Elimination Blackjack
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Elimination Blackjack is a unique format of tournament blackjack that combines the simplicity of blackjack with the strategy of poker, pitting you against the dealer and other players to avoid being eliminated. Televised Elimination Blackjack tournaments appear on Saturdays on CBS on the Ultimate Blackjack Tour. PlayUBT.com, the official website of the Ultimate Blackjack Tour, offers free online Elimination Blackjack tournaments.[1]
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[edit] Rules
- One Elimination Blackjack tournament round is comprised of 30 hands.
- In preliminary tournament rounds, each player starts with $25,000 in chips, which is also the maximum bet. The minimum bet is $500. At the final table, each player starts with $100,000 in chips, which is also the maximum bet. The minimum bet for the final table is $1,000.
- Action starts on the button and rotates clockwise every hand.
- Each player has 25 seconds to make a decision. The timer will start to count down when only ten seconds remain. On Elimination Hands, players have 45 seconds to make a decision.
- Hands 8, 16, and 25 are Elimination Hands, at the end of which the player with the least amount of chips is eliminated.
- Each player has one secret bet that can he can use at any time during the round.
- Whoever has the most chips at the end of hand 30 wins.
- The house must hit on soft 17 and anything below, and must stay on hard 17 and anything above.
- A player may split pairs up to three times (except when splitting aces).
- A shoe of six decks is used.
- A player may surrender his hand and recover one half of his original bet once the first two cards have been dealt.
- A player may buy insurance if the up card for the house is an ace.
- Doubling down after splitting is allowed, except when splitting aces.
- A max of seven players is allowed per table.
[edit] Elimination Hands
A player is eliminated from an Elimination Blackjack tournament in two ways:
- By losing all his chips (regardless of the hand number), or
- By having the lowest chip count on Elimination Hands 8, 16 or 25. (A player is eliminated on these hands even if another player was eliminated on a hand just prior to it.)
[edit] Secret Bet
Every player can make one secret bet per round. This bet can be used at any time. The strategic advantage to this twist is that no other player can see the amount bet until the end of the hand. Because other players formulate bets based on what they see at the table, the secret bet can be used tactically during a crucial Elimination Hand and can be a powerful move when a player must bet early, because he leaves opponents no option but to guess at what he has done. The secret bet gives players an option that is familiar to poker tournaments—the option to bluff!
Once a player places the secret bet, he can disguise every other decision made for the rest of that particular hand, except hitting and splitting. Any other bet or playing choice—double down, surrender, stand, or insurance wager—can be done secretly in order to make the other players unsure of his strategy.
[edit] Winning
The player with highest chip count on hand 30 wins.
