Sorry if this has been covered here before, but I have a few questions that I couldn't find after a good bit of searches.

My poker group is ready to switch it up, we play Holdem tourneys half of our poker days and dealers choice the other half. We have a group of 6-7 and everybody is on board to try out a black jack tournament. I tried a few searches but didn't find much that was helpful for a few of my questions. I am hoping that somebody here has played a few tourneys that can give me some advice.

A little info: We have a shoe with 8 decks; we've all played Black jack at the casino but not in a tourney; Everybody is friends and everybody just comes to have a good time, we will probably play for about $25 each tourney.

1. We want to have about 2 or 3 tournaments in the same night, so I am trying to find a good number of set hands to play for a game to last about 1-1.5 hours, would 25 hands be enough or too many hands to play?

2. How many chips would be a good starting amount and what would be a good min/max bet to involve a decent amount of strategy to be able to conserve a stack and to also catch up when behind. Would $500 in starting chips with a min/max bet of $5/$25 be a good idea?

3. Is it a good idea to keep a set min/max the entire game or should it go up after so much time?

4. Nobody is going to want to sit out to deal, so if one person sits on the end to roll the dealers hand (and also play their own hands) is it going to be a real problem that nobody is checking the dealer hand for blackjacks before all the hands are paid out? I imagine when the dealer has a 10 or Ace, the first person to bust can just check for it. Does this work?

5. Rules: We are going to play that the dealer will stand on all 17's hard or soft; no rules to limit double downs and splits; no insurance; blackjack pays 3 to 2; no surrenders; a push is just a tie; Is there any problems playing with these rules, or anything I missed for a friendly game?

6. Is there any good simple side bets or things we could throw in the mix to make it more interesting?


Thanks in advance for the help!!!

Sounds like fun. Good luck.

1. If there is no dedicated dealer, hands are going to be slower. Also, with no banker to pay the players, the game is going to really slow down. I don't think it's going to move quickly enough to get 25 hands in 90 minutes.

2. I think with a $5 min bet, that starting with $500 is plenty. I assumed that there was no max bet.

3. I don't think you need to add any more moving parts for the first night. Keep the decided min/max for the 1st tourney. If you want to adjust for T#2, go ahead.

4. I think that you could solve a couple of problems by letting the deal rotate, and the dealer would sit out that hand. It would speed up the game play. Dealers could deal multiple hands and then pass the deal. Just potentially leaves the last dealer at a possible disadvantage not playing the last hand (allowing others to bet exactly the right amounts to catch up or stay ahead).

5. Sounds good. You'll have chips to cover the odd 3:2 payouts? If not, rounding down should encourage players to bet evenly (ie for a $25 bet, instead of getting paid $37.50, they'll get $35)

6. I'm always tempted to add in things that any player can win randomly. It does confuse things, and doesn't always work at every game. Maybe keep this one simple for the first run.