Comments on: Losing at VP – Part 3

By: dhoppell

dhoppell — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 02:19:06 +0000

How do you win (in the long term) if the best game in town is 9/6 JOB at 99.54% payback? At our local casino, if you put through $240,000 a year ($120,000 on double point days), you qualify for a premium players card that gets you some perks. So your expected loss on 120K at 99.54% is $552. Playing the 120K through at dbl pts earns you 1600 points which can be spent as $1600 on the property for gas, dining, hotel, electronics and other stuff. It will also get you bonus freeplay of $80 a month or $960 a year. The perks include free breakfast, lunch and dinner in the players lounge(for 2), free concert tickets once a month(for 2), free special dinners 4 times a year (for 2), and a free drawing 4 times a year worth about $10. So even without the perks, you are ahead (-552 + 1600 + 960) or $2008 or 1.67% IF YOU CAN GET TO THE LONG TERM!!! They say 25 Royal cycles (25 * 40,000) is a good approximation of the long term which means a million hands. If you are playing a quarter 9/6 JOB machine at $1.25 per hand, you will play 96,000 hands a year to get your 120K through the machine to keep you players privileges. At 500 hands an hour, that is 192 hours or 16 hours a month. Thus it will take you 10 years to reach a million hands, during that time you can expect to earn $20,080 which will average out to $2008 a year. In any given year however, your results will vary dramatically. It’s nice to look at your results for a session or a day or month or year, but it isn’t particularly relevant to the long term odds of your winning.

Bob Dancer says all this better at:
http://www.casinogaming.com/columnists/dancer/2010/0720.html

The yearly and monthly swings on the way to the long term resuslts are well described by this Dancer article:
http://www.casinogaming.com/columnists/dancer/2009/020309.html

By: George Mikutowicz

George Mikutowicz — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 18:54:55 +0000

Kavin if by full pay Deuces Wild you mean NSU then by itself you will loose no matter how big a bankroll you have as it is still a loosing game. The only way to get your head above water is with cashback,multiple point days, mailers etc. I don’t think your computer program takes that into consideration. I do agree ,however, that having the right bankroll for the game and denomination you are playing is critical to success.
George

By: Kevin Lewis

Kevin Lewis — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 04:46:44 +0000

One thing that rarely gets mentioned is the fact that the bankroll requirements for VP are MUCH larger than most people think–and a bankroll of sufficient size is the only was to realize whatever advantage you may have. At .25 denoms, $5000 is a MINIMUM amount. At $1, you need more like $50,000, because your advantage(s) will be smaller (you can barely poke your head above 100% at $1, while there are many ways to get close to 101% at .25).

One VERY revealing moment was when I got my first computer software, and it would deal itself x number of hands and play them out. You could dictate the size of the starting bankroll the program had. With a bankroll of $1000, and playing fullpay .25 Deuces Wild, THE PROGRAM WENT BROKE 1000 OUT OF 1000 TIMES. The program survived SOME of the time at $2000 and $3000 starting bankrolls (I told it to quit whenever it went broke, or reached 1,000,000 hands), but it only survived half the time or more at about $3,500. Quite a revelation–it showed me why I was consistently losing despite playing perfectly–undercapitalization.

By: Rich

Rich — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 03:41:41 +0000

My dear Mrs Scott,
I personally see no advantage to buying a book or chart on video poker when all that information is available online. If a person is paying for internet service the FRUGAL way to learn video poker is online!
The “LONG TERM” results were obtained only after running over 6 2/3 trillion hands using a computer and program. I realize that professional video poker players state that they usually do well over a years worth of play. I am of the belief that the law of averages will catch up to everyone. For every winning year that you have gone over the “LONG TERM” average you’ll go under that much eventually. AND, until you play 6 2/3 trillion hands you can never truly say that you can obtain the “LONG TERM” results. Michael Shackleford (aka The Wizard of Odds) notwithstanding.
That being said, I do believe that a slot club, host and casino promotional department can go a long way in helping the professional and “recreational” video poker player leave less money in Las Vegas Casinos. Your book helps with that, but you need to update it with all the current slot club benefits. That way people will be able to choose which club is best for them. Where a host is concerned, it’s strictly up to that host, and the amount the individual gambled . Same for the promotions. If you’ve gambled a few hours everyone needs to ask for a comped meal. Several hours and you might get a free room. The worst thing anyone gambling in Las Vegas can do is not join the slot club where they’re gambling or ask!!!
If you want to practice in a casino. and play “full pay JoB or DB and I’m sure others” for 1¢; go to Ellis Island. If you’re a beer drinker like me, they have the best amber micro in the world. They are also in the LVA Top Ten bargains in Las Vegas for their steak dinner. The penny poker machines were on the wall with you facing north the last time we were there. Join the club and do the ribs if you plan to eat there.
Congrats on your big Multi Strike royal. What is the EV of the game you were playing? Just curious.
I hope you, Brad and everyone has a great day.