Category: Advice for Players

Posted on by — 1 Comment

Learning a Second Game — Part II of II  

Last week I began a discussion of learning NSU Deuces Wild once you already knew 9/6 Jacks or Better. If you missed that article, it’s not hard to find.

If you’re going to or from a game covered by the Dancer/Daily Winners’ Guide series, that’s by far the most efficient place to start. You can learn the games systematically and completely by using those guides. It shortens the learning process considerably as much of the heavy lifting is done for you.

So, however you did it, we’ve reached the stage where you have a decent strategy and you know how to read it. It’s now time to practice, practice, practice on the computer.

How long do you need to practice on the computer? It depends on how good you want to get and how good of a student you are. If you wish to play at the professional level (which will be true for a small percentage of you), you need to practice until your accuracy level is in the 99%+ range — at least. If your goal is to play the game reasonably well, then a lower accuracy level will suffice.

If this is truly the second game you’ve tried to learn (which is what the article presumes, but lots of people reading the article will not be in that exact place), you will need to study considerably more than if this is the 15th game you’ve learned. The more games you know, the more you’ll find cases where “this game now is just like that game.” But if you don’t have that depth, and none of us did when we started, it’s going to take more study.

Different computer products have different learning tools built in. In Video Poker for Winners, you can ask the computer to show you hands at the Beginner level, the Intermediate level, and the Advanced level. It allows you to get better without becoming overwhelmed by being confronted with the most difficult hands at the start.

In WinPoker, there is a “Hard Hands” section. You can set it for whatever difference you wish between the correct play and the second-best play. If you set it for 3¢ while playing NSU, for example, you’ll never see the hand 3♦ 4♦ 7♦ K♣ Q♣ because the diamonds are more valuable than the clubs by considerably more than 3¢, but you will see 3♦ 4♦ A♦ K♣ Q♣ because that’s a much closer play. If you would have played the first hand incorrectly, then you’re not quite ready for this tool yet. But when you get the basics down, it allows you to concentrate on the hands that are likely to give you trouble.

WinPoker has another tool I use where I can plug in two or three cards and the machine will start with those and deal others. For example, in DDB, J♥ T♥ A♠ can go either way depending on the other two cards — and there are LOTS of possibilities with straight, flush, straight flush, and kicker penalties to either the hearts or spades or occasionally both.

If you start with those three cards and just let the computer deal, you can focus on a relatively tough combination and get it down. To be sure, sometimes you’ll be dealt pairs or trips or even a 4-card royal which isn’t a hand that should give you a problem at all. But you’ll get the relevant hands enough of the time that it becomes an efficient way to learn it.

On a personal note, I use both products. They each teach me in different ways and both support my goal of efficiently learning to play accurately.

Now we’re at the stage where you’ve learned to play “well enough” on the computer. It’s time to go to the casino. There is something about playing for real money that focuses your concentration.  You’re going to run into hands while playing that you don’t remember from practice. So, keep note paper handy and write such hands down. Do the best you can in the casino, consulting a strategy card if you have one, but be sure to look up the hands on the computer when you get back home. There will be times where you either mis-read the strategy card or mis-remembered the correct play. Checking when you get home will help correct either or both of those errors.

At this point, you’ve reached the stage where you can play the second game in the casino competently. You now must go back and relearn the first game! Because you’ve learned that J♥ T♥ is more valuable in NSU than Q♠ J♠, you must re-learn that the opposite is true in JoB. There will usually be concepts that got “overlapped” in your brain. It’s going to take some retraining to be able to keep them straight.

By the time you’ve gotten your knowledge of JoB back up to speed, you may find you’ve forgotten your NSU. Like they instruct with shampoo, rinse and repeat.

Finally, once you’ve got both games “mastered,” you still need to periodically review. In my case, I know a variety of games well, but I’m not equally up to speed in all of them. I usually know beforehand what game I’ll be playing on a given day. I’ve been doing this for 24 years and have written about all of these games and have taught classes in all of these games — and I still need to review if it’s a game I haven’t been playing recently. (Part of my experience is offset by the fact that at 71 years of age my memory isn’t what it used to be.)

Probably you will also need to review.

At a university, many professors study harder than the students do. The same in video poker. I will never reach the stage that I no longer need to study — and I already know a lot more than most of my readers ever will. Continual study is part of the price of playing the game well.

Posted on by — 10 Comments

Ignoring Kenny Rogers

I’ve listened to Kenny Rogers’ song The Gambler a zillion times. Since I’m not a live poker player, the advice he gives seemed to make sense. After all, how bad can “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em” actually be?

Whether the preceding line of the song is correct or not, I noticed there’s one line of advice in that song that has to be very wrong for many poker players — but largely correct for video poker players. So, I said to myself, “Self, there’s a column there!” So here goes.

The offending line is, “You never count your money when you’re sitting at the table.”

Since I’m not a poker expert, you’re well advised to take everything I say here with a grain of salt. But if the standard is being more accurate than a Kenny Rogers song, I’m confident I can clear that bar.

In no-limit hold ’em, among others, a major goal is to stack your opponents. That means, however many chips he has, that’s how many you’re trying to get.

For any given stakes, say $2-$5, your decisions are made relative to the amount of money in the pot. If there’s $20 in the pot and everybody at the table has $200, you need to play your cards fairly straightforward. The stacks are only 10 times the amount in the pot.

But if everybody has $2,000 in front of them, you can play much more speculatively, because if the right cards come in, you can collect 100 times what’s in the pot rather than only the 10 times in the previous example.

So far, I’ve been talking about how much money your opponents have, but the amount of money you have matters too. If you have $20 in front of you and your opponents all have $2,000 — then from your point of view, all your opponents have is $20 each. They can have side pots amongst themselves, but that doesn’t affect you financially. For you to stack somebody, you need at least as many chips as he has. (Being short-stacked definitely affects your strategy — where you’re basically “fold or all in.” Consult poker experts for more complete advice on this.)

With this in mind, it’s clear that, at least approximately, you need to know how much you have and how much your opponents have. This is counter to Rogers’ “You never count your money when you’re sitting at the table” advice.

In video poker, however, Kenny Rogers’ advice is generally spot on. If you’re trying to decide whether to hold three, four, or five cards from AAA33, there is no line on the strategy card that says, “Check the amount of money in your wallet first!” Players who adjust their strategy based on their bankroll are giving up EV every time they do so.

It definitely is important to consider your bankroll before you sit down to play and choose the particular game and denomination you’re going to play. But once you’ve made that choice you should make the highest EV play at all points.

One exception to this would be if you’re playing Ultimate X and you’re running out of money. If you’re playing the Ten Play version, you should never play a 100-coin hand when you have less than 145 credits (or more money in your pocket or otherwise close at hand.)

Why 145? It starts with knowing that if you play five credits per line (50 credits total), you can play off any existing multipliers without creating any new ones.  

If you play 100 credits and don’t earn any credits (i.e., you drew no paying hands), you left no multipliers on the game.  So, you take your 45 remaining credits and go home. If you play 100 credits and earn at least five credits, you will have at least 50 credits to play off all the multipliers on the game, again leaving no multipliers on the game.

So long as you earn at least five credits, you will have earned multipliers for the next hand — and you want to play those off five-credits per line, meaning 50 coins, before you abandon the machine to others. There are “fleas” who go around checking if you’ve abandoned any multipliers and you don’t want to be the person to feed those fleas.

There are a number of areas where video poker and live poker are played differently. In my just-completed video poker semester, there were several poker players who attended regularly. Comparing a draw to an unsuited KQJT with QJT9, I would explain the first had eight cards to complete the straight and nine cards to give you a high pair. The second hand also had eight cards to complete the straight but only six cards to give you a high pair.

“Aha!” one poker player would translate into a language she understood, “17 outs versus 14.” Sort of, but not really. In poker, an “out” is a card that will beat another player. In video poker, a card to give you a straight (paying 20 coins) is four times as valuable as a card that gives you a pair of queens (paying 5 coins.) All outs are not created equal.

I still enjoy hearing The Gambler occasionally whether it gives good advice or not. Bonnie and I dance the Texas Two Step and this song has a good beat for that. I never look to popular music of any decade to teach me to play games — professionally anyway. There are a number of songs through the years that have provided “words to live by.” But not “words to gamble by.”

Posted on by — 2 Comments

Using callipygian in a Sentence

I am perfectly content eating meals by myself so long as I have a book with me. I have a goal of reading one book a week for pleasure, along with however many I need to read to prepare for podcast interviews. Most of our interviews do not require reading a book beforehand, but there are five or ten a year that do.

On this particular day, I was reading 500 Words You Should Know by Caroline Taggart — a book I had picked up at the library. I have a decent vocabulary, and I figured I would know the vast majority of these words anyway, but a refresher course is good now and then.

This book was way more complicated than what I was expecting. Many of the words were basically unusable because words that 99% of my audience don’t know aren’t good to use. Occasionally using atavistic or ratiocination or amanuensis is probably okay, but regularly using a bunch of them makes readers turn away. Although I could live with it if people respected and admired me for a fine vocabulary, I know from experience that reactions to me using a lot of complicated typically include such comments as, “That Dancer guy is really an a**hole!”

Unfortunately, the words used as previous examples were some of the easier ones in this book! For example, in the first chapter I came across callipygian, which refers to having nicely shaped buttocks. I’m not sure if it’s better if my audience does or doesn’t know this word. If they do know it, it has an extra degree of un-usability in today’s world of sexual harassment and #metoo. While I did memorize the word, I figured I would never use it.

I was mistaken.

On this particular Saturday, I was playing on the first day of a two-day slot tournament at the M. Although I don’t go to all of their events, this one was lucrative enough to interest me. As is typical for that casino, they give each invited guest one tournament entry per day and you can earn up to two more per day based on your play. In addition, playing $2,000 coin-in on a video poker machine (less required on slots) earns you a free seafood buffet that retails for a nickel less than $45. Since the same coin-in can be used to earn extra tournament entries and qualify for the buffet, you can figure out where I ate that day. And you can also bet that I had a book with me.

Before the tournament, you swipe your player’s card at a kiosk and print out however many tournament entries you have. Some people come in just for the free entry, but if I’m going to take the time and energy to show up, I’m getting the extra ones as well. Getting two good scores out of six is much easier than getting two good scores out of two. So, on this day I had my three entries.

They have some permanent employees in the Special Events department, but they hire part-timers as well. They have different promotions occurring on different days, so having an army of temporary workers allows them to staff their events without having more people on their payroll than they usually need. On this day, the lady checking to verify that the name on my entries, player’s card, and ID were all the same was probably 80 years old and I had never seen her before. She had a nametag that said, “Mary.”

Although I’m hypothesizing, Mary didn’t look like she needed the job. She looked instead like she really liked people and was looking for something interesting to do with her time. She checked what she needed to check efficiently, noticed the title of the book I was carrying, and pleasantly asked, “What new word did you learn today?”

Mary’s tone of voice had me guessing that this lady was a retired elementary schoolteacher. Her question was friendly, and I could just sense her telling generations of school children that if you can’t use a word in a sentence, you don’t know it well enough.

So, I told her. “Callipygian.”

She scrunched up her face and said in an interested voice. “Oh! I don’t know that one. I like learning new words! What does it mean?”

I now had a choice to make. There are lots of ways to say, “nicely shaped buttocks.” Some you could say in elementary school. Some you shouldn’t. Some appropriate to say to a nice lady. Some not so appropriate.

I made a judgment call that Mary was a good sport and had a nice sense of humor, so I told her straight out.

“It means you have a beautiful ass!”

She looked a bit startled, and then smiled with delight. “Nobody has said that to me in decades! You have really made my day!”

Her delight made my day as well. My scores in those tournament rounds were very un-remarkable, but my day was memorable, nonetheless. That was fun! And I’m learning some new words in case I run into that lady again.

And the next word will have nothing to do with the size and shape of her body parts. As a one-off situation, this time was fine. If I only gave her words that had some possible sexual connotation, it would either imply that I’m a really creepy guy or maybe I was hitting on her. I certainly don’t want her making either conclusion.

Posted on by — 8 Comments

Figuring Out a New Strategy on the Fly

There are a LOT of video poker games out there. Sometimes you come across one that you haven’t studied before. There are some rules of thumb that can get you pretty close. This week we’re going to talk about doing that in games without wild cards where you get your money back for a pair of jacks or better. Next week we’ll talk about doing the same thing for Deuces Wild variations.

The first step of the process is the most critical. If you skip over that, your results down the road won’t be as good as they otherwise could be. And that first step is to know the strategy for at least one game cold.

This game that you know cold could be Jacks or Better, Double Bonus, Double Double Bonus, etc. But you need to know instantly how to play the following hands correctly. None of these are particularly difficult for an intermediate level player, but beginners will miss a goodly percentage of them.

  1. K♥ Q♥ J♥ K♣ 3♦
  2. A♠ K♠ J♠ 5♠ 2♥
  3. A♦ K♦ T♦ 4♦ 3♣
  4. 4♦ 4♠ 5♥ 6♣ 7♦
  5. 9♦ T♠ T♥ J♣ Q♦
  6. J♠ T♠ 9♠ 8♠ 7♦
  7. J♠ T♠ 9♠ 7♠ 8♦
  8. Q♦ J♣ T♦ 8♠ 3♠
  9. K♠ Q♠ T♥ 9♣ 2♦
  10. A♦ 2♠ 3♥ 5♣ 9♦
  11. A♠ Q♥ J♣ 5♠ 2♥
  12. 2♣ 4♠ 5♥ 6♠ 9♥
  13. A♦ K♦ J♣ 4♦ 6♠
  14. K♠ J♠ 3♥ 4♥ 5♥
  15. Q♥ J♥ 2♠ 3♠ 4♠
  16. A♠ A♥ 3♠ 3♥ J♠  
  17. K♠ K♥ 3♠ 3♥ J♠  

Now let’s look at how changes to the pay schedule will affect these plays. Note that my statements are strong tendencies, but exceptions may be found sometimes. I’m using the following notation here:

2P — two pair

3K — three of a kind

ST — straight

FL — flush

FH — full house

4K — four of a kind

SF — straight flush

RF — royal flush.

 

When flushes pay 30 on a 5-coin basis, I’ll say FL pays 6-for-1. I went back and forth about whether to say “pay” or “pays.” I can argue persuasively against either way of doing it, but I had to pick one. So, I did.

 

  1. When FL pays 5-for-1, KK is always correct. When FL pays 6-for-1, KQJ is correct if 2P pays 1-for-1, and KK is correct if 2P pays 2-for-1. If FL pays 7-for-1, KQJ is correct.
  2. When FL pays 6-for-1 or less, hold AKJ. When FL pays 7-for-1, hold AKJ5.
  3. When FL pays 5-for-1, hold AKT. When FL pays 7-for-1, hold AKT4. When FL pays 6-for-1, it depends on how much you get for 2P. When 2P pays 2-for-1, hold AKT. When 2P pays 1-for-1, hold AKT4.
  4. Hold 44 when ST pays 4-for-1 and 3K pays 3-for-1. If either ST pays 5-for-1 or 3K pays 2-for-1, hold 4567.
  5. If 2P pays 2-for-1 and ST pays 4-for-1, hold TT. If 2P pays 2-for-1 and ST pays 5-for-1, hold QJT9. If 2P pays 1-for-1, hold QJT9 unless 4K pays more than 50-for-1.
  6. Hold JT987 if SF pays 50-for-1. If it pays more than that, hold JT98.
  7. I don’t know of any games (other than special cases with progressives on the straight flush) where you don’t hold all five cards.
  8. Hold QJT8 when 2P pays 1-for-1. Hold QJ when 2P pays 2-for-1.
  9. Hold KQ by itself always.
  10. Hold A by itself unless ST pays 5-for-1, in which case hold A235.
  11. Hold QJ in every game except Triple Double Bonus and Super Aces Bonus, in which case you hold the ace by itself.
  12. Hold 2456 when 2P pays 1-for-1. Throw everything away when 2P pays 2-for-1.
  13. Hold AK when FL pays 6-for-1 or less. Hold AK4 when FL pays 7-for-1.
  14. Basically, always hold 345 unless you’re dealing with a progressive. How high the progressive must get to justify holding the KQ depends on the game.
  15. Basically, always hold QJ. Comparing the last two hands, 234 is significantly less valuable than 345 because of its nearness to the ace.
  16. Hold AA33 unless 2P pays 1-for-1 and four aces pay 160-for-1 or more.
  17. Hold KK33 unless 2P pays 1-for-1 and four kings pay 120-for-1 while FH pays 8-for-1 or less.

During my classes, I frequently give out this kind of information when it is relevant to the game I’m teaching that day. One of my students asked me to put it all down in one place, so that’s why I wrote this article.

Posted on by — 3 Comments

A Certain Kind of Approach

A month or two ago, I mentioned on the Gambling with an Edge podcast that I have a buddy with two kids — “Jack,” 12 years old and “Mary Ann,” 10 years old — who are becoming fascinated with the game of backgammon. I’ve agreed to provide them with some backgammon instructions, and I’m enjoying the process of teaching them. I’ve taught adults for years but have had limited experience with teaching children.

The lesson on this particular day was about the doubling cube.

“Let’s say,” I began, “that from a certain position, your opponent will win 26 times out of 36 and you will win 10 times out of 36.” Backgammon players will have no trouble constructing one or more positions that meet this criterion, but I want today’s column to be understood by those readers who do not understand backgammon as well as those who do.

“Let’s say that you are playing for $1 and your opponent,” I continued, “offers you the doubling cube.  What this means is that you have the choice of accepting the cube and playing out the game for $2 or passing the cube and conceding $1 right now. What would you do?”

Both kids are pretty bright and are in STEM schools, which specialize in science and math, but the boy is two years older.  When it comes to figuring out mathematical problems (which is what I thought this was), those extra two years make a difference.

At this point in time, neither knew how to figure this out (I hoped that this would be different by the end of the lesson), so both went with instinct. Jack could see that he was a big underdog to win, and he’d much prefer to lose $1 rather than $2, so he announced that he would pass the double.

Mary Ann wasn’t interested in the math at all. Her goal was to beat her brother. Since she knew she couldn’t beat him by going with the same answer he gave, she announced she was going to take the double.

Then I went through the math so they would know how to solve these “take-or-pass” backgammon problems in the future.

If they passed the double, like Jack wanted to do, they would lose $1. That much was clear to everybody.

But if they took the double, how do you figure that out?

Well, 10 times out of 36 you win, which would put you ahead $20 on those rolls. Twenty-six times out of 36 you lose, which would put you down $52 on those rolls. Your net loss in 36 rolls is $32, so the average loss is $32/$36 which comes out to 89¢. Since 89¢ is smaller than $1, the correct play is to take the double.

The acronym “QED” comes from the Latin quod erat demonstrandum and means I have shown that which was to be demonstrated — or, basically, this math proves my case. Neither child, however, was impressed by what I had done.

Jack assured me he understood the math, but he would still pass the double. He simply didn’t want to risk losing the extra dollar most of the time.

Mary Ann cared even less for the math. The important thing to her was she got it right and her brother got it wrong! What could possibly be a better result than that? “That was fun! Do you have another puzzle for us, Bob?”

There was nothing more for me to say. In my opinion, playing games successfully depends on understanding and following the math. They both rejected the math. I was out of ammunition.

I spoke to their father, a successful gambler, a few days later about this. I think he took the right approach. He said, “I really don’t care if they become professional gamblers or not. But if they do, I want them to know the math backwards and forwards. They certainly don’t need to know this math when they are pre-teenagers — and who knows what their aptitudes will be in a decade or more? Later, if and when they decide that playing games competently is what they want to do, that’s when it’s important that they learn this stuff.”

Posted on by — 7 Comments

Getting It Straight

Every now and then I share results with somebody in a drawing or tournament. Sometimes, other people do it to lower the fluctuations in their bankroll. That is, they would much prefer to get half the amount twice as often. Assuming they are playing with an edge, this smooths out the swings. One can think of it as getting to the long run more quickly.

That’s not the primary reason I share results. I share results for social reasons. Simply put, it’s more fun to do things with your friends.  Sometimes the decreased bankroll variance is important to the friend with whom I would share. Sometimes not.

Once you’ve agreed to share, only half the work is done. You need to carefully lay out what is and is not included in the agreement. For example, is this agreement for one drawing only? Is it always in effect unless otherwise specified? Is it never in effect unless explicitly specified?

If the award is in free play, do you share in cash? (That is: Let’s say one of the players earns $1,000 in free play. When it plays it through, he runs salty and only collects $900. Does he owe his partner $500, $450, or some other number?)

If the prize is in cash, are 1099s to be issued? If the prizes are $1,000 or less, the tax implications are fairly minor. If there is a rare $50,000 prize, the tax implications are not minor at all. Issuing a 1099 for $25,000 is the cleanest way to handle it, but if this isn’t agreed upon up front, hard feelings will abound.

Several years ago, Jamie Gold won the World Series of Poker main event for $12 million. He had a partner putting up some fraction of his entry fee, and possibly the partnership wasn’t thought through clearly enough. There was a major disagreement as to how the tax liability would be handled. The poker community generally appeared to be against Gold. Eventually it got settled and Jamie resumed his career — probably because he was wealthy and willing to play in games with significantly stronger players. But there were hard words and angry feelings until it got resolved. I’m not involved in any sharing opportunities where a jackpot anywhere near that large is possible, but that incident offers a lesson nonetheless.

At a recent Big Draw lottery at the M resort, most people earned zero, but you could earn $50, $200, $1,000, $10,000, or (with a less than 1-in-50 million chance) $250,000. The lower amounts were in free play and the largest one was in cash. The deal I had with another player was all prizes would be settled for the full 50% amount in cash, and if lightning struck and one of us got $250,000, a 1099 would be issued for half that amount.

Was that the best way to do it? I don’t know. But it was agreed upon up front and both of us thought it was fair. So that means it was fair.

Sharing isn’t always symmetrical. In a slot tournament where it’s just “hit the button as fast as you can,” everybody has more-or-less an equal chance and you can share with anybody who’s not completely senile.

In a video poker tournament, it’s a different situation. Some players are simply much faster than others, some can make better decisions than others in a split second, and some can correctly adjust their strategy in the middle of a round when it’s appropriate to go for a “royal-or-bust” strategy. You need to be very careful with whom you partner.

I recently shared in a video poker tournament with someone who I later discovered was a slightly faster player than I was. However, I probably made better decisions than he did because I’ve been doing this a couple of decades longer than he has. Neither of us know this for sure. It was close enough to being fair that neither of us were worrying about it.

Sometimes there are drawings where once you’re selected as one of the winners, you have an equal chance at each of the prizes. In these circumstances, if you’re one of the winners and want to make a deal with another of the winners, it’s fair. However many tickets you had going into the drawing no longer matters. At this point, you’re both in there and have equal chances.

If you have unequal numbers of tickets in the drum, it isn’t easy to come up with a fair system for sharing — simply because you usually cannot win more than one prize. For that reason, if I have 1,000 tickets and you have 500, giving me 2/3 of the prize money would be unfair to you unless there is only one prize. I have twice the chances as you to be called first, but then the rest of my tickets are dead while yours are still alive.

Still, if there’s enough goodwill between the players, usually players would go with a 2/3 and 1/3 split in this example. It’s “close enough,” and you’re friends. If there wasn’t sufficient goodwill, normally no split is done.

Finally, some people can be trusted with money and some can’t. Whenever I’ve felt I’ve been intentionally shortchanged by a player, I let others know — sometimes by an article in this blog. Once somebody shows he will steal from or shortchange me, I never will give him a second chance.  

Posted on by — 11 Comments

Obtaining Information from the Universe

Bonnie and I were having a casino meal with a woman in her late 20s. She and her husband (who was about the same age as she and not present at the lunch) were both players who were trying to decide whether to continue with their video poker career or go try something else.

The day before, this woman had hit a $40,000 royal flush on a $10 machine — her biggest jackpot to date.

“I look at this royal flush as evidence that the universe believes I should continue playing video poker,” she told us.

I, for one, believe that such thinking is nonsensical. Whether you call me a skeptic, an agnostic, or an atheist (none of these terms exactly fits my view of my beliefs — but possibly they are good enough for this article), I do not believe that some sort of Higher Power was involved in her hitting the royal flush.

She had been playing 8/5 Bonus Poker. With correct play, royals in that game come around every 40,000 hands or so. The fact that one hit the day before was coincidence. They are going to be hit some time by every player — and one came about the day before. The next one might be tomorrow — or maybe in a few months. You just don’t know. And they come about whether you believe in Higher Powers or you don’t.

The decision on whether or not to “go get a job” should properly depend on things like:

  1. What games are available in your area?
  2. How much can you reasonably expect to make playing video poker?
  3. How much do you like the game?
  4. What other skills and/or interests do you have?

None of the things on this list has anything to do with how long it has been since your last royal flush.

If your list includes something like, “What do you think God wants you to be doing?” the answer will probably always be, “I can’t believe God really thinks being a professional gambler is an enlightened way to live my life.” This type of consideration doesn’t enter into my decisions — but I recognize that for some people it does.

But while I don’t believe that a $40,000 jackpot is particularly significant in making the decision about whether to continue being a professional gambler, it could definitely make a difference bankroll-wise. One excellent reason to quit gambling is if you’re broke. Royal flushes can provide a cushion which tends to postpone the decision for another day.

It is common, yet misleading, to take stock of what you want to do with your gambling future immediately after you hit a big jackpot. The reason it’s misleading is that you are making a decision at a relative high point in your bankroll — and your bankroll may regularly fluctuate by significant amounts.

The fact that this couple today has $xxx in their gambling bankroll immediately after the $40,000 royal flush is just one data point. She could very well lose $10,000 or more tomorrow playing the same game. Would the decision about her future be the same after the $40,000 win as it would be after that $10,000 loss? If not, then why would you think that the decision you make one day which will affect your future for a long time is any more valid than the decision on another day?

Finally, I didn’t tell this young woman any of this on that day. This was a friendly get-together and the first time Bonnie and she had met. I knew the husband much better than I knew her — and he and I have had these bankroll discussions periodically. I didn’t need to have the same conversation with her. Each family has its own way of dealing with financial items and I’ll let them work it out.

Bonnie and I congratulated her and were happy for her. If she and her husband invite me to help them with this decision later, I will. I’m very fond of them and have a sort of grandfatherly relationship with her husband. But if I’m not invited to participate in this decision, that’s okay too.

Posted on by — 9 Comments

Why Play When It’s Not Worth Very Much?

Sometimes on holidays, the South Point offers 2x points — which means 0.6% because the base is 0.3%. This is equivalent to 6x points at the myriad of casinos that offer 0.1% base points.

This past July 4, they offered a Hot Seat promotion instead. This is a promotion where approximately 20 players an hour are randomly awarded $100 in free play from 8 a.m. through midnight. Let’s look at this a bit.

At 8 a.m., there might be 200 players in the casino — so each active player has about a 1-in-10 chance to win $100 in an hour — which means $10 per hour. At 8 p.m., there might be 1,000 players in the casino, so the promotion is worth $2 per hour at that point. Both my 200 and 1,000 numbers are wild-ass guesses. Still, they are the best estimates I have, and I need some basis to figure out how much a promotion is worth.

Is this better or worse than 2x points? This part is simple math, but many of my readers aren’t comfortable with doing this calculation. Let’s say you’re playing 800 hands per hour. If you play quarter single line, 800 hph comes to $1,000 coin-in, and 2x points is worth an extra $3 per hour. If you play $2 single line, 800 hph comes to $8,000 coin-in and 2x points is worth an extra $24 per hour.

Neither of these numbers mean you are necessarily a favorite when you play. It depends on which game you are playing. If you’re playing NSU Deuces Wild, which returns 99.728% when played perfectly, the numbers above pretty much represent expected dollars per hour if you play the game well. If you’re playing a lesser game, the casino may well still be a favorite no matter which promotion you are playing. If you’re playing a game that returns more than NSU, the numbers above are additional expected profit over and above what you’re already earning.

Using the information in the preceding paragraph, you can extrapolate to figure out what your game is worth. If you play smaller stakes, then the Hot Seat promotion, where every player who plays at least $1 per minute has the same chance, is the more valuable promotion. If you play for higher stakes, then the 2x points promotion would be worth a lot more.

I play for higher stakes, so clearly the Hot Seat promotion isn’t worth too much to me in terms of dollars per hour. And, yet, I hammered the promotion — playing more than ten hours. Playing ten hours straight used to be a walk in the park for me. I’m 71 years old now. It’s a struggle to play that long and still be alert. And yet I did.

The question becomes:  If the promotion wasn’t worth very much, why did I play it so hard? At first glance, this doesn’t seem to make much sense.

The answer is that I already committed to play $83,340 on both my card and Bonnie’s sometime during the month because we liked another promotion going on — namely play and redeem $8,334 worth of points and get a $50 Chevron gas card or $50 Walmart gift card — maximum ten per player. This is already similar to 2x points, because usually that much play earns you $25 in cash or free play and in July you get a $50 gift card.

So, it now becomes a matter of: If I’m already planning to play that much during the month and playing during the Hot Seat promotion gives me “something extra” which I wouldn’t receive playing at other times during the month, getting something extra is obviously better than getting nothing extra.

This still doesn’t address the alternative costs. Other casinos might be having good promotions as well on July 4. If my expected earnings were “a lot” at other casinos, this could easily surpass the perceived value of the opportunity at South Point. If it were important to Bonnie to go somewhere that day, that could easily be more important as well. Each person needs to make his own decision based on his own life.

As it turned out, I played ten hours at South Point and two hours somewhere else where they offered a little something that I felt was worth going for.

My results? To me, this is the least important matter in the whole affair. The critical part of the situation is the analysis that goes into the decision. Many people, however, want to judge the decision after the fact by the results. This does not give you useful information, because you don’t have this information before you make the decision. If I don’t include my results, you can bet someone will ask, “How did you do?”

So, on July 4 I was called once for the Hot Seat promotion for $100, and I lost considerably more than the value of the gift cards I earned. Oh well. That’s gambling. I care much more about expected value than I do about actual results.

If the circumstances are the same at some future time, I will likely play the promotion the same way — possibly modified because I’ll be older then and maybe won’t be able to play so long.

Posted on by — 7 Comments

Looking at 9-5 Double Double Bonus Poker with Multiple Progressives

The Vegas Stats & Information Network radio studio is located in the middle of the South Point casino floor, and periodically I’ve been a guest of the early morning show hosted by Paul “Paulie” Howard and Mitch Moss. Paulie mentioned that he found the DDB progressives interesting and wanted me to talk on the show about when you should get on the machine.

Such numbers do not make for good radio, especially since some of the listeners are probably driving to work and can’t take the time to write down anything. When I was last on the program on June 29, I gave some numbers and said that I’d be going into greater detail in my July 17 blog. And here we go!

If you’re serious about progressives, you should get Frank Kneeland’s “The Secret Guide to Video Poker Progressives.” That has by far more useful information on progressives than you’ll find anywhere else.

For today, I’ll assume you’re just going to be playing the game occasionally — and basically want to know how to figure the return on the game.

The game in question at the South Point contains a number of progressives, but does NOT have a progressive on the straight flush. Today I’m going to assign a number to the straight flush progressive because this same progressive is found in numerous casinos — sometimes with a progressive and sometimes without.

In addition to telling you how to evaluate the game, I also want to explain how I came up with the numbers. That way readers who are interested can apply the same technique to other progressives.

You’re going to need computer software to analyze progressives. I’m going to use Video Poker for Winners and WinPoker as those are the ones I use regularly and know well. If you have Wolf Video Poker, that can work as well. While it’s not quite as user-friendly, the wizardofodds.com has a free calculator you can use online. For many, it’s hard to beat free.

To start with, we need the base return of this dollar game, which is 97.87%. We’re going to be coming back to this base game over and over again.

To see how the progressive on the royal increases the return, I’ll set the royal on the game to 8000 coins. When I do this, I see the return is close to 100.13%. Assuming the return increases linearly (not completely accurate, but close enough for the analysis we’re going to be doing today), this means that when the royal increases $4,000, the value of the game increases 2.26%. Dividing by 4, when the royal increases by $1,000, the return on the game increases 0.56%. Once we have this multiplier, we can figure it out for any royal. Say the royal is at $7,356. That is 3.35 “$1,000 increments” more than the base game, and 3.35 * 0.55% adds 1.84% to the game.

Those who have actually followed along with the math will have noticed that I have rounded downward. The reason for this is that there are strategic changes to be made as each of the progressives change in value and it’s virtually impossible to get them all correct. By lowering the estimates of what the return will be, we somewhat take this into account.

Now we look at aces with a kicker. This jackpot starts at $2,000. So, we return to the base game and enter $3,000 for aces with a kicker. This gives up a return of 99.23%, which is an increase of 1.36% over 10 $100 increments, or 0.13% for every $100 (again rounding downward)

For aces without a kicker, this starts out at $800. Increasing that to $1,800 from the base game gives us 101.37% — an increase of 3.50% over ten $100 increments. So, whenever this progressive increases by $100, I add 0.35%.

For four 2s, 3s, and 4s with a kicker, this starts out at $800. Increasing that to $1,800 gives us 101.11% — an increase of 3.24% over ten $100 increments. So, whenever this progressive increases by $100, I add 0.32%.

I’m looking now at the straight flush, even though it does not have a progressive on the South Point machines. Sometimes, it does elsewhere. I’ll set the straight flush to $1,250 to get a return of 100.61% — an increase of 2.74% over ten $100 increments. So, whenever this progressive increase by $100, I add 0.27%.

The other two progressives, 2s-4s without a kicker along with 5s-Ks with or without a kicker, turn over fairly rapidly. These add some value, as you might collect $403 or $256 instead of $400 or $250 respectively, but these never get high enough to make that much of a “sit down and play or not” decision.

I assign 0.13% as the sum of these no matter how high they are. Why? Because that makes the base game an even 98% instead of 97.87%. This is a much easier number to work with, especially if I’m doing this in my head rather than with a calculator or some other means.

The final question you need to address is, “How high does it need to be before it’s worth playing?”

This depends on you. Since they have a number of 9/6 DDB games in the casino, which return 99.0%, the minimum sum of the progressives that you need is this figure. For players who wish to play a winning game, however, this isn’t nearly high enough.

You need 99.7% to make it an even game with the 0.3% slot club. Actually, that makes it slightly positive because you will also receive mailers and be able to participate in promotions while playing this game.

I can tell you I’ve seen it above the 99.7% level frequently. This is a decent game for dollar players to add to their repertoire at a casino with a number of good choices.

Posted on by — 7 Comments

If It Looks Too Good to be True . . .  

I just finished a two-part analysis of Maria Konnikova’s The Confidence Game where one of her warnings was (paraphrased) “If something looks too good to be true, it probably is. Very likely there’s something fishy going on.” Soon thereafter, a friend, “Sam,” who’s a knowledgeable video poker player, sent me the following pay schedule on a Bonus Poker game in the Palms High Limit Room:

(The numbers on the left represent the “new” pay table. The numbers on the right represent “standard” good Bonus Poker which is worth almost 99.2% if you play it appropriately. Compare the two sets of numbers and you’ll see why Sam was excited about the new game).

Royal Flush 800    800
Straight Flush 50    50
Four Aces 80 80
Four 2s-4s 40 40
Four 5s-Ks 25 25
Full House 9 8
Flush 7 5
Straight 5 4
Three of a Kind 4    3
Two Pair 2 2
Jacks or Better 1 1

The new game returns 111.2% and it can apparently be played from 25¢ through $5, Triple Play through Ten Play. My my!

Except, this was not a standalone pay schedule. It was on Dream Card.

Dream Card is a 10-coins-per-line game where you periodically get a Dream Card on the draw and that card turns into the best available card to go with the other four cards in the hand.

On Bonus Poker games, the occurrence of Dream Card has historically been 46.7%. If that same frequency is in effect on this game, that would turn this game into a 112% monster, or thereabouts.

Sam generously said that in exchange for my analysis of the game, I could play it, but I should please try not to kill it. After all, games this good don’t come around very often.

I told Sam that I wouldn’t play it at all. Although I’m allowed to play at the Palms now that Station Casinos owns it (and made it worse, in my opinion), I am severely restricted in the benefits I receive. The net effect is that I voluntarily stay away.

Still, on a 112% game where I could play up to $500 per deal, it wouldn’t matter much if I got benefits from the slot club or not. I would have major paydays as long as the machine and my welcome lasted.

The problem is that many of the slot department employees who now work there are the same employees who worked there back in the “good old days” and would instantly recognize me on sight. If I started hammering a machine, word would get to management within a few minutes.  If the game were really a mistake, either the machine would be pulled off the floor or I would be pushed out the door. So, it wouldn’t do any player any good if I tried the game at all. If it was a mistake, all my presence would do is help the Palms identify a problem. No thanks.

But I suggested to Sam that he play 100 hands on the game for the lowest possible stakes (which is 25¢ Triple Play costing $7.50 per deal) and keep track of the occurrences of the Dream Card. If it’s close to 46, which would be standard for Bonus Poker Dream Card, then he should go ahead and play it for the largest stakes he could afford. But if it’s a lot lower, we should do further research.

He did this. He actually played 200 hands and got 40 Dream Cards — which is less than half of the 93 or so he would get under the “normal” Bonus Poker Dream Card frequency. Whether playing 200 hands was statistically significant or not, he became convinced that it was and didn’t want to continue.

I told him I could contact a source I had at IGT — who is the guy both Michael Shackleford (the “Wizard of Odds”) and I use to get accurate information we can publish about games. But, I told Sam, if the game really was a mistake, likely my friend at IGT would notify the casino and that would be the end of it.

Sam said he wanted to know. He was likely done playing it and he didn’t see anybody else knowledgeable playing it, so almost certainly it wasn’t a mistake. Just “misleading,” because it would mean the frequency of Dream Cards wasn’t fixed for a game type.

It turns out that the game is worth 98.6%.

One of the unusual things about the game is that when you play five coins, the game is 7-5-4-3 Bonus Poker (returning 98.0%), but when you play 10-coins, it is 9-7-5-4. In the past, the Dream Card pay schedule was the same on the 5-coin and 10-coin versions, at least in my experience. Many of us would see the 7-5 Bonus pay schedule and not look any further.

Keep in mind that if the Dream Card frequency were zero, the return on this 111.2% game would be 55.6% (illegal in Nevada and many other places) because you’re betting 10-coins per line. I do not know the actual dream card frequency here, but it’s clearly lower than the normal Bonus Poker frequency, and higher than zero. Once I found out that the game is worth 98.6%, that’s all I needed to know.

It could well be that this is the best game in some casino someday where they have suitable-enough slot club and/or promotions to make this playable. Which is why the 98.6% number is important to me and may be useful information at that time. But until that time, it’s just a curiosity.

This again was a case of it looked to good to be true, and indeed, it wasn’t nearly as good as it looked. But we couldn’t know for sure until we did some further research.