In a recent comment posted on www.gamblingwithanedge.com about my March 27 “He Screwed Me!” column, Liz wrote, in part,
“And, mathematically speaking, we can never be 100% sure that even Dancer always has the edge. I’m willing to believe he knows all the maxEV strategies cold including penalty cards, but that’s not the same thing as playing in a casino environment and never making a mistake.”
To that I respond: “Apples and oranges!”
If Liz wants to suggest that sometimes I don’t know strategies perfectly or sometimes mis-key or not carefully examine all the options before I make a play, I’ll plead guilty. I still play at a 99.9% accuracy level, probably higher, but that number is gradually lowering as I advance more into my senior years.
But not playing with the maximum possible edge is not the same as not playing with an edge. Let’s say I calculate a play is worth 100.4% but I only play at the 99.9% accuracy level. That lowers the return to 100.3% — but it’s still an edge.
A far more likely source of possibly playing without an edge is making the wrong assumptions. If I assume a drawing is worth 0.5% and it’s actually worth only 0.05%, that could turn what I think is a play-with-an-edge into one where the house has the advantage.
Usually, I won’t ever know for sure what a drawing is worth. Estimating how many actual tickets are in a drum is tough. Estimating how many virtual tickets are in a virtual drum is tougher. All I will know is whether or not I got called THIS TIME. That’s not really useful information insofar as what the drawing is worth.
Over time, if I learn that when I’ve played $100,000 coin-in at this casino I’ve been called 40% of the time, then it’s easier to make a reasonable estimate. But you need a lot of data points. Having friends who play at about the same level as you and who share information with you is useful.
But since it takes time to gather this information, for some period you’re “flying blind.” You can make a “best guess” without a whole lot of confidence in that number. This can lead to you playing a game where you think you have the edge, but after you collect more data, you’ll find out you don’t.
How much is a slot tournament worth? You can get some idea based on the number of entrants and the total prize pool — but you frequently don’t know until you’re already there. A video poker tournament is different. I’ll triple or quadruple the average prize simply because I can play faster and make better decisions than many of the other entrants. I’m still going to need to hit some hands to win, but I have a better chance of doing that than many other players.
Inherent in most plays is the assumption that you’re going to be getting so much cash or free play in the mail. If you play the same amount every month and get the same mailer each month, it’s easy to put that into percentages. If your play varies and your mailers do too, it’s tougher. You usually don’t know if your mailer is based on three months, six months, or who-knows-what.
Sometimes there’s a “win too much and you get cut off” factor in the mailers. If you think you might be approaching that limit you basically have too choices — play like hell until it’s over or stop playing for three months or so which will dilute your wins-per-month.
When the SLS opened, they had way-too-loose high limit video poker. I played $25 10-6-40 Double Double Bonus, which is a 99.96% game, plus slot club, plus comps, plus mailers, and I got $3,500 show-up money because I had an offer that size from Caesars Entertainment and SLS was matching offers. My score went up and down, of course. When I was behind $30,000, I felt as though I should keep playing because I was likely to get great mailers. Then I hit two $20,000 jackpots and two $10,000 jackpots in short order and I was now up. Still, the score was close enough to even, given I was playing a volatile game at $125 per hand. When the royal came, putting me ahead $120,000, I knew it was time to quit. I figured I wasn’t going to get any mailer — so why continue to play? Even with a 0.2% slot club, the edge was pretty small for such a volatile game. I still had an edge in this game, but the edge was too small to interest me.
Sometimes you just plain have no way to guestimate how much each item is worth. But if you’re close enough to 100%, have a couple of drawings, some mailers, and maybe reach a higher tier level, you can make a reasonable assumption that you have the edge. Will you always be correct? No. But usually. There’s a lot to be said for the feel that experienced players obtain over time.
So, when Liz says sometimes I’m not positive I’m playing with an edge, I’d have to agree that could occasionally happen when one of my guesstimates is way off. But it’s extremely unlikely that I’m playing at a disadvantage because I’m making significant playing errors. If my total edge were small enough so that a 0.01% playing error could take me from positive to negative, I would have considered that unplayable to begin with. There are quarter Deuces Wild players in Las Vegas who play long hours for a game that is worth less than $10 per hour to them. Good for them. But I need a bigger hourly potential to jump in.
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Does the speed you play accurately (hands per hour) affect or change your rate of return you expect to receive?
Without going into detail, there are some games and situations where the edge is large enough that speed completely trumps accuracy. Although you still want to be pretty accurate.
Sometimes it occurs to me that while Mr. Dancer is great at what he does, and is quite highly kwowledgeable about his subject, he just might be starting to ‘talk over the heads” of a large portion of his likely audience. i am an “out of towner’. When i think about heading over to Las Vegas, it’s not to spend $100 or $200k on video poker. Though i could afford to play a more expensive game, I am more likely interested in where the best quarter and dollar games are. I am likely to stay at a Binion casino where I can roll into town and get three nites free, with no room service fee charge, taxes or anything else. So, while it is somewhat amusing to read about the high stakes games and strategy Mr. Dancer plays, it is generally above my level of interest. Maybe that is why i also like the Frugal Gambler column, as well. Anyway, my two cents , for what its worth!
When you say 99.9% accuracy for play is that a percentage of expected value or of hands played (1 error in 1000 hands)? If the latter it seems like that should be a lower percentage hit on EV.
If you are really good, like Bob Dancer good, it’s probably reasonable to assume you’re getting 99.9% of the computer perfect EV, so for example if the computer perfect EV of something is 99.54%, then your true EV in the casino environment might be as much as 99.44%, but likely it’s not even that good. I think IGT says the average is more like 99% of computer perfect (98.54%). One’s error rate can be surprisingly high, for example if a spotlight or flaky key is causing you to miss one of a three of a kind, that’s quite costly. Or maybe you’re confusing spades and clubs and drawing to impossible flushes, and so on. Eye fatigue and just plain old distraction fatigue set in much faster than most realize. Check out the wizard’s speed contest, even some of those players who are obviously quite skilled made some errors. The only way to know for sure is to have someone watch or record the play and check it later for errors, don’t forget that your first few minutes are likely to be error free but as the hours pass, the errors increase. And of course you’re likely to try harder if someone is watching then if it’s just late in the night and you’re just trying to grind out the last few points.
I play quarter VP,mostly for entertainment and…BEER!
My average,when sober, is around 93% for my only game: 9/6.
I’m OK with that.
3 hours of VP and I’m mentally tired and that’s around 4-5 beers.
Then,I can play craps! Sober craps? Not usually.