Last December, I was faced with this predicament: Chip carryover tournament where if you advance you start with the chip total you ended the prior round. No max, 2-1 BJ, no surrender and no insurance. On the final hand of a round, you are in the enviable position of betting/playing last behind your opponent. He has 9K and pushes it all out there, you have 10K and can match or whatever to cover high and low. In this particular tournament, you can buy 10K in chips at the start of the next round if you advance. You are playing in the 2nd session of 2 and you noticed in the first session that most people advancing (after buying 10K in chips) would have around 30K to start the next round (the semis). In the semis the table winner and 3 people with the most chips, who were not table winners, will advance to the finals (where the majority of the money is). Back to your predicament. Dealer has a 9, opponent stands on 18 and you have 13. You know from Wong's book that you should stand on this with an approximate advancement rate of 74% (anytime dealer has 19-21 or busts). However, I had some time to think about it (the casino is not a real stickler about betting time limits) and I hated to lose my chips to dealer 19-21. Starting the next round with 10K versus my potential opponents 30K was not something I wanted to do. I eventually decided to hit to get a nice 3 for 16. I eventually stood on that. Dealer had an 8 in the hole for 17 and I did not advance. So the question for this one is "Should I hit the 13 and if so how high?" I bring this up because next Sunday I will be playing in another tournament like this except you will not be able to buy any chips if you advance from 1 round to the next. If you advance with a very low chip total, you are not likely to have a chance in the subsequent round. So how high do you hit this type? Larry
Chip Carryover I want to give some further info in case somebody wants to tackle this predicament. The tournament last December had roughly $700 expected EV for being in the semis. It was a graduated scale starting at just over $1100 for 8th and $200+ for 28th. The 7 finalists shared from what I can remember about 210K with 100K for 1st and 5K for 7th. The tournament next Sunday has 45.5K payable to 7 finalists 17K-2K. 8th-13th get $500 and 14th-25th get $125. For the final table all chip counts revert to everyone starting with 2K in chips. Larry
dec. vs sun. I would go by Wong's advice in the dec. tourny because of the ev. In this weeks tourny, I will hit to 18 because of the payout. This one doesn't pay down far enough for me to settle for less than the final table. I am also taking in to account the type competition in sunday's event. Find me sun. & say hello, I'll be wearing an orange hat with cherokee writing on it. GL
better play not much difference This is an interesting case. I’ve done it in a rush; hopefully I didn’t screw it up too much. The process of finding right plays is equally, if not more, interesting than the final numbers. Let’s assume that the value of advancing from the first round is $1,000 to the average skilled player having average bankroll (you can easily adjust it to the real numbers) and you always buy-in to get the extra $10K chips. You will advance (beat the other player) considerably more often if you stay on 13 vs. d’s 9 (your opponent has 18, bets all-in, than playing basic strategy and hitting to 17. Though, that play would not necessary increase your overall value of the tournament. Finding the value of the tourney staying on 13 (6 decks, s17). There are three possibilities that are of interest to us. 1. You win and after extra buy-in you will have an average stack –22.9% 2. You lose, but advance, and after extra buy-in you will have 1/3rd of an average stack -53.4% 3. You lose and your opponent wins or pushes and you are out. Starting the second round with bankroll that is a third of your opponent’s brl would be worth roughly a third compare to having an average bankroll. But because of correlation (when you win your opponent have better chance of winning, hence you should make big bets when he/she bets small), and because of usually negative edge build into games we could assume that starting with 1/3rd brl is worth about 30% of the full value. Standing on 13, dealer showing 9, opponent has 18, we lead and bet all-in (but a chip) is worth about $389 if the value of being in the next round is $1,000. (22.9%x $1k + 53.4% x 30% x $1k) Finding the value of the tourney playing basic strategy, hitting to 17. The big difference is that you bust most of the time (52%), at the same time you win your hand more often (27.8%). There are four possibilities that are of interest to us. 1. You win and after extra buy-in you have an average stack –27.8% 2. You push 18 or higher and after extra buy-in you have 2/3rd of an average stack –6.2% 3. You lose to dealer’s 19 or higher and after extra buy-in you have 1/3rd of an average stack –27.7% 4. You lose and your opponent wins or pushes or you push 17 and your opponent wins – you are out of the tournament. Just like in the previous case we can determine the value of this play (27.8% x $1k + 6.2% x 60% x $1k + 27.7% x 30% x $1k) Hitting 13 to 17, dealer showing 9, opponent has 18, we lead and bet all-in (but a chip), is worth about $397 if the value of being in the next round is $1,000 Better plays are there, sure, and good to know them, but often practical results differ very little. PS Check hitting to 15... S. Yama
Chip Carryover Thanks for looking at the predicament. I went through this problem last January, since I thought if I am going to play in this type of tournament, what should I do? The data was on a laptop that died in the spring. I just thought this might be an interesting scenario for people to look at. They may never play in this type of tournament and have no interest. Interesting that you said look at 15 as you will see later I have learned that nomax-chip carryover tournaments are a different animal. This was the methodolgy that I used at the time: I looked at it as 3 problems. How much would it take to make the final table, what EV would I give a win (30K), push (20K) and loss (10K) if I advanced and what was the advancement rate if I hit. I decided at the time to use 60K as an amount to make the final table. This means in general that 30K needs 1 big bet, 20K needs 2 big bets and 10K needs 3 big bets. This means 30K has a 47% chance, 20K has a 23% chance and 10K has an 11% chance. I computed a win, push and loss EV based on this. True 20K and 10K will end up with 80K and I added some to their EV. In actually, I should have used 80K in my calculation, because from what I remember 60K would have advanced to the finals on only 1 table in 4, 70K had a 2 or 3 of 4 chance and 80K would have made the final table with you being either 3rd or 4th in starting chip count. I don't remember the exact starting chip counts of the final table. I then looked at advancement rate if I hit. I noticed above that I said standing on 13 was 74%, actually it should have been 76%. 53% for when dealer has 19-21 and 23% when dealer busts. I decided to use Ken's DD tables to determine win, push and loss %'s to destribute the advancement rate. I deducted 1% from the 6% push rate since pushing 17 means I would not have advanced. I was surprised that the advancement rate only dropped 2-3% per hit. Once I had this data then I could just multiple the W,P and loss rates by the EV that I had determined to get a total money amount. I compared them and found that I should hit 13 and 14. 15 was borderline. However, if I changed the amount of chips I could buy for the next round to 5K instead of 10K, then I would hit 15. Since I can not buy any chips in the upcoming tournament, if I am stuck with a similiar scenario, I will probably even hit 16 (mental flip at table). I have never really done a calculation like this before and considered it interesting. Larry
