Blackjack tournament question

i'm going to be organizing a charity blackjack tournament at a convention in a few months, and was just curious about how many decks would be best (and more efficient) to use. Two years ago I used 6 decks, but after some discussion with some friends (one of which is a dealer himself) mentioned that playing with 4 decks would be easier.

Just thought I'd try and get some feedback. Thanks!

What is the format? I'm not sure if it will make a difference but I'm curious.

I'm going to assume the tourney would have a fixed number of hands per round(10 is the typical number). I think it would be important to make sure you had enough cards in the shoe to cover one entire round without a shuffle. Speeds things up, keeps inexperienced dealers from having to shuffle etc etc. So if you have say 6 players at a table and they average 3 cards per hand(I think that number is pretty close). So that's 21 cards on average per hand(got to count the dealer). x10 hands is 210 cards. Since you are using some sort of cut card and shoe, I'm assuming, 4 decks(208 cards) won't be enough. So 6 or 8 would be better. Can't see that it matters that much beyond that. No one at a charity BJ tourney is going to quibble about the difference between 6 or 8 decks. Or at least I would hope not. You just want' to keep it flowing and simple.

Two years ago, we had the 6 deck shoe. 2,000 starting chips, 20 hands played per round with 6 players at each table. Hands 1-19, bet limit was 25-500, with the final hand being a no-limit "secret" bet.

Blackjack paid 2-1 automatically, no insurance offered. H17, double on any two, DAS, re-split up to 4 hands except on aces.

I'm looking to find ways to improve this, or if, with it being for charity, if it really won't make much difference.

Quote: cestanl

Two years ago, we had the 6 deck shoe. 2,000 starting chips, 20 hands played per round with 6 players at each table. Hands 1-19, bet limit was 25-500, with the final hand being a no-limit "secret" bet.

Blackjack paid 2-1 automatically, no insurance offered. H17, double on any two, DAS, re-split up to 4 hands except on aces.

I'm looking to find ways to improve this, or if, with it being for charity, if it really won't make much difference.

This looks pretty good, and similar to other tournaments I've seen.

Do you use a button to rotate who gets the first hand? That would be worth considering, so every player gets a chance to be third base. In a blackjack tournament, that actually matters. Remember the third base player has the advantage of seeing what everyone else has bet before he makes his bet.

Remember one thing about a blackjack tournament: you don't have to worry about house advantage. You're playing with monopoly chips, so go ahead and make the rules player advantage if you want (That's why you're able to pay 2:1 on blackjacks). It'll make the game more fun for the players if they have lots of chips. Just make sure you have high-denomination chips so you don't run out.

I'd consider bumping the limits to 100-2000 on hand 11.

Yes, we do use the rotating button for that :)

One thing I'd definitely love to see in tournament BJ is that a dealer BJ is a redeal. (No bet changes, button doesn't move.) No idea how that actually influences the expected numbers of the game (outside of the obvious) but it's just such a mood killer when there's so little room to operate with, and it feels like a cheap shot that's 'no fun'. Admittedly, this stance is probably tainted by how the last time I was in a BJ tourney, the dealer pulled 5 BJs out of 9 hands. (Nobody made it to the tenth and final hand.)

Quote: Venthus

One thing I'd definitely love to see in tournament BJ is that a dealer BJ is a redeal. (No bet changes, button doesn't move.) No idea how that actually influences the expected numbers of the game (outside of the obvious) but it's just such a mood killer when there's so little room to operate with, and it feels like a cheap shot that's 'no fun'. Admittedly, this stance is probably tainted by how the last time I was in a BJ tourney, the dealer pulled 5 BJs out of 9 hands. (Nobody made it to the tenth and final hand.)

Interesting idea. Only problem with that is it's unfair to some players. Remember sometimes a player is rooting for a dealer win to smoke out an opponent with a huge bet.

If nobody survived to the end, how did you determine a winner?

It was one of those big daily events for like 500$ in promo chips; based on round times and number of tables, I'd guess there were maybe 400 people a day; it just my table that got to stare death in the eye and vomit.

True. Winning is as much your opponent's bad luck (...variance) as your own good.