"I've lost 10 of 14 sessions ... yet, I'm still ahead for the year."

You still don't understand the concept of an edge. The edge is figured for each time I play through my bankroll. It's not like a savings account where you might make 1% for a year. I make 1% each time I put my bankroll through the machines. If that takes me two sessions playing once a week, then I'm making 1% every two weeks. Over a full year that is 26% of my bankroll (in this case a 40-50K bankroll). And that is if I only play once a week.

I know nothing about cover calls. Can you make 26% on cover calls?

Kaypea... in an earlier post I mentioned that my grandfather had a chain of supermarkets. They were in New York City. I know the supermarket business well.

Let me tell you about supermarkets... the profit margin is generally 1% (yikes, like video poker!!) and in New York where people don't generally have autos, most shoppers will visit a supermarket three times a week and carry two bags home (or maybe one). Hence the creation of "the D'Ag Bag" and similar supermarket marketing inventions. but that's 1% three times a week, 52 weeks a year.

Of course the difference with the supermarket business unlike video poker play is that the 1% margin, three times a week, 52 weeks a year is steady and dependable. No one in the supermarket business ever said "Ive lost 10 of 14 sessions, yet Im still ahead for the year." LOL

Arc... we are never going to agree. But I enjoy the conversation and the information.

I am curious about this, because I think it comes to the heart of our debate. You talk about edge, but I am more concerned with "chance of winning."

You could always play at a game with an edge, but does that always give you the chance of winning?

The way I understand ALL video poker games is that on each individual hand you have a greater chance of losing. Case in point, Jacks or Better which I think only gives you a 45% chance of winning each individual hand. And even on your full pay machines, the chance of winning still is on the house's side. What makes the "player" win is the luck factor and the chance for a big payoff.

You should look into covered calls. Yes, you can make 26% or more OVER TIME with covered calls. LOL

Selling Covered Calls is a good strategy.

Unless the stock is in a bear trend. Then, Capital losses will out-pace the premium received.

Sorry, but once again let me tell you ... luck has nothing to do with long term success. In the short term the results vary more simply because the games are high variance. It is purely a statistical function of the play. Over the long term the variance is less of a factor since low probability results (what you call luck) become likely.

Take JOB for example with a RF that is double the normal value. The game pays about 101.5% but so much is dependent on one highly unlikely result. If you only play this type of game rarely then it is unlikely you will hit. However, if you get to play something like this all the time then everything changes. Now, you are favored to hit the RF every 35K hands on average. So, is that luck? Same game, same person playing. No, it is now highly probable that the person will approach the EV over time. The person may even leap over the EV and fall back later on. As long as the person keeps playing the chances of being closer and closer to the EV keeps increasing. No luck required. Just a normal statistical distribution of hands ... also known as random.

Now for the good part. I played a game like this for several years. Yeah, it was only quarters but I made a ton of money and it was a big reason I won so many years in a row. The game paid back 101.42% with a double RF as part of the base game ($2000 in this case). Never lost at the game in any single year.

As long as you can't think past your current session you will never understand.

BTW, the OEJs game I currently play has only a 38% chance of winning any given hand. However, a person is more likely to win a session than someone playing JOB because of all the high variance big winners.

thanks Arc. Good info again.

but as you wrote: "As long as you can't think past your current session you will never understand." The difficulty for me is that I must think about the current session, because in my mind "long term" is one current session at a time followed by the next session. And if I lose too much in any one session I will never catch up (or have a very hard time doing so). This is why I asked if there was a stop loss strategy or a win goal or how sessions were managed.

Two thoughts:

1) You typically play a negative return game. You are correct, you "will never catch up", and the more you play the more you will lose. That's why APers focus so much attention on finding the highest possible edge. However, losing a little may not be important to you if you are getting the entertainment value you seek. But don't try and translate your experience to someone playing with an advantage.

2) You have had big wins so you should realize it is possible to make up for losses. That's why an APer can relax and play knowing that today may not be good but over time the advantage will come through. An APer only needs average luck (since you like that word). If you aren't playing with an advantage you can only hope to win if you get results better than average. I suspect that is why you focus so much on luck.

This is where we will always differ. You put your faith in the long term, theoretical, expected payback. And I don't.

I cannot put my faith in a random number generator to do anything but spit out random numbers. I cannot put my faith in a RNG to do anything that is expected. And as Ive said many times -- the RNG might do better than expected or worse than expected...and yes even as expected.

Therefore, I cannot subscribe to the belief that if you play a positive game you will come out ahead. My belief is that you might and you might not.

Should you play these games with the best paytables? Yes.
Should you play correct strategy? Yes.
But does that mean over the long term you will have the theoretical results? No. In fact, you might have better or worse.

So, I think you should play the best way possible. But I wouldnt bank on it.

Money, I think that your reasoning and conclusions would be valid except that they are based off a false premis perpetuated by the casinos. They want you to believe that the RNG is random and that anything can happen when you put you dollar into a machine. The secret truth is that the RNG is a machine built by humans and controlled by humans. The results are predictable. The results can be controlled. This is how the casinos can change the payout on a slot from 87% to 92%. They tune that RNG to do exactly what they want.

Sure, it looks random to the customer who comes in and wins $5000 on their first pull. It looks random to the customer who comes in and gets $0 on 9 out of 10 pulls. It looks very predicable to the accountant who closes out the books at the end of the month and records another 8% profit.

The RNG is controlled by a complex series of mathematical formulas developed by smart people at the game manufacturer. A few smart players have developed their own complex series of mathematical formulas to unlock the secrets and devise a way to beat the machine. These are the advantage players. Not everyone is smart enough to do it, or to even understand it when it is explained to them. That's ok. The casinos are built on people who believe the RNG is random.

kaypea, you are sounding like Rob Singer. Singer says the RNGs are rigged. Is that what you are saying? From what I understand, an RNG in a VIDEO POKER game is a random shuffle of 52/53 cards and thats all. In SLOT games the RNG is also random but the number of winning combinations that the RNG can choose is set by the casino.

I am not saying the RNG are rigged. I am saying that they are predictable using mathematical formulas. If someone was using a rigged RNG it would no longer be predictable by anyone except the one who rigged it. A fair RNG is predictable by anyone with the knowledge and inclination to do the calculations. But the casinos want you to believe they are random. But what casino executive would ever place a machine into his casino when the game manufacture tells him that it is totally random if the machine will turn a profit or generate a huge loss? Would you? No, the machine is set to generate a specific profit percentage of the coins played. This isn't random. It is taking advantage of the math to predict the RNG in order to control the amount of wins. Simple for those with knowledge of math and statistics. The rest of us rely on luck.