Classic Blackjack VS Blackjack Tournament - By Bill Ricardi
There are many differences between classic, casino-style blackjack and blackjack tournaments. The goals and the reward systems of the two games aren't at all the same. If you're trying to make the transition from one kind of blackjack to the other, you're going to have to adjust your game drastically.
The goal of classic blackjack is to beat the dealer. It's a game of you versus the house, and you don't care about the hands of other players at the table (other than to count their cards). Superstitious players talk about the other players at the table ?taking bust cards' and the like, but that isn't reality. You count cards so that you know how much or little to bet, and you make the best decision about your hand that you can. The intended result of perfect play and perfect card counting is a profit over the long term.
The goal of blackjack tournaments is to beat every other player. It's all about your betting relative to all of the other players' bets. You may not need to beat the dealer's hand during a given round, not even once, in order to get to the next level. Unlike classic blackjack, you can minimum bet and surrender your way to victory if the dealer is on a hot streak. Every move that you make should be tailored to end up with the most chips at the end of the last hand.
You're rewarded for ?tight' play in classic blackjack. You calculate your moves based on blackjack basic strategy, modified for card counting and other advantage play. Risks aren't even an option; you're always going to make the highest percentage move available to you. The amount that you bet is based on the value of the deck's count. If your system has positive return on investment, then you have as much time as you want to turn a profit, assuming the casino doesn't eject you for taking too much money!
When you're talking about blackjack tournaments, on the other hand, there are many cases where normal blackjack odds go right out the window. Since all you care about is being the chip leader by the end of the last hand, there are strange risks that you have to take sometimes. You would never double down on a hard 18 in normal blackjack, but if this is the final hand of the round, and doubling down is the only way you can possibly move on to the next round, then that's what you do! If you have a 20, but after watching others bust out you realize that surrendering locks up first place, then you surrender the 20! The concept of risk is often warped by the reality of relative chip stacks.
There is advantage play in both traditional blackjack and blackjack tournaments. Knowing how many face cards are left in the deck is useful. However, even the best blackjack tournament players in the world admit that psychology and math skills are more important than card counting in the tournament game. Besides, as far as Internet blackjack goes, there are no weak dealers to take advantage of, nobody is going to kick you out for card counting, and you can't shuffle track clumps of cards!
In a nutshell, blackjack tournaments and classic blackjack are two very different beasts, and you should treat them as such.
Bill Ricardi - Online Gaming Guru
Read More -
Tips from Get21 pros - http://www.get21.com/pro-Introduction/
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