World Champion!

My two cents.

Since you asked...... In my opinion, the right formula will always be a completely open tournament where ANY and ALL BJ players wishing to participate can qualify for the main event on exactly the same basis. Using poker as an analogy, the WSOP main event is a good example. The LV Hilton Million was another wide open tournament (with 2 or 3 players excluded) that treated all BJ players fairly and provided a completely equal opportunity.
I take nothing away from Kenny E. who had a great 2005 and who came very close to winning the LV Hilton Million in 2003. Great success there and that needs to be applauded. Sam Vaughn is the leading tournament money winner for 2005 and kudos to him too.
Since you asked....:joker: :joker: :joker:

 

Totally agree BJFAN4. How can anything claim to be the World Series if it is not open to everyone as the WSOP is?

 

Sammy Vaughn by a mile

Kenny E. is great. All recognize his expertise and accomplishments.

BUT Sammy Vaughn is THE WORLD CHAMPION. No serious
tournament player would think differently.

 

Lol

I just wanted to see what everyone would say (post) about "Who is the World Champion"?...LOL

Seems to me that we have the same arguement as in college football, who is number #1?

I really think we need a nationwide blackjack tour if not a worldwide tour to decide who is the number #1 player (each year).

I have a format for a nationwide tour, now if I can just get the casinos to go along with this concept we'll be in business.

Hell, if I could get just 20 casinos to join forces, we could get $150 entry fee events that would pay over $2,500,000 in prize money out just for the championship finals (not counting the daily events).

I also would suggest deeper payouts - paying through the quarterfinalist. Seems to work pretty well in poker so why not for blackjack?

Just imagine a $2,500,000 prize pool and paying out the top 36 players.

Example of prize money for such a tournament:

Final table:

1st - $1,000,000
2nd - $500,000
3rd - $250,000
4th - $125,000
5th - $62,500
6th - $31,250 (total = $1,968,750)

Semifinalist:

7th - 18th - $10,000 (total = $120,000)

Quarterfinalist:

19th - 36th - $5,000 (total = $90,000)

Total prize money = $2,178,750.00 paid out and I figured $2,500,000 in entries brought in.

Now this is the kind of tournaments I am talking about for the future of blackjack, low entries with high paybacks.

Volume is what we need along with the casinos to make these type of events a reality.

 

This makes me

smile..

Wow, BigTex. You really need to move to Vegas!

 

Great idea...this is exactly the type of tournaments I would love to play in....how do you satisfy the greed of the casino though?...side action ?

Im about ready to give up regular table action BJ...Im stuck playing 8 deck or CSM at the Indian casinos as my only close alternatives and it is impossible to win these games...

I played last night and closely watched about 70 different players....for over 4 hours....no one won anything....stupid play aside....this is just too tough a game....Im begining to think the slots have better odds then these games....

I watched some really good players lose hand after hand after hand...been watching that closely for a few weeks now....Im thinking the .5 advantage of perfect basic strat...is not all that accurate....not with 8 deck, deep penatration ....just too much losing going on...

Im only gonna play tournaments from now on....

 

Give nothing free and be fair to everybody!

The casino hotels charge $49 per night room rate, no free rooms included, no free gifts, and no banquets for the tournament players.

If you play the regular tables or machines to get comp-ed that's up to each player. The casino wants to draw the players in for the side action. However, if we can do that for them and not have to give away all the freebies, any side action they get would be great for them and maybe they would start hosting more tournaments.

I also believe that we should pay a fee of 10% to cover casino expenses (just like in poker events), most pull out expenses anyway if you read the small print. Now the casinos wouldn't have any excuse not to hold OPEN tournaments that everyone could play in and maybe, just maybe we could start getting back to the 350-500 players events that we use to have back in the 80's.

It is both the players and the casinos fault that tournaments slowed down. Several players just took the freebies without giving side action and the casinos gave away too much for free.

I for one can live without the freebies if it means big prize money. I enjoy free rooms with entry, but if you look, most of them take out for the rooms anyway. I would rather have the room seprate and the entry fee lower so my table play can get it comp-ed and if I don't get comp-ed I'm not out anymore than if the room was included in my entry fee anyway.

 

Most of the casinos charge an 8-10% entry fee for poker tourneys but the poker room rate is $19 to $25 at most places, we do not get the cheap Chinese made gift but we usually get a free buffet. But to get the player numbers that poker has the pot needs to spread futher down the ladder and not so top heavy. More people woukl probably enter if they felt they had a decent chance of at least getting their money back.

 

Cost breakdown

Bradley I understand what you are saying, but let me point out some expenses that most are unaware of.

The hotel at $49 per night for casino rate is more than fair, most casino's rates are over $100 per night.

The casino cost:

Advertising
Mailing
Dealers
Pit Bosses
Tables (what they are losing while closed for tournament play)
Engineers (changing out regular chip for tournament chips)
Tournament or marketing personel (for registration, re-buy's, etc...)
Banquet.................which we can do without.
Tournament gifts..." "

We had a good thing in years gone by, but it's gone and if we want to get it back we need to start working for it now by showing the casinos how to make their tournaments worth while for them to open them back up for all of us.

 

Id gladly pay ala poker room % to play BJ tournments...no gifts....buffet ok....comp my room on the side action ...maybe reduce the room rate to cost plus %.....make it affordable ....the bigger the better....

With some small changes like mid game knock outs BJ is a much more interesting game to watch than poker....poker is a long boring game and the winner is rarely a susprise....BJ is boring (so fix this part) up until the last few hands....then its electric .....

Get the money for BJ tournaments in the same manner poker does....how do they fund these big games??? Forget the prima donnas who expect an invite....this format keeps the game small....earn the right to play by winning a satalite or put up the big bucks.... win your way to the top ....then call yourself the champ....becasue you have actually earned the title.

After the game gets popular on the air....big bucks are generated simply by air play....then later host a few big name tournaments of champions as poker does and invite only your Phils, and Brunsons, and TJ's....

If the average guy doesnt have a chance to become the next Chris Moneymaker of BJ....the tournament BJ show will never move past the place it is in now...small potatos ....in relation to poker that is...

 

Rick, In trying to compare poker tourney cost with BJ tourney cost is unreal as I have never seen a BJ tourney that has had to hire Dealers, Pit Bosses, Marketing, or Engineers for an event, they just use their regular employees who are already on the payroll, where as in the last Poker event I played (a WSOP Circuit) they had to hire over 200 dealers for this event (these dealers travel the poker tourney circuit), plus the cost of 120 extra tables. And if they set the Tourney up in a banquet room they will not disrupt normal play. As for Advertising where do the casinos spend money I have never seen a BJ tourney being advertised on TV. And Poker tourneys are usually 2-3 week events with more than 20- 30 different events, they have a tourney at the start of the day and a second chance tourney that night and another tourney starting the next day while the previous days tourney finishes. Constant action, this helps a player make money as if you catch a bad run in one, there is a new tourney ready to start. And BJ tourneys need to pay further down the ladder as people play to make money, when you can make the final table and still lose money something is wrong. And last tournament poker players fill up he host casino poker tables both before and after they get knocked out because the game rules are the same at all casino poker rooms, only the rakes and bad beat jackpots are different. BJ players are usually not playing at the host casino because of the casinos getting greedy and changing the BJ game rules, conditions, ect. They are basically driving away the players themselves by only offering poor playing conditions.

 

I'm just trying to be fair

The casinos may not hire dealers, pit bosses, and other employees for normal BJ tournaments (although they did for the Hilton Million Dollar Tournaments) they still have to pay them and that payroll add's up.

Also every casino mails out some type of flyer or letter for their tournaments, I would say minimum of 2,500. Plus they have the cost of having someone make them up and sending them this is all expenses that most of us don't think of.

This is why I think a 10% fee isn't out of the question from the players. This way they should cover their cost even if they don't get the side action from the players.

You keep comparing BJ to Poker, what if we also started taking out dealers tips from the prize pool (they do in poker)? I for one wouldn't mind if we could get the big bucks like they do in poker.

Last I agree that the BJ tournaments need to spread out the prize money. The current prizes are way to top heavy to have players being able to afford playing as offten as in poker. Let the quarterfinalist and above get their money back at least and it will bring them back for more.

I just sent a casino information using that exact format last week for a possible BJ tournament. Another thing I know you will like is, let the players chop the pot in the finals if they want. I allowed the players to do this on the cruise tournaments and they loved it and it cut down on the dealing time.

 

Rick J

KEEP WORKING IT WITH THE CASINOS- YOU WILL GET YOUR CHANCE TO PROVE YOURSELF AND US PLAYERS TO THE CASINOS- NO OFFENCE BUT WORK ON HARRAHS ESPECIALLY THE ALL IN ON THE LAST HAND BUNCH OF BULL S. AND OPEN TOURNYS
OH BY THE WAY THOSE 8S SEEM TO BEAT YOU EVEN IF YOU HAVE THEM OR THE COMPETION HAS THEM AMAZING(I AM REMEMBERING TULSA) SPLITTING ACES SEEMS TO BE MY UNLUCKY CARDS EVEN WITH DEALER SHOWING A 6 LOST SEMI-FINAL QUALIFYER BY 50 BUCKS IN TULSA OH WELL NEXT TIME SEE SOON SOMEWHERE SOMEHOW:laugh:

 

Tex: in nearly all poker tourneys the dealers tip comes from the entry fee not the prize pool.

 

Analysis

All casinos are greedy.

Many players are greedy.

Everybody wants a deal that is more favorable to their own interests.

However, the unrelenting greed that seeming is always displayed by the casinos will never go unnoticed by the players.

Whom does one want to root for? David or Goliath?