what is a winning strategy?

[jim18]

Later this month I will be traveling to the Pittsburgh area where I will do combat with a quick quads game at the Meadows casino.  From what I saw from prior visits, this is the game with the best pay table in the casino, as long as I play at the dollar per credit denomination.In recent months I have looked at photos on this site of people showing off their great wins.  Yes, it made me envious, but not jealous, What gets stuck in my mind is that many of these wins are on machines with poor pay schedules.  By poor I mean less than 98 % return.  I realize that a player can win on any machine.  While logic tells me to stay away from low pay tables, it seems so obvious that results are based on being in the right place, at the right time, rather than playing only the best pay tables.On top of that, the number of wins some players have on these machines is so far removed from statistical likeliness.  The denomination and the pay table had nothing to do with their success.  It was all luck!Back to quick quads.  I can play the game at the 25 cents, 50 cents or dollar denomination.  I can play 3, 5 or10 hands.  Once I drop down from the dollar denomination, the pay table loses about 2 % return.  I will have a bankroll of three thousand dollars.Here is the question..........Taking into consideration the volatility of multiple hands, the size of the bankroll, the pay tables, the denomination, what advice can anyone give me as to what course of action will give me the most fun, the longest playtime?  Mostly, I will play 9/6 JOB or DB at the dollar level to get the best pay table.  I will only play DDB or TDB if I am playing with their money.  If I play these games, I was thinking of playing at the 25 cent denomination, and playing 10 hands.Tying the last paragraph into the earlier paragraphs, I get the feeling that it does not matter what  game I play, what the pay table looks like, or what denomination I play at.  Is VP 75% luck and 25% skill?Thanks for your advice.  I guess the best advice would be for me to avoid the casino.

[BillyJoe]

Here is my view on VP..
 
Skill puts you in a position to win, by extending your playing time with a given bankroll. Luck determines whether you get a premium hand during your playing time. I always try and find the best pay table available, of course. Often, though, they do not exist at the casinos where I choose to play.

[EDC1977]

Meadows has single line uprights, MG/MD with a DW game at 16/13. I didn't do so well but played a long time on $40. DB game is 9/5 which is bad.

[jim18]

EDC1977  as I said before the  quick quad machine in dollar denomination pays 9/6 which I think is a better pay schedule than is available on the MG machines. The question is to play at the dollar denomination, 18 dollars per  deal  vs playing at a lower denimination with a poorer pay schedule.  With my bankroll is it better to pay 3 hands for a cost of 18 dollars, or play 10 hands at the quarter level for a cost of 15 dollars, but at a worse pay table. It kind of looks like I should play at the dollar level to get the best possible pay table.  When I go to the Meadows I will look for the 16/13 DW game.

[BillyJoe]

EDC1977  as I said before the  quick quad machine in dollar denomination pays 9/6 which I think is a better pay schedule than is available on the MG machines.
 
The question is to play at the dollar denomination, 18 dollars per  deal  vs playing at a lower denimination with a poorer pay schedule.  With my bankroll is it better to pay 3 hands for a cost of 18 dollars, or play 10 hands at the quarter level for a cost of 15 dollars, but at a worse pay table.
 
It kind of looks like I should play at the dollar level to get the best possible pay table.  When I go to the Meadows I will look for the 16/13 DW game.
Playing more lines at the lower denom may sound good, but unless you are dealt a premium hand, your hits will be at that lower denom also. At the higher denom, a single line hit can produce a good payday.
 
I think that you mentioned your bankroll was $3k. IMO, that will be good for about 4 hours of play at the $15/$18 level, unless you hit some premium hands.  

[shadowman]

You haven't mentioned the total return of the games including freeplay, cashback etc. However, if it is not positive then there is no bankroll sufficient to play forever. I'm not sure what your goals are here. How long do you want to play on the $3,000? 
 
And, for VP the general rule of thumb is you need a bankroll of 3-5 royals just to get you through the bad streaks. That would put you into the quarter denom with $3K.

[brmcc74]

You haven't mentioned the total return of the games including freeplay, cashback etc. However, if it is not positive then there is no bankroll sufficient to play forever. I'm not sure what your goals are here. How long do you want to play on the $3,000? 
 
And, for VP the general rule of thumb is you need a bankroll of 3-5 royals just to get you through the bad streaks. That would put you into the quarter denom with $3K. At single line

[jim18]

I like the suggestion of using RF hits as a measurement of what size bankroll a player needs.  This is a fast and easy way to make the calculation.  So, if I understand this right, I am to play a single line game, at the quarter denomination.  And I will have to hit three - five royals if I expect to leave the casino a winner.  If I get a RF every 40,000 hands, then I would have to play at least 120,000 hands for it to be likely for this event to occur.  And, if I play 600 hands per hour I will have to play for 200 hours to play 120,000 hands.  I think there is something missing from this situation. Some variable that is not being used in the calculations, but I do not know what it is.However, if I can really play for 200 hours on a bankroll of 3,000 dollars with a single line, then can I make the change to the variables as follows. I will play for 40 hours, (one fifth of the original time) and instead of playing one hand, I can play five hands?  Will that produce the same results?Perhaps the calculation that I can only play for four hours, at 15/18 dollars per deal is right.  As a recreational player how can I justify losing 750 dollars per hour just for entertainment?  The offset or reward is that I have a slim chance of hitting a premium hand during that four hour period, which I take to mean that it is almost a certainty, that I will leave the casino broke the great majority of times that I try this plan out.To further show my dismay at the situation facing me, let me give another example.  I take 3000 dollars and put it into a VP game.  And I recycle the money three times, which translates into 12,000 dollars(roughly)  going through the machine. According to the pay table, I might be playing a 97% payback as I am playing at the quarter level, My loss should be around 3% of the 12,000 that went through the machine or 360 dollars.But, there is a contradiction between the theoretical return and reality.  In the above example, I might play 10,000 hands over a 20 hour period of time.  I then repeat this exercise three more times.  By now, I have played long enough (40,000 hands) that hitting a RF would be reasonable.  Instead of my losses being 360 dollars times four gaming sessions or 1,440 dollars, I will have lost more than 3,000 dollars.What I expect to happen based on math turns out to be different in real results.  Instead of losing only 1,440 over four sessions, I will lose thousands of dollars.  There is something missing, but I do not know what it is.In conclusion I should play at the 25 cent or lower denomination, I should play a single line, and I need to have unbelievable luck by hitting 3 or more RF while playing.  I am depressed.........You have read the story about the man that went to Atlantic City with a bankroll of $600 and played TDB.  What were his results?   He won, then he won more and won again and again.  He was even playing games with poor pay tables.  Then there is the man in Florida that goes to a casino with only 300 dollars, and somehow wins day after day, most of the time.  He too is playing on lousy machines.The moral of the story is that for me, as a recreational player, playing on machines that can not return more than 100 %, that I need to purchase a shamrock cloth, rub the monitor frequently, and of course talk nice to the machine.  After all, VP for most people, most of the time is all about being lucky.

[Vman96]

As for the other posters, keep in mind that some of them put in really heavy volume to create these pretty pictures. If I play 5000 rounds of 10-play, then yeah, I would expect a good hit or two worthy of a picture.

Oh and they generally will never report a bad losing session on here. Because that is way less fun to read will almost certainly lack pretty pictures. I played STP machines for 30 cents a hand (a single line of nickels) for about 4 hours yesterday. The best pay tables for nickels were either 6/5 Bonus (97.14%) or 8/5 DDB (97.06%). I lost about $60. Play a session like that for 10-handed dollars, then that becomes a $12,000 loss. So I guess that $3000 you're bringing is definitely at risk for dollar triple play.

Also yesterday I walked by the 98% nickel Quick Quad machines, and a lady made a quick quad holding 777, and had no clue why she made quads until I told her. Yep, the casino makes even more money off of people like her. I love Quick Quads, fwiw. But full-pay in St. Louis only exists at dollar triple play just like you, and I definitely can't afford it.

One of the biggest questions is how long do you want this bankroll to last exactly? A session? How long do you want to play? Also, comp rates would be good to know. You should be getting a good amount more back in comps since the volume would be 4X with dollars. Also what are the payouts of the quarter Quick Quad machines exactly? 47.2/8/5 for JoB? 50/8/5 for DDB?

Also FYI, full-pay DDB Quick Quads (800/50/400/200/200/80/52/9/6) pays better (99.65%) than 800/50/47.2/9/6 JoB (99.61%). But given your bankroll concerns, JoB is still the superior game. And your analogy of "if I can play 200 hours on a single line machine, does that mean i can play 40 hours on a 5-line machine" is not quite valid. Total variance in terms of dollars is lower on 200 hours of 1-play than 40 hours of 5-play if the same denominations are played between the two. The correlation of the hands dealt to you helps increase the variance relative to single play. Dealt quads or Quick Quads will automatically pay out $708 on a triple play for example. And of course we can hope to do way better than that with a dealt royal for $12,000. And remember to take a picture!

Long rambling story short, it depends on length of times or your goals. If you are just wanting to do this for one evening and want to give yourself a shot at a big win on a good paying machine, then fine. But if losing $3k sounds ridiculous to you, then you might want to consider other options. Even if I had a $100k/yr job, I dunno if I could plop down $3k to possibly lose in a video poker machine even at machines 99.9%+. I'm a pretty big tightass though; I played video poker for 30 cents a hand yesterday! lol

[BillyJoe]

Perhaps the calculation that I can only play for four hours, at 15/18 dollars per deal is right.  As a recreational player how can I justify losing 750 dollars per hour just for entertainment?  The offset or reward is that I have a slim chance of hitting a premium hand during that four hour period, which I take to mean that it is almost a certainty, that I will leave the casino broke the great majority of times that I try this plan out.


Do not dismay, Jim. Just be realistic regarding your expectations in VP. I was the one that offered the 4 hours @ $15/$18 a deal. It was, by no means, a calculation, just a "swag" based on my own experience.
 
I use session Win/Loss Stops to control my bankroll. As an example, if I were to allocate $3k for a session, if I get, say a $10k win, I would stop. Walk away, go do something else for a while, get a massage, etc. I usually like to triple my session investment on the win side, and of course go bust on the loss side.
 
Now, I may play again later, but I then re-start once again at the same Win/Loss Stop targets. If your entire trip bankroll is $3k, then you may think about parcelling it out to allow you to play multiple sessions during your gaming trip. I find, in this way, although I may get busted for the entire trip (and that has happened to me), I will always have money to play on during my gaming trip. And if I am fortunate to hit my Win Stop Point in one of my sessions, I have that money to return home with.