As it happens, by coincidence I was on the same cruise as Bob with the BJ
tournaments. I thought it was perfectly fair of Jeremy to help players, and in
fact, I gave the same advice to a couple of Harrah's folks (even though I
was also a contestant). This was far from an ordinary tournament, in that you
only had 7 hands, and in effect, you pretty much had to win about 6 of 7
hands with maximum amounts to win, or hit a couple of good double
downs/splits/BJs to increase your $500 in funny money bankroll up to $2000+ to be in the
final 2nd round.
Most of the players were total novices to such a tournament, many novices to
BJ in general. As Jeremy stated, it was basically a fun tournament designed
to get players into the casino and to be an "extra" for Harrah's players.
There was little strategy involved in winning other than "going big" pretty
much from the get-go and praying you got some decent hands.
You were also limited by a $500 max bet situation, which Bob forgot to
mention. This means even if you won hand #1 and #2, you now had $1500, but you
couldn't plunge bet all $1500 on hand #3, you were stuck with betting a limit
of $500 on #3. In 7 hands, the likelihood is that you are going to lose at
least 4 of 7 (on average) I would guess, so you have to be pretty lucky to win
6 of 7.
While maybe Jeremy shouldn't have aided any one player, he really did no
harm if he just gave general advice at the beginning for everyone to bet heavily
to win in this one type of tournament. He was just trying to be helpful I'm
sure. I also heard him telling people that you probably would need over
2000 to be in the finals, based on his previous experience.
The prizes were pretty pitiful here, something like $75 for 3rd, $100 for
2nd, $250 for 1st, if I remember.
At any rate, all of us from Harrah's had received a free cruise (from
Harrah's New Orleans) for 2 people for 10 days, which was a pretty nice comp!
Harrah's sponsored 4 of these low-ball tournaments, 2 slot and 2 BJ. They or the
Royal Caribbean casino also gave us various presents during the cruise,
including $100 toward ship credit, $200 gaming, 2 bottles of wine, very nice (but
large) bowl, slippers, fruit in room, free booze at casino bar (best comp of
all!) etc. They also paid cruise port tax, tips, and fuel surcharge! We
paid airfare, excursions, extras.
You may be wondering how to get a free cruise -- the answer is, I really
don't know. Basically, you have to play at Harrah's New Orleans, and offers are
based on your play in N.O. only (not at other Harrah's properties). They
have some pretty nice offers, depending on level of play. It used to be easier
to get free cruises, but they have cut back. My husband (Diamond) and I (7*)
both got 7-day cruises to Mexican Rivera last year, for example. But now
they've cut back, so only I got the Hawaiian cruise. Recently I got an offer
for a 7 night cruise from Miami, he got 5 nights from New Orleans, after he
played twice with about 2000-4000 base points each time.
We've gotten other nice offers from N.O., such as $500 slot play (me), $200
slot play (him), drawings, tournaments, $750 Saks card, etc., often with food
or some other goodies thrown in, sometimes with some airfare reimbursement.
Overall New Orleans offers are vastly superior for same amount of play as
offers I've gotten from Las Vegas. Also the hosts are very much better than at
most Harrah's properties I've visited.
We found New Orleans to be great. The French Quarter is in great shape, no
problems after Katrina to speak of. We recommend it highly. The people are
wonderful and super friendly. The city needs tourism to help recover from
the hurricane too.
So I do recommend N.O. Harrah's very highly to gamblers. My advice is to go
for a visit, enjoy the city, and gamble heavily on 1 day and 1 card.
Hopefully that will start triggering offers. You may not get a cruise offer at
first, but hopefully you will get other offers and go back and eventually get a
cruise too. Offers are dependant on levels of play. Quarter players
probably won't get a cruise, $1 players may get 5 night cruise, 10-play $1 VP
players or $5 reel players probably will get cruise offers. They also seem to
reward the better cruises to people who have visited several times.
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