Question of the Day - 03 July 2023

For a Don't Player taking odds, the "Hard Way's are not a sucker bet.  They are an insurance policy, a hedge bet, that significantly lowers the probability of loss. Working in the insurance industry/banking/brokerages/hedge funds, etc, such a concept, "a hedge bet," is normal day-to-day function.

I go to LV twice a year and play VP most of the time, for a 4 day trip I am probably on the machine 3-4 hours a day, say 20 hours a trip.  In the last four years I have gotten two Royal Flushes (without deuces wild). Once at Rampart and once at 4Q.  I would guess that in that time I may have played 20 - 30k hands in total, much less than the theoretical 80k hands needed.

I have pictures of my royals and for both of them I held 3 and got dealt the other two. On my trip last month to 4Q we happened to walk by a player who was just DEALT a Royal, straight up. He was literally dancing in the aisle.  Wonder what the odds are for that? 

Anyway, in sprite of hitting a couple of Royals, I am still down a playing VP, but close enough to even that I consider the loses "entertainment". 

I WAS WONDERING ABOUT THAT VP ? I COULDN'T SLEEP THINKING ABOUT IT!  WHY IS THE ELLIS ISLAND BARELY WARM SOYLOYN A TOP 10 WINNER EVERY MONTH?  WHY.WHY.WHY.WHY?  SOUTH POINT BREAKFAST BUFFET IS #1 WITH DOWNTOWN STUFF ROUNDING OUT THE TOP 10.  DOES ANYBODY AGREE?  

According to Mike Shackleford, for 9/6 JOB the contribution of the royal flush to the total return is .02%.  That would drop the long term royal flushless return from 99.54% to 99.52%.  It is also responsible for 84% of the total variance of 19.5.

Outside of all of the other considerations Bob correctly points out, to me the amount of return you give up with no royal (possibly no SF either, although the contribution there is really small) isn't worth going to a game with a much higher house hold.

But on a LV trip timeline, the difference maker is going to be variance regardless.  I don't know what the variance is for a "don't pass/lay the odds" craps strategy, but I'm betting it's less than than for 9/6 JOB, which at 19.5 is at the very low end of the variance scale for video poker.

Thank you for actually answering the posed question.

The email for today's QoD had this "What's the Disadvantage at Video Poker If You Factor out the Royal?".  So I thought we were going to see the return percentage (and variance) for those games with zero for the royal.  I know Winpoker will give me the answer, but many readers may not have that available.  

That was a nice answer. Anticipated the "why" of playing either game and ran down the options.

And somebody should double-check that royal contribution to the overall payback of 9/6. 

So I see that Rob posted while I was typing.  I ran Winpoker analysis on 96JoB with 0 for hitting a royal.  It states 97.94 with perfect play with 3.742 for variance.  Obviously, some plays would probably change by not going for a royal.  I thought this QoD would be very interesting for those players who rarely hit a royal.  

I just ran an analysis through winpoker, and 9/6 JoB with the Royal paying the same as a straight flush is just a hair over 98% 98.027 to be exact, and I think that even that may be incorrect. I always use 2% as a reduction in return for no Royals as a very good rule of thumb.

for the answer to the question. it was what I was wanting to know. i wish Bob Dancer  would have just stuck with better  VP analysis of VP with out the Royal flush payoff  and not worry about the Craps payoff.  Best QoD in a long time

I was quite interested in the question of what the payback percentage would be in video poker if one eliminated royal flushes, because I already knew that royal flushes occurred only about once in 40,000 hands, and the huge win for that extreme rarity had to be an important component of the high 99.xx paybacks of many versions of video poker, and that for most people who don't play video poker as if there life depended on it had to be unlikely ever to occur.

It was a disappointment that Bob Dancer never answered the question. He seemed to have lost sight of it as his mind flitted about to other subjects. I always suspected that over the decades making the pounding on a video poker machine one's primary life activity would lead to -- in addition to the royal flushes --  a 98.75 chance of sustaining brain damage which I guess, for some, is just an occupational hazard that one accepts in the hell-bent pursuit of avoiding honest work.

I was amused by Bud's comment about VP contributing to 'brain damage.'

After my stroke, and 'traumatic brain injury,' ... it was VP that was the best therapy for reconnecting the circuits in my brain.   I played so slow it was comical.  It took me months to recognize that the game was actually telling me I had a JOB hand!

I hope it didn't throw away any Royals during 'therapy'

The book Video Poker-Optimum Play by Dan Paymar is by far the best book I've ever read concerning basic video poker.  It lists precision play rules and expected payback tables for games such as Jacks-or-Better and Deuces Wild.  As an example, for a full pay 6-5 Jacks or Better machine with an 800 payoff for a royal flush, the probability of getting a royal flush is listed as .0000248 and the average payback, calculated as payoff times probability, is listed as .0198, or almost 2%. You can substitute the actual payoff numbers in the Expected Payback tables to conform to the payoff schedule of the machine you're playing. This enables you to calculate the payoff percentage of any Jacks-or-Better machine.

Should state full pay 9-6 Jacks-or-Better, not full pay 6-5 Jacks-or-Better. Sorry for the error.

@bud did Bob hurt your feelings along the way? Sheez, simmer down. I play equal craps and vp. Betting on the dark side can have just as much variance as anything else. A couple weeks ago on my last trip I would've gotten killed playing the donts. Remember a big advantage of the "sucker bets" is that they aren't contract bets and you can take them down anytime as opposed to the "good bets" which are contract, with the exception being the donts which you can take down anytime, but then you're giving your advantage of the seven back to the casino while having been at a big disadvantage on the come out. 

Having read and listened to Bob for years here would be his calculations. RF every 40,000 hands so playing .25 machine. 40,000 * 1.25 = $50000. $50,000 X .9954 = 49770. Subtract the RF payout of $1000 means payout of 48770. Returns is .9754 so you loss about 2% of payout if there is no RF.

I don't know why you asked Bob Dancer this question.  He is very good at not answering the question asked and this was an example of that.

Why do you complain about Bob Dancer not answer
ing the question?  How does it matter if a 2% dif
erence in edge occurs over an hour or two of play per day?  Question you should be asking is what's the difference in the variance between the royal or straight flush or not over the same period of time.  Adele butt makes not much any money doing these articles really probably does it for enjoyment brothers. And to benefit others.  Read between the lines realize that he actually is answering the question.  Let's keep these articles coming as supposed to trying to blow him up on his contributions.

I'm not sure why Bob didn't answer the specific question (I'll ask him), but there's information in the comments he made. As for the question, I like Albert Pearson's answer if it was actually a schedule with 0 for the RF. However, I think the intent was, what's the disadvantage when you assume you won't hit it? This is sometimes referred to as the "drain." A good number to use for what it costs you on most schedules is 2%, so you're playing about a 97.5% game when you don't hit the royal, call it 2.5% if you include no straight flush.

Everybody's comments seem to assume no payoff for a royal. I guess that means you don't even try for one. That probably changes the strategy on some hands, like 4 to a flush vs 3 to a royal, or a pat hand flush vs 4 to a royal or an Ace high straight with 4 to a royal. Some strategy changes would also affect the payback. I was more interested in the lower payback if you played less than max coins, so factor in the 250/coin for a royal as opposed to 800/coin. In other words, how much does the bonus for playing max coins increase the payback percentage?

What about the lower variance with JoB?
I wasn't sure about his bankroll consideration.
Is joker better is boring just play the $5 denomination.

If darling nomination is boring at Jack's are better to the $5 denomination.
It'd be nice if I could see what I was typing.

I wish Bob would just answer the questions occasionally...