Tournament blackjack

	As you are receiving the same cards, the winner is the person who plays those cards the best. Luck has no real impact

Blackjack is a solitary game played with steely-eyed aggression against a casino dealer, right? Wrong. It’s also a game that can be a battle of wits between many players under the glare of TV cameras. Welcome to tournament blackjack.

Tournament blackjack first kicked off in Atlantic City in the 1980s, and has since grown in the US to become a televised event with huge prize pools. For the last three years, the Las Vegas Hilton Million Dollar Blackjack tournament has been the foremost competition, but following the sale of the Hilton last year the new owners decided to cancel the whole thing. Nevertheless, the blackjack torch continues to be carried by the World Series of Blackjack and the Ultimate Blackjack tour.

For those of you who fancy your chances against the best in the world, there are some very good deals available on flights to Atlantic City (the 2006 World Series of Blackjack is held there in July). But for those of us back in the real world, the game is also generating interest online, where sites such as www.gameaccount.com now allow you to play head-to-head with other players.

Check the technique

One of the main attractions of tournament blackjack is that it’s a game of skill. In land-based tournament blackjack, you play against other players at the same table and are all dealt the same number of hands – generally 20-30 hands. Every player starts with the same bankroll and the player (sometimes two players) with the most bankroll after the specified number of hands is the table winner and advances to play other table winners.

You’re restricted to playing one box and there’s a limit on the amount you can bet each time (if there wasn’t, you could just pile everything on one hand). The key to winning tournaments is to bet according to your opponent’s bankroll. If you get off to a flyer, there’s no need to take risks if your opponent is short-stacked. Similarly, it allows you to bet aggressively if you are falling behind.

Online tournament blackjack is a somewhat different affair. While the idea of pitting player versus player remains intact, it differs from its land-based counterpart in three crucial areas:

• You play against a single opponent
• You play between one and five boxes
• You both receive exactly the same sequence of cards

As you are receiving the same cards, the winner is the person who plays those cards the best. Luck has no real impact (and how often can you say that about a casino game?)

Unless you’re a card-counter, following basic strategy gives you the best chance of beating the dealer – which is why blackjack is often considered the best casino game to play. Because tournament blackjack sees you going head-to-head with another player and not the house, it also allows certain moves that would ordinarily not be allowed:

• You can split Aces
• You can double down after splitting
• You can double down on any value hand (some casinos won’t let you double down on 9,10 or 11)

The aim is, of course, to make tournament blackjack a contest of who can win the most, rather than who can lose the least.

Bringing down the house

Underpinning all tournament blackjack is the use of basic strategy. In essence, you must hit, stick, split and double according to what your cards are in relation to the dealer’s upcard.

Nevertheless, using basic strategy isn’t a sure-fire way of winning.

To win at the online version there is one key point to bear in mind. As you don’t play simultaneously, you can’t see how your opponent is doing, and this forces you to change the way you play. We played at www.gameaccount.com, where the game gives you exactly five minutes to play your 25 hands. But don’t be too worried about the time – rushing your bets will result in you making mistakes. Time will only be a consideration in the event of a tie in points, and this is unlikely to happen.

Fools rush in

Bet denominations are $1,000, $500, $250 and $10, but resist the temptation to whack the maximum ($1,000) in five boxes right away. You only start off with $10,000 worth of chips and if the dealer happens to hit ‘blackjack’ in the early hands, you’ll end up with half your starting chips left – not good.

It’s far better to concentrate on one or two boxes and bet big for the first five or so hands. Once you’ve attained around $15,000 you can take your foot off the pedal and revert to minimum bets. Although this may seem like a cowardly option, it’s likely that you won’t need much more than $15,000 to have more chips than your opponent. If you keep pushing all the way to the end you risk losing the lot in the last few hands. But while skipping the last five hands altogether might seem like a smart move, it’s not – there’s a penalty of $500 per unplayed hand at the end of the game.

If you find that you’re not hitting the cards, or that you keep busting out and the dealer keeps hitting blackjack, don’t panic. Chances are that because your opponent gets the cards in exactly the same order as you do – differences only arise from how you play the cards – he’ll be biting his nails as well when his 16 faces the dealer’s upcard of 10. Minus scores are perfectly possible and you can still win, as long as you achieve less of a negative score. Quitting the game before the time is up is definitely the worst thing you can do since your score will be an automatic -$50,000. That would be an impressive deficit even for the worst blackjack player in the world.

The payoff

Once you’ve posted your score, one of two things will happen. If the player before you has already posted a score, your scores will be compared and you’ll win or lose immediately (hopefully win). Otherwise, you’re in for a short wait as the next player takes on the cards that you just faced.

While the first option has the appeal of instant gratification, the second option is strangely satisfying as well. Nothing quite beats waiting, watching and sniggering to yourself as your $5,500 proves just good enough to edge out your opponent’s hard-fought $5,000. Just don’t expect it to win you the World Series!