With newly approved compacts between the Indian tribes and the state of Oklahoma, live blackjack games are now available in some Oklahoma casinos.

Here’s a story from an Oklahoma City TV station:

http://www.kotv.com/main/home/stories.asp?whichpage=1&id=76807

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

I guess that’s not a bad thing. Today’s announcement is for Texas Hold’em players.

InterPoker is offering a series of free tournaments, exclusively to players referred by sites like mine.

Get all the details at this link:

InterPoker Free Texas Hold’em “Backroom Tournaments”

Las Vegas Advisor is offering a Free Multiplayer Blackjack Tournament at Global Player.

All the details are available on the message boards at BlackjackTournaments.com.

Click here for details of the free tournament.

The dates are Dec 8-12, 2004, and there’s $3575 of prize money. No entry fee!

If you missed out on the last tournament I mentioned (It’s full now.), here’s a second chance.

BlackjackTournaments.com is sponsoring a FreeRoll Multi-Player Blackjack Tournament at Global Player online casino. There’s no cost to participate, but you must be a registered member of the BlackjackTournaments.com site. (That’s free too!)

The event takes place Sunday, Dec 5th at 3 PM EST. There’s $1000 in cash prize money up for grabs. Participation is limited to the first 60 players who sign up, so get going.

For more information, check this thread at the BJT message boards.

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.