You are probably wondering what kind of prize money you could win. It can range from $50,000 to a million bucks depending on which tournament you qualify.

On bet21, there are all kinds of tournaments offered 24 hours a day. They include Sit & Goes, as well as nightly scheduled tournaments with great overlays (meaning the tournament often pays more in prizes than the total amount of entry fees-a terrific deal for smart tournament players).

Here is a basic summary on how the tournaments on bet21 are conducted. There will be 5 to 7 players per table. The minimum bet is $500 and the maximum is $25,000. The player’s cards are dealt face up. The dealer will only turn one of his cards up. Thirty hands will be played and a small button (numbered 1 through 30) will indicate what hand you are playing.

The dealer will always deal from seat number 1, but the person that has the little numbered button in front of them will act first in making their bet and also determining what action they might want to take on their hand. There is a 20 second time limit on making your bets, or taking any cards, on all hands except elimination hands. On elimination hands 8, 16, and 25, you will have 1 minute; and on the final hand, you will also have 1 minute. If you decide to use your secret bet you will also be given 1 minute. You have 1 secret bet chip that you can redeem any time to make a bet in secret (so your opponents won’t know how much you bet). If you use a secret bet, you also have the option to make a secret action so your opponents won’t know how much you doubled down for, or whether you surrendered your hand, or whether you stood on your hand.

On Hands 8, 16, 25, and 30 the person with the lowest chip count at the end of each elimination hand will be eliminated. Let’s say on hand number 6 someone goes broke. At the conclusion of hand 8 someone else will also be eliminated. In this format it is very possible that you will never see 30 hands dealt because there might be only one person remaining with chips after hand 16 or 25.

The secret bet and secret action adds the exciting poker element of bluffing to elimination blackjack. And because the player with the lowest chip count on the elimination hands gets booted, you will often see players making bigger bets from the start and also going all-in to avoid getting eliminated. Therefore, more aggressive betting is the norm for elimination blackjack compared to traditional blackjack tournaments.

In elimination blackjack tournaments, seat 1 is the worst seat to draw because that means if no one goes broke before hand 8, you will have to make the first bet on the first elimination hand. Of course if seat 1 is the worst, then seat 7 is the best. If you are lucky to draw seat 7, you can watch what everyone else bets before you have to make your bet, which gives you a big advantage.

Here are some other twists that also have been put in place to make this blackjack tournament more exciting. All double down cards are dealt face down. The dealer must hit on soft 17(e.g., a soft 17 is A-6 or A-3-3). You must double down for at least the minimum bet of $500. Players can split pairs or face cards up to 4 hands, except aces. You can only split aces once. You can surrender after receiving your initial two cards. You must have at least a $500.00 bankroll to make a bet. You also can take insurance for as little as $250.

Now that you know the basics of elimination blackjack, all you have to do is go to bet21 and sign-up to begin playing elimination blackjack tournaments. Perhaps you’ll wind up on one of my tables. In any event, I hope to see you at a final table someday, perhaps on national television with millions of viewers watching.

Ken Einiger