Won a Blackjack tourney on a cruise ship recently. Seven hands in prelims and seven hands in finals. Tourney was for three hours, with top six scores and a wild card comprising the final table. About 20 people waited to the final minutes to enter so we knew what scores we had to beat. The combination of that knowledge and the dealer busting alot allowed 5 of the 6 finalists to come from our table (the sixth was the all-day leader who ended up in the sixth). I ended up in second and thus had the second choice of where to sit. I chose the first spot since the player betting first rotated with each hand and I figured if one person busted out, I could control the betting on the last hand. I went first and bet it all, figuring that everyone would have to follow suit. I had a small chip lead over several players and a bigger lead over several others. I pulled a card to get 21 on the last hand and the wild card pulled her third BJ in seven hands (paying 2:1) and still couldn't catch me. I don't remember what the dealer got on the final hand but he didn't beat my 21 and I won the tourney.
Besides giving out too much info in this post (the BJ was so bad on board, they couldn't possibly be checking this site), did I do the right thing betting it all? Did I choose the right seat? I used the Jeopardy analogy: I din't want to be leading going in to Final Jeopardy, get the question right (winning the hand), and still lose the tourney. BJ on board was $10 minimum tables, either CSM or double exposure (even money BJ, double 9,10, 11 only, lose ties). I didn't see one person win on double exposure all week, as was to be expected.
.jpg)
