Bob Dancer's new progressive games at the M

Mind you, I'm speaking off the top of my head, but I think Roadtrip's analysis is way off. If arc was accurate in the listing of the games, and I'm sure he was, the 4% is added to the 96& basic payback. For someone who can play each of these games very well there will almost always be a positive expectation game (often 2 or more). The play for the royal strategy is just silly. For each increase of 5 or 10%in the royal payoff, you may or may not make minor adjustments (e.g. draw to 3 to RF vs. holding hi pair), but those adjustments might not be critical to turning a profit. Where the casino makes money is very few people can play each of those games well and even fewer can retain that level switching games. I think a large number of players will play the game with the biggest RF payout whether they know the game or not.

Folks, if you haven't done so already, do yourself a favor and read the article. If you've read it before, consider reading it again. It specifies how the 4% royal progression will be added to the machines (and no, it's not 4% to each game on the machine).

When Dancer talks about variance of 160-180... What is the unit of measurement?

If he's right that there will always be at least one of the progressives high enough to return over 100% then I would think the pros would lock these up pretty much 24/7. I don't see this one lasting too long. But it's a new and interesting idea. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

minustwenties

Knagl, understood. but the ev+ player can pick and choose. If on an 8 machine bank each player is playing a different game your machine is effectively going up by about 4% of what you play. It will balance out, Dancer knew that this would be a PE game for a few players, that's what he is all about. Oh, FYI. the break even point would be when the RF reaches about $2600 on quarters or $10400 on dollars, depending on the game. While the variance will be pretty high any really good $ player should love this set-up. It will be a bad bet for the first 24 hours,but the M will probably give you incentives to play for that period.

This is a really interesting setup, in my opinion. I'm more of a JoB or Bonus Poker kinda guy because I don't like the huge amount of variance and volatility. I'll skip these games, but I applaud M Resort for thinking outside the box and implementing these.

For those who don't mind the bigger roller coaster ride and can study and play correctly based on inflated Royals and shorted paytables, and have the bankroll to withstand it, it's a neat play.

oobiedoobie- You're right, unless they seed the Royal progressives to start out, they'll be really bad games and will take at least a few days of random players plunking money into the bad paytables before the games get "good."

Last comment. you can expect to lose $250 per hour on the $ games while waiting for the Royal.

oobie.....

You said you think the RF would need to be $2600+ on quarters or $10400 at dollars, to reach +EV status, while I said that with my "rough math", I think it would need to be about 10K units using a GFTR strategy.

Also, the 4% RF "progressive deduction" would come off the top of the 96% expected return, and the machine would return 92% of the remaining coin in for other hand combinations while the progressive is built with that 4% from the "original 96+%". (winners that are not Royals, and/or royals without max coins played to trigger the royal progressive.)

What I did not make clear that using the GFTR strategy, there would be pays along the way that would come out of that 92% return for "perfect" play, and that I did not know what that amount would be, and that I expected the progressive would need to be about 19K units to be +EV with perfect strategy play, without any adjustment for pays along the way.

Seems like my rough math is not that far off from what you said, ::: shrug ::: bearing in mind that it was exactly that, very rough math, without any knowledge of the pays.

Although we know that 96+% is the pay back (before points and other incentives), we do not know what the pay tables are for specific hands on each individual game. Proper strategy can not be "computed". Also it is just not possible to calculate what the progressive needs to be to turn an individual game into a +EV situation. But, each game would have a different progressive "number" to become +EV.

Until I know the exact pay table for a game, I am unable to know or calculate what the progressive needs to be.

We can only speculate. I still think my rough math is in the ball park, close enough at the moment to be relatively "safe" for the purpose of discussion. My instinct tells me I'm not too far off in what I calculated. But even a small mistake on the wrong side is too big for something that requires much more precision to know when it becomes profitable.

My calculations were "seat of the pants", and if I was walking by the machine, I would probably risk a little using them, but would definitely "work the numbers" before a second session.

IF/when someone let's us know the actual pay table for each game we will be able to properly calculate what the progressive needs to reach to turn a game +EV. Until than, it's all speculation.

The actual numbers need to be worked.

Will one of the locals please post cell phone pics of the pay tables, or tell us what they are?

Thanks.

The expected returns for each game are right in the article.