official MS BJ tournament rules

[vp_nbi]

I picked up a copy of the official rules while playing at MS
yesterday. My vp session was mucho profitable as I hit 5 aces four
times, 4 deuces with ace once, and 5 threes on the 8x Multi-Strike
multiplier. Howard, you made a Double Bonus Deuces Wild believer out
of me!

Regarding the printed Blackjack tournament rules I find them
incomprehensible. Here are the Round 1 rules perhaps someone can
explain them in a way that makes sense:

1. Round 1 will consist of 5 sessions. The 5th session will be the
rebuy session.
2. Each session will have a maximum of 6 tables with 6 players at each
table.
3. At the conclusion of 20 hands, all chips will be counted and the 3
players with the highest score at each table in each session will
advance to round 2.

Obviously in order to be fair the rebuys must be available to all
entrants that failed to qualify (those who did qualify obviously don't
care about rebuys). The problem is that the numbers don't add up.
6(tables) X 6(players) X 4(sessions) = 144 (entrants). By rule 3 we
qualify 50% of the entrants for round 2 leaving 72 (144 X .5). But
rule 2 limits the rebuy session to 36. Clearly 36 != 72. So I don't
get it. Who qualifies for rebuys and when??

In my 2nd pass at this I tried incorporating other info to mold this
into something that could make sense. For "General Session Rules" a
rule states "a player with no chips remaining is eliminated from
play". Aha, I thought, now this is beginning to take on some semblance
of logic. It appears that non-qualifiers consist of 2 categories:
those who bust out and those who are left with chips at the end of a
session. The problem with this scenario is that if we place everyone
with remaining chips in the rebuy session we could end up with the
worst case number 72 (4 X 18) which is in conflict with the rule 2
maximum of 36 since there is no apriori way to determine how many will
bust out.

Okay, one more try. Lets say we automatically seed survivors from a
session into the next session which also takes on new players. This
process is iterated leaving a rebuy session field that satisfies rule
2. This approach while satisfying the rules as stated has 2 very
serious flaws: fairness (someone entering via session 1 clearly does
not have the same odds as someone entering via session 4) and
scheduling logistics (the bustouts can't be determined in advance so
how do you schedule players after the 1st session??).

That's 3 strikes in trying to interpret these rules. Time for me to
"grab some bench".

Could someone else step up to the plate? It would probably be most
helpful if a participant of the last tournament relates how it ran.
Thanks.

[vp_nbi]

Ok, I got an official clarification from MS. It's not nearly as
complicated as the misleading printed rules would lead people to
believe.

*Anyone* who fails to qualify for round 2 has the option of rebuying
for the 5th session. In the event that there are more rebuy players
than allowed for by rule 2 below, MS will setup additional tables to
accomodate all rebuy players.

This could have simply been stated in the rules to avoid any
confusion.

···

--- In vpFREE_Chicago@yahoogroups.com, "vp_nbi" <nbi@w...> wrote:

I picked up a copy of the official rules while playing at MS
yesterday. My vp session was mucho profitable as I hit 5 aces four
times, 4 deuces with ace once, and 5 threes on the 8x Multi-Strike
multiplier. Howard, you made a Double Bonus Deuces Wild believer out
of me!

Regarding the printed Blackjack tournament rules I find them
incomprehensible. Here are the Round 1 rules perhaps someone can
explain them in a way that makes sense:

1. Round 1 will consist of 5 sessions. The 5th session will be the
rebuy session.
2. Each session will have a maximum of 6 tables with 6 players at each
table.
3. At the conclusion of 20 hands, all chips will be counted and the 3
players with the highest score at each table in each session will
advance to round 2.

Obviously in order to be fair the rebuys must be available to all
entrants that failed to qualify (those who did qualify obviously don't
care about rebuys). The problem is that the numbers don't add up.
6(tables) X 6(players) X 4(sessions) = 144 (entrants). By rule 3 we
qualify 50% of the entrants for round 2 leaving 72 (144 X .5). But
rule 2 limits the rebuy session to 36. Clearly 36 != 72. So I don't
get it. Who qualifies for rebuys and when??

In my 2nd pass at this I tried incorporating other info to mold this
into something that could make sense. For "General Session Rules" a
rule states "a player with no chips remaining is eliminated from
play". Aha, I thought, now this is beginning to take on some semblance
of logic. It appears that non-qualifiers consist of 2 categories:
those who bust out and those who are left with chips at the end of a
session. The problem with this scenario is that if we place everyone
with remaining chips in the rebuy session we could end up with the
worst case number 72 (4 X 18) which is in conflict with the rule 2
maximum of 36 since there is no apriori way to determine how many will
bust out.

Okay, one more try. Lets say we automatically seed survivors from a
session into the next session which also takes on new players. This
process is iterated leaving a rebuy session field that satisfies rule
2. This approach while satisfying the rules as stated has 2 very
serious flaws: fairness (someone entering via session 1 clearly does
not have the same odds as someone entering via session 4) and
scheduling logistics (the bustouts can't be determined in advance so
how do you schedule players after the 1st session??).

That's 3 strikes in trying to interpret these rules. Time for me to
"grab some bench".

Could someone else step up to the plate? It would probably be most
helpful if a participant of the last tournament relates how it ran.
Thanks.