There’s always been so much talk about skills and luck in bj tournaments. With the UBT trying out new elements this became a valid subject. So what's skill got to do with it? It will vary a lot based on skill level of the individual player versus skills of other players (in particular versus opponents that were chosen or drawn to play against him or her at the same table). The other important aspects are the ratio of advancing to the number of players at the table, specific rules of blackjack employed, like max and min bets in relation to bankrolls, allowance to surrender, cards dealt face up or down, and additional rules like secret bet, or the low-man-out. The exact calculation are unattainable because of many conditional assumptions that are then subject to individual interpretations and for the newer forms of tournaments there is not enough data that could provide statistical significance. Without going into details how I come up with them, let me skip directly to the numbers. We’re talking about series of tournaments that were scheduled for sixty three players (and one extra player inserted to the finals), and two out of seven advancing in the first round and two out of six in the semis. If we take some five most skilled players who participated in the UBT tourney and let them play against “typical” local, or an invitational tournament, they would have a little more than twice the chance to advance to the finals, and almost four times better chance than the average player to win the tournament. Since the UBT series assembled many really good players (and only a few not so good) these chances would be reduced to a little over one and half the average to advance to the finals and about two and half the average for winning it. With the three elimination hands (low-man-out) the chances for the really good players were only about one and a third better to advance to finals, and short of twice the average to win it. To put it in another perspective, if you were one of the five best players invited you would need to play on average six tourneys to advance to one final, and you would need to play more than thirty to win one. I mention it not to lessen the undeniable achievements of the winners but to show that element of luck always plays an important role. Winners – excellent job, congratulations. Players who feel they should have fared better but didn’t, should play more tournaments -the truth will show up with the increased number of appearances. As to the skill versus luck, I think in this case it is more about skills versus appeal to the TV audience. It will be definitely much more interesting to watch a sustained competition at some, but not really big, expense of skills. S. Yama
