I have learned a lot from reading other posts on this subject, so I would like to add mine and see if I did the right thing. Final Hand 2 advance-- BR3 is first to act with 11,000. They place a secret bet. BR1 acts 2nd with 21,000. They place a secret bet. BR2 acts 3rd with 15,250. Secret bet was already used. They bet 3,500. Hands--Dealer has a 9 showing. BR3 got a hard 20 and stood. BR1 got a soft 16 and either stood or surrendered. BR2 got a hard 20. What should BR2 do? I'd like to hear comments before I tell you what happened. Of course, I was BR2 in this senario.
Actually I should add more to the post. I will tell you that I assumed BR3 had gone all in and my 3,500 would cover them. I also assumed that BR1 had surrendered and shut me out that way. I ended up splitting my 10's. On my first hand I got a hard 14. My real question is what would you do with the 14. My second hand ended up being another 10 for 20, but of course I didn't know that at the time.
Don't you just love what the secret bets now does on crucial hands OK once you split your 10-10 you no longer have the low because a push by BR 3 and a loss by you and you are eliminated You can not break your hand once you split you 10-10 This is where you have to play the mind game all in 45 seconds and try to figure what BR 1 would have bet He should have bet anywhere from 1,500 to lock Br 3 out to 7,000 to lock BR 3 out of a Blackjack .So their surrender will be anywhere between 750 loss to 3500 loss which would bring him to 17,500 as the most he could have loss if you were to bust one of your hands the best you could do is a push for 15.250 . So you should stand on the hand and you will have the dealer bust which is about 23 % and the dealer making a 20 or 21 which is another 18% for a total of about 41 % Joep
Ok I feel better. I came to the same conclusion to stand on my 14 and hope for a dealer bust, 20, or 21. The dealer actually got an 18, so I pushed and was eliminated. I have another question.... My thinking on making the 3,500 bet was that I could cover a push or loss by BR3 if I lost. I could double down and cover a max bet win (no BJ) by BR3, and cover a push or loss by BR1 if I won. Was this a bad bet? Should I have gone ahead and bet more to cover a max bet win by BR3?
Another Bet I never like to have to DD to regain the high if I can help it.Here you had the opportunity to bet 7,000 and your straight win would have surpassed BR3 by 250 small dollars. But what really is more powerful about betting 7,000 is that once the hands are seen you could surrender back and lose only 3500 which would bring you final total to 11,750 which would beat a push or loss by BR 3 I hope that helps you in your future last hand crunch bets Joep
Never Say Never The problem with that advice is the word NEVER In tournaments you sometimes have to do things that you would never do in a real live blackjack game. Splitting 10's is almost never a good idea but sometimes its your only hope. Joep
Thank you very much for your replies. Almost immediately after I clicked the 3,500 bet I regretted it, but as the timer was counting down ever so incessantly to 0 I felt it was the right move. I was lucky to have gotten something I could work with (10, 10), but it wasn't enough. Live and learn. And I definately learn something with every tournament I enter.
Never Say Never Joep- I will revise my statement. A wise pro blackjack player once scolded me about splitting 10's: "Only split 10's when absolutely neccessary". Elyssez
My two penneth FWIW My thought process may have been something like this... BR3 is obviously who BR2 needs to worry about. BR2 should try and take the low and as BR3 is going to secret bet they should bet anything from $4K for the straight low to $8K to give them a surrender back. $3.5K is also a potential bet for because it gives them the low and a DD vs. BR3s all-in win. If they bet $7K, which they could of course surrender if required, to cover BR3s all-in win then BR3 could take the low by betting min or up to $2.5K but that's probably too cutesy. Maybe! In simple terms, before the cards have been dealt, the best odds that BR3 can get to beat you are about 49% (I think) if you bet big enough to allow them to take the low. In your scenario BR3 isn't going to know that of course. This low bet is also dangerous for BR3 because if you bet low too the best they can hope for is about 14%! BR3 probably needs to bet at least enough to beat a push from BR2 ($4.5K) but another bet might be $8.5K. With that bet BR3 takes the high against a BR2 low bet. Anyway that's my thoughts on what BR3 should do but Cherubs question was what should BR2 do (sorry I got caught up in a sort of stream of consciousness then!). I too would assume like cherub that BR3 is going to bet big. I would also assume that they would bet enough to beat a straight low bet from me and because of that I would bet the $7K to beat their all-in win. As Joep said that allows you to take the high and surrender back if they look likely to lose or push. As to what I would have done after the cards had been dealt, I have nothing to add to what's been said before apart from this. With a dealer 9 it's highly likely that the dealer will make a hand (I think Joep said 23% chance of bust therefore 77% chance of making a hand) and that you will push and are therefore likely lose to BR3 (who we assume has gone big). If you hit you have odds of just under 54% of not busting and of just over 23% of catching 19-21. These odds are not precice because they don't take account of BR3 but I think they may show that it's a close call on whether to hit or stand and without looking more closely at them I couldn't say for sure which is statistically the best course of action. Cheers Reachy Ps. I would have stood on the 14!
Splitting 10s as, or if, this game expands and the games fill with wildcats the necessity to split 10s will increase as the lucky one or two wildcats draw max bet leads or more. They might even do it by spitting the 10s on the first hand.... JMO.
Splitting 10's, re-splitting 10's... In Monday night's Aruba tourney, one of the Wildcat's split 10's, then re-split. They caught the cards (10-10, 10-A, 10-10), but the dealer made 21. I was extremely glad I took the low.
