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Archive for December, 2009

Blackjack, the card game that adds a dash of European style to American casinos is simple enough: At the start of each round you get two cards and so does the dealer, one of which is shown. Keep drawing cards until you hit a total value of 21 or quit just before you go over the limit and bust. It’s you against the dealer and whoever comes out on top gets the winnings. At first glance the game seems one of chance an intuition. After all, you can’t know what card is coming up next. However one of the reasons that Blackjack is so popular is that there is a strong element of skill involved. Rather than just trusting to blind luck you can play your cards wisely and hopeful leave the table with a fist full of dollars.
Perhaps the most important thing to bear in mind is that what matters is not just your card value but also the dealer’s shown card.  Winning is all about assessing your hand against the dealer’s potential hand. Because the dealer has to hit on sixteen or stand on seventeen you can use this to plan out your strategy. The higher the dealer’s shown card the stronger his hand is and the more trouble your are in.

Here is a quick list of possible cards showing in the dealer’s hand and what they mean for you:

Ace: Big trouble. This round is going to be the dealer’s unless you have spectacular luck.

10 or face card: Bad news for you. The dealer is in a strong position.

9 : Things aren’t looking good. The dealer has got the upper hand here.

7 or 8: Loosen up a bit, you can beat the dealer on this round if you play things right.

4 to 6: The dealer has got that sinking feeling. This hand looks like it will be yours.

2 to 3: Be careful. It could go either way, so play cautious.

Always draw a card if your total is less than 11 because there is no danger of you busting. As a general rule you should always stand if your hand is 17 or higher. If you are on 13 to 16 only draw a card if the dealer is showing 7 or better.
If you hand totals 12 you should take a hit unless the dealer is showing 4 to 6. In this case the dealer may very well bust so you should sit tight and wait for that to happen.

If you play your Blackjack right you can narrow the house odds down to almost even and with just a little luck, you can come out ahead.

Home poker tournaments are becoming more and more popular. By knowing how to deal with certain circumstances your tournaments will run more smoothly, and be more fun for everyone. This article deals with removing low value chips from the tables by means of a chip race.

When a poker tournament begins, each player usually starts with a healthy stack of chips that are the lowest denomination. After all, you’ll need them to pay the blinds, and probably for all of the betting during the first few blind levels.

But, as time passes and the blinds increase, these smaller chips eventually are more bothersome than helpful. With blinds at $75 and $150, putting up fifteen $10 chips to pay a big blind is not convenient.

So, once a chip value is no longer needed to pay any of the remaining blinds on the schedule, those chips are removed from play. When possible, they are cashed in at face value for a higher denomination chip. But, someone is bound to have the odd chip or two, and that brings us to the question of how to remove those odd chips from play as well.

The first way to deal with this situation is to ignore it. It won’t go away, but those leftover $10 chips will only be put into play when a player is going all-in. At that time you can sort out any situations as they occur. Eventually one player will gather enough of the small chips to cash them in.

Or, you can race off the smallest chips of the smallest value. A chip race begins with the player in the dealer’s position. For each odd chip they have, they receive one card, face up. So, if the dealer has three odd chips, he will receive three cards face up.

This continues around the table until all the players have given their odd chips in exchange for cards.

At that point, the collected chips are totalled and a pile of the same value is made using the next higher chip denomination. So, if $100 worth of $10 was collected, $100 of the next highest chip value (perhaps $25’s) would be set aside to award in the race.

If the numbers do not match, they are rounded up. So, if $120 worth of $10 chips were collected, $125 worth of $25 chips would be awarded in the race.

Now, the awarding of the chips. The player with the highest card receives one chip. Then the player with the second highest card. And so on. Each player may only receive one chip, so once a player is awarded a chip in the race, all of his cards are taken from him.

It is important to note that a chip race cannot eliminate anyone from a tournament. If a player has only one small chip left when the race begins, that chip is traded in for a card as usual. Should he lose in the chip race, and additional chip of the new value is given to him so that he may keep his place in the tournament.

Chip races can be fun and interesting, or bothersome, depending upon the situation. In our local tournaments we simply leave the odd chips on the tables until the final table is formed.
At that point we race off all the unused colors.

Handle things in a way that works for you when hosting a tournament. Still, should someone ask about chp races, now you know the ins and outs of the process.