To develop a winning strategy for tournament Blackjack, the player must first know what is required to win. There is a limited downside and an incredibly high upside to aggressive play. That explains why risk-taking is such a key element in tournament play. On the other hand, you can win a huge amount, relative to the amount paid for entry, if you play your cards right. You cannot lose more than the entry fee you paid to join the tournament. You can do so only by ending up with more chips than your opponents have, so the size of their chip stacks becomes more important to your strategy than what card the dealer shows or how many 10’s remain in the deck.Īnother big difference is that no matter how wildly you bet or play, your losses are limited. Instead of trying to beat the dealer, the goal in a tournament is to beat the other players at the table.
That’s because the objective of the game is different. Playing in Blackjack tournaments requires a strategy quite different from the Basic Strategy recommended at “normal” Blackjack tables. Have you ever seen an experienced Blackjack player split a pair of fives facing a dealer’s face-up 8, or double down on hard 15 against a 10 showing, or cheer when the dealer drew a 3 or 4 to a soft 17? If so, you were probably watching a Blackjack tournament, because only in tournament Blackjack do such “crazy” things happen.
