I hear ya. Video poker makes me contemplate suicide as the more entertaining route. Actually, I've used video poker to kill time while wonging. But I'm not an AP vid poker guy. I learned the hard way what payouts were good. I had memorized a pretty good break even strategy on deuces wild, so I thought. Saw some results that didn't make any sense. Royal Flush doesn't matter, 4-of-a-kind payout is what is important. At least I'm wary and more respectful of video poker now.
The "problem" with V.P. is that the "return" (naturally) includes your hitting a Royal Flush.Originally Posted by Boz
As you are actually playing short-term you'll be extremely unlikely to see that Jackpot.
Your V.P. may have a "return" of 99.x % BUT if you stipulate that a Royal Flush will not
be seen, the "return" worsens considerably -- to the point where I'd rather shoot craps.
You are correct unless you are playing to the law of large number. Then if you have an organized means of including casino free play offers in your game. Then you can turn this into a positive EV.
Luck is nothing more than probability taken personally!
I hold that if all the VP you are likely to play this year is a few dozen hours,
your (realistic) chance of a big (and taxable) event is certainly very remote.
While I have no actual return percentages pertaining to ANY of the VP variants,
I suspect an average return would seldom exceed (perhaps) 93% to 95%
It's worth about 2% in Deuces. 4-of-a-kind is worth about 1/3, and casinos are in the habit of shaving 20% off from the full-pay on the 4-of-a-kind--6-7% total. It'd be much better to have no royal and play an otherwise full-pay machine than to play most VP games offered. This I did not know until I learned the hard way, as I was saying. I was always looking for the full-pay Royal to waste my time with, which was unimportant.
Last edited by Boz; 05-13-2016 at 12:27 PM.
QUOTE=ZenMaster_Flash;190885]The "problem" with V.P. is that the "return" (naturally) includes your hitting a Royal Flush.
As you are actually playing short-term you'll be extremely unlikely to see that Jackpot.
Your V.P. may have a "return" of 99.x % BUT if you stipulate that a Royal Flush will not
be seen, the "return" worsens considerably -- to the point where I'd rather shoot craps.[/QUOTE]
Yes ZMF, your are on point. Ripping off a post from the GC site, the "Chairman" states (nonchalantly):
"Well, yeah...I'm about 250k behind EV for 2016. 6M coin-in and no royal...."
And to this we respond..."holy shit!!!"
That is about -4.1% down. As ZMF pointed out, this is about normal when you have not hit the "big one". Royal Flush shows up statistically about every 20,000 rounds. If on a $5 JOB he has in over 240,000 rounds.....with no royal????? Way....way off the SD chart so he must be playing much larger than $5 perhaps $100.
For whatever it is worth, playing this machine game is damn boring!
Luck is nothing more than probability taken personally!
Bigdaddy, Let me give you another theory on chairman's post on green chip. ZMF'S above quote is accurate about when a player not hitting a royal worsens the return considerably. However ZMF is using a return for a machine of 99.x % that return percentage may well apply to most top notch video poker players, but does not apply to the Chairman! Simply put there is a lot more going on here. Chairman would not even look at any game paying at a rate of 99.x % return by itself, without something else involved. How do I know this, as I do not personally know Chairman, is because I have been reading his post for almost two decades, and I can assure you he is a true professional Advantage Player.
First he stated the fact as you say nonchalantly because it was just a insignificant true fact. I am sure he was playing to a almost 0 % ror. Plus that 250k EV loss, most likely represented a rather small actual cash investment loss to the player, in that one endeavor. I am sure he also had other things going on.
Last edited by BoSox; 05-13-2016 at 05:40 PM.
While short term results can clearly be in the ranges ZMF refers to the long term can be positive.
Here are actual results for a 12 month period (2013-2014) for a team that had VP as one of several methods of attack. I would add that there were some offers available that we did not cash due to the logistics of collecting them. Very labor intensive event.
Note that our play for coin in was -.50%, very, very close to the expected results for the game played. End results show we were up 1.7% on almost 4.5 million in coin in action (after all expenses including the tax liabilities that go with W2G for large payouts). All the variance with this play is found in the coin in play but was easily outrun by the back end offers. Logistical nightmare to manage. Offer systems, while still vulnerable, have tightened up since this.
egaming.JPG
Luck is nothing more than probability taken personally!
Stealth.....how do you put a value on the actual "redeemed offers". Cash back is obvious. Free play is easier to value, though at a discounted rate to actual cash. But were you also valuing the offers that were comps? As in meals, rooms, etc? How do you value these in a team situation to "distribute" back to the team?
"Women and cats will do as they please, and Men and dogs should just relax and get used to the idea" --- Robert A. Heinlein
We didn't "put" a value on them, that is the actual amount we received when we cashed them out. Cashing out a free play offer required us to play through the offer amount before we could cash it out, the redeemed amount are the results of that play. All of our players that did E-Gaming were certified at a very high level of proficiency.
We had exceptions that AP's could earn EV with, for example, a free play for a table games we would give the AP 50% of the free play in EV. The actual results of the play went to the bankroll. A dealer/cashier error was awarded EV at 100%. etc, etc.
We had EV values for various activities of VP that were earned by the AP. Too complex to deal with here. We had EV for all games we played and "E-Gaming", as we called it, was the most complex. We didn't just play VP in the electronic games, there were some others.
Luck is nothing more than probability taken personally!
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