I’m positive EV after 5 years. It shouldn’t be possible?

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MedzPoker
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I’m positive EV after 5 years. It shouldn’t be possible?

Post by MedzPoker »

I’ll start by saying while trying to give myself the best possible chance to win my motivation for playing video poker is ultimately fun.. which is why some of these betting and playing rules I impose on myself are not all 100% math based but just make the game more fun for me specifically in the long term. That said, I keep careful and accurate record of everything I spend and win in a logbook and have done so now for just over five years. I play perfect strategy on Loose deuces and only loose deuces with very few (if any) mistakes. I count the number of hands between each 4 deuces and royals without fail using a counter app and have I have a huge laundry list of betting sequences and rules I have always used. ( Happy to share them here in detail if anyone is at all interested in discussing why they may or may not be a good idea or are pointless fun or whatever. Some at least I’m convinced are advantage play. )

Over the past five years of play with all the ups and downs some interesting and oddly consistent patterns have emerged that I’m not claiming have any merit either way beyond coincidence but are pretty interesting to see. The strangest thing to note for me is in a game that is only 99.7% payback after 5 years with the weirdly complicated and specific way I play I am currently around $7054 in profit. This shouldn’t be possible on this game given the odds..or at least it must be incredibly unlikely.. considering I have only hit the royal once in those 5 years. Which is way below probability for the huge number of hands I’ve played. I have hit the four deuces with some regularity though and my longest cold streak without them has only been around 8600 hands.

It’s been enough years in profits now to start asking myself if I have just been incredibly lucky all this time or is the way I’m playing / betting actually helping toward those profits somewhat? Can’t figure it out because mathematically at least I should be in the negative by now but through this time I have never even once dipped below the $500 bankroll I started with. A happy mystery though :)

tech58
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Post by tech58 »

No mention of free play,bonus play,points,or promotions. These or any other slot club benies figured in there?

BobDancer
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Post by BobDancer »

You are not positive EV.

Assuming your numbers are correct, you are ahead of the game. But in terms of EV, you are still behind.

tech58
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Post by tech58 »

BobDancer wrote:
Sat Oct 03, 2020 2:45 pm
You are not positive EV.

Assuming your numbers are correct, you are ahead of the game. But in terms of EV, you are still behind.
Not doubting your statement in any way BD but i am wondering how it is possible to know that without more info.

BobDancer
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Post by BobDancer »

I have enough information.

+EV means you're playing a game that is more than 100%. He's playing a 99.7% game. It's negative EV.

EV refers to expectation.

His post refers to actual results, not expectation.

Player422738
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Post by Player422738 »

He might have promotions to get it more than 100%

case
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Post by case »

You keep good records, so can you tell us how many hands you have played? Also what denomination?

olds442jetaway
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Post by olds442jetaway »

Very interesting. I am guessing he is increasing his bet when hitting deuces will not put him even or better for the day. Lots of luck involved with this too. That is how I play. My problem is discipline. I could be wrong, but that is my best guess. By the way, I agree with Bob’s initial EV statement. I was about to type that, but Bob beat me to it.

MedzPoker
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Post by MedzPoker »

Okay my mistake, I used “EV” completely incorrectly here. I was essentially meaning I’m still in profits even though I’m playing a negative EV game.. which just seems impossible in my mind over such length of time. Of course bonus cash may factor into this as I am using some bonuses as well which may actually punch me over into positive EV who knows.. not sure. My total hands since I’ve been counting is around 194k.

Anyway a break down of how I play. I play on 0.25ct until the deuces or royal appears OR until I reach $500 spent in the negative. If this situation occurs I then play the following $100 on a kind of double up system wherein if I hit 3 of a kind or better the next bet I play on 0.50ct bet until I hit a losing hand. (Often streaks will occur and I’ll remain on 0.50 until the streak ends then return to 0.25 and repeat. If the deuces or royal has still not occurred after now a total of $600 then I increase the base bet to 0.50ct until the next price point of $1200 spent after which I play another $100 of double up between 0.50 and $1 bets. (These $100 sections are placed roughly where or just before I’ve had big hands come up in the past.. not that that’s any indication of anything it’s just a fun thing I like to do.)
After that and $1300 spent then between $1300-$2400 I play $1 bets only. If still nothing has hit and normally we are between 7000 and 9000 total hands minimum at this stage.. I go directly to the maximum $5 bet and continue to play on that until whenever one of the two major hands hit.

Now where I play you get 100% bonus on any deposit but to get to keep that bonus you need to play out 40x in wagers. Which is pretty much impossible and I’ve only done a handful of times. To make it more likely I’ll play out this bonus, for any section of my play where I’m using bonus funds I play on one level of betting higher than specified in the system above. Just in case a big hand goes off during bonus money (which has only happened one time oddly enough and I did manage to get that bonus out.) I will then be winning twice the amount making it easier or at least somewhat doable.

As convoluted as all this is it’s just how I decided to play consistently and I figured I will keep playing this way until one day I guess I hit a ridiculous number of hands on the max bet without hitting either big hand and end up losing more than I ever gained in classic martingale style lol But I’m also fine with this, as it is a loss that will happen very slowly over time either way. (I put the same amount into loose deuces every week regardless and obviously the amount I play slows down if I’m making big bets.) Anyway if this thread is still open anyway I’ll let you guys know if and when this big disaster happens. Which leads me to another question for any of you who count hands.. what is the longest period of hands you have played with perfect strategy without hitting either a royal or the four deuces? For me it’s around 9700 hands at which point I was playing the upper tier of max bets and was almost 4k (including bonus money) in the red until the four deuces finally hit landing me around 3 times the losses.

olds442jetaway
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Post by olds442jetaway »

Over the years and more than 20 million hands, three instances of going 600,000 hands without a Royal, but only about 25,000 hands without hitting 4 deuces. I am negative every year mostly due to discipline issues. I only have access to 98.91 deuces games but get another .3 percent roughly in free play. I play a version but very mild of Martingale. I call it Martingale clone, I have had some huge hits using it, but always give it back due to discipline issues. Largest hits were two for 18,000 bucks within 12 hours. Every year a couple over 10,000 as well except this year due to limited play. Covid issues worldwide and the. Asino shutting down. The only way I could call myself even would be to value my free rooms and other comps at retail. Can’t take that to the bank.

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