Some background for poker folks: Many major casinos occasionally hold invite only tournaments for valued guests -- i.e., high stakes table games players. Prize pools can vary from $50,000 to $2,000,000 and number of entrants can be anywhere from 10 to 500. Some of these tournaments have entry fees and/or rebuy fees, some of them have no entry fees and no (or free) rebuys. The tournament itself is generally +EV but the people invited are expected to be major players in the pit (baccarat, craps, blackjack, pai gow, slots) -- so you can't make a career out of these tournaments since you only get invited if your theoretical (or sometimes actual) loss at the casino is sufficiently high. The casinos obviously run these tournaments to make money -- and they do. The craps tables and blackjack pits were full all weekend with $1k, $5k and $25k chips flying.

A typical Bellagio blackjack or baccarat tournament has 100-200 guests and a prize pool of $500k-$1m, although they certainly have better tournaments for higher stakes players and smaller slots tournaments, too.

A blackjack tournament doesn't take a lot of time and there is a ton of luck involved (moreso than a poker tournament). The standard rules are you play 20 hands and the guy with the most chips at the table advances to the next round (where the chip counts are reset). Position on the last hand matters a ton, and is determined by chance (coin flip in this case). This tournament was also a head to head tournament, which means position mattered even more. There is a strategy to blackjack tournaments but it is primarily a betting strategy to position yourself for the last hand. There is no "reading" of your opponents or anything like that. If the best blackjack player on the planet is playing a novice with half a brain, and the novice wins the coin flip for position on the last hand -- they are probably about 50/50. If the pro wins he is probably a 70/30 favorite. The problem is that even if you are playing a total idiot, he might just go all in once or twice -- and even a bad player is going win any given hand about 45% of the time. If a guy goes all-in on the first hand and wins, his opponent is screwed. Blackjack strategy is actually not even all that important since everybody can play 98% of the hands correctly, and the other 2% are basically coin flips anyway.

[By the way -- this is also one of the reasons that blackjack tournaments make for terrible tv. There will never be "stars" since luck is a huge component, and perfect strategy is relatively simple compared to becoming a top poker player, which takes years of experience. There are no interesting bluffs, reads or interpersonal dynamics between players. And the first 15-18 hands are pretty boring if you have good players, because they bet low and wait to make a move].

Without boring you with all the details of the weekend -- the bottom line is Sammy took it down by winning 8 consecutive matches. There was a partial chop when we got to 8 players, because that is pretty standard in blackjack tournaments like this. Especially this one which was $750k winner take all. Sammy was all class during and after the chop, which was a difficult situation since a guy like Sammy is used to playing for $750k, but nobody else there was. It was 7-1 in favor of a chop and Sammy generously gave in -- karma that definitely helped him win the next 3 rounds.

If I've posted this in the wrong forum, please feel free to move it. I have a passing interest in poker so I know these boards but am not a regular.

Raisy Daisy imo

I love Sammy - flamboyant classy oldschool gentleman.

what a true hero

Now I want to watch some Sammy playing HSP. Best episode in everyones opinion?

I enjoyed watching the World Series of Blackjack on GSN back in 2004 when I was 12 and played BJ for fun with friends. I thought Hollywood Dave was cool back then lol.

So wait, how much did he win?

Was it a $750k buy-in?

I'm confused yet all of a sudden have a desire to gambolllllllllllllllll

sweet/well written post. wouldn't a 750k WTA sweat would be huge for an action junkie like sammy? surprised that he agreed to chop though i like him a biut more for doing so, seems pretty gracious. how much did they chop and leave to play for?

Haha those tournaments sounds like a blast imo, thanks for the summary, op.

Sammy is a long time gambler right, how is he not broke yet... he must be banging lady luck right in da azz.

so im guessing sammy won 100kish in a degen freeroll.
the man is a legend

These statements couldn't be any farther from the truth.

Blackjack tourneys may not be as popular as poker on TV, but there's a ton of it out there. In the past 5 years I myself have been involved in: 4 seasons of the World Series of Blackjack & 2 seasons of Celebrity Blackjack on GSN, 2 seasons of the Ultimate Blackjack Tour on CBS with re-runs on WGN, the Hilton Million Dollar BJ Tourney & Vegas Challenge on the Travel Channel, King of Vegas on Spike TV (combo blackjack and poker), and several other interview segments on blackjack tournament play for other shows.

But regardless of the relative success of those shows on tv, your assertion that luck is the primary factor and that basic strategy is relatively easy to learn is just dead wrong. A blackjack tournament actually has very little to do with the correct 'basic strategy' of hands and everything to do with betting correlations and higher mathematical concepts about the relativity of different outcomes. What may appear to be simple luck actually has a lot to do with skill, but it'd take a lot longer than a simple bulletin board message to explain why.

I guess the closest comparison may be to poker, in which someone pushing with any 2 cards has the ability to double up and beat a pro in any given hand. But those of us who understand the game better realize that in the long run, the pro will beat the amateur the vast majority of the time. If you don't believe me, play 10 heads up blackjack tourneys against a tourney blackjack pro; you'd be very lucky to win 3 or 4 of them. Its important to differentiate too -- blackjack cash games (ie card counting, hole carding, etc) are apples and oranges a completely separate set of skills than the ones used to master blackjack tournaments.

"Bluffing" "reads" and "interpersonal dynamics" actually do play a strong part as well, considering that the best bets and plays must be made based not only on chip position, but on your profile of how the other person will bet or play their hands when you're acting out of position. Some of my biggest tournament wins have come about by betting or playing AGAINST "proper" strategy, but perfectly for the specific opponent i was playing. This dynamic only increases when you put two pros together, who must 3rd and 4th level their thinking to try and outwit, outbet, and outplay one another. Just like in poker, getting all your money in as a coinflip is often the last resort, but a truly good player finds many, many ways to have a virtual lock on their opponent when the right time comes.

Anyway, congrats to Sammy and all. Just wanted to provide a different viewpoint on your statements about the game --

-hd.

Nice score for Sammy. As a fellow blackjack degen, I'm very impressed.

nice reading comprehension you ****ing idiot

Cue the hollywood dave gimmick account to agree with everything he said.