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They Said It – But They Probably Didn’t Mean It

On September 15, I received an email from a host at the Silverton stating that two weeks later, September 29, there was going to be a Diamond Appreciation Party by the pool starting at 5:30. Light hors d’oeuvres, cocktails, and 12x points from 5 p.m. – midnight for those who checked into the party.

For those who aren’t familiar with the Silverton’s slot club, the base club returns 0.30% and the loosest game is 8/5 Bonus which is a 99.2% game. Adding 3.6% (i.e. 12x points) in free play is very juicy. In the past year or so, they have regularly had big point multipliers for slots and have had 2x points for video poker once. Never more than that. Even though they rarely offer point multipliers for video poker, a number of machines in the High Limit room have small stickers on them that say point multipliers aren’t valid there.

But this invitation didn’t say 12x points for “reels only.” It didn’t say anything like “limited to xxx points.” It didn’t say “check at the club for complete details.” It didn’t say “management reserves all rights.” It said 12x points from 5 p.m. to midnight if you check into the party. My guess is that the hosts made up the invitation and aren’t used to dotting all of the i’s and crossing all the t’s.

So, was this worth a play?

I decided to test the waters first. On several occasions I went to the slot club and asked if there were rules published for the party. If so, surely the rules would list the disclaimers. But there were no rules published.

I made it a point to not talk to any host in the two weeks prior to the party. If they told me “reels only,” that would kill the play before it began.

I figured I could play about $200,000 coin-in. My expected loss at 8/5 Bonus was (round numbers) $1,700 offset by $600 in free play if I only got single points. But if I got 12x points, I’d receive an extra $6,600 — making me a $5,500 favorite for 6.5 hours play — assuming I started at 5:30. (There was a final drawing at the South Point that night where your EV if called was $4,250, but it was not guaranteed I’d be called — neither Bonnie nor I were called the first four weeks — so I didn’t even play for that drawing that week.)

I decided to go for it. I had no other plays that night worth $5,500 in EV.

The two best eligible machines were $1 Spin Poker ($45 per play) and $10 single line. I could get more coin-in on the $10 machine, but it would also attract more attention as every four of a kind and higher generated a W2G. I figured to get 10-15 hand-pays — which would definitely get their notice. I’m a well-known player and me hammering that machine for so long would be very atypical. It’s possible they would ask me why I was playing — and I didn’t want to have that conversation. The Spin Poker machines (actually All Star Poker machines where Spin Poker is my game of choice) are frequently busy and my presence there would probably not cause any undue attention.

I also wanted to be first in line for the 5:30 party. If they opened the doors at 5:00, that would give me an extra half hour of play worth another $500 or so to me. They didn’t do that. I also wanted to see if there were any signs up at the check-in saying anything about reels only or some kind of limit. There weren’t.

Bonnie and I were both invited — and we both got to bring a guest. We invited a married couple — who understood that I would probably be playing and not staying for the party. So I got the machine I wanted, created some $1,000 “tickets,” and had Bonnie hold the machine while I took the husband and went to check into the party. He stayed and I went to release the girls — and started to play.

There were some other players who also decided this promotion was too good to pass up and decided to play on the same bank of machines. I don’t know how many players were playing elsewhere in the casino for the promotion. I know at least two well-known players chose to play the Hundred Play machines even though they had a “no multipliers” sticker. I’m guessing most video poker players ASSUMED the casino meant slots only and didn’t realize that some key words were missing.

I ran salty. Playing $200,000, I lost $8,900. Even if I collected the full $7,200 for the 12x points, I’d still be down $1,700. The other players playing Spin Poker more than made up for my shortfall— if they got the points. Oh well. Being on the positive side of variance would have been more fun but anything can happen in the short run. I’d love to find another situation like this someday. My negative result this time wouldn’t slow me down in the least at trying it next time.

At the kiosk, there is a screen which shows the date and time and how many points you’ve played today. I took a picture at 5:30 p.m. and another at 11:58 p.m. — so if it came to a dispute of how much I played when, I’d have the backup. If it ever came to going to the Nevada Gaming Control Board, I wanted to have this evidence. I didn’t think there would be a dispute about “how much and when,” nor did I think it would get to the NGCB in the first place, but you never know. Better to have the evidence and not need it than risk not having it when it could end up being necessary.

Now came the tricky part. Collecting the extra $6,600 in free play. I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be given to me automatically. I’d have to talk the casino into it. The other players playing Spin Poker were willing to let me have the first shot at collecting the extra points mainly because I’m more experienced at successfully negotiating with casinos. I told them I’d keep them posted.

On other promotions at the Silverton, they sometimes say they need up to 72 hours to put the extra points on the card. Okay. On Sunday evening I went to the slot club booth and asked to speak to the manager. Alicia (possibly not the way she spells her name — I didn’t see her badge) told me the 12x points were for reels only and there was a limit of 60,000 points. I told her that there was nothing published that said anything like that and I asked whether she would like to see the invitation?

Neither agreeing nor disagreeing with my position, she told me adding 2.2 million points to my card was not something she was authorized to do and said she’d email the marketing manager, Diane, who would reach out to me Monday. On Tuesday Diane and I spoke and she told me the decision needed to be made by her boss, Sheila, who wouldn’t be in until Wednesday.

The fact that I lost $8,900 on the play before slot club benefits was, in my opinion, an irrelevant factor insofar as whether or not I should get the extra 2,200,000 points. But I figured it might make a difference to the decision-makers. After all, even if they paid me, they still made money (on me anyway. Not so much on the others.) So I mentioned it. If I had a winning score, I would have kept quiet about it.

There were a number of additional phone calls and some emails, but eventually Sheila called me Friday and told me I would be given all of the points — but it possibly wouldn’t happen before Monday. No problem. Sheila would not discuss the other players with me, and said they’d have to contact her if they wanted their situation to be considered. Okay. I passed that message along.

Overall, I feel the Silverton handled this honorably. They didn’t mean to offer the 12x points to video poker players — but apparently they reread the invitations and decided they should do the right thing. Hat’s off to the Silverton. (If you think casinos always act this way Google “Phil Ivey Borgata”.)

A strange “coincidence” happened after the Diamond Appreciation Party and before it was resolved. The 5¢, 10¢, and 25¢ Hundred Play machines in the High Limit room were downgraded from 8-5 Bonus to 7-5 Bonus. These were by far the most popular machines in the casino — coin-in-wise. (Not so much after the downgrade.)

These machines weren’t eligible for this promotion because they had a “multipliers not valid here” sticker on them, so I didn’t play them. I would have MUCH preferred to play machines where I could “invest” $125 per play than $45 per play so long as I had a 2.8% advantage. I could have still lost of course, but it would have been much less likely and my EV would have been something like $12,000 rather than a mere $5,500.

As mentioned before, some well-known players chose to ignore the stickers and play on those machines anyway and try to talk their way into the points later. They could argue the stickers were small and hard to read (very true) and the lighting in the room was very dim (also true.) Still, the stickers have been there for a year or so. Most video poker players who play enough to be Diamond know about those stickers.

The pay schedules were pulled a few days later. If the casino was burned on the Diamond Appreciation party, it seems to me to be far more sensible to post bigger stickers so there could be no misunderstanding.

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Legal Musings: “Making a Bet After the Outcome is Known”

With all the casino cheating going on these days (see my previous two-part post), casinos have stepped up their game. Not only do they cheat you by not paying when you win, but they strengthen the move by enlisting the local district attorney to extort you. The way it works is that the casino doesn’t pay. Simultaneously, they get the DA to intimidate the players by filing charges relating to the game, or threatening to file charges. A law-abiding AP is terrified by criminal charges, so it’s a no-brainer to accept the implicit deal — virtually always available — to have the DA drop the charges, and let the casino keep the money. Continue reading Legal Musings: “Making a Bet After the Outcome is Known”

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New Video Poker Games at G2E from a Player’s Point of View

At this year’s G2E gaming show, I published a discussion of new video poker games — written for casino managers. You can see that here.

Today’s article is addressed to players — but it assumes you have read the previous article. Any phrasing that is exactly the same in the two articles is listed in italics, so you can skip that part if you’ve read the earlier words.

IGT

  1. Magic Deal Poker

This is a 10-coins-per-line game. It plays like regular video poker, except about 3.8% of the time, on the deal, you receive one, two, or (very rarely) three mystery cards.

In general, I liked this game. It is similar to Dream Card poker, except:

Dream Card has one mystery card whose value is determined BEFORE the draw. You can change the dream card if you don’t like the card selected by the machine.

  1. Magic Deal has one, two, or three mystery cards whose value is determined AFTER the draw. You cannot change such mystery cards, although in no cases did I see a hand where the machine picked a less-than-max-value card.
  2. Dream Card has obnoxious sound effects; fortunately, they’re missing from this game.

Another way to phrase the mystery cards occurring 3.8% of the time is to say that they happen 1-in-26 hands. That means you are paying twice what the hands are worth 25 out of 26 hands — and then hopefully you catch up when the multipliers come.

For players who “test the waters” by playing a few hands to see how things are going, this game will very frequently cause your score to drop like a stone. For players who believe that today’s score matters, this game will cause many of you to go away muttering.

The correct plays when you receive one or more mystery cards aren’t always that obvious. Letting an M stand for a mystery card and assuming you were playing a game just like 9/6 Double Double Bonus (except for the 10-coin per line ante and the occasional mystery card(s)), how would you play this hand: K♠ Q♠ Q♦ M M?

Deuces Wild players who see the mystery cards as basically equivalent to wild cards will hold QQMM, which would be correct in Deuces Wild. This is the wrong play here. KQMM is a much better play. Why is the play in this game different from the way you’d play in Deuces Wild? Because if you draw one of the remaining three royal cards in Deuces Wild, you’ll get paid for a wild royal, frequently worth 125 coins. If you draw one of the same cards in Mystery Card, you’ll get paid for a 4,000-coin natural royal.

  1. Ultimate X Spin Poker

Ultimate X and Spin Poker are both popular games — and this game links them well. It should work. Ultimate X is a 10-coins-per-line game and Spin Poker doesn’t require any additional money to play, so this game also costs 10 coins per line — or 90 coins overall.

Players who try to figure the correct strategy on this game will find it a much different problem than figuring out how to play “regular” Ultimate X. In regular Ultimate X, each of the lines deals with its own 47-card pack of cards — which is the original 52 cards minus the five you were dealt.

In the Spin Poker version, you have one 52-card deck in play. If you draw the A♥, for example, in one of the fifteen spaces, you cannot also draw the same card in another place. Additionally, because of the way the lines in Spin Poker cross each other, you’ll usually get each card drawn in three separate lines (although it will be two lines or five lines in the center column.)

What this means is that the variance in the Spin Poker version of Ultimate X will be significantly higher than it is in the Ten Play version of Ultimate X. Those who play regular Ultimate X know it already has a sky-high variance.

I really dislike it that you can’t play off your multipliers at the end of a session by betting five coins. I know there are players who make their living playing off these multipliers, but as a player who plays the game for hours at a time I find the regular stream of players coming in a checking the multipliers on every game of every machine to be annoying.

  1. Bonus Streak Ultimate X

This is a very difficult game to play at 10-coins-per-line. Instead of the usual multipliers you earn on the next hand in regular Ultimate X, here you earn a stream of multipliers over the next several hands. That is, you might earn a stream of 2x, 3x, 4x, 8x,12x over the next five games. If while playing this stream you receive a paying hand big enough to create additional multipliers (at least 3-of-a-kind in most games) all remaining multipliers on that line go to 12x.

The stream of multipliers created by getting certain hands creates a nightmare for players to analyze. “Regular” Ultimate X is tough enough and the games overhold the par sheet values. This game will be much tougher. And the correct strategy will be very different from that of “regular” Ultimate X. I see this game only being successful for low stakes for recreational players.

This game is very difficult to play correctly. There are many, many different possible combinations of multiplier streams. In addition, low paying hands (usually Jacks or Better and Two Pair in games without wild cards) do NOT earn multipliers. This makes basic strategy on this game very different from that of regular Ultimate X.

  1. Color Match Royals

The premise of the game is that the hand A♣ K♠ Q♣ J♠ T♠ is called a Black Royal, paying 2000 coins, and the hand A♦ K♦ 7♥ 4♥ 2♦ is called a Red Flush, which pays a little less than a regular flush. You also have black and red straight flushes.

Although I don’t know the exact strategy, it appears as though you should go for “color flushes” a high percentage of the time. This makes the game very boring as you are generally trying for a hand worth 20 coins when you have to pay 10 coins to play. If you don’t go for the color flushes, you’re giving up a lot of expected value.

Currently on www.videopoker.com there’s a free tutorial on how to play this game.  It is a simplified strategy, but I know of none better out there.

I do not like this game very much. To me, it doesn’t pass the “fun to play” test.

There are streams talking about this game on vpFREE, wizardofvegas, videopoker.com, and possibly other sites as well. I am not alone in my non-appreciation. Check out those discussions if you want more information.

  1. Super Triple Play Jackpots

Generally, I liked this game — but not the name. This is a form of “Wheel Poker.” Possibly there are some patent or royalty issues I don’t understand, but using “Wheel Poker” in the title would tell players what they are getting.

This game combines Super Triple Play, which is a 6-coin-per-line game where you get higher-than-usual payouts on 4-of-a-kinds (usually, depending on the game), and Wheel Poker, where you also pay an extra coin per line and you get to spin the wheel when you receive a 4-of-a-kind. Adding these games together makes this a 7-coins-per-line game.

The strategy is relatively easy to figure out assuming you have an approximately-correct figure for the average wheel spin.

In the original Wheel Poker, the wheel spin was worth about 430 on average. If I were collecting data while playing, I’d start with that number. I’d collect data on at least a few thousand spins before I came up with my “final answer.”

  1. Flip & Pay Poker

This was my favorite new game in this year’s mix. The game is relatively easy to understand without software, and the idea is different and interesting.

This is a 10-coin-per-line game, where the machine will flip at most one card under the following conditions:

  1. One card will be flipped one rank higher or lower, and always the same suit. That is, the 8♣ will only be flipped to a 9♣ or a 7♣.
  2. This is done with a 52-card deck, so if there is an A♦ 2♦ on the deal, the 2♦ will not flip to an A♦ because there aren’t duplicates in a 52-card deck.
  3. The resulting hand must be two pair or higher for flipping to occur.
  4. The flipped hand must be higher in Expected Value than the unflipped hand.

For example, if you were dealt 5♠ 6♥ 7♣ 8♦ 8♠, one of the 8s will flip to a 9, giving you a dealt straight.

If you don’t like the flipping, you can unflip. Sometimes some of the flips may seem strange. For example, in Triple Double Bonus, assume you are dealt A♣ A♦ 5♠ 6♥ 7♣, the machine will flip to AA557 or AA667 or AA577. Whether the machine flips or not, good players are just going to hold the pair of aces and throw away the other three cards.

Most players will not be sure whether it’s better to be dealt AA667 or AA567, given you’re just going to be holding the aces. The machine likes flipping to two pair (correctly!) but which is better is a mystery to most players and many will unflip.

My only problem with the game is the machine makes the choices and many players will be unsure why choices were made. The rules aren’t all that difficult — but they’re a bit tricky until you get used to them. A player dealt A♦ A♠ A♥ K♠ 5♥ REALLY wants that king to be flipped to an ace and may get angry when it doesn’t happen. If a floor person or shift manager is called over, that person MUST be fluent with the reason the K doesn’t flip to an ace (because the player already has an A♠ and the hand can’t contain two of them).

When I first played the game, I didn’t read the help screens. I tried to figure out the rules for myself. I tried to come up with cases where the smart player would unflip — such as K♦ Q♦ J♦ T♦ 8♠. If the 8 flipped to a 9, giving you a straight, you definitely should want to unflip. You’re going to throw the card away anyway, but you want all four 9s still in the pack rather than just three of them. When I read the rules for flipping, they said cards were only flipped when there was an increase in EV — so that should mean the 8 would not be flipped to a 9. But I’m not sure. That’s a fairly rare hand and nobody in the booth was positively sure how the game was programmed.

Scientific Games

The only other company I saw at the show that offered “ready everywhere now” new video poker games was Scientific Games. What they offered is a very close copy of IGT’s Triple Play series of games on which the patent expired not so long ago.

The Scientific Games version includes Single Hand, Triple Hand, Five Hand, Ten Hand, Twenty-Five Hand, Fifty Hand, and Hundred Hand games on the same machine. Players will figure out quickly that Fifty Hand is basically the same game as Fifty Play. The game titles are the same ones used by IGT, namely Jacks or Better, Bonus Poker, Double Double Bonus, etc.

In two of the games, Scientific Games uses a different name than IGT does. It may have been intentional, but both times it struck me as a typographical mistake. They used the name Triple Bonus for a game that IGT calls Triple Double Bonus. Triple Bonus is an older game based on Kings or Better and it’s very different from Triple Double Bonus. Also, Scientific Games has a game called Joker’s Wild rather than Joker Wild.

The pay schedules on the Scientific Games are very similar to the IGT pay schedules, except often the straight flush pays 275 coins rather than 250. This adds about 0.05% to the player and is essentially a type of bribe to induce players to try the Scientific Games version rather than IGT’s.

So far this game hasn’t sold well, so players may never see it.

The game has several features of the latest WMS games (which came out two or three years ago.) WMS has been swallowed up by Scientific Games which is why you see those features here. As I recall, Station Casinos (now Red Rock Resorts) had the Las Vegas locals market monopoly on these games, and Harrah’s (now Caesars) had the national monopoly. These two casino chains never put these machines with good pay schedules so they didn’t take off. Once other casinos saw their results, they didn’t want the games either.

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I Lied to a Little Girl

I was at the elevators which connect the parking garage to the casino at South Point. I held the door open for a family of two adults and three children, the oldest being a girl who was maybe eight years old.

The kids got to the elevators before the adults and the oldest girl was staring at the buttons, not knowing whether to push up or down. When I quietly pushed the down button on the other side of the bank of elevators, she looked disappointed. She wanted to do it but just didn’t know which button to push.

I decided to try to make it up to her. I told her that when she got into the elevator, she should look for the button with the big “C” next to it and push that one. She looked at her father for permission. He nodded yes and she happily pushed the button.

She then asked me what the “C” stood for and I told her it stood for “Can’t wait to get there!” She nodded her understanding because she was being taken to a movie by her folks and indeed, couldn’t wait to get there.

Her parents smiled at what I told her. They appeared to judge me as a friendly, harmless, grandfatherly type of guy and didn’t correct the misinformation I had just disseminated. At least not in my presence.

The little girl, I never did learn her name, was delighted with the new information she had gathered. She appeared to have an insatiable curiosity and she just picked up something new — which made her day. Based on my two minutes of experience with her, she seemed to be the kind of kid who loved to go to school because there was no telling what kind of new stuff she was going to learn today.

It made my day too.

For whatever reason, I enjoy being around people who are excited to learn. In my classes, I’ve probably explained 2,000 times why a suited QJ is more valuable than a suited KQ, or why a suited AK has exactly the same value as a suited AJ. Pretty basic stuff, but every so often this causes a spark to go off in somebody’s head and they really appreciate having these “mysteries” cleared up.

Which is why I enjoy teaching. Which is why I enjoy writing. Which is why I enjoy hosting a radio show. My love for teaching people who want to learn isn’t restricted to gambling. I was the second of five children and often shared what I knew with my younger two brothers and sister. And I’ve taught dancing to thousands of people through the years.

That doesn’t really explain lying to a child, however.

Teaching (and writing and hosting a radio show) is at least partly entertainment. Yes, I’m trying to transmit knowledge, but if people get a laugh or two along the way, they have a better time in the learning process. When people enjoy learning, they’re more likely to want to pay attention and learn more.

My “can’t wait to get there” out-and-out lie was the kind of harmless “clever” joke I regularly share with my typical adult audiences. This one was corny — and most adults would smile at it. The fact that this child and her younger siblings didn’t “get” that it was a joke neither surprises nor bothers me. Often some adults don’t get my jokes, for whatever reason. (At least sometimes it’s because some of my ad lib jokes just aren’t that funny — or maybe miss the mark at times.)

This particular untruth was an obvious lie, recognizable as such to adults of normal intelligence, and didn’t do any harm. When people know you are trying to make a joke — especially when it comes off well — it often makes their day a little brighter too. I think of it as a random act of kindness to strangers rather than a violation of some “thou shalt not lie” commandment.

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Wasting an Ace

I was playing $10 Bonus Poker at the M Resort in Las Vegas at 5 a.m. one morning. I know it’s too early for most players to be at a casino but there was a method to my madness. The machines I want to play are at a bar in a room that is frequently rented out for luncheons or other functions. If an organization rents out the room, they expect the room to be devoid of players for the duration. If I get there early enough, there’s a really good chance I can finish my play uninterrupted.

I was dealt 2♠ 2♥ 2♣ 8♦ 9♦. I tossed the diamonds, of course, and was fortunate to draw 2♦ A♦, making the final hand four deuces with an ace “kicker.”

This was a $2,000 jackpot and I quietly waited for an attendant. They have a system at the M where jackpots trigger some sort of electronic message which gets relayed fairly quickly to a floor person. I typically bring a book along in case this takes awhile. At this time of day, they have a skeletal crew because there are relatively few patrons compared to other times of the day and things can back up if two or more jackpots happen at the same time.

When the attendant came up, he smiled and said, “Very good! With a kicker!” Were I playing Double Double Bonus, the hand would be worth $8,000. Had I been playing Triple Double Bonus or Deuces Bonus on the same machine for the same denomination, the jackpot would have been worth $20,000 rather than a “measly” $2,000. When he first saw the number pop up on the screen, he assumed there was another zero because after all, it was a $10 game and good jackpots on such a big game must be “YUGE!” (or however you spell this year’s new word).

When he finally realized that the game I was playing didn’t pay extra for good kickers, he told me I had wasted the ace. I could have used it so much more lucratively in other games.

I smiled. I took this as friendly “advice” from someone who meant well.

“True,” I said. “But unfortunately they don’t let you pick the game after you hit the jackpot! I guess I’ll just have to live with this.”

To my mind, I didn’t waste the ace. “Wasting the ace” presumably is based on the theory that we only get so many 2222A jackpots in our playing career and we must maximize the value of each one.

I don’t subscribe to that theory. There is no video poker scorekeeper in the sky keeping track of how many times I’ve received that particular hand.

The 99.45% version of Deuces Bonus, with appropriate play, yields such a hand every 36,200 hands. It’s possible to get two or three of those jackpots in the same day. It’s possible to go several hundred thousand hands without hitting it. Whether I stay on the same machine or switch lots of time; whether I leave for the day after losing or winning some predetermined amount or keep playing straight through; whether I average four hours of play every three months or 40 hours a week–none of those things matter.

What does matter? The return on the game is one important factor. If Triple Double Bonus is the highest paying game in a casino within the range of denominations I prefer — and I can afford the swings — and if I play there at all, that’s the game I’m playing. If Bonus Poker pays the most, I’ll play that.

The first game has a sky-high variance. That means it’s very exciting and you’ll either win or lose a ton. The second game has one of the lowest variances in video poker. For some players that means it’s the most boring. How exciting or boring a game is isn’t in my list of major concerns.

The slot attendant had to come back to pay me. He didn’t actually give me $2,000 in cash (although he would have if I wanted it that way), but rather left the 200 credits on the machine so I could continue playing.

He was still a bit sorry for me that I had wasted that ace, but I assured him that I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it — and getting the fourth deuce was good news and I was happy with the hand. He shrugged like I was really confused but he didn’t want to embarrass somebody who couldn’t understand his point. And then he left.

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A Mistake That Didn’t Cost Me

I happen to believe that mistakes cost you — even when they don’t. Say you were playing 9/6 Double Double Bonus for single line dollars, five coins bet, and were dealt 3♦ K♠ K♥ 3♣ 8♦.  Assume you’re knowledgeable enough and disciplined enough to know that holding KK33 is correct — but you were playing fast and only held KK because you saw the high pair but didn’t see two pair.

Further, assume the three cards you draw are 5♠ A♥ 9♣. Holding the kings only you end up with five credits. Had you held the two pair and ended up with the same draw (specifically only the 5♠), you would still end up with five credits. Many people believe this to be a no harm-no foul “non-event.”

I believe it cost you $1.16 in EV which is the difference in EV between holding KK33 and KK.

While it is true that you can’t take EV to the bank, my decisions in video poker (including which games to play, where, and when) all come down to EV. Over time, my actual results and my EV results will be fairly close.

They will never (okay, extremely rarely) be EXACTLY the same, but close enough. If they happened to be exactly the same and I played one more hand, they would usually be different. (If you want actual results and EV results to be identical all of the time, consider playing a change machine. You insert a hundred-dollar bill and get out five twenties. Put one of them back in and receive four fives. Put one of them back in and receive five ones. Then you take all that to the cashier and receive a $100 bill. Repeat. What fun!)

Each misplay I make costs me EV, and over time, those mistakes add up.

In the last week of August, there was a promotion at the Palms where video poker players received either a 2x or 3x multiplier every day. The base slot club returns 0.25%, so this means you would get either 0.50% or 0.75%. They limited the number of bonus points you could get to 80,000, so this meant if you received a 2x multiplier you could play $80,000 coin-in and if you received a 3x multiplier you could play $40,000 coin-in to max out your bonus points.

If this doesn’t make sense, don’t worry about it. Supposedly on October 1, Red Rock Resorts (formerly called Station Casinos) will be taking over and what is now Palms may be called something like Palms Station and be incorporated into the Boarding Pass system.

Since Station Casino has cut me off from receiving benefits long ago, along with several hundred other players, I do not anticipate playing at this casino once it changes ownership. And before October 1, I will convert my remaining Palms Club points to free play so I don’t have to worry about converting them once the casino changes names. If for some reason the conversion to Palms Station doesn’t go through, I can always start earning Palms Club points all over again.

Anyway, the only “decent” Ultimate X games at Palms that offer slot club points are 15-9-4-4-3 Deuces Wild. In the Ten Play version, this game returns 99.44%. With single or double points, a player is “under water” on the game, although that can possibly be made up with drawings, other promotions, and mailers. With triple points, the player has a slight advantage — with the drawings, other promotions, and mailers still on the table.

So I play this game during triple point days and avoid it otherwise. The machines come in 50¢ and $1 denominations, meaning $50 or $100 per 100-coin max bet. You can play it for Triple Play or Five Play with smaller maximum bets, but when you do the EV on the game is only 99.13% or 99.27% respectively. Not for me.

The strategy I use, which I will teach in my September 28 class at South Point, is broken down by the sum of the multipliers active at any one time. The multipliers may be anywhere between 10x and 120x. In the one-deuce section, for example, I recommend one strategy for multiplier sums between 10x and 31x, another strategy between 32x and 53x, a third strategy between 54x and 75x, and a fourth strategy between 76x and 120x.

So there are four different (but similar) strategies in the zero-deuce section and four more for the two-deuce section. In the three-deuce section, there are only two strategies for multipliers below 96x, and six more for those rare cases where it’s above 96x. For four deuces, there is only one strategy no matter what the multiplier sum is. I’m not going to tell you what it is.

In 2016, I’ve only played this game four times because it’s been rare when the conditions are good enough. So I haven’t committed this strategy to memory. It’s tougher than average to memorize and it’s a long time between opportunities, so I practice maybe a half hour before potential play and bring the strategy sheets with me.

The Palms is fewer than 10 miles from my home, so it’s not terribly inconvenient to go in and check whether my multiplier would be 2x (which means I wouldn’t play) or 3x (which means I would.) Every day I had the strategy with me — in case. I would show up slightly after midnight because there would be less competition for the machines at that hour. I’m not the only one who plays this game on 3x point days.

On Monday, August 29, I received a 2x multiplier. Tuesday, August 30, I received a 3x multiplier, and I sat down and played 40,000 points. I ended up a small winner, which was fortunate. Ultimate X has a VERY high variance and on any particular day, your score can be quite a bit ahead or quite a bit behind.

The last three days of the week, I received 2x multipliers each time and didn’t play. But I didn’t know it before I got there. So I practiced a bit, took my strategy with me, and was well rested when I showed up.

My strategy, which is on three sheets of 8½” x 11” paper is carried in a library book. If it takes awhile to be paid (like, for example, on an “in my dreams” hand of a dealt straight flush followed by a dealt royal which would pay $240,000 or $480,000 depending on which denomination I was dreaming about), I’ll read my book. Also, the sheets of copy paper last longer if they are protected by being in a book rather than carried loosely.

The last time I went to check my multiplier, however, I made a mistake. I had two library books checked out and the book I put my strategy in was not the one I ended up taking to the casino. So had the multiplier been 3x (it wasn’t), I wouldn’t have had the strategy with me.

Had I received the correct multiplier, I would have asked the attendant to lock up the machine, gone home to pick up the strategy, and been back within a half hour or so. It would have been a tad inconvenient, but not an EV loss, unless you want to argue that time is money and gas isn’t free and I wouldn’t have a good rejoinder to that. Still, I need to be more careful and wish I hadn’t made this mistake.

If this machine and opportunity is still available after October 1, you’ll have to find out from somebody else. I don’t expect to be welcome there.

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Six-and-a-Half Little Words

I was having my morning bagel at the coffee shop when I saw two boys sitting at a table waiting on their parents, who were in line. The older boy was 7 or 8 years old, and he was teaching some card game to his little brother, who looked 4 years old, 5 max. Continue reading Six-and-a-Half Little Words

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Not Very Well Thought Out

In a recent online blog, Jean Scott wrote how she’d  run a slot club.

Among other things, she said: “I’d never run an unfair promotion, like a slot-point marathon where quarter players are competing with $5 players. People like a promotion where everyone has at least a chance to win.”

If she owned a casino she could run any promotions she wanted. If she ran a casino without owning it, it’s hard to imagine her keeping her job. With suggestions like she put forth here, it’s hard to believe any casinos would seriously consider her suggestions. Let’s look at what her ideas would cover:

  1. Assume a casino executive wants to get more play out of his $5 machines. He believes giving $25,000 away to players for a slot marathon might be a good way to draw in the players he wants. Jean would tell that casino manager not to do it because a 25¢ player wouldn’t have a chance. If I were advising the casino, I might tell him to go ahead — depending on a variety of factors. I’d also advise any 25¢ player who asked for my advice not to bother competing. It’s not smart to bring a knife to a gun fight.

 

  1. Jean advocated doing away with all promotions geared for seniors because players under 50 have no chance to win. Personally I think senior drawings make sense for players and casinos.

 

  1. At the Palms, on certain days of the week, if you play $500 in coin-in you get either a movie ticket or car wash coupon. Jean would do away with these promotions because some people can’t afford to play that much.

 

  1. Caesars Entertainment awards Seven Stars players a free cruise every year. Jean apparently advocated that Caesars stop doing this because it discriminates against players who aren’t Seven Stars.

 

  1. The South Point invites almost 1,000 of their top players to a player appreciation party every year — where you get a nice dinner including an open bar, some chance at door prizes, $500 in free play, and some new electronic something. One year it was a top-of-the-line iPad. One year a Kindle Fire. One year it was a computer tablet. One year it wasn’t electronics but dinner for two at Michael’s, the South Point gourmet restaurant — where ordering $300 in entrees and a $200 bottle of wine — or more — was quite acceptable. I would tell Michael Gaughan that this is a fine gesture and is appreciated by these players. According to her words, Jean would tell him to stop it because it’s unfair. If you can’t invite everybody, you shouldn’t invite anybody.

 

  1. I presume she would do away with VIP check-in and rules that allow VIPs to stand in much shorter lines at the buffet, the cashier, and other places. And VIPs should pay the same resort fees that everybody else does. And while we’re at it, let’s forget about their amenity baskets (not that there’s much in them anymore.)

 

Do I seriously think Jean advocates these things? No. Of course not. It’s what she wrote many years ago in an article she recently found when cleaning her computer files.  She may have meant it long ago, but if actions speak louder than words, she doesn’t mean it now.

Jean used to be a quarter player (weren’t we all!) and probably wrote the first draft of this back in those days. She saw the world through the eyes of a quarter player and believed the casino should go out of its way to take care of quarter players. It was a ridiculously self-centered idea then — and much more so today.

Now she’s accumulated some wealth and knowledge and plays for bigger stakes. Today she takes advantage of senior promotions, free cruises, VIP check-in, and sometimes participates in promotions where she has to play a certain amount to receive certain benefits — which her earlier words said were unfair promotions. If she’s invited to a VIP party she thinks looks interesting, do you really think she’s going to pass it up because other players weren’t invited? If you do, you have a much different opinion of her than I have.

Possibly she was desperate for a column and borrowed an old one without thinking it though. I truly understand sometimes having nothing to write about — and on occasion I have recycled some of my own. But I always try to proof them first and bring them up to date.

In this blog, Jean seemed to lose sight of the fact that casinos are in business to make money. Casino promotions are geared for the benefit of the casinos, not players. Jean seemed to think that casinos should make all promotions for the benefit of players — especially low limit players. Why on earth would casinos want to do that?

Although this was originally written maybe 20 years ago, quarter video poker players today are not particularly valuable to casinos. Casinos make more off of bigger players — and slot players — and so reward them accordingly. Many casinos today reward players based on Average Daily Theoretical — which means the amount a player can be expected to lose playing particular machines.

The ADT on quarter video poker machines is very small. I’m not putting down quarter players, and casinos put out machines for them. But quarter players shouldn’t expect the casino world to revolve around them. And this entire article was geared towards giving the quarter players the best chance to win. Of all the things casinos worry about, that’s pretty far down the list.

Players who want to advise casinos how to operate have to get out of their own narrow perceptions and try to see what motivates casinos. If a player can’t do that, he/she should know the proffered advice is going to be laughed at ignored.

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What Are You Trying to Get?

My niece Jessica, in her late 20s, recently married Blake. They live in Southern California. I asked them beforehand to choose their wedding present from me — either a check or a Vegas weekend. They chose the latter and then asked if it could include some video poker lessons. Sure, no problem.

In mid-August they came to town. I got them a nice hotel room, Penn and Teller tickets, and Bonnie and I took them out to a nice dinner. And, of course, a video poker lesson.

Jessica is NOT a gambler at all, but her new husband has been to Vegas a lot. Jessica wanted a game where she could have fun gambling and not lose more than $5 or $10 an hour. I got them a room at the Palms, where they have three machines that include penny Fifty Play 9/6 Jacks or Better. So long as she played five hands or fewer at a time, it would basically be impossible for her to out-lose her budget.

I used my normal class notes. I was unsure whether they’d be appropriate. Jessica has an engineering degree from an Ivy League school and my beginner Jacks or Better class is geared for people with average IQs. I don’t’ know Blake’s academic background, but I’ve known him for a couple of years and he’s pretty bright.

My classes are typically interactive with me asking questions to all of the students. So I went to their hotel suite, sat between them, and used the PowerPoint presentation on my laptop. I quickly concluded that asking Jessica most of the questions made more sense than switching back and forth, simply because the concepts were foreign to her and Blake was way ahead of her as a player.

One of the problem hands was A♠ K♠ 3♦ 4♦ 5♦ and I asked Jessica whether she should hold the black cards or the red cards? The way the class is set up, the diamonds are included in Rule 8 (3-card straight flush that is either consecutive or contains two high cards) and the spades are included in Rule 9 (two suited high cards). The ground rules of the class say you pick the rule that comes first, so in this case you hold the diamonds. (Note: this was a beginner’s class. Intermediate and Advanced classes have different rules.)

Jessica understood that I wanted her to pick the earlier rule, but then she asked, “What are you trying to get when you hold the diamonds?”

I thought I’d heard every beginner’s question fifty times, but this was a new one — and I’m not sure I gave her an answer that made her happy.

I clicked over to the Video Poker for Winners software and called up this hand by going to ANALYZE àSELECT SPECIFIC CARDS. I entered these five cards and then clicked on ANALYZE THIS HAND. I then clicked on SHOW DETAILS.

On the spreadsheet that showed up, the software said there were 1,081 different combinations of cards you could draw to 3♦ 4♦ 5♦. Of those 1,081 combinations, 941 of them give you no winning score at all, 18 of them give you Jacks or Better (paying 5 coins), 27 of them give you two pair (paying 10), 9 times you get 3-of-a-kind (paying 15), 41 times you get a straight (paying 20), 42 times you get a flush (paying 30), and 3 times you get a straight flush (paying 250). From that starting position, it’s impossible to get a full house, 4-of-a-kind, or royal flush.

To get the Expected Value of holding that combination, you take a weighted average of all those. That is, (5*18 + 10*27 + 15*9 + 20*41 + 42*30 + 3*250)/1081. If it’s been awhile since you studied math, you do all of the multiplication first — and then do the addition — and then the division. If the parentheses weren’t there, it would be a different order. The answer comes out to be 3.0759 (listed in the leftmost column on the spreadsheet), which means on average this hand is worth that many coins. Most players don’t want to do this math at all, which is okay so long as you have the appropriate software available. But you should probably at least know how the numbers are calculated.

I’d LIKE to get a straight flush when I hold 3♦ 4♦ 5♦, simply because that’s the highest-paying end result of what’s possible, but I can’t really say I’m TRYING for it. I’m looking for the combination of cards to hold with the highest EV — which is NOT necessarily the one with the biggest possible prize.

When holding A♠ K♠, there are now 16,215 combinations and the software gives the number of combinations hitting each category — the highest of which is a royal flush for 4,000 coins. But the average is “only” 2.9402 coins. Whether that’s high or low is only relevant in comparison to the EV of other possibilities in the hand. Since 3.0759 is higher than 2.9402, we hold the diamonds. Had the diamonds been 3♦ 4♦ 6♦ instead, with an EV of 2.6688, we would have held the spades.

My answer of “I’m not really trying for anything” didn’t particularly satisfy her the first time she heard it, but if she reads the Winner’s Guide and practices on the software (wedding presents, of course), I’m sure she’ll catch on if she wants to. (I suspect she won’t want to — I couldn’t even talk them into getting and using a player’s card!)

Still, I’m glad she asked the question. I don’t think I’ve heard it before — and now I have a good answer if I hear it again.

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I Was a BMX Voyeur

This likely will be a one-off column. It’s not about video poker. For me it’s not even about gambling, although I did make a few bucks betting on it. For me it’s about some kid I’ve known about for 20 years, who lives only a few miles from me, competing in the Rio Olympics in an obscure sport I knew nothing about until recently. It was a damn exciting experience for me and I want to tell you about it. If you want to read about video poker, come back next week.

Mike Fields is vice president at videopoker.com, also known as Action Gaming. Before that he was head of video poker for IGT. I met Mike more than 20 years ago. I was just coming up as a video poker expert. Mike was already established working for a gaming manufacturer. We met at a gaming show — enjoyed talking to each other — and have stayed friends. Mostly business friends, but with a good dose of personal relationship as well. There were fewer than 40 people invited to Bonnie’s and my wedding. Mike Fields was one of them.

I heard about his son, Connor, many times through the years. I met Connor once — with his dad — at a mall shortly before Christmas. A charity my wife was helping asked for donations to give gifts for underprivileged kids and Connor decided that since biking was his passion, he’d like to donate a bicycle. And he did.

connorfields

For the past several years, Connor Fields has been competing in BMX racing — with BMX standing for bicycle moto-cross. It’s an event for really crazy people. Up to eight cyclists start at the top of a steep eight-meter (26.25-feet) ramp. When the gate drops, they go speeding downhill and are up to about 40 miles per hour in two and a half seconds. Just to make it a little more exciting and dangerous, it’s legal to throw elbows and punches to the head as you jockey for position. Although the cyclists are pedaling throughout the race, the vast majority of their speed is gained in this initial eight-meter descent.

Once they reach the bottom of the ramp, they still have a long way to go even though it is definitely a sprint race. The BMX course has bunches of hills to navigate. The early ones come back-to-back and the cyclists become airborne as they go up one small hill — fly over the next one — and land going downhill. Although they could be going slower and actually go up and down each hill — that’s not a strategy for winning.

The corners of the track are called berms and they are banked so the bikers can take them at speed. Whether you take them high or low depends on how fast you are going and where you are compared to the other riders. Giving a “friendly elbow” to help a competitor go “over the top” of the berm to an off-course grassy landing is part of the game. Before the finish line, there are several low hills, called the rhythm section, which are far enough apart that you need to go up and down each one and jumping from one to the other isn’t a strategy any of the cyclists used at the Olympics.

Tracks are all similar — and all a bit different. Many are dirt. The one at the Olympics had a synthetic surface much like you see on a running track. I’m sure Connor can tell you how the texture of the BMX track is different from the texture of a running track and why, but I can’t.

The entire race takes 35 seconds or so for the winners. A bit longer if you crashed along the way. When one cyclist goes down, often one or more others get tangled up in the mess. The track isn’t all that wide and all the racers are trying to get to the front. Interestingly, if you go down in a BMX race and you can still walk, you pick up your bike and carry it to the finish line.

In most preliminary races, the top four go on to ride in the next round and the slowest four are eliminated. Whether you’re first or fourth in one round affects your position on the track in the next round, but your score doesn’t carry over. For example, even if the fourth place cyclist was a quarter of a second slower than the winner in the quarter-finals, they start off even in the semi-finals time-wise.

There were LOTS of stories about Connor Fields before the Olympics (Google him if you don’t believe this). He was injured earlier in 2016 and couldn’t compete in the Olympic time trials, but because of his skill, he was given a coaches’ exemption and was selected as a member of the five-person U.S. Olympic team (three men, two women). Since he’s a local boy here in Las Vegas, local TV and newspapers mentioned him all the time.

I didn’t get to see any of the races in real time, but I’d read the results every night. On Wednesday, August 17, I checked the results and saw Connor came in fourth place. I was very disappointed. He was really hoping for a medal, which only go three deep, and to go all that way and come up just short was awful.

As I read further, I realized that yes he was in fourth place, but these were individual time trials used for seeding purposes. The top 32 racers moved on to the quarter-finals the next day — and Connor was doing just fine.

On Thursday, August 18, there was blood on the track. Several of the riders went down hard, including one of the pre-race favorites — Joris Daudet from France. http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/bmxers-took-some-hard-hits-quarterfinals

Fields and the other two Americans, Nic Long and Corben Sharrah, survived and would race again Friday. Sixteen riders were left.

On Friday, August 19, the semi-finals got it down to eight riders, and shortly thereafter the finals ended it all. In the finals, which included two Americans — Connor Fields and Nic Long. Both Americans got off to fast starts and about 20 seconds in were in first and second position with Long holding a slight advantage. Connor passed Long, as did one Dutch rider and one Colombian, who passed him in a photo finish, so the Americans ended up with the Gold and near miss for the bronze. http://www.nbcolympics.com/news/team-usas-connor-fields-led-bmx-finals-start-finish-takes-home-gold

On the woman’s side, American Alise Post took home a silver, so it was an excellent showing for Team USA. I’m sure Alise has her own story and it’s every bit as exciting as Connor’s, but I’ve never met her and didn’t follow the women’s races at all.

We’re going to try to get Connor Fields as a guest on the radio show. It isn’t really about gambling, but his dad is a sponsor of the show, and hey, how many Olympic champions have you met? I want to ask him about the final race.

When he and Nic Young were neck and neck with 10 seconds to go, it’s possible Connor knew he was going to win. You know your teammates pretty well and Fields is a better finisher than Young is. But what if it was neck and neck with 3 seconds to go? You and your teammate are both going for the gold — and you felt that a well-timed elbow would push you by your teammate.

If it was for the Olympic gold, would you elbow your teammate?

(I mentioned earlier that I made some money gambling on this. With a friend, I took Connor Fields against the field at 5-1. I risked $10 (which I would have paid if Connor lost) and collected $50 when he won. It probably wasn’t a good bet, odds-wise, but sports are more exciting when you have a little wager on it, and this was pocket-change money between friends. The $50 win is nice, but I’m REALLY happy for Connor and Mike Fields!)