Online Blackjack Games

Tournament Blackjack is an interactive and competitive adaptation of the traditional game of Blackjack and has picked up pace even online. In the conventional style Blackjack, each player competes against the dealer. There is no interaction between the players. Every player wins from and loses to the bank.

However, in Tournament Blackjack the players compete with each other. The dealer in the game is selected from among the players itself. Turn by turn every player becomes the dealer in the game. The format of this style of Blackjack is similar to the one used in the game of Texas Holdem Poker. Every player in the game begins with an equal number of chips. The main goal of the player is to win more and more chips as compared to other players. The player with the maximum chips in the end wins. The players are charged with some reasonable entrance fee and the rewards are predetermined by the casinos. Usually casinos offer a preset scale of prizes for the first, second and third positions.

The first tournament of Blackjack was organized in 1978 by Ed and David Fishman at Del Webb’s Sahara hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Fishman brother’s were the first ones to think about the idea of tournament Blackjack. This event was known as the “The World’s First Blackjack tournament Championship.” Nearly 2000 players participated in every event of this tournament and every round lasted for about 55 minutes.

According to a report by Donald Catlin, the entrance fee for this tournament was $250 at that time. The fixed amount for the players to buy chips in order to enter the tournament was $500. The highest betting limit for this tournament was $500 and lowest was $5. The game was played with a single deck of cards. All the players were dealt with two face-up cards. The players could double after the first deal and split up to three times with an exception of Aces. Aces could be split only once. The dealer stood on soft seventeen.

Such Blackjack tournaments are best for card counters. Card counting is not only endured but is welcomed with a smile in such Blackjack tournaments because the chips are lost and won among the players. The bank has nothing to lose. So, the cards are dealt from a single deck and it is card counters who usually win, owing to their remarkable mathematical calculations.