Harrah’s Tahoe Trip Report Part 2

Okay, okay, you can stop expressing your disappointment about Part 1. I will now talk about the video poker at Harrah’s Tahoe!

When Wilma and I walked into the High Limit Room, it was like looking for old friends. Of course, we’d checked the vpFREE2 inventory list and seen the list of “really good games” and “pretty good games.”  But we were looking for an old favorite. And yes! There it was, our much-loved Fifty Play with 9/6 Jacks or Better from quarters to $2 and the same two side-by-side slant-tops in the same location where we ‘d played together for many years. The two uprights had been moved across the room, but they were also still side-by-side as they always had been.

There is one “kink” in these Fifty Plays that you need to watch for: You have to play a minimum of 20 lines/$25. That didn’t affect Wilma or me; we were playing at a higher level than that, though not as high as in the past when we could play more often and there were multiple high-level opportunities. Back then, we often played $125 or even $250 a hand when it could be coupled with hefty players club benefits and/or a juicy promotion. Now we played around $50 a hand, 40 hands at quarters. However, we got tired of $1,000 royals that didn’t seem to come along often enough to make up for our losses fast enough, so we switched to 10-line dollars. To be truthful, hitting a $4,000 royal was just more exciting. However one has to make denominational choices by looking at both your emotional bankroll and the one in your pocket!

Wilma did get a couple 4k royals, which helped her cut her losses. I got one, plus a dealt straight flush for $2500.

I know someone will look at vpFREE2 and ask me why we didn’t play Triple Double Bonus, which was on our same machines. They remind me that I’ve said many times to go for the highest EV you can find,  and it does have a slightly higher EV than JoB – 99.58 vs. 99.54. We would have liked to play that game, because it has so many big jackpots that make it exciting. However, if you go to my FVP Scouting Guide, you’ll see near this game this quote, “The longer the name of a video poker game, the more volatile it is apt to be.”  And the dollar-sign code for volatility for TDB is $$$$, vs. the one $ for JoB.  If I could play this game many hours a month, I would choose it in a heartbeat. But I want to play a more volatile game when I have the long term to get closer to the actual EV. For this short-term play, I will accept a small second-decimal point decrease in EV.

Speaking of volatility, I do have a lucky and happy story to share on the subject. I knew that there were a couple of Spin Poker machines on the floor and they did have the same good JoB game I’d been playing on Fifty Play. However, I deliberately steered myself away from them to keep from being tempted. I know they’re extremely volatile.

Spin Poker was Brad’s and my favorite video poker version ever since it appeared on casino floors and we played it every time we could find it with a good game. We hit some nice jackpots down through the years, but we also suffered through many extremely long losing spells. We used to say it was the game we loved to hate! Still, for a considerable period of time, we could find a good game quite frequently and we hit enough jackpots that we survived the volatility and it added to the win column in our records. But as with all VP, casinos cut paytables and during our last few years in Vegas, we were sad we could no longer find a good Spin Poker game.

Now Harrah’s Tahoe has one that I could play. I longed to have Brad with me to discuss whether it was a good idea to tackle it here, in what would be very short-term play. I wavered, but since I’d been playing about even so far on this trip, I decided to play it “for a short time.” “Short time” on a risky play usually means I switch back to a less risky one when losing becomes “painful.”  I know – this thinking is not based on a strict mathematical foundation. But as long as I’m not losing EV, I sometimes let my emotions help me make decisions. And I really love to play Spin Poker.

If you’ve never played it, you may not understand how it works. It is multi-line, with 9 paying lines, but these lines crisscross, making it look a little like a slot machine. Also, it uses cards from only one deck, not a different deck for each line, like, for example, Triple Play, Ten Play, or Hundred Play. Fortunately, it doesn’t require a change in strategy or an increase in credits. For the $1 game, max bet is $45 ($5 for each of the 9 lines).  If you’re dealt all 5 to a royal, you make 9 royals for a $36,000 payday. Other deals and draws will give you pays or multiple pays, all depending on the position of the cards.  You can get anywhere from one to five royals in one hand.

And that is where my happy experience with volatility came about. After playing just a short time, I was dealt 4 cards to a royal in the 1,2,3,4 positions. My 5th royal card could have come up in 3 different positions. One would have given me one royal  and I would have been happy with $4,000. However, it came up in a corner position, which produced three royals. $12,000 made me three times as happy!

I’ve already received many questions and comments about this Tahoe trip and I’m sure there will be more after this Part 2 comes out. I also have more details that I haven’t covered. So fire away in the Comments and I will address your questions and concerns in the upcoming Part 3.