The online casino Betcom is holding another blackjack tournament, with an interesting twist. The event features $20,000 in prizes and it is structured like the March Madness NCAA basketball tournament.

Among all those who enter and play in the first round ($50 entry fee), the top 64 scores advance into round 2 of the tournament. After that, each subsequent round eliminates half the field, just like in the NCAA tournament. So, in round 2, your goal is to be among the top 32 scores in a field of 64. In round 3, it’s the top 16 out of 32 who advance, and so on.

If you keep putting up high scores, you can roll all the way to the $5000 first prize on just your first entry fee. But, once you’ve qualified for one of the rounds, you can reenter in that round as often as you’d like to improve your score.

I’ve never seen a format quite like this, and I think it will be both interesting and profitable for savvy players. During each round, the ‘cutoff’ score will be displayed, so it should be interesting to see how this plays out.

If you want to participate, sign up now for the “Early Bird” special. You get two entries instead of one for the first $50 entry fee. That’s available until Wednesday March 16th. Play begins on March 17th.

More information here: Betcom $20,000 March Madness Blackjack Tournament

An item in today’s Las Vegas Mercury discusses various casino advantage players and their tactics. It covers a broad spectrum including card counting, hole card play, sports betting, poker, and even craps.

The article starts with a few paragraphs about Eliot “The Mayor” Jacobson, whose new book The Blackjack Zone is available at the BlackjackInfo store.

Stanford Wong weighs in on his new passion, beating the game of craps, long thought by advantage gamblers to be unbeatable.

Bob Nersesian, the Las Vegas attorney who in recent years has taken on several high profile cases representing advantage players is quoted as well.

From the Edmonton Sun:

WINNIPEG — The Manitoba Lotteries Corporation has partially lifted a ban on French in the province’s casinos by allowing bilingual blackjack tables twice a week. Although Manitoba recognizes French as an official language, provincial rules normally forbid any language other than English at many casino tables to prevent collusion among gamblers.

The fear is that if the dealer can’t understand the players, he or she would be unable to spot cheating.

The bilingual tables will only be open at two Winnipeg casinos – the Club Regent and McPhillips Street Station casinos on Friday and Saturday nights.

My hand-by-hand synopsis of week two in the World Series of Blackjack on GSN is now posted, and it’s available in time for you to use it to understand the rebroadcast of the show on Tuesday night (Feb 1st). GSN, 10 PM Eastern (and 10 PM Pacific I think).

I was one of the players on this show, so a few of my insights this week are straight from the actual table.

Caution: Spoiler!! If you haven’t seen the show yet and don’t want to know the outcome, don’t read the synopsis!

Here’s a link to the complete show recap:

World Series of Blackjack, Week 2

The premiere episode of GSN’s World Series of Blackjack lived up to all expectations, delivering an exciting and well-produced show. I stick with my comments made at the time; That tournament table featured some of the best play I’ve ever seen.

If you’d like to read my hand-by-hand recap of the show and join in the debate, visit the World Series of Blackjack 2, Episode 1 thread at BJT.

Tune in this Friday night for the show at 10 PM Eastern on GSN, where I’ll be one of the five competitors.

I’m excited about this addition to the site. Kevin Blackwood, author of The Counter and the upcoming Play Blackjack Like the Pros has agreed to bring his considerable talents aboard and help populate the new Card Counting section of the site.

Already available is an article entitled World’s Greatest Job. Check it out!

For the third year running, I’ve managed to win a seat in the final event in the Las Vegas Hilton’s Million Dollar Blackjack Tournament. It took a few tries this year, but in the December monthly qualifier I picked up one of the 16 big-event seats available. I went on to make the final table, but my results there weren’t as satisfying.

My final table story:

Bet limits are $100 to $2500, from a bankroll of $5000. About 12 hands into the 28 hand round, I decided to make some larger bets in an attempt to take the lead. I bet $900 to take the lead. I lost. On the next hand, I bet $1300 to take the lead. I lost. After those losses with my bankroll down to $2100, I decided to lay off a hand and of course, I won the minimum $100 bet.

On the next hand I bet half my remaining bank: $1100. I went all-in on a basic strategy double-down, 10 vs dealer 8. I lost that too. That was pretty much my whole final round. Three big bets. Three big losses.

Seventh place paid $1500, but the real prize for me was winning a seat in the final event on May 12th 2005, where 200 players will compete for the top prize of $1 million in cash.

I was recently involved in a final hand at a blackjack tournament at the New Frontier in Las Vegas, where an opponent had a tough decision to make. He had a soft 18 facing a dealer ten, and the tournament situation made it unclear whether standing or hitting was preferable.

The complete situation, and an unusual discovery about it are detailed in this thread at BlackjackTournaments.com:

An unusual tournament situation

An article in today’s Las Vegas Sun starts out talking about Jimmy Pine, aka “Young Jimmy Dime” who was a participant in the recent World Series of Blackjack’s second season. The story goes on to cover a laundry list of blackjack topics: Card counters, backrooming, lawsuits, and of course a few bits of WSOB2.

My recent post about a $99,999 judgement against Imperial Palace casino in Las Vegas included only the actual damages awarded in the case. Since then, the case has returned to the courtroom where the jury awarded an additional $500,000 in punitive damages. Law caps the punitive damages in this case to $300,000, so the plaintiff James Grosjean stands to collect $1 under $400K for the incident that occurred in Nov 2001.

James Grosjean is the author of ‘Beyond Counting’, an excellent book covering advantage play techniques that have never been published elsewhere. (It’s regrettably out of print now.) Grosjean was also one of the 25 players who competed in the the first season World Series of Blackjack on GSN.

Here’s a link to the Las Vegas Sun’s coverage of the Grosjean/IP case:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/gaming/2004/nov/05/517780711.html

Speaking of World Series of Blackjack, I’m in Las Vegas this week for the filming of WSOB season 2. This time, 40 players compete for $500K in prize money. The thirteen shows will air beginning January 11th, 2005.