What's your preference in land-based tournaments? Start out with small bets, or with all guns firing? Vote here.
Advantage or Disadvantage? It seems like most people voted and typically play small bets starting out and probably bet with the flow during play. Is there a mathematical advantage or disadvantage to betting the max up front and seeing if you can establish the big lead and BR1 and letting people try to catch you? I thought I read somewhere that the dealer has the advantage on the first hand out of the shoe so it is smarter to play low at least a hand or two to see how the cards run before putting in a big bet. Is there any research on this?
Not Enough Choices I don't think there are enough choices offered.If you are a rookie against all pro players a big bet off the top is not that bad of an idea.Because trying to out play the pros at the end is a task you really dont want.There was a column written by Tournament Pro on BJ insider.com that covers knowing your opponets and their betting habits and knowing your bettting position on the last few hands .He made it clear that you should not have just one style of betting.Your betting should be in relation to your lead or how far behind you are and know how your opponets play.Check it out it was a informative column
It depends! What is the format? In accumulation format betting big early I found works better (for me anyway). I think Ken ran the math and big bets early are your best odds for this format. In a elimination format I prefer starting out small, but with a large bankroll $100,000 I disagree with the minimum betting to start out. I still start out small, but with a 1,000 minimum, I'll bet around $3,000 to $5,000 to start since I have the bigger bankroll to back me.
I would think the number of hands to be played is a factor too. The more hands you have to play the better your chances to recover if you don't make those first couple of big bets. This past weekend in Bilioxi the bankroll was $25k, $500 min to $10k max, so a max bet to start was a little more than a third of the bankroll. I just wondered if there was a mathematical edge to go in big early versus waiting on the count to turn positive (which it might not anyway). I saw a couple of guys try it at my table and they both busted out quickly, so I know it doesn't work all the time, but for this one guy it did. Thanks Joep for the referal, I'll see if I can find the article. If you can find it, please put a link for me here and for others reading this thread. I also wonder if you know there is a person sitting at the table who got there by employing that all in strategy to get there, should you at least bet somewhere in the middle just to prevent him/her from being uncatchable?
"winning streak" interesting... the answer that got the most votes is: betting small except for when on a 'winning streak.' i think we'd all love to know when we're about to go on one of these streaks so that we can put as much $$$$ out there as possible! but sadly one never knows, and anyone who 'rides a streak' is just fooling himself. kinda like my last trip to Vegas -- just got home this morning from 11 days in the desert, made several grand playing poker & BJ during the trip on a nice 'streak' of winning, then lost it ALL in the last 3 hours i was in town. grrrrrrrr........ as for tourney stategy, i agree with joe -- to be the most effective tournament player, one must first completely understand the strategies of your opponents. one must actively work to profile the competition by not only analyzing their first few bets, but by using all manner of psychological factors before the game even starts. in poker this as known as the science of tells, and it is no different in a blackjack game. against looser players (most people), a tight strategy is better. but the more skilled and tighter your opponent, the more the necessity for big bets becomes apparent. the early and mid-game becomes less about waiting for your opponents to screw up and bust out, and more about trying to get an edge set up for later in the game... -holly d.
I found the article that Joep was refering to, it is in the October 2004 newsletter, #57. Thanks for all the input from everyone this helps a lot.
Hollywood agrees with me What is going on in 2005. Its been raining in Las Vegas since the first of the year, it snowed on Friday. There are mud slides in L.A. and Hollywood agrees with me.The end of the world must be coming.
The more factors we take into consideration the better: 1. Format (it can be 3 of 5 or 1 of 7) 2. Opponents' skills 3. Position (next to last hand and of course last) 4. Bankroll Vs Max bet 5. How far the opponents are and how many hands to go, etc. There's an interesting phenomenon: if there's more than one player advancing and one is far ahead - nobody is trying to catch him/her. That's why there are so many successful players among aggressive bettors. If you let's say double your bankroll in Frontier (say 2 of 6) and then bet $5 'til the very end there's more than 90% chances to advance. That's roughly 45% to advance, which is really great even for experienced player.
