Video Poker Forum

It has been a while since my last trip to Vegas. Still hunting my elusive first royal, I want to make sure I plan this next trip appropriately, and that is my new goal for this trip: Hit a royal flush. Normally I set a goal of doubling my bankroll for a trip. This time is different.

Now is where I have to formulate my strategy, and I look forward to any suggestions.
 
First, the situation. As I outlined in previous posts, we will be staying at the Bellagio. Because this is an anniversary trip and not primarily a gambling trip, it means two things. 1) I will not be as cautious about pay tables... even a quick trip to the Palms is unlikely, though I haven't ruled it out. 2) Gambling will not be the priority, so time will be limited. While the best way of hitting a royal on a budget would be to play low denominations, I have no intention of sludging through nickels on this trip.
 
My wife likes to play a little too, otherwise I wouldn't be planning to play at all on this one.
 
Obviously there are no guarantees. But I want to make sure I do what I can to give myself a decent chance at reaching my goal without a lot of play.
 
I know the odds of success are stacked against me. But I might as well stack them as well as possible!
 
At the Bellagio on vpfree2 they show the best returns as 9/6JOB $5 and Bonus Poker $2 and $5. I normally don't touch these amounts. Dollars is pretty much the highest I have played and even that tends to go fast. That was normally under DDB as well though. My normal Deuces play is usually at quarters, although sometimes on Triple Play, Super Times.
 
I don't know what the pays are at the Bellagio for any Deuces games, or anything dollars or lower. My guess, given the location, is that they are not too favorable (to say the least).
 
My suspicion is that what I should be looking for is low volatility, with a suitable denomination.
 
But a game like DDB has a lot of weight in the quad department... whereas my goal of a Royal might be better sustained in a game without quad bonuses.
 
This brings Jacks or Better to mind, of course.
 
So I guess what I'd like to know, is what type of machine would give the best percentage of "royal flush" sessions on my bankroll in a relatively limited time, with a bare minimum of playing quarters (I have no interest in a $400 royal on dimes at this point, since I've won $400 before).
 
$5 JOB would probably go quickly. $2 Bonus Poker may have only slightly higher variance, with more than double the play opportunities, plus the obvious bonus fun of hitting some aces.
 
But what about playing a poorer return game at dollars or quarters? Even though the overall odds of winning in the long run would be reduced, as would the average session score, would my goal of hitting a royal benefit from this approach, as far as percentage of sessions that reach the goal?
 
Ideally, after all that rambling, I guess what I'd like to know is this, given a bankroll of just $500.
 
What percentage of sessions would hit a royal flush starting at $500, playing:
 
1) $5 JOB 9/6
2) $2 BP 8/5
3) $1 DB 9/6
4) $1 JOB 8/5 (I'm making the rest of these up since I don't know if they have them but the rest are probably below $97.8% return since not listed on vpfree2)
5) $.25 JOB 8/5 on Triple Play
6) $1 on some ugly deuce return game
 
Or, if there are other factors I should be looking at I'd like to hear that as well. Thanks!
 
I just want to make sure I practice the right game before the trip so I play it well and give myself a good chance.
 
I'm not making any promises about what approach I will end up taking but I want to have the knowledge in my brain to work with at least. Thanks again!!!!!
 

I did the bankroll calculator this in VPW with $5 jacks or better and a $19,500 profit goal on $500 (5000 rounds). This is probably fairly close to a "royal hit" represenation though obiously includes some rare other sessions too. I don't think there is a way to set a goal of a certain type of win in any programs I have, since that's probably a little unusual.
 
This gave about a 1.5% chance of hitting the royal.
 
I figure $5 a pop ($25 bet) is probably extreme and that I can probably do better on worse pay tables. I'll run some more simulations and post the results but I'm interested in people's thoughts (plus I might be doing this wrong )

The same thing on $2 BP (goal of $7500) gave about 3.2% which I guess I should have expected.
 
So it seems like lowering my denomination is (duh) going to increase my odds at a royal (of course, those royal wins are also a lot less money, too). So the big question is how will playing poor tables offset those chances on this particular budget.
 
Still running numbers. I know as I get into lower amounts it's going to get harder to tell between the royal flushes and accumulated wins though so it will get messier. I need smarter people to join in but I'll be patient while I make my guesses.

$1 DB 9/6: 4.2%
$1 JOB 8/5: 4.76 (this is my first big step down in return, but I saw an INCREASE in odds of a royal. Encouraging maybe....)
 
$.25 JOB 8/5 triple play: 17.47!!! Big improvement. With a goal of $500 this is the same as my normal trip goal of doubling, too. Watching the trend lines move, it doesn't look like this was weighed as heavily by non-royal wins as I thought it might be. Quad games would be affected more.
 
I am quickly seeing that the $5 and $2 games are NOT the ticket with the goal of a royal flush. You just don't get as many shots.
 
Moving on...
 
Nasty Deuces (I chose the worst that VPW had to offer.)
3 Play quarters again.... $28%! Now, here I'm thinking that this MUST account for some $500 profit goals being reached by hitting some 4 deuce wins as well. There was improvement (and good improvement) but it's impossible for me to tell how many of these wins came with a royal. I suspect a lot of them though. And... with that big of an improvement in odds of doubling my bankroll it might be worth considering as an alternative to setting a strictly "royal" goal while still giving me a good shot at actually hitting one.
 
Of course, I don't even know whether they have Deuces Wild of any kind at the Bellagio.
 
For kicks I now tried 10 play quarters of the same game just to see how that factored in.
 
Still over 28%. I was curious as to why playing 10 hands still kept my odds so good. But duh... it's because goign broke on 3 play or 10 play is still broke, and a royal is still a royal. It probably just happend faster. I should have known that increasing the number of hands at a time is a better option for me than increasing the amount per bet.
 

Since no smart people have jumped in , I'll comment as a low level .25 and .05 player with a limited budget, and very few smarts. My experience is that a $500 bankroll is good for maybe 2 days at my level; at $2.00/ $5.00 a pop I'm guessing it might be good for 7 minutes. It seems to me you'll have to get lucky real fast, and have a good backup plan for the rest of your time in Vegas. It will be interesting to see if the more learned contributers have any suggestions. Good luck with your plans- hope you hit a royal on your second play- doing it on the first play might encourage you to get reckless. Let us know how it works out for you.

Thanks grandpa




 
I hope I hit one fast too. We have lots of "backup" plans fortunately and I'd rather do them after a royal than broke.
 
I'm looking forward to what the "analysts" say rather than these brute-force methods I am trying so far. But I've already learned just by asking myself.

But I still don't know how to accurately account for a reduced pay table on a short session. Bottom line seems to be, the more opportunities the better. Stepping down in denomination is likely the key when simply going for a royal flush, even if I increase the hands per play to accomodate for time limitations.


 
Playing pennies on 100 play would be a smart move, if I was willing to settle for a penny royal, which I am not. I want a cool grand at least when I finally reach this goal. This makes multi-line play the obvious best move for me if it's available in quarters.
 
IMPORTANT! I should have mentioned that I plan NO deviations from perfect play in going for a royal. I'm not treating this like a tournament, because my money is still at stake. I'm not interested in compromising my expected return any more severely than I've outlined in pay table selection, rather in hitting a royal in the process of practicing correct play. I won't be holding just face cards and taking wild shots at this.
 
My plan is to practice whatever pay table I decide on and to play it with the best expected results on every single hand.

I hit a royal on 5 play DDB (quarter level) at the indian casinos last weekend. It came after a few hours of play. It occured on line 4. I hope you hit your first one on your upcoming trip. They usually come when least expected.
 
Maybe you should play multi-play (3,5, or 10 hands) so if you get dealt 4 to the royal (which happens to me at least one on every trip), you have a better shot. who knows, it could always happen on single line as well.
 
My advice would be to find a good paytable on a game you enjoy at a casino you like and just play as usual. If the royal comes this trip, it comes. If not, if not. It will happen eventually so just enjoy your trip and your time playing.
 
 

Eduardo, You have already answered most of your own questions given your constraints.  If you want a minimum of a $1000 jackpot and you'd like to maximize the chance at a royal before you deplete your $500 bankroll, you had best play quarters.Although there are better EVs at higher denominations, the EVs are not so much higher that they will give you a better chance at a royal.  If your goal was to make a certain amount of profit as before, it likely would make sense to consider these higher denominations.I agree with you that perfect-play strategy will generally steer you to hit a royal on games more often when the payoff for the quads are lower.  Sometimes it is not so easy to figure out what is going on since there are indirect effects from changes in the lower pay lines. 7-coin payoffs for flushes call for holding 4-flushes over 3-royals and thus reduce royals, but sometimes higher flush and/or straight payoffs increase 3-royals over holding high pairs and increase the chance at getting a royal.Likewise you generally will hit more royals on non-wild games.  An exception to this rule is shadowman's favorite, one-eyed jacks, where there are generally more royals (if you can find suitable games and figure out how to play near-perfect strategy on them!).Also since you mentioned limited time, it would be in your interest to play multi-hand games.  With your goal of wishing to hit a royal, this is not at all the same as playing higher denomination games, since you correctly surmised that more chances are what is going to get you that royal faster.  Obviously 100-play offers the best chance, but at $125 a play (for quarters), your $500 could be gone quite quickly.  Even if this is better mathematically to handle your time constraint, I'm guessing that emotionally the high probability of losing the entire bankroll in fewer than 10 hands might preclude this option.  You mentioned a reluctance to deviate from perfect play.  However, given your goal is to hit a royal, I would consider a slightly different approach than the requirement of perfect play strategy.  It doesn't appear that you will find 9/6 Jacks at the Bellagio at the quarter level; whether you can or not, the expectation before a royal is a loss of 4921 coins (4916 on the non-royal hands plus the 5 invested on the royal hand when it comes).  Your EV is that normal 99.54% figure.If you employ a slightly more aggressive strategy AS IF the royal flush were worth 4880 coins rather than 4000, the expected loss between royals would fall to 4880 coins (not a coincidence) and your EV would drop only to 99.51%.  This would result in roughly a 12% higher chance at a royal.  Bob Dancer would never play that way but you make the call.  For your limited amount of play, is a loss of 0.03% worth a 12% higher chance at a royal?  Given your stated goal, I'd say "yes," but agree that it is a highly subjective decision. Using the 4880 figure minimizes the expected loss before a royal at 9-6 Jacks or better and is independent of whether or not you are playing a progressive (since here your goal has to do with whether or not you wish to hit a royal rather than achieve a certain level of $ profits).Of course your expected loss between royals at the quarter level is going to be well above your target bankroll of $500.One might think that if the other payoffs are lower, than there is more chance at a royal, but that is not always true.  While this may generally be true, the effects are sometimes pretty small.  8/5 Jacks has only around 1/2% more royals than 9/6 Jacks.  And 6/5 Jacks actually has slightly fewer royals than 8/5 Jacks.If the Bellagio has 25-cent 8/5 Jacks and you decide to play for that royal, your expected loss before a royal with perfect play is a whopping 9426 coins.  This has little to do with the strategy being more aggressive toward royals and has more to do with the lower EV in the game.  Playing a strategy on 8/5 Jacks that is AS IF the royal jackpot were 8666 coins reduces that expected loss before the royal to 8666 coins.  The loss in EV from that approach is to reduce the 97.30% game to 97.14%.If that is too much of a drop in EV, you might just wish to wait until you have the time to play at better pay tables.  It might not increase your chance at getting the royal, but may prevent you from suffering higher than average losses in getting to that goal.I agree with vidopoker's advice:  find a good pay schedule on a game you enjoy at a
casino you like and just play as usual.  It will happen eventually.  And I hope it is a high progressive jackpot that will make you feel better about using a strategy that is a bit more aggressive in going after that royal.

Just 'cause you're staying at the Bellagio doesn't mean you have to gamble there ... at least not all your gambling.
 
I really think the best advice is to not worry about the royal. It will come eventually and may even come in bunches. I had 6 of them from August 15th to September 20th.