pay them back 2/3 of their buy in. I'll estimate that round one had 60 entries and round one rebuy another 60. But its an elimination format. Your odds of making it to the money is more like 2/6+2/6+1/6+1/6+x% chance to be wild. If Wong and Ken are supposed to imrove my odds, than I wonder what the correct line is for me.

Any suggestions? Set me straight.

 

You need to multiply the probabilities of advancing from each round, not add.
This gives you the probability, p, of advancing to the cash round. To factor in the wildcard calculate p + (1 - p) X x%. It is conditioned by (1 - p) because the wildcard only applies if you don't advance on your own.

Using 37/x assumes everyone tries equally hard to stay in (i.e. tries for rebuys and wildcards) but is much simpler and will give you a reasonable estimate.

 

If nobody replies to this post, I'd be quite pleased. If you do have some off-the-top-of-your-heads ideas of one's potential for winning with luck & skill versus just luck, I'd love to know those figures if you'd like to share. If you go down a rabbit hole and do a lot of calculations, that's on you - I hope you don't.

Based on the minuscule basic odds of winning a blackjack tournament, I won't be putting much time into trying to figure out my chances. It seems like one must just be comfortable with the long odds. I am thinking about my chances based on this thread and some factors I came up with include luck, skill, knowledge, and experience.

If skill is supposed to lower my reliance on luck, does that mean my luck factor is lower than average, possibly far lower the more skill I have? Maybe there's a point of too much skill. If these competitions are highly luck based, would I want to somehow increase my luck factor? I could emulate the unskilled while also applying my knowledge; is that possible? Do the skilled actually have an equivalent luck factor to the unskilled, just applied to different types of play? Am I less likely to get a three bet win on the final hand to overtake the leaders because I've lowered my luck factor? Are the unskilled players more likely to beat me by accidentally taking the low or having a random sized bet win a natural to win the table?

If my luck is equal to 'their' luck and my skill is higher than 'their' skill, I must have an advantage over 'them'. It seems like it is quite a large advantage. It appears these events come down to a skilled player beating other skilled players because variance shined on the winner that day. They got lucky. I'm guessing the truly unskilled lucksters win far less often than the skilled lucksters. That's about all the thought I'll put into this. If I play, I'm comfortable accepting the risks.

 

Trust math (skill). Luck comes and goes.

Billy C

 

Success depends to a large degree on making the right decisions during the end game of each round. That is where skill can increases your chances to a large degree, meaning you need to be a lot less lucky to succeed in those moments.

Billy is correct, despite his signature.

 

I was a much younger man when I initiated that signature line. "Getting lucky" had more than one meaning. Guess I should now insert "extremely" between those two words!

Billy C

 

Ternamint: I'm not following this thread very clearly. Perhaps because gronbog is over my head. But, if you are questioning luck vs skill for June 24 GN tourney, you should factor your previous attempt. For a minimum of four rounds to the final table to chop, you need to be in a positive varience for four rounds, or if needed for one or two rebuys. And you really need it for the semi's where only one advances from the table to the finals.

There is so much more than the math, though that is extremely important. Let me give an example from my March tourney.
A woman walked up to me before the first round and said she had never played one of these before and wondered if I had any advice. I thought for 15 seconds and said."You are playing against other players and not the dealer." That was in an attempt not to get too Wongy or give away too much. She thanked me and said she got comped in because she normally bet $25,000 a hand. Yes $25,000 a hand. Not a typo.

Another woman over hearing us said she was only a slot player, but also got comped in.

Both of them ended up at my table. Rather than factor in their comments about being less than novices, I played them as I would have a skilled player and over bet on the last hand going for the high on both with a double. Neither doubled and the slot player pushed. while I lost. I could have covered her high and low, if I had remembered, factored her, "only a slot player" comment. At the beginning of the hand I was tied for chip lead.

Through the course of the round hand results were consistent with expected results. So there was no positive or negative varience. Up until last hand I played as "expertly as I could, with tight bankroll management.

But I neglected the non math, non skill factors that really play an important role in, I'd say, all tourneys.

Good luck in June. i'll try again in August.

 

I'll never forget you calling me out, when I questioned your "get lucky," strategy, early on, on this site. And "extremely" is what I wish for now.
Missed May Harris for a granddaughter graduation. Believe there is one in July, the weekend after the fourth. Hope to see you there.

 

Several of us wondered why you weren't there. Will be good to see you at the next one!

Billy C

 

Here is a past thread with complete information:
https://www.blackjacktournaments.com/threads/the-value-of-a-tournament.8647/#post-52828

 

I made the semis. Thank you all for your generous input!

I'm sure I neglected to implement something from my semi final play that I had studied. However, without a doubt, the hard work the past month or so paid off. Even if a player uses nothing from Ken or Wong or BJT, all the information and knowledge should put them in a calmer, more confident state of mind. This alone might be the only advantage a player needs to beat noman's slot player and $25,000 per hand blackjack player. (I've not seen that kind of action at the Nugget and who the hell would do that in such a dump!)

It took me three full paid entries to make round two. I was willing to pay it because of the added opportunity of drawings, Super rebuy and $500 to the top 30. I also don't have this opportunity where I live. I already had the sunk costs of air, hotel and car for the week. If I take that money to poker tournaments instead, I'll pay at least that much for several events. Furthermore, I was more than willing to re-buy once. I thought not adding an investment of $500 would be negative EV versus paying the third buy in.

As for experience, in 30 years, I've only played about a dozen tournaments. Most were small and several were big, $25K to $100K. I've made it to the semis in almost all of those and bubbled at least two of them; bubbled being the last live semi-final table and the second to last player with a chance to make the final table. With this, albeit limited, experience, I decided paying the third buy-in made sense. Additionally, if a player loses in the Round 2, there is another buy in for a super re-buy.

I lost in round two, did the super re-buy and lost. I won a seat in the drawing for the quarter final round. I won my quarter final round by doing something I had never done despite having read about it (i don't think I had enough understanding of how to implement it in the past). I held back a few chips more than second place could hold back. I had the high and low. He split tens on the final hand. He was a good player and knew to count down my chip stack. He said he had to do it. I realized That I may have been able to bet more. I held back his stack plus several chips. He may have had the high if it went W-W or W-P. I need to take some time to review what happened. I had 19 and the dealer showed a 9. But, I've not seen much discussion about playing for a push. It seems that you only consider a push if it's an added bonus to an already strong shot to be BRn.

I won the quarter final table. I got no traction in the semi-final. That round is a blur. I believe I was chasing and once I began a catch up strategy. I didn't chip up.

I won $500 and a Friday drawing for $100, so all the cost seemed like a fair EV approach. In addition to believing it was worth the $2500. They are now selling mulligans. This added even more cost.

Last year, they did not offer mulligans and I didn't prepare for this factor. I decided to passed on the mulligan in rounds 1, a&b. The $200 saved would go to round 1-c. I believed I could make it to round 2 without a mulligan but it's possible a $100 cost would have saved me a $600 third round one entry. I think I would have advanced without it, but after two failed attempts, I decided any extra edge would be worth protecting my $1,500 investment.

If I advanced, I planned to buy a mulligan in each of the remaining rounds. It may have been better to save the $100 in round two, knowing there was a super re-buy, but I bought one. I hope my mulligan strategy will be rebuked or commended and help others. You all are far more experienced. But, you'll have a tough time convincing me that there's a better way than how I did it. Please try to (I need the knowledge)!

While I've seen at least one post that this tournament has negative equity, I'm not certain about that. I'd like to discuss this more in depth.

I plan to call a host and pound on him/her for a future comped entry. I'm quite good at diplomatic persuasion but I know this is different. I have no additional play on which s/he can base the decision. But a free room costs them nothing! I'll start high and see what I can get. This would be additional positive EV to add to my $2,600 gross and $2,000 net cost. But, it's worthless if I don't take advantage of it.

Noman linked a good post above about tournament value. His post replied to my question about the math versus luck/variance. To be more clear, I had in mind a sportsbook model. There's a youtube I will provide by pm if interested. EV is calculated comparing favorites versus underdogs. Short versus long/underdogs. Multiple bets on underdogs proves to generate greater EV than betting on favorites. There's a catch, a huge catch, in that betting the long shots include real money bets as well as "free" bets/bonus bets. Thinking about this and adding Wong's progression concept, plus the fact there are three opportunities to be top two in round one; why not play more aggressively in at least the first attempt? Bet big until your lead is practically a lock.

I believe the best answer is that you may be able to advance without that added risk. And, then why spend an extra $500 or $1,000 on round one if you don't have to. My question is why not? The prize pool is big and thirty get paid. Is there any work on the EV of multiple high risk attempts versus one "standard" attempt? Or three high risk versus two standard attempts? I definitely wouldn't take a hail mary approach on Round one 'c'. Another reason to not take the high risk approach is the courage factor of doing so in round 1.c. If you run out of courage and take the normal approach in round 1.c., you've blown the multi-shot high risk math. I believe three high risks attempts may be mathematically okay. But two wild shots and one normal attempt probably defeats the approach.

Thank you all for all your help these past few years. I'm so close. I just need more attempts. I'll be searching for tournaments closer to home. I may plan a trip for the sole purpose of doing GN again but I'll need GN to offer me something to defray the cost.

 

I was in that tournament, I made only 1 rebuy, did not make simi. Went down early mornings the only 3-2 BJ was $100 min. Lower min is 6-5, I walked across street to Fremont, they have double deck $10 3-2 game. Still think GN is a bad value tournament, I like Biloxi Hard Rock $30000 $100 entry better. Although it went downhill with unlimited rebuys.