Blackjack tournament has emerged as an option for all the gamblers across the planet. If anyone has a desire to achieve big in quick time then they must try their hand in blackjack tournament.
THE BIG HAND
Allan Brown discovered early on that tournaments were all about betting. His team would often try to bury the competition early rather than leave it to chance or luck on the final hand. They developed a very aggressive style, which often meant they ended up first or last. This can be embarrassing, as it is only human nature to want to look good in front of other people. But the gains from going for the jugular are huge.
Allan's most memorable win came at the Frontier كازينو. He entered the last hand down $800 to the chip leader. Since the max bet was $500, he knew his only chance was to get a hand he could double down or split. Allan's hopes rose when the dealer dealt him two face cards. Normally, this is a strong winning hand, but here Allan had no choice if he wanted to win. Spurning the sure thing, which would have locked up second place for him, he calmly slipped out another $500 and split the face cards.
His first ten received an ace for a total of 21. Then, unbelievably, his second ten caught another ace. Both hands won and the place exploded. Allan walked away with the $50,000 first-place prize and provided the crowd with one of the most dazzling finishes in the history of blackjack tournaments.
BEYOND BLACKJACK
Allan believes that those who can think quickly on their feet during the heat of battle have a big advantage in tournament play. One of the members of Allan's team who personified this trait was a sharp poker player named Russ Hamilton (Russ would later win the $1 million first prize in the 1994 World Series of Poker). Although the initial plan was for the team to attack only blackjack (its area of expertise), Russ Hamilton believed other tournament games like craps offered an even bigger edge. He observed a group of Caltech alumni, tagged "the Engineers," dominate several craps tournaments, including winning $500,000 for first place at the Tropicana in Las Vegas. Russ noticed that the Engineers and Stanford Wong's team did extremely well at these dice tournaments, so Russ learned• their strategy and taught the rest of his team. Soon Allan Brown's group branched out into winning craps, keno, and baccarat tournaments.
His team excelled at these games because few players under- stood the correct strategy for petting, especially near the end. The important thing in most tournaments is to go for the win (depending on how the prize money is split). But getting to the final table doesn't mean you should start dreaming about that new condo on Maul Allan once had three guys from his team at the final table of a baccarat tournament. First place paid a cool million dollars. Yet despite their high hopes and obvious edge over the other players, not one of the three snagged degrade prize.
GO BIG OR GO HOME
Blair Rodman was a key member on two of the most famous tournament teams (Stanford Wong's, then Allan Brown's). More recently, he was the best-known pro to survive all the grueling qualifying rounds at the inaugural Million Dollar Blackjack Tournament and make it to the final table. When the seat assignments at that tournament were determined, one of the first things Blair did was to mentally calculate his probable betting position for the very last hand. After deducing he would be in a bad spot at the end, he decided to bet aggressively and try to capture an early lead. The Travel Channel had arranged to televise the entire event, so Blair expected the other players to wager conservatively, since it was unlikely anyone wanted to make an early exit on national TV. He theorized that a big lead might unsettle his opponents and cause them to bet too aggressively and make mistakes while trying to catch him. In the earlier qualifying rounds, Blair had already witnessed a number of people crack under pressure, including one player who had the win locked up but incorrectly surrendered on the last hand and lost.
