Sorry for the posting in the wrong area... Can't figure out how to delete and repost in the proper forum (yet another newbie error!! ) Hi All. Brand new to this and love the site. Entered my first live tourney last night in a micro tourney in Sarnia, Ontario. Please tell me (please!) that somebody has made a worst move than what I did in an early round: + chip leader going to final hand + I get second last bet + all other bets are $500 or lower and I place a max bet $1000 + it is a Joker's Wild game (joker can be any card) + I get an Ace-Joker and the dealer shows an Ace and offers insurance + My 21 with the wild card does not beat a Blackjack so I can't take even money + I look at the stacks, can't count fast enough, get all flustered and don't take insurance!!! + Dealer has BJ + I get knocked out by ONE $25 CHIP and do not advance :flame: I have learned since that the proper play would have been to take insurance and then if he didn't have it to double down since I would end up with 21 anyway. Heck, even $25 insurance would have kept me in the game! Wow. Welcome to live play. I have a lot to learn and I hope that years down the road this will end up being a crazy story about "how it all started." So my question if you have made it this far is this: What is the dumbest play you have made in a tournament?
Actual mistake Actually techno, the mistake was not the insurance, but overbetting your lead and opening the door. Since you had position you needed to just correlate or cover a blackjack. Once you got yourself in trouble with the bet by giving up the low, then you had to worry about insurance. I'm still debating about my biggest mistake. I know I have made several, probably one of each kind that can be imagined at some point in time. Unfortunately the one that sticks in my mind will be coming up soon in front of millions of viewers on national TV. Once you see it, I'll post my thought process and see if it really was a mistake or if I made the right call. Just a hint... I think I should have hit my hand because in hindsight the outcome of my hand was irrelevant since I was hoping for the dealer to make a hand and bust the table. Pat
Most recent Ok, I will admit to another bonehead mistake, and this just happened this week. As you will note from another post that AOL is having a problem with their server. It is not keeping a running count for players to see how many hands have been played. I picked up on the mistake the first round, but it was easy to keep track of hands played since there were some no shows and they were losing $100 per hand, so you could just do the math with their bankroll and see what hand you were on. Well the computer was not fixed going into round 2. I didn't keep track and since the table was full of real players after playing a bit I realized I had no clue as to what hand we were on. There is a table chat feature on so I asked what hand we were on. Two people replied we were only on hand 8. I could have sworn the button had been around at least once, so I didn't believe them. Late in the game around when I thought we were coming up to the final hand people started putting out max bets. I matched and doubled a hand which is normally not advisable, I think it was a seven with dealer two or something like that and I lost. That put me down under a $1000 with the leaders up around $8K. I pushed out max bets trying to come back, but busted out. I watched the table finish and it turned out there were probably 10 hands still to go when I made my dumb play. Had I known what hand we were on I would have likely been in the last hand in good shape to advance. Lesson learned.....
Bonehead DO NOT WORRY YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE TO MAKE BONEHEAD PLAYS MY WORST MISTAKE OF MANY WAS THAT IT WAS MYSELF AND ONE MORE PLAYER LEFT- HE BET MAX ON LAST HAND SO I FOLLOWED WITH A HALF MAX BET-HE RECEIVED A HARD 17 I RECEIVED A HARD 19 THE DEALER HAD 10 SHOWING -BEING TENSE FOR THE LAST HAND (THIS WAS MY 2ND TOURNY) LIKE AN IDIOT I LISTENED TO MY COMPETION HE SUGGESTED I DOUBLE DOWNAND I DID DOUBLED DOWN-ALL I NEEDED WAS THE DEALER TO HAVE 18-21 AND I ADVANCE-HOW DUMB IS THAT:flame: WE ALL MAKE BONEHEAD MISTAKES BUT I CAN TELL YOU THAT YOU LEARNED AND I AM SURE YOU WILL NOT DO THAT AGAIN
Not enough room If I listed all my bonehead mistakes it would fill Ken Smith's server and there wouldn't be any room left for other posts so I'll do everyone a favor and keep them to myself. Yep, everyone on this site owes me now.:laugh: :laugh:
My favorite bonehead play story is from a tournament in the Bahamas quite a long time ago, maybe 2 or 3 years into my playing history. (It was at the Princess casino, long since renamed.) This tournament actually allowed you to use pencil and paper at the table! I figured, great! I'll write down all the bankrolls and I'll be able to keep track better. I was playing a round where 3 players out of 5 advance, and we lost one player early. That means 3 out of 4 players now advance. I was in second place going into the last hand, and I had last action. Somehow, I used that pencil and paper to talk myself into a wildy ill-advised bet. By the time the bets were on the table, I had the least unbet chips at the table. With no surrender allowed, I had to push or win my hand to have any hope! It didn't happen. I don't even remember how I went so wrong, but there's no doubt that I bet far too much.
My Boneheaded Newbie Move About 8 years ago I was playing my first final table in Sam's Town. Last hand I am BR1 beting last. Dealer shows 7. BR2 Doubles down catching a stiff hand. I have a hard 16, hiting instead of doubling a 5 for 21. Of course Dealer busted and I end up winning $15k instead of $50k.
First tournament Bonehead play. After having given up on winning big money at regular BJ (too low win rate and very long losing streaks), I heard about BJ tournaments in Arizona at Wild Horse Pass casino. I wasn't able to enter the first one because it was all sold out. Their 2nd one was for invitees only. Watching how the players played (some played awful) in this invitational I decided I would enter a tourney as soon as possible. Anyway I got Wong's book on Casino strategy and read where when ahead in money bet with the flow, when behind in money bet opposite, also hold an extra chip when everybody goes all in on the last hand since the dealer can wipe everyone out with a BJ of his own. These three concepts were easy to understand. In Feb of 2006 the Del Sol casino in Tucson Arizona was having a series of qualifier tournaments for the World Series and anyone could enter. I looked at Wong's book again and it was suggested to make minimum bets until the last few hands when if a big bet is called for then make a big bet. The book also has many betting situations and if you can't figure out what to bet then bet big. With these 2 extra strategy tips I headed to the Del Sol casino with the hope of winning a tournament. For the 1st round every player (6 per table) was issued 500 in chips: 2 black 100, 8 green 25, and 20 red 5. The betting limit was 5-500 for the first 13 hands and then unlimited betting for the remainder of hands 14-18. Three of the six players would advance. I started out betting only 5 a hand hopeing 3 players would bust out. After several hands the player at my left puts out a 100 bet and wins, the player at my right has been making medium sized bets and is winning. Another big winner is the player in seat #1. A little later lefty puts out another bigger bet about 200 and wins. Everyone seems to be having a lot more than the initial 500 in chips (except me). I now decide to get in on the goodies and put out a 100 bet and it loses. A little later I put out another 100 bet and it loses too. By after hand 16 one player has busted out by making catch up bets but all the rest are way ahead of me. I have 225 and bet it all on hand 17 and win, however I'm still behind. Player #1 and lefty are so far ahead that no one can catch them and they make small bets. The lady in seat #3 puts all her chips in the circle saying that she will need them for the next round (this was an accumulation tournament where the chips carry forward). Righty makes a minimum bet. I look at his pile and see 2 black chips ,4 green chips and several red. While I have 2 black, a bunch of greens and several red. I make a minimum bet hopeing the dealer wins the hand leaving the lady with 0 chips and me ahead of righty. As soon as I place my 5 bet the lady says "You can't win!" The cards are delt and the lady loses her hand and now the official chip count begins. The dealer counts righty's chips as anounces 735. Dealer counts my chips and anounces 450. At this point I ask "how can he have 735"? The dealer picks up one of righty's dark chips and says 500. Now I see the light. This 500 chip was purple and a rather dark purple not pink as other 500 tournament chips in other casinos. I didn't even notice these chips in the dealers tray. Now the lady says "Oh they do look like black chips". And that is how my first tournament ended. In fact I don't even remember if I won the last hand or not. .........................BlueLight
Latest tournament bonehead play It was just yesterday on UltimateBet, and it was very very stupid! There were three of us left in a S&Go, with me as BR2 some way behind BR1 and a similar distance ahead of BR3. BR3 went all-in and I made a bet just big enough to stay ahead if we both won. (That in itself might have been a mistake, but much worse was to follow.) We both lost, meaning I was in the money and could now concentrate on chasing BR1. I breathed a sigh of relief, took a moment to say something nice to my vanquished opponent in the chat, and then made a minimum bet to start the next round. Doh! In my excitement I had failed to notice that the round after this would be an elimination round and BR1 was so far ahead that he could now lock me out. He gleefully pointed this out to me as he made his own min bet.
A mistake, but not on the table My biggest mistakes so far in tournaments occurred away from the table (which affected my play on the table). I was playing at hochunk in wisconsin on one of their saturday tourneys which have 3 first rounds (and it was double deck, my favorite), so in the first round I won easily. Well the next round wasnt for like 3 hours, so I decided to go to my car to sleep. Well, after barely waking up in time, I wasn't doing so hot and was slightly behind. Well when the final hand rolled around I was still kind of waking up from my slumber, so I wasn't thinking straight or counting straight or both, and first didn't calculate the right bet, and then made things worse by not doubling my 13 that I needed to (next card turned out to be a 7). I finished 3rd when I needed to get at least 2nd. The other one occurred when I had gotten into playing alot of saturday tournaments which had more round than the tuesday ones. I hadn't played a tuesday one in awhile because of school, so once summer hit I started to play them. First round I moved on with ease, then the second round I was dong pretty good, all I needed was to get 2nd to move on and everyone was betting like a maniac. I was thinking to myself that I know I have seen bad play before, but jeez, these people are stupid, all they need is to get 2nd. So I laid back and let everyone essentially bust out. Last hand came, I am only like $200 behind the leader, but I dont care, I am moving on. So when no one got a blackjack I started celebrating. After the hand is over the tourney director comes over and starts having the leader fill out a form. I ask what's up, and that is when I found out that this was a tuesday tourney, which has one less round, so the winner of this table moved on to the final table. Those are my biggest boners so far.
Doh Last night during the 2200 EST Bet21.com tourney I advanced from Round 1 fairly early. I think it was hand 17 maybe. Anyway I went to the page where other tables were playing and saw a table on hand 16 with only 1 player eliminated! I KNEW by their play it was going 30 hands! I turned out the lights, as the Mrs. retired early. I took an Ambien because I figured the tourney had another 45 minutes. I lay down and was watching this other table play. Hand 20 and still 5 players! Oh well. Boy were they playing slow! Suddenly I woke up and the final table was being play! I dozed off and got eliminated! Damn those Ambien tables work fast!
Fred, My own blunder happened just two hours later....I played the extra 2,500 last night at midnight... In the first round 4 moved on...in the 1st elimination hand I got a little tied up with a poker game...so I was distracted....I had position but was in last place....no problem....just bet more than second last and hope for the wins.... Well we both won but I had miscalculated my bet and gave the game away....what a moron.... The poker game was free roll, I try to play two games and just recently added poker as the second game...This sharpens my decision making skills and helps me to make good and fast decisions ...I think anyway....but last night my brain took a break ...which woud be ok in a 5 dollar game but I was going for the big bucks..lol...what dope! BTW its amazing how confused the brain can get playing these two games at the same time...2 or 3 games of BJ at the same time ...ok.....1 bj and 1 poker game at the same time short circuts me....maybe I need to start over with the gum chewing and walking thing...:sad:
