Contemplating Foxwoods, Part 1 of 2

I received an email from somebody, “John,” who wanted to know if I was willing to pay a finder’s fee for information about a $5 video poker game on the East coast that had so far slipped under everyone’s radar. He thought the game was worth more than $200 per hour. I know John and I trust John–which is a very good start.

Before we went through the “How much do you want?” “How much are you willing to pay?” two-step, I needed to know some information, including:

1. What was the base return of the game? (Answer: Almost 100.2%).

2. Was there any form of cash back? (About 0.15%).

3. Did I have to make repeated trips to the East coast in order to pick up free play afterwards? (There might be some good offers later, but the $200+ an hour estimate was before any free play was considered. I could cash out all my points before I left).

4. How much was the variance on the game? (Similar to Double Double Bonus).

5. Was I likely to already have played the game and, therefore, already knew the strategy? (Didn’t matter. The strategy was extremely simple).

6. Did he want a piece of the action or did he want a share of the win with me absorbing all of the losses? (He wanted wins only. John had a less-than-$10,000 bankroll and couldn’t afford losses).

7. If I made several trips, did he want to be paid trip by trip, or was he willing to aggregate all the trips together and base the payment on that? That is, let’s say I lost $10,000; lost $15,000; and then won $35,000 on three separate trips. Was he willing to base the payment on the net of $10,000 the plays generated or did he want to get a share of the $35,000 and the other two trips were my problem? Either way was okay, it’s just that I would be willing to offer a much higher percentage to him if it was on the aggregate rather than if it was trip by trip. (Aggregation was fine).

8. I needed him to make a return trip to the casino and check out some things before I would get on the plane and head east. Was he willing to do that? (Sure. No problem).

So yes, this sounded interesting. We came up with a percentage of the aggregate win that he would get. Expenses came off the top. I told him I would be traveling alone and I was fine with a standard room and buffet/coffee shop level meals. If the casino gave me a hotel suite and gourmet meals “for free” because I was a big player, fine. If we had to pay (even casino rate) for these upgrades, I could do without.

It turned out the game was Double Down Stud and the casino was Foxwoods, which many of you know is a very large casino in Connecticut. This casino having a 100% game in a $5 denomination struck me as unlikely. While I’ve never been to Foxwoods, the casino is not known for having player-friendly machines. Still, mistakes can happen anywhere.

Here was the pay schedule that John reported to me:

The way DDS works is that you are dealt four cards and then you have one choice. You keep your current wager (in my case $25) or you double it (to $50) and then you get the fifth card and receive your credits, if any. The game is now over. There is no draw.

I had written about this game a decade ago and I still had the article on my computer. Sure enough, the game returns 100.19%, according to the information I received from IGT way back when. And the strategy was very simple.

With DDS, you can figure out an exact strategy “on the fly” once you know the technique. You take the number of cards that will get you a paying hand and multiply that number by the return for a single coin. Then you compare that number to 48. If the number is above 48, you double. If it is less than 48 you don’t double. If it is exactly 48, take your pick — except if you get slot club points for the additional double down bet, you should double even if the number is exactly 48.

As an example, let’s take the hand 3456 of mixed suits. There are eight cards (four 2s and four 7s) that will give you a straight — which pays six coins for each coin bet. So 8 x 6 = 48. There are also three 6s still in the deck that will give you a “6s or better” payout of one coin for each coin bet. 3 x 1 = 3. Summing them together, we get 48 + 3 = 51. Since this is greater than 48, you should double.

This method for figuring out whether you should double or not works for any pay schedule, but whether or not a particular hand should be doubled depends on the pay schedule. If straights had paid five coins for each coin bet instead of six, you would not double this same hand.

The simple strategy to play this particular pay schedule perfectly is:

1. Any kind of a paying hand–double.

2. All four cards of the same suit–double.

3. Four consecutive cards (excluding A234, but including AKQJ)–double.

4. Otherwise, don’t double.

The 2000 figure for the royal might look strange to you. We’re used to 800-for-1, not 2000-for-1. Keep in mind that the 800-for-1 is for any royal in most games that include a draw. In DDS, the only royal we can get must be dealt. It’s roughly fifteen times more difficult to get a dealt royal than it is to get a non-dealt royal.

So far, everything sounded good, but I still had lots of questions to ask John before I actually flew to Connecticut. I’ll continue the story next week.