I had a conversation with a strong player, and he posed a series of ethical questions. He estimated that if I asked this question in a crowd of people, at least 75% of players would claim they would do the right thing in each situation. But if nobody else were around, less than 50% would actually do the right thing.
I’m not sure about his percentages, but they sound approximately right, more or less. So, let’s look at the questions.
Continue reading What Would You Do?The cards in ACE$ Bonus Poker (ABP) are just like the ones in regular Bonus Poker (BP) except there are superimposed yellow letters on four cards: “A” on the ace of clubs, “C” on the ace of diamonds, “E” on the ace of hearts, and “$” on the ace of spades. The order of the suits is alphabetical and contract bridge players will also be familiar with this order.
If you get four aces in ACE$ order, either in positions 1-4 or 2-5, you get paid 4,000 coins instead of 400. I’ve written about this game numerous times and have usually said the only changes you make to regular 8/5 BP strategy to play 8/5 ABP perfectly are to break aces full when the aces are in proper sequence for the bonus.
Continue reading An Interesting Hand in 8/5 ACE$ Bonus PokerI was associated with WinPoker for many years. It was, and is, a good product. Our breakup happened when Video Poker for Winners invited me along and promised to have a strategy calculator — a feature I think is important.
So I left WinPoker. I’ve remained on good terms with Dean Zamzow, the man in charge of all things related to WinPoker, but have no remaining financial interest in that product.
Continue reading Adding Triple Double Bonus to WinPokerI was walking through Sam’s Town here in Las Vegas on a Tuesday in June. The casino offers 10x points (worth 0.5%) for seniors on Tuesdays and I was scouting the place looking to see if anything might be of interest. Even after all these years, scouting is part of my routine.
I’ve been restricted from receiving mailers for more than a decade at all Boyd properties (including Sam’s Town), so anything I find has to be good enough by itself to be worthwhile, because there won’t be additional benefits coming down the road.
Continue reading It Might Not Scratch My ItchYou’re playing dollar pNSU Deuces Wild, the 15-9-4-4-3 pay schedule also called Airport Deuces, five coins at a time, and you’re dealt W W W 7♦ 9♦, where each W indicates a wild card. Specifically, a deuce. This is a dealt straight flush, worth $45 in this game. Congratulations!
Continue reading Video Poker EndowmentNSU is the 16-10-4-4-3 pay schedule of Deuces Wild that returns 99.728% when played well. “pNSU” (for pseudo NSU) is the name Liam W. Daily and I used to describe the 15-9-4-4-3 Deuces Wild pay schedule that returns 98.913%. Our name is still seen out there sometimes, but the name Airport Deuces, among others, is a far more common nickname for this game. Some people prefer to call these games “NSU (or pNSU) Deuces” or “NSU (or pNSU) Deuces Wild” but I’ve always preferred just NSU and pNSU.
I know NSU really well. I’ve played it probably 5,000 hours over the years. Taught it several dozen times, including the Advanced Strategy with all the penalty cards perhaps ten times. I co-wrote the Winner’s Guide for the game. And I still review the fine points periodically.
Continue reading Using NSU Deuces Wild Strategy for pNSU DeucesWhat I’m going to talk about today is a personal preference. It definitely works for me. I have no idea if it is something that would work for most people or not, but you take a gander and see if it’s a possibility for you.
One of the games I play at South Point is Multi Strike. Although I play the 25¢ 9/6 Jacks or Better Five Play version of Multi Strike, the technique I’m espousing works on any version of the game. It also works on Super Times Pay and Double Super Times Pay, along with a few others.
Continue reading How I Do ItAssume you’re playing 9/6 Jacks or Better and you’re still at the stage in your playing career where you need to regularly consult a strategy card. You’re dealt 2♠ 3♥ 4♣ 6♦ 9♠.
Experienced players know you throw all five cards away. But this is not an experienced player we’re talking about. This is a beginner — at least to this game. At least to the ranks of players who play using a computer-generated rule. The unsuited 2346, a 4-card inside straight with no high cards, is held in some games. Such a player might well ask: “Is this particular 4-card inside straight held in this game?”
Continue reading Would This Be a Better Strategy?In playing to win, you need to figure out where to spend your time. I came across such a dilemma recently and tried to figure out how to solve it. The problem was too complex for me to solve completely, but I created a simplified model using “reasonable” assumptions and was able to come up with a solution using the simplified model.
Let me explain.
On Wednesday evening, July 3 of this year, Bonnie and I were eating at the South Point with friends. On the way into the restaurant at 5:30, I noticed the jackpot level for the $600,000 “Mad Money Madness” casino-wide progressive was at $23,000. When we finished dinner an hour later, it was at $23,250.
This is a jackpot that will go off before it hits $25,000 (at which time it starts over again at $10,000). If you’re the lucky player who hits it, you get the prize, of course. If you’re playing when somebody else hits it, you get $25 in free play.
It was going up at a rate of $250 per hour, and likely it would go up faster as the evening wore on because evenings generate more slot and video poker players than daytimes do.
Starting at midnight, however, earning double points would begin. This adds 0.30% to the return.
Assume I would commit five hours to play — either before midnight (when the progressive was very likely to hit) or after. Which would have been the play with the higher EV? (Hybrid results of “play until the jackpot goes off and then if you have any more of your five hours left come back after midnight” were not being considered in this model, but might be a reasonable decision in real life.)
The are many combinations of games and denomination I could consider. I’m going to pick two — namely, NSU Deuces Wild for quarters and NSU Deuces Wild for $2.
This game returns 99.728% with perfect play — and for simplification I’m going to assume the return with the normal 0.30% slot club was 100.00% and the return with the double points was 100.30%.
I’m going to assume a speed of 800 hands per hour. This is playing pretty quickly, but nowhere near a record pace. This speed has the advantage of making the coin-in for the quarter game to be $1,000 per hour and the coin-in for the $2 game, $8,000 per hour. Again, round numbers make the math easier.
My next assumption may or may not be valid, and that is a quarter machine and a $2 machine have equal likelihoods of being selected as the winner. This could be true, and it also could be true that the $2 machine has eight times the likelihood because eight times as much is being wagered. The rules are very vague on this. The phrase “any machine any time” could apply to either way of doing it.
I’m also going to assume that in the next five hours, the progressive is going to be hit. Not guaranteed, but very, very likely.
Before I go on, take your best guestimate. Is it worth more to sit down now or wait for double points?
Okay. Figuring out how much the games are worth on double point days is easy. A rate of 100.30% means it’s worth $3 per hour on the quarter machine and $24 per hour on the $2 machine.
Figuring how much the game itself is worth before midnight is also easy. A game worth 100.00% is worth $0 per hour, no matter what your stakes.
So, it comes down to estimating how much the chances at the jackpot are worth. Again, to make the math easy, I’m going to assume 1,000 active players, and that each player has an equal probability of hitting the jackpot. So, on a per-person basis, actually hitting the jackpot is worth $25 — although 999 out of 1,000 people will get zero and one person will have a big smile on his/her face.
We are guaranteed to get $25 when the jackpot goes off so long as we’re playing and we don’t hit the big one. Adding these numbers together, the value of the jackpot to us is $50.
Adding $50 in EV to $0 (the amount the game would be worth with a 0.30% slot club) is also easy. Playing five hours before midnight gives us $50, or $10 per hour.
Comparing the $10 per hour to the $3 or $24 hourly rates we’d earn after midnight is also easy. If we’re playing quarters, sit down and play now. If we’re going to be playing a $2 game, wait for double points.
So, it turns out the problem of whether we should play now or later depends on what denomination we’re playing. I suggest denomination is a consideration that many of you didn’t think was a factor.
The third choice of “the game is not worth enough to bother with” is always an option. Different people will come to different conclusions about that.
If you don’t like my simplifying assumptions, make up your own. Your conclusion will likely end up being the same as mine unless you assume the $2 player had eight times the chances to win the jackpot as the quarter player did. (And I don’t know if that’s a true-to-life assumption or not.) If that’s your assumption, the right conclusion might well be for the $2 player to sit down now and start banging away as fast as he/she could.
