Almost

Over this past Mother’s Day weekend Bonnie and I attended a square dance convention in Reno. It’s a better than average convention, but the real attraction is that Bonnie’s daughter lives in the area. We arranged a long Mother’s Day meal/visit before flying home.

The dance itself is in Grand Sierra Resort. I haven’t established myself at GSR, but since I’m a Seven Stars player within the Caesars system, I can always get a free room at Harrah’s. This time my host was able to get me some free play and $100 worth of food to go along with the free room. So much the better.

I mentioned to a friend of mine that I was going to Harrah’s Reno, and he suggested I check out the Fifty Play Quick Quads machines in the High Limit area. Last time he was there he noticed 8/5 Triple Bonus Poker Plus games at the 25 cent and 50 cent level. He hadn’t played it that time because he only had an hour or so and he didn’t have the TBPP QQ strategy with him. He played 9/6 Jacks that particular day. It’s only a 99.54% game, but he had the strategy mastered and he was only going to be playing $50,000 coin-in anyway.

Since Quick Quads is a 6-coins per line game, a 25 cent Fifty Play machine can be played between $1.50 and $75 per play. The 50 cent version went up to $150 per play. That’s a big range, and depending on how big and how fast I wanted to play, I could find a game-size in there that would be comfortable.

I haven’t played TBPP QQ for years, and meanwhile I’ve become proficient at 9/6 DDB QQ. I remembered the 8/5 TBPP pay schedule was “very good,” but not exactly HOW very good. This is how the two games compare — based on max coins.

Without studying the game precisely yet, I figured the biggest differences in strategy would arise because of the differences in the return for the straight flush and the regular flush. Most of the Quick Quad features (such as holding 4443 or 9954) would likely be very similar.

I didn’t take the time to study the strategy at home because I believed there was a good chance the game wouldn’t be there. My friend could have been wrong (doubtful, but possible). Harrah’s could have realized the game was “too loose” by its standards and pulled the game (not so doubtful), or maybe the requirements to earn a Reward Credit would be different ($25 or $50 per, rather than the usual $10). I wouldn’t know until I got there. I brought along the strategy I had created in my Quick Guide to Quick Quads (available for free at www.videopoker.com/quickquads), the Wizard of Odds strategy, and my laptop — which includes some other tools. If they indeed had the game, I could get up to speed in an hour or so.

After placing our bags in the room on Friday afternoon, I reminded Bonnie of my plan. If I couldn’t find the right Quick Quads schedule, I’d play 9/6 Jacks. How long it took would depend on the denomination. I was probably only going to play $50,000 coin-in because that qualifies me for a 10,000-point “bonus” on my tier credits. I need 150,000 tier credits a year to maintain Seven Stars status, and a 10,000-coin bonus is significant. And, last year anyway, each additional 50,000 Tier Credits earned you some extra stuff. Harrah’s Reno and Lake Tahoe haven’t been sending me mailers no matter how much I played, so there was no incentive for me to play more than the $50,000 coin-in. If, however, the right version of Quick Quads was available, I’d be back up in the room in 15 minutes or so to study before I played. This was no problem for Bonnie. So long as we were at the square dance by 7:30 that evening, and she got some dinner somewhere along the way, she came prepared to be a “video poker widow” for a few hours.

I picked up my Reel Rewards coupons (i.e. must-play-it-through-once free play vouchers) from the cage and went to the High Limit room to check out the Quick Quads machines. Sure enough, the 8/5 TBPP game was there, and I could find no stickers on the machines indicating a higher coin-in was required to earn Reward Credits. What a pleasant surprise! So I went up to the room to do some studying.

The two games have lots of differences. Below are some of the common ones. This list is nowhere near exhaustive.

While I was studying, it occurred to me I could play 5,000 tier credits (i.e. $50,000 coin-in) on all three days (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday). While I have already earned Seven Stars for 2015, every additional 50,000 tier credits earns me something extra and playing the extra two days would give me an additional 30,000 tier credits (i.e. 5,000 twice and a 10,000 bonus twice) over what I’d get if I only played one day. A 99.87% game allows me to do this at a lower cost-per-tier credit than other games I find at Caesars properties. The 9/6 Jacks game wasn’t so interesting. It costs an extra $165 per $50,000 coin-in than a 99.87% game would, which was “too much.”

I get back to the machine, look at the pay schedule once more, and get ready to give $5,000 in cash to the attendant and ask if they can create one or more “tickets” to insert into the machine. Inserting a ticket or two is a lot easier than inserting 50 $100 bills.

When I look at the pay schedule again, I notice something “funny.” Instead of 1200 and 600 for the payouts on the top two quads, the numbers are 1000 and 500. Game over! I didn’t know offhand how much that reduced the return, but since I’m comparing the game to 99.54% Jacks or Better, I knew it HAD to reduce the return more than the 0.33% difference between the two game. So I played my $50,000 coin-in on $5 Triple Play Jacks or Better, cashed out, and was done.

Up at the room again, I checked and saw that the lower figures for the quads reduced the return to 96.95%. Ah, yes. This was much more Harrah’s like! I didn’t see it the first time because I was only looking at the payouts for the full house and the flush. Also, frankly, I hadn’t studied the game yet and wasn’t positive what the numbers should be for the quads. But after studying for an hour, I was positive of the pay schedule and fortunately noticed it before I played.

Bonnie suggested that I had wasted a couple of hours. I disagreed. You never know everything all at once, and you have to base your decisions on what it is that you know at that particular time. When you learn more, you change your decisions. And that was what I did.

Plus, I reminded her, we were planning on square dancing 10 hours or so over the next couple of days. I was pretty sure that many people would consider THAT a complete waste of time. A few hours studying video poker, especially when I get an extra article out of it as well? That’s one of my pleasures in life and isn’t a waste at all!