Blackjack tourney help

Hi guys, My local casino opened a blackjack tournament today and the qualifiers last until Jun 22nd and the final starts at Jun 24th. I would like some insightful opinions on how to play the qualifier, heat, and the finals

The settings are like this:

Qualifying tournament: 25 dollar buyin 15 dollar rebuy unlimited rebuys
Player starts with 5k chips, min bet 25 max bet 25k, you get 21 hands to make the most chips and top the leaderboard. Top 19 players are guarenteed in the heat and the other 25 players are drawn through wild card. You get 1 wild card for every rebuy

Heat:

there are 3 heats and each heat there will be 2 tables of 7 players, 6 tables each. first and 2nd place of each table (12 players in total) will head into the semi final

Semi final:

2 tables of 6, top 3 players from each table will head to the finals or top 6 players from the round will head to the finals. I forgot which one it is

Finals:

6 players compete in a set number of hands and make more chips than their opponents

Prizes

First: 10k with a 12.5k watch
second: 10k
third: 5k
4th: 3k
5th: 2k
6th: 1k
7-42: 300 match play

Explain the wild card a bit more for me. Is it an actual "rebuy" where you have to go broke first, or is it more of an "add-on" where you can pay $15 more, get more chips AND a wild card? Can you stack wild cards as in rebuy once or twice without using your previous ones then have 3 on your next buy? At that point I'd just go for broke and rebuy once or twice (or get lucky and double your money through a few times to the top of the leader board) then when you have 3-4 wild cards you can double your money through a few times for sure due to wild cards massively helping win the hand if you need the help.

Quote: Romes

Explain the wild card a bit more for me. Is it an actual "rebuy" where you have to go broke first, or is it more of an "add-on" where you can pay $15 more, get more chips AND a wild card? Can you stack wild cards as in rebuy once or twice without using your previous ones then have 3 on your next buy? At that point I'd just go for broke and rebuy once or twice (or get lucky and double your money through a few times to the top of the leader board) then when you have 3-4 wild cards you can double your money through a few times for sure due to wild cards massively helping win the hand if you need the help.

Sorry, I need to explain this,a bit more carefully.

This tourney is a double deck.

You can only rebuy if you're broke.

wild cards are put in a ballot box for the contestants that didn't make it to the top 19 of the leaderboard (25 are drawn)

Ah, that makes a lot more sense. Sorry I took it as you get a wild card for a hand of blackjack for some reason. I don't play a ton of tournaments, I doubt they would do this very often looking at it, because yeah, those wild cards would be absurdly powerful.

Well, for "tournaments" in general, when I did play a ridiculous amount of poker, I treated rebuy tournaments for the full amount. i.e. if the tournament was $50 and rebuy for $25, I'd plan for the tournament to be a $100 buy in and of course hope to not have to use it. I mostly avoid rebuy tournaments because it takes some skill out of it due to playing "big ball" (aka variance). If you know you can rebuy, why not just shove all in and see if you can get lucky a couple times knowing you can always just do it again (or try harder) with another buy in?

Say the leader-board top score is like $20k... why not just go all in back to back hands and see if you can get lucky in 2 hands then? With rebuys, inevitably there will be a couple lucky people that get like 4-5 hands in a row all in wins and that'll make their score nearly unbeatable, with regular play, around 40k-80k.

Quote: Romes

Ah, that makes a lot more sense. Sorry I took it as you get a wild card for a hand of blackjack for some reason. I don't play a ton of tournaments, I doubt they would do this very often looking at it, because yeah, those wild cards would be absurdly powerful.

Well, for "tournaments" in general, when I did play a ridiculous amount of poker, I treated rebuy tournaments for the full amount. i.e. if the tournament was $50 and rebuy for $25, I'd plan for the tournament to be a $100 buy in and of course hope to not have to use it. I mostly avoid rebuy tournaments because it takes some skill out of it due to playing "big ball" (aka variance). If you know you can rebuy, why not just shove all in and see if you can get lucky a couple times knowing you can always just do it again (or try harder) with another buy in?

Say the leader-board top score is like $20k... why not just go all in back to back hands and see if you can get lucky in 2 hands then? With rebuys, inevitably there will be a couple lucky people that get like 4-5 hands in a row all in wins and that'll make their score nearly unbeatable, with regular play, around 40k-80k.

Thanks for the tips on the qualifiers, but it will still last for another 17 days. Also, would it be a good strategy to swing for the fences on the last 3 days of the qualifiers?

Quote: dajakesta

Thanks for the tips on the qualifiers, but it will still last for another 17 days. Also, would it be a good strategy to swing for the fences on the last 3 days of the qualifiers?

Depends on what the other scores are. If you're on the last 3 days, you should know what score you need to advance... so if you get $5k in chips and the top 75 advance (or however many) and the bottom (#75) has $20k, then you know you need to more than quadruple your money... Basically you don't have a choice but to swing at that point =P. Now if #75 (and just above him) only have like $10k, you could try to make some decent bets but you don't have to just go all in every hand so you could try to implement a bit more tournament strategy. I assume you have to WIN your table AND qualify with a certain number of chips? Or do you only have to win your table? If that's the case then it's much more strategy (based on what your opponents do).

Quote: Romes

Depends on what the other scores are. If you're on the last 3 days, you should know what score you need to advance... so if you get $5k in chips and the top 75 advance (or however many) and the bottom (#75) has $20k, then you know you need to more than quadruple your money... Basically you don't have a choice but to swing at that point =P. Now if #75 (and just above him) only have like $10k, you could try to make some decent bets but you don't have to just go all in every hand so you could try to implement a bit more tournament strategy. I assume you have to WIN your table AND qualify with a certain number of chips? Or do you only have to win your table? If that's the case then it's much more strategy (based on what your opponents do).

You don't need to win a table, you juat have to have as much chips as possible in the qualifiers

Quote: dajakesta

You don't need to win a table, you juat have to have as much chips as possible in the qualifiers

So then near the end of qualifying, yes, you're "probably" going to be throwing up hail mary's =). You'll see the leader boards and know what you have to do.

Quote: Romes

So then near the end of qualifying, yes, you're "probably" going to be throwing up hail mary's =). You'll see the leader boards and know what you have to do.

Also sorry for not mentioning this but, after.you finish 21 rounds, you'd have your chip counted and you'd have to rebuy another time with a fresh start of 5k and another 21 rounds. IDK if there'll be any changes to strategy