You May Try to Play Too Many Different Games
or Switch Games Too Frequently
These two practices are among the biggest enemies of VP accuracy, even for serious players. I suggest that all beginners and most casual gamblers learn one game only and practice and play that game exclusively until they can very accurately “play it in their sleep.” Only then should they pick up a second game, and so on.
After a player has learned several games over a long period of time, I still suggest that you do not switch games too often. I cringe when I read an e-mail from someone who talks about playing a multi-game machine and switching back and forth between two games to keep from “getting bored.”
There are two problems with this for the VP player who wants to win as much as possible or lose as little as possible. I know of no multi-game machine with two games that are equal in mathematical expectation, and very few that have two that are even close. (We feel lucky if there is ONE good game on a machine.) The VP player who wants to win the most will always choose the best game possible, taking into consideration promotional factors and slot club benefits [and volatility].The second problem with switching back and forth is that accuracy suffers. We try not to play more than one VP schedule in one day. If we do play a second schedule, we play together for about a half-hour to help each other switch our mindset to the new strategy. I suppose there are some diligent and intelligent geniuses out there who can switch games at will with no loss in accuracy. Before you could convince me that you are in that category, however, you would have to take a test on a VP software program Even the very experienced and successful pros usually review a strategy card before they sit down at a game they haven’t played for awhile.
What really drives me crazy, is when someone is playing two machines at the same time, AND THEY ARE DIFFERENT GAMES!!! I flew 3000 miles to play my favorite VP game in my favorite Downtown casino, only to find someone hogging my Deuces Wild machine as well as the Double Double Bonus machine next to it. How hard would it be to play one hand with DW strategy and the next hand with a different DDB strategy, and DW and DDB strategies aren’t very similar. As if that wasn’t challenging enough, this person had a system that if they won on one of the machines, they would hit the cash-out button on the coin-dropper, scoop the coins out of the tray, and feed them into the other machine. They were either a genius, an idiot savant, or the typical clueless VP player that we (and the casinos) depend on to keep the better games on the floor.
The machines supposedly deal randomly, with no “memory” of past hands. So in reality, there is no such thing as a “hot” or a “cold” machine. Our tendency to perceive patterns (as in, “streaks”) is an artifact of our primate brains, and is so strong as to make us INVENT patterns in observed data, and to ascribe meaning to them where no such meaning actually exists (which sells a LOT of Racing Forms).
This can be tested empirically. If there was such a thing as “hotness” or “coldness” in a machine (or a blackjack dealer, or a roulette wheel), then logically, that would equate to having recently won (or lost) making it more likely that the player would win (or lose) in the immediate future. That, in turn, would strengthen the existing tendency, until at some point, there would be machines where the player always won, and some where the player always lost. I know of no such machines, in either category (and if there were any always-winning machines, Harrah’s would have bought the casino they were in and then taken them out back and blown them up).
So bunny-hopping from machine to machine will neither harm you nor hurt you–the next hand is equally likely to win whether it is on Machine A or on the identical game on Machine B. You will, however, be subject to what psychologists call “confirmation bias”–you will remember the times when you switched and then hit something big, and forget the times when you switched and nothing special happened.
Jean,
I understand what you mean by switching games, like JOB -> BP, etc., but do you have an opinion on moving from one machine to another while playing the same game?
I usually play Bonus Poker, and I have a habit of moving from machine to machine, looking for the one that’s “hot” – then I move on to another “hot” machine to play Bonus Poker on it when the previous machine cooled off.
I try to avoid the worst pay tables machines, so I often restrict my gambling hours to ones when more machines are available – like after midnight, or early in the morning.
I’ve had success playing “streak machines”, although I’ve sometimes lost a lot investing in a series of machines that were “cold”.
Any comments on this strategy?