Video Poker Forum

Through the history here, there hasn't been an abundance of coherent discussion. Usually one person makes a point, and then another person gives a speech. Let's not do that here. Please try to address the point and be concise.

Possibly the least productive topic in gambling is "short term vs long term."

In general, a bad long-term decision is also a bad short-term decision.

Example: You're playing 9/6 DDB (1.02% house edge). Nothing is hitting, so you move to an 8/5 DDB game (3.21% HE).

Bad decision, whether you sit there for 5 minutes or 5 years.

The game will remind you of your bad decision by penalizing every full house and flush you hit.

dinghy wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 16, 2024 8:06 am

The game will remind you of your bad decision by penalizing every full house and flush you hit.

And, if you are curious enough, you can keep track of the number of such hands, and work out how much playing the inferior pay table costs.

When I recently, and reluctantly, played some 6/5 bonus poker at a Caesars property on the Strip, I did more or less keep track of the number of short pay full houses I hit. I figure the cost of playing that 6/5 game was about $25 per hour as compared to the 8/5 game.

This sounds like... a speech.

KIDDING!!!

dinghy wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 16, 2024 8:06 am

Through the history here, there hasn't been an abundance of coherent discussion. Usually one person makes a point, and then another person gives a speech. Let's not do that here. Please try to address the point and be concise.

Possibly the least productive topic in gambling is "short term vs long term."

In general, a bad long-term decision is also a bad short-term decision.

Example: You're playing 9/6 DDB (1.02% house edge). Nothing is hitting, so you move to an 8/5 DDB game (3.21% HE).

Bad decision, whether you sit there for 5 minutes or 5 years.

The game will remind you of your bad decision by penalizing every full house and flush you hit.

I agree with everything you wrote. Was that the point of why you wrote it? That Math is relentlessly consistent?

I freely admit as much as I enjoy this website I don't grasp everything that is posted on this forum.

It took me a while to understand you meant that Florida guy when you typed "Phil"

I cannot argue with the math. The math is what it is. That said, I still think long term results can be longer than one’s lifetime and luck plays a huge part in VP.

olds442jetaway wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 16, 2024 11:45 am

That said, I still think long term results can be longer than one’s lifetime and luck plays a huge part in VP.

It all depends on the details and your criteria. There's no standardized definition of long term. Is it a 95% probability of being down? 99%? 99.99%?

Longer than a lifetime is correct by some criteria, and incorrect by others. Same for the luck factor. For my particular plays, I think "huge" is too strong an adjective, but I'm a scaredy-cat so I avoid the volatile stuff.

I wish we had more and better tools to measure this stuff, so we could plug in our play details and get exact likelihoods.

Eduardo wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 16, 2024 10:40 am

This sounds like... a speech.

It all depends on the details and your criteria .

Karl_EDT wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 16, 2024 10:55 am

Was that the point of why you wrote it?

It came up in other threads, and I figured it was better to start a new one in an appropriate area.

Eduardo wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 16, 2024 10:40 am

This sounds like... a speech.

KIDDING!!!

Not really, it was just double spaced.

I don’t know exactly why, but I have lost more on 9/6 JOB than any game I play. I just seem to hit too many quadless streaks and a few that hit too many in a short period of time. Also on JOB I have hit way fewer Royals than I should have over time. At Mohegan, I think about 70 percent of vp players play DDB, 10 percent JOB, 10 percent regular Deuces Wild and the rest various others including the newer gimmick games.

olds442jetaway wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 16, 2024 5:58 pm

At Mohegan, I think about 70 percent of vp players play DDB, 10 percent JOB, 10 percent regular Deuces Wild and the rest various others including the newer gimmick games.

Yes, DDB has long been the frontrunner almost everywhere nationwide. I would say TDB is closing the gap, but maybe it's not widely available at Mohegan.

I don’t know exactly why, but I have lost more on 9/6 JOB than any game I play. I just seem to hit too many quadless streaks and a few that hit too many in a short period of time. Also on JOB I have hit way fewer Royals than I should have over time.

If the games don't behave purely randomly, then the standard math assumptions lose credibility, but we can still make logical inferences. If one particular game is tilted against the player, then I would suspect any tilting of other games would also be against the player.

These discussions can be difficult because we may conceive terms differently. For example, "luck." I typically play >100% situations, so luck is an inconvenience because it can derail my planned profitability.

A negative-situation player may view luck as an opportunity because otherwise the odds are against them. So they seek games with a heavy luck element, and may come to believe that luck is controllable.