Play blackjack, win an Ipod

[KenSmith]

With a title like that, be honest, you thought this was spam, right?

Close, but not quite. I haven't actually checked it out yet, but Disney is running some sort of blackjack game contest at their site. Here's the link:
http://apps.pirates.go.com/pirates/v.../contests.html

I haven't checked to see what's involved in registration, so you're on your own. Good luck.

[avs21]

Thank you for the heads up

[Greg]

I took the bait and registered. It turns out that this contest is part of a massive multiplayer Pirates of the Caribbean game (think G-rated World of Warcraft). According to the contest page, whoever wins the most blackjack hands within the game between 12:00 am and 11:59 pm (Pacific time) each day through January 6th wins one 8 GB iPod Touch. The winner yesterday had only 2722 hands won, so I figure that iPod is as good as mine tomorrow. I downloaded the software and am currently wandering through "Port Royal" looking for the gambling taverns or whatever they are. Trip report to follow. Oops, gotta run, my pirate character has just been attacked by a level 4 cadet.

[EasyRhino]

VERY interesting.

Is much in-game currency required to gamble? It might require a lot of time swabbing decks to earn the doubloons to take on this promotion with a reasonable risk of ruin.

[avs21]

I played the game for 5hours today it is kind of boring. Winning 2700 hands in a 24hour period is a lot.

[Greg]

I played for fifteen minutes and started to get a headache, so it looks like I'll have to save for that iPod instead. You start with 50 gold pieces and the minimum bet is two gold pieces. I imagine it can't be too hard to obtain more currency to gamble if you lose it all. You are a pirate, after all. The contest rules aren't clear about the effect of splits and doubles on your hands won count. Nor is there a counter for hands won. And there is no current leaderboard, they simply post the top 25(?) at the end of the day. I would hate to waste 16 hours on it only to finish in a distant second. Seems like a good promotion for Disney and their game though.

The one unique feature of the blackjack game was the multiplayer aspect. There were two other pirates playing with me. I'm not sure if they were actual players like me or some sort of AI, but one of them did get up and leave halfway through. Maybe I'll give it another whirl and try some hand interaction plays. There are ploppies aplenty in the Caribbean. One pirate repeatedly stood on a Soft 17. Oh, and I almost forgot. The rules were S17, DOA, DAS, BJ pays 3:2, no peek. I never saw any duplicate cards, so it appears to be a single deck game, but they are definitely using a CSM. Despite this, with the favorable rules, the player has a .04% advantage! Don't everyone rush to Port Royal at once.