If you are like us you love the excitement that online tournaments bring you. Blackjack is a common tournament that is offered with many online casinos and it offers you some fantastic action and the best part is you can always find a tournament to get in on no matter what the time of day. They offer cash prizes, entries into bigger and better blackjack tournaments and more! Regular blackjack is always fun to play but the real action is in the tournament play!
This difference between regular blackjack play and tournament play is simple. In regular blackjack you are playing against a dealer. This allows you limited opportunities as you can only play so many cards – even if playing 5 handed. As you are playing with a standard 52 card deck you have higher variances as fewer cards are in play. However with tournament action you are playing with as many as10 players. You still are in the game with the dealer, that is a given but you are also competing against all the other players at the table and in the tournament, which can often include up to 500 players. You are playing against the clock as well with each session usually lasting 15 minutes whereby at the end of each session only a certain amount of players will advance to the next round.
Online Blackjack tournaments will usually require you pay a fee to enter. There are many freerolls but for the larger games you will need to set aside a portion to use towards your fee to enter and play. Generally most of this fee goes towards the prize pool and small portion of it will go to the casino running the tournament. That is what is attractive about blackjack tournaments as the prize pools can become large and offer you some substantial prizes if you place in the money or better yet – win it! The tournament starts with all players receiving the same amount in chips. After each round those players with the most chips at their respective tables will advance. This is usually the top 3 positions for each table. As the pack is dwindled down upon completion of each round the winners will go heads up on the final table to win the prizes.
Remember though that it is important to apply a strategy to blackjack tournaments in order to be successful. As you only advanced based on your position after each round it does require some aggressive tactics but also calculated tactics. You will need to monitor other players and see how they are position wise in order to understand if you need to change up your strategy in order to come out on top or whether to sit back and hold on to your stack you have built. If you are unsure of blackjack strategy or are just learning you may wish to do some reading online and gain a better knowledge of strategy in blackjack and apply that to low buy-in tournaments until such time as you have mastered it and able to compete at a higher level.