Coaching by the dealer??

[ctaco55]

I played in a tournament today. I studied the chapter on tournament play in Kevin Blackwood's book "Play

Blackjack Like the Pros" and played just as he says. It's the final hand. I have the chip lead by a few hundred chips and I have to bet first. I bet $25 forcing

my closest competitor to make a biger bet to win. The lady to my left has no idea how to play blackjack and has been betting $200 every hand so I

anticipate her to do the same on the last. Like I thought she grabs 2 black chips and motions toward the betting circle but the dealer stops her and

says "you should bet the max because you can't win if you don't" so the lady dose what the dealer tells her and makes a $500 bet.

My closest competor hits her 16 and busts while I stand on my 20.The lady to my left stays on 12 with the dealer showing a 10. The dealer busts her 15 and the heat is over.

We count the chips and my friend to my left has $150 more chips than me and wins the heat and I don't advance to the next round.

The casino states in the rules no coaching. So I call the PC over and he calls
his manager. I state my case to him and he tells me that it was ok for the

dealer to help because it was the last hand and thier was nothing he will do for me. Sorry for the long post but I wanted to get some advice on how to prevent this from happining again. Thanks in advance!

 

[Deathclutch]

Wow that's pretty bad. You'll probably get better replies posting over at https://www.blackjacktournaments.com/ though. That's where most of the tournament players are.

 

[ctaco55]

Thank you for the info.

 

[Nynefingers]

I think it was very wrong for the dealer to do that, but unfortunately I don't have any advice for how to deal with that situation. I just wanted to comment on your bet size. If you were ahead be a few hundred with a a 500 max bet, I would have bet at least enough so that if all players won 500, your winning bet would still put you ahead of them. With no max bet constraint, I would have bet my lead minus a chip. With a max bet of 500, it might even be worth betting enough to cover a BJ win by your competitors if you can still get the low (dealer BJ would still result in your win). Betting min was probably not optimal here, and a better bet would have resulted in you winning (in this instance). That doesn't mean what the dealer did was right, but I think you could have made a better bet, and if you had, you would have made it past that round.