In the world of blackjack, there are quite a lot of interesting developments and tournaments which are introduced every year. This is what reflects the evolution that blackjack has gone through in the last few years. Among these tournaments is the Celebrity Blackjack Tournament which had first been launched in the year 2004 by GSN. Basically it is a TV tournament which had been created by the network for charity purposes. Celebrities competed against each other in order to win the prize money which was eventually given away to charity.
During the first season, which was aired in July 2004, the host of the show had been Matt Vasgersian. The dealer for the tournament had been Hollywood Dave Stan. The season two of the show had kicked off in October 2004 and it went on till January 2005.
The basic concept
Celebrity Blackjack features top 25 players from the entertainment industry. The winner of the tournament was adjudged Celebrity Blackjack champion. The tournament’s format is quite similar to that of World Series of Blackjack. Five winners from the preliminary rounds make it to the finals and the sixth show would decide the final two players. There is a wild card round where the winner is decided and he/she would move on to the seventh and the final show.
Every tournament of Celebrity Blackjack had expert commentators who share their views on the tournament. There also had been an online playing interface on the network’s website. The users of the network were allowed to play the game for free and can also compete against other players in real time.
The format of the tournament
The format of Celebrity Blackjack is quite similar to that of any other blackjack tournament. However, for the last hand there is a secret bet. The twist is known as the Five Card Charlie and it would decide which the winning hand would be. Any player who has five cards with a sum total of 21 would automatically be a winner.
For every tournament, typically there are five celebrities. These players would play the tournament with $100,000 chips. Overall, the players would play 21 hands and for the first ten of these hands the amount of the minimum bet is $1000 and the maximum is $25,000. There is no maximum bet limit for the 11 to 20 hands. For the final hand, the bet amount was kept a secret. Every player has to write the amount of the bet which was to be played.
In the tournament, the deck even had jokers and the players could replace them with any card visible on the table which was not being played. The winner for the first season had been Caroline Rhea and the prize money of $100,000 was donated.
In the second season every table had four celebrities and there had been preliminary and semi final rounds. Even during the second season, the combination of the Five Card Charlie had been applicable. During the second season, unique promotional activities had been adopted.
