I’ve been teaching video poker classes for more than 20 years. A key part of each class is answering questions from the students. Some questions indicate the student is just starting out on the playing-video-poker journey, and some only come from students who have been studying for a while.
The questions I want to mention today are ones that indicate the students are looking in the totally wrong direction for useful hints on winning.
Some might consider these questions “stupid.” I don’t. If you’re trying to figure out how to do something, it’s appropriate to look in all directions. Smart students listen to the answers, make a decision about whether whomever answers the question is knowledgeable or not, and then decides whether to use the information.
Here are some of those questions:
1. How much money do you win or lose before changing machines? — Not a factor in my decision. I’m looking toward expected win in the future and not at actual results in the past.
2. How much money do you put in at one time? — It doesn’t really matter. I put in “even” amounts to make record-keeping easier — like $200 or $1,000 or maybe $5,000, depending on the stakes. For tax and other reasons, keeping good record is important.
3. If you cash out tickets before they get too big, does the machine think a new player has just sat down? — The machine doesn’t care who’s playing. It’s just dealing cards.
4. Do you use the amount of cash the last player cashed out as any kind of measure for whether or not this is a good machine to play? — No. Especially since it doesn’t have to mean anything at all. Someone could have inserted ten $100 bills into a machine and immediately cashed out. (I’ve done that to create tickets while I’m waiting for a hand-pay.) The machine would read it cashed out for $1,000, even though no hands were played. How is that useful information?
5. What is your favorite game to play? — It depends on how much the game returns when played perfectly? How closely to perfectly do I play? What does the slot club return? Are there any promotions going on? Do I need to play a certain amount to reach a tier level or earn mailers? Etc.
A key part of this answer is that each game type (Deuces Wild, Double Double Bonus, etc.) comes in a variety of pay schedules — a few good, most bad.
I am sympathetic to those who take the approach, “If I try to learn more than one game I get mixed up, so I always play Jacks or Better whatever the pay schedule is.” For some people, this might well be the most intelligent approach. Only you know your strengths and weaknesses insofar as learning several pay schedules go.
6. What is the best time of day to play? — This is a more insightful question than the previous ones. The machines themselves are the same, but I prefer playing the graveyard shift because it’s often easier to get the machines I want since most people are in bed, it’s less smoky, and the atmosphere in the casino is often more relaxed. I understand that for some people, playing at 3 a.m. is completely out of the question, whether it works for me or not. But if your life and schedule is flexible enough to play during those hours, I recommend it.
7. What’s the best casino to play at? — Again, a good question, but not one that has a unique best answer. No casino is better than every other casino at all games and denominations. Some casinos have better games but lesser restaurants. Some casinos include child care. Some casinos attract blue collar patrons while others make white collar patrons feel more at home. Since I’m a senior citizen, married, and a player who is more comfortable playing for higher stakes than many others, whatever place is best for me may or may not be best for whomever is asking the question.
8. How much am I giving up if I always play KK from KK446? — (This is far more specific than I intend. I get hundreds of this type of “What does it cost?” kind of question.) The short answer is “It depends.” A more specific answer necessitates knowing the game, pay schedule, and stakes you’re playing. In general, I’m not a fan of the “What’s the least I can do and still get acceptable results?” approach.
This is also a question that you should learn to look up yourself. Good video poker software is readily available and inexpensive. There are 2.6 million different starting hands in hundreds of different games. It’s simply too much information to obtain and store without using some electronic support.
Although 2.6 million is a pretty big number, there are a lot of “apparent” duplicates — including 144 unique ways to have KK446. The actual number of completely unique hands is 130,000+, and even then you’re going to have more than one case of KK446.
What is meant by the phrase “144 unique ways to have KK446” and how did you arrive at that number? Because we’re talking about standard 5-card video poker, there’s only 1 way to have KK446. If you are talking about the order of the cards, there are 120 ways for those 5 cards to be sequenced on the screen. So what does 144 represent?
6 combinations of the two kings (i.e. choose 2 from 4: K Spade, K Heart, K Diamond, K Club) x 6 combinations of the 2 fours x 4 combinations of the single 6 equals 144. Each combination is based on the fact there are 4 suits. This has nothing to do with order of the cards.
Bob uses this hand “KK446” a lot when talking about people who dump the 4’s going for the quad in DDB. I also see the opposite a lot where people dump the K’s going for the bigger paying quad 4’s!
Larry, if what you say is true, you’re watching some really bad players!
In 9/6 DDB, for $1 single line play, KK44 is worth $8.40 — KK is worth $7.24, and 44 is worth $4.40.
Sometimes I teach Deuces Wild Double Bonus, and in that game, holding the 44 by itself is unquestionably correct
Bob
It definitely is rarer but I’ve definitely seen high or other pairs dumped in favor of the 22’s-44’s in DDB.
From what I know, Deuces Wild Double Bonus Poker is a game that’s not so easy to be found in the full pay version. At the Gold Coast, 2nd Level, in front of the Bingo Room, I found a few maschines, some have elder Screens. I find it confusing to switch vom BDW do DBDW, but percentage wise it would be a wise move and study only DBDW, despite the high variance the game brings along. Greetings from Switzerland. Boris
Regarding the DDB hand of KK446, Bear Bryant [or one of those legendary football coaches] said “Never take points off the scoreboard.” (Or so says my husband (who doesn’t gamble). LOL.
That legendary football coach should stick to football and not play VP. There are countless hands where a paying hand is broken up because the EV is higher per the game pay table and strategy. Don’t know how many times I’ve thrown away 2-deuce straight or flush in deuces wild games and end up with 3 of a kind.
Many of the questions are very telling about the way a person’s mind works. I remember that a long time ago I learned that gambling events such as dice are random. Once I believed that, any notion of “hot” dice or cards or machines became clearly ridiculous. I never asked questions like how tong till I move machines because I was smart enough to figure out that it did not matter. Therefore, when people ask these kinds of questions, you know they are not very bright. Smart people don’t ask those questions or maybe they ask one and see how the principle applies to other similar questions. Much the same can be said for the idiots who want to know how much it costs to toss a pair from KK466. These morons want to sacrifice EV so they can have the thrill of chasing quads. Such folks might as well stick to keno.
These are excellent questions to ask, and it appears the askers are interested in migrating from a world of superstition and voodoo to the mathematics of the game–a quantum leap. Most do not care two bits about the math: temperature, sentiment, and emotion obtain instead.