using the same Strategy 8/5 Bonus Poker 9/6 Jacks or better

Discuss proper hold strategies and "advantage play" and ask questions about how to improve your play.
Hotshooter
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using the same Strategy 8/5 Bonus Poker 9/6 Jacks or better

Post by Hotshooter »

For the record, I have Bob Dancer's Video Poker for Winners software and his A Winners Guide to Jacks or Better. I currently play 8/5 bonus poker and 9/6 jacks or better just under 100% accuracy using Bob's basic strategy for each game.

My question is, what if I just used Bob Basic strategy for 8/5 Bonus poker on 9/6 Jacks or better without the adjustments needed for the 9/6 game. What impact would that have on overall return?

onemoretry
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Post by onemoretry »

There is a chart on the Wizard of Odds site that answers this question - and the answer is "not very much" (0.01%).

billryan
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Post by billryan »

onemoretry wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 9:56 am
There is a chart on the Wizard of Odds site that answers this question - and the answer is "not very much" (0.01%).
That equals one cent per $100 coin in?

New2vp
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Post by New2vp »

BR, you are interpreting OMT's percentage accurately. 1% would be $1 per $100 coin in, 0.1% would be a dime, and 0.01% is in fact a penny per $100.

OMT, I didn't immediately find the chart you referred to on the Wizard's site. I also don't know if the Wizard's basic strategy is equivalent to Bob Dancer's basic strategy, though if they are not identical, I would imagine that they are quite close. Using the Wizard's numbers, I did get a slightly different answer than what you quoted though the difference is still quite small.

The Wizard's Strategy Maker suggests a Perfect Strategy Analysis set of results and a Basic Strategy Analysis set for all of the common games. I do in fact see an 0.01% difference between the two games' Perfect Strategy Analyses when comparing the two strategies on the 9-6 Jacks or Better game. But there is an 0.02% difference when comparing the two Basic Strategy Analyses.

OMT, was your answer based on differences between Basic Strategies, Perfect Play Strategies, or the difference between Jacks or Better Perfect Play and Bonus Poker Basic Strategy?

Below are the various EVs that produced the result that I determined. I'm showing one additional decimal place so you can see a positive difference between Perfect Play and Basic Strategy for Jacks or Better.

EVs for 9-6 Jacks or Better:
Perfect Strategy Analysis 99.544%
Basic Strategy Analysis 99.543%

EVs using the strategy for 8-5 Bonus Poker while playing 9-6 Jacks or Better:
Perfect Strategy Analysis 99.537%
Basic Strategy Analysis 99.524%

Hotshooter, I was wondering why you would choose to use the Bonus Poker strategy for both games rather than the Jacks or Better strategy for both games if you wanted only to use one strategy for both games.

You might be interested in what's below. Let's look at what you did not ask. What about playing the Jacks or Better strategy all the time? Here we are looking at playing 8-5 Bonus Poker.

EVs for 8-5 Bonus Poker:
Perfect Strategy Analysis 99.166%
Basic Strategy Analysis 99.159%

EVs using the strategy for 9-6 Jacks or Better while playing 8-5 Bonus Poker:
Perfect Strategy Analysis 99.158%
Basic Strategy Analysis 99.161%

A little surprise here? If you are going to use 9-6 Jacks or Better when playing 8-5 Bonus Poker, you are actually better off playing Basic Strategy than using Perfect Play Strategy. This may seem wrong but this "Perfect Play" obviously is not Bonus Poker Perfect Play Strategy. With 8-5 Bonus Poker, observing the Jacks or Better exceptions hurts EV rather than helping it.

Even more surprising? Jacks or Better Basic returns a greater percentage than Bonus Poker Basic.

Conclusion: If you want to simplify your play to use only one Basic Strategy, you might want to choose 9-6 Jacks or Better Basic Strategy over that of 8-5 Bonus Poker. The differences are small, but 9-6 Jacks or Better Basic Strategy is better for both games. ;)

You will lose only 0.001% over Perfect Play for Jacks or Better and only 0.005% over Perfect Play for Bonus Poker. That's a penny per $1000 bet for Jacks or Better and a nickel per $1000 for Bonus Poker.

Best of luck.

Hotshooter
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Post by Hotshooter »

Thank you everyone for taking the time to explain and for your input. New2VP thank you for the detailed break down. It makes perfect sense. Hopefully Mr. Dancer can chime in.

onemoretry
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Post by onemoretry »

New2vp wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 3:54 pm
OMT, I didn't immediately find the chart you referred to on the Wizard's site.
The chart I referred to was in an article entitled "Effect of Strategy Mismatches", last updated August 15, 2016.

It is the third one down the page called "Cost of Errors", and shows the difference in return between optimal strategy and the strategy used.

In the notes below the chart is the statement that there is little cost in using JOB strategy in bonus poker, or vice versa.

New2vp
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Post by New2vp »

Thanks, OMT. I was able to look it up based on your description.

I was guessing that the differences shown by the Wizard were based on optimal strategy. I have seldom seen similar charts comparing differences in basic strategy as was requested by the original poster.

Hotshooter
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Post by Hotshooter »

New2vp wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 3:54 pm
BR, you are interpreting OMT's percentage accurately. 1% would be $1 per $100 coin in, 0.1% would be a dime, and 0.01% is in fact a penny per $100.

OMT, I didn't immediately find the chart you referred to on the Wizard's site. I also don't know if the Wizard's basic strategy is equivalent to Bob Dancer's basic strategy, though if they are not identical, I would imagine that they are quite close. Using the Wizard's numbers, I did get a slightly different answer than what you quoted though the difference is still quite small.

The Wizard's Strategy Maker suggests a Perfect Strategy Analysis set of results and a Basic Strategy Analysis set for all of the common games. I do in fact see an 0.01% difference between the two games' Perfect Strategy Analyses when comparing the two strategies on the 9-6 Jacks or Better game. But there is an 0.02% difference when comparing the two Basic Strategy Analyses.

OMT, was your answer based on differences between Basic Strategies, Perfect Play Strategies, or the difference between Jacks or Better Perfect Play and Bonus Poker Basic Strategy?

Below are the various EVs that produced the result that I determined. I'm showing one additional decimal place so you can see a positive difference between Perfect Play and Basic Strategy for Jacks or Better.

EVs for 9-6 Jacks or Better:
Perfect Strategy Analysis 99.544%
Basic Strategy Analysis 99.543%

EVs using the strategy for 8-5 Bonus Poker while playing 9-6 Jacks or Better:
Perfect Strategy Analysis 99.537%
Basic Strategy Analysis 99.524%

Hotshooter, I was wondering why you would choose to use the Bonus Poker strategy for both games rather than the Jacks or Better strategy for both games if you wanted only to use one strategy for both games.

You might be interested in what's below. Let's look at what you did not ask. What about playing the Jacks or Better strategy all the time? Here we are looking at playing 8-5 Bonus Poker.

EVs for 8-5 Bonus Poker:
Perfect Strategy Analysis 99.166%
Basic Strategy Analysis 99.159%

EVs using the strategy for 9-6 Jacks or Better while playing 8-5 Bonus Poker:
Perfect Strategy Analysis 99.158%
Basic Strategy Analysis 99.161%

A little surprise here? If you are going to use 9-6 Jacks or Better when playing 8-5 Bonus Poker, you are actually better off playing Basic Strategy than using Perfect Play Strategy. This may seem wrong but this "Perfect Play" obviously is not Bonus Poker Perfect Play Strategy. With 8-5 Bonus Poker, observing the Jacks or Better exceptions hurts EV rather than helping it.

Even more surprising? Jacks or Better Basic returns a greater percentage than Bonus Poker Basic.

Conclusion: If you want to simplify your play to use only one Basic Strategy, you might want to choose 9-6 Jacks or Better Basic Strategy over that of 8-5 Bonus Poker. The differences are small, but 9-6 Jacks or Better Basic Strategy is better for both games. ;)

You will lose only 0.001% over Perfect Play for Jacks or Better and only 0.005% over Perfect Play for Bonus Poker. That's a penny per $1000 bet for Jacks or Better and a nickel per $1000 for Bonus Poker.

Best of luck.
So here is what i found trying to use 9/6 Jacks or better strategy on 8/5 bonus poker. I played around with your suggestion and tried the basic bob Dancer strategy for 9/6 Jacks or better on 8/5 Bonus poker using the Video Poker for Winner software. Using this strategy, the software would record errors ranging from minor to moderate. So please help me understand, the so called minor to moderate errors are not going to impact overall play or overall return significantly? Am I missing something?

BobDancer
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Post by BobDancer »

How much a given error affects the return depends on two things:

How big the error is? How often does that particular error occur?

If you're looking at an error that only comes about every 100,000 hands or so, that's not going to effect things much. If you're looking at an error that occurs every 40 hands, well, that's going to make a big difference.

Does that help?

BobDancer
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Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 2:07 am

Post by BobDancer »

new2vp ---

I'd like to chat with you about this subject offline. (The result of our conversation will probably be posted later.) I don't know how to private message you about this, so please tell me how to do that, or email me at bobdancerlasvegas@yahoo.com. You can find me on Facebook if that's better for you.

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