The last two articles have covered the topic of setting an appropriate bankroll target for an accumulation blackjack tournament. Today we'll finish up the series with a discussion of several other ways to increase your chance of success.

Information is a valuable asset in the world of accumulation tournaments. The more you know about your opponents' final bankroll numbers, the better you can decide what total is high enough for you to advance to the next round or finish in the money. If you are given a choice of when to play your rounds, choose the latest playing time possible. Often, even if you do not get an explicit choice of playing times you can use a "skillful" draw from the available times to steer yourself into a later round. A later playing time allows you to scout the earlier rounds for information.

Giving yourself the best shot in an accumulation event is a lot of work! Unlike the traditional elimination format where you can show up, play your round, and hit the road, accumulation events reward those who are willing to hang around the tables during earlier rounds and gather as much data about total bankrolls as possible. Make a point to be around the tables near the end of each round so you can get a good feel for what the high scores look like so far.

If this is a regularly scheduled event, you'll usually find that many of the participants have played this event multiple times in the past. Make a point to have some conversations with these players. They can be a useful source of information about what total it took to advance or win in the last event. It always helps to be a skeptical listener in these situations though, so do take any information you garner with a grain of salt. Some players will intentionally mislead with their advice, while others may not be as diligent in their record keeping and memory as you would like.

If there is a widely discussed "consensus" number for the cutoff, it's worthwhile to shoot for at least one medium-sized bet above that number.