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The World Series of Blackjack |
No one would dispute the fact that poker has gotten a huge boost through the advent of televised poker tournaments. These days you can't turn on the TV without seeing poker championships, whether in the World Series of Poker or the World Poker Tour or celebrity poker tournaments. The World Series of Blackjack is now doing the same for the game of blackjack.
Big-Money Televised Blackjack TournamentThe cable network GSN introduced the "World Series of Blackjack" in 2004, and it became an instant hit. As GSN hoped, the first season of the "World Series of Blackjack" was ranked very well in viewership and also spawned a successful celebrity blackjack series. The "World Series of Blackjack" is a "closed tournament," which means that players are either invited to play or can win a spot by winning a preliminary satellite tournament. Rounds are fit into 1-hour episodes and broadcast on GSN.GSN realized that for the show to be successful over the long haul, it needed to be "character-driven," as they say in the biz, as opposed to game-driven. In other words, as popular and exciting as blackjack is, the series needed big names and interesting personalities to attract steady viewers. Contestants have included former members of the MIT Blackjack Team, professional blackjack players like James Grosjean, blackjack writers like Stanford Wong, a few professional poker players to liven things up, and some blackjack-playing celebrities like baseball player Orel Hershiser and comedian Penn Jillette. There is always a good balanced mix of male and female contestants. And the presence of some amateur blackjack players who qualified via the satellite tournaments means there is always a chance for an upset, which is an exciting event in any game. In the first season of the World Series of Blackjack, the prize money was a "mere" $300,000. This jumped to $500,000 in the second year and $1 million in the third year, half of that slated as the Grand Prize for the Tournament Champion. The show is professionally produced with multiple camera angles, a state-of-the-art set, and a live studio audience to keep the atmosphere charged. The Format of the Blackjack TournamentThe format of the World Series of Poker is simple. In the first round, the 40 players are split into 8 tables with 5 players at each table. Each player starts with $100,000 worth of chips. At the end of 25 hands, the player with the most chips is declared the winner and moves on the next round. Second-place finishers compete in "wild card" rounds for additional chances to advance.The winners from the eight tables, plus two wild-card winners, compete in two semi-final rounds. The first- and second-place finishers from each semi-final round, plus one wild-card entry, then compete in the final round to determine the World Series of Blackjack champion.
Innovations in the Blackjack TournamentThe producers of the "World Series of Blackjack" have not rested on their laurels and have introduced changes to keep things interesting. In the third season of the show, for instance, two major innovations were made to spice things up. The first modification involved a "knock-out" card, which was added to each shoe. When a knock-out card appeared in the course of a hand, the player with the lowest chip total at the end of the following hand was eliminated. The knockout card also signaled an increase in the minimum bet per hand.The other game change introduced in the third season was called the Power Chip. Each player received one Power Chip per game. Using the chip allowed the player the one-time-only chance to discard one card from his or her hand and exchange it with the next card from the shoe. These changes - both the Power Chip and the knock-out card - keep the already popular World Series of Blackjack tournament young and exciting, add to its popularity, and keep the dedicated fan base growing with every episode. Alice Walker Scores a Rare DoubleThe fourth World Series of Blackjack — the 2007 tournament — was won by Alice Walker. No, not Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of "The Color Purple." This Alice Walker is the Director of the Audio/Visual Department for Omni Hotels in Houston, Texas. During her time off from the hotel, Alice had won the 2006 million-dollar Three-Card Poker Championship. And now she has won the 2007 million-dollar World Series of Blackjack. These phenomenal back-to-back victories surely place Alice Walker into the very top echelon of the world's best card players.Good for the Game of BlackjackThe World Series of Blackjack has attracted millions of enthusiastic viewers, from professional gambling experts to recreational online blackjack players to newcomers who have never seen a game of blackjack before. All in all, the World Series of Blackjack has been good for the participants, good for the viewers, and good for the game of blackjack.
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