Many questions? The information submitted is not complete for advise other than common casino/tournament BJ rules are negative expectation for the player. Please include this event in the event updates section.
This may have better been posted in "Tournament Strategy and Tournament Teasers" and, as Rookie789 has pointed out, you have not provided enough information for us to help you in a direct way. However, we can still talk in general terms about heads up vs the dealer tournament situations. I think that it's safe to assume that the tournament round is an accumulation style round, where you are competing against the other players as a whole. The optimal strategy is then to determine a target for the bankroll required to advance and to bet max until you reach your target or you bust out. There are other threads here about how to determine the goal and how to reach it. A search for "accumulation" in thread titles will find them for you. The bet max strategy is straight forward if you can only play one spot. But what if you can play more than one spot? I have played in a tournament with a heads-up round in which you can play up to 7 spots, each independently within the table limits. Here are some things to consider: Betting multiple spots increases your overall variance, which is a good thing in accumulation tournaments. So if the table limit is 500, then it is best to play 500 on as many spots as your bankroll can support, even if that means you're all in. In a seemingly contradictory way, spreading the same total bet over more spots, decreases the variance for that hand. So once your goal is within reach, it is best to split the required win over as few spots as possible. For example, on a 7 spot table, if the maximum is 500 and you need to win 2100 to make your goal, then it's better to bet 420 on each of 5 spots than to bet 300 on each of 7 spots. This also applies if your bankroll is too small to fill the entire table with max bets. For example, on the same 7 spot table with a limit of 500 and a 2100 bankroll, and a goal of 4200 or more, you would bet 420 on each of 5 spots rather than 300 on each of 7 spots. To determine how many spots to bet and how much to bet in each: determine how many spots you can fill with max bets based on your goal and/or your bankroll if there is no remainder or you've filled all of the spots, then that's your bet and your number of spots If there is a remainder, then spread your bankroll evenly over one additional spot
Very neat! I somehow missed this post back in February, and I've never competed in an event that works this way. Nice ideas though, and it would certainly make accumulation events more interesting.
It certainly does give one more to think about, which addresses one of the main complaints I hear about accumulation events. This event https://www.blackjacktournaments.com/tournaments/black-jack-classic.444/ has 2 accumulation sessions, and in the second one, you play heads up vs the dealer and can play all 7 spots. This is after the first session scores have been posted, so you have a decent idea of what to go for. From what I have observed, most people there either play 1 or 3 spots throughout. I have never seen anyone (except me) use all 7 spots.
I've come across this type of format online from time to time. As a consequence of playing as many spots as possible, I found myself gravitating towards a no-bust strategy whenever there was only a handful of further rounds to be played and a big increase in BR was still needed. (i.e. just rely on the dealer bust to win every hand, rather than win a few hands and lose a few by busting.) And if the betting limits did not allow me to go all-in at the outset, any safe double/split opportunities could be taken to get as many chips in play as possible. I didn't come up with hard and fast rules about when to take this approach; it was all a bit ad hoc. and I possibly took it too far. As well as the number of rounds remaining and the required increase in BR, the number of basic strategy standing hands with stiff totals (or perhaps 17 or 18) was a major factor, my thinking being that you might as well stand on every 12-or -above if you need to win two or three stiff hands any way.
