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In the October issue of BJI, we explored the need to sometimes stray from Basic Strategy in Tournament Play. Remember the Tortoise? He follows the rules of perfect hit-stand-double-split basic strategy (BS), and he wins the marathon race, which represents a lifetime of blackjack play. The Hare races around in circles, stops to have fun, takes a rest, and then rejoins the race. That is why he loses. But in a short tournament round, he does not need to rest, and his attention span is long enough to get him through 30 hands in the blink of a tortoise’s eye.

The need to outperform means you must make the very best of the 30 hands you will get! On average, you will be dealt one Blackjack, a few 20’s, some soft hands, (A-2 through A-9), and a few ‘stiff hands’, (Hard 12’s through hard 16’s). The odds say some are losing hands and some are winning hands. To determine, which category they fall under, they often need to be compared to the dealers up card. For example, the odds say a hard 18 is a nice winner vs. the dealers 6 up card, but a nasty loser vs. the dealers 10.

The argument made in the Oct. BJI issue, was to conserve your capital on the losing hand of 8-8 vs. dealer 10, by refusing to split in some situations. If this is good tournament strategy, then why would one not want to MAXIMIZE their bankroll by doubling on a winning hand?

With this in mind, let me give you a worst case tournament round scenario. You are playing at a table of 7, and only one will win. You will be dealt only 20 hands. As you sit down, you look up to see your six opponents. Two you know to be tournament regulars and experts. A third is a person you recognize from his picture on the cover of the blackjack book you just bought. He is talking to a fourth player about her successful blackjack web site. The fifth is the guy, who won the last big blackjack tournament on television, and the sixth was one of the people he beat. You now know that you are in store for a tough round! Let’s suppose you are perfectly confident in your own tournament skill, and you think to yourself, "I am just as good as these guys are"! Still, you only have a one out of seven chance to win and that works out to just 14.3%.

You might be thinking this is the nightmare tournament round from hell, when the dealer determines that seat 6 will act first. That means seat 4 will be first bet on the last hand, assuming no one busts out early. You are seat 4! Ouch! You can figure your 14.3% odds just dropped another 5%.

The bets are placed and the cards come out! Everyone bet the one chip minimum. You get 2 Queens, and your opponents show three stiffs, one blackjack, and two pat hands. The dealer has a 5 up card. The question is, do you STAND OR SPLIT!

At this point, I can tell you I have occasionally seen poor blackjack players and some tournament novices split their queens in this situation, but I do not ever remember seeing a tournament expert split face cards in the first hand of a round. Why? BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE IN THE TORTOISE! What would you do?

Ask yourself this question? Would you Double Down if your hand was 8-2?

Of course you would, as would any TORTOISE. Do you think your odds of winning are any different in the two situations? Actually, you do have a slightly better chance with the 8-2, because that means there are two more face cards in the deck to give you a 20 hand. But, with a six deck shoe, the difference in odds is negligible. On average you will win this double down 59.6 times out of a hundred, and lose 33.3 times. That leaves 7.1 pushes out of the hundred. Therefore, you have a 64% advantage or a net gain of 26.3 wins in 100 tries, but this bet is doubled, making it a gain of 52.6 single bets. The net gain for the splitting of Queens is less, but it rounds out at 26 single bets out of the 100 tries, which are 52 bets for the 200 split hands.

Your other option, to stand, will yield you about a 67.5 bet net gain in 100 attempts. Clearly, your odds are better if you stand! However, what you must ask yourself is, "Is my need to win two bets right now, greater than the difference in the size of the advantage"? Let’s see. If you stand, you will most likely end up tied for second with 2 to 5 other players. If you split successfully, you will be the table leader by one half a bet. A half a bet is not much, but it is always better to be the leader, than it is to be one of the chasers.

We already have determined that your odds of winning this ‘nightmare’ round are only 10%. The way to tackle these long odds is to go for the gusto on those hands where you have the advantage. Let the HARE run right out of the gate! Split to win two bets!

‘The Babe’