Not my day

Did you hit any jackpots? Did you get a great comp? We all want to know!
olds442jetaway
Video Poker Master
Posts: 9262
Joined: Tue Aug 21, 2007 9:08 pm

Re: Not my day

Post by olds442jetaway »

The only slots I could play over 20 years ago for a short time, get lucky and bail, we’re the traditional 2 or 3 coin ones where the jackpot was the 3 ovals. I have no idea if they were advantage machines or not. I just remember if they were in a hot mode, it lasted 5 minutes or less. Any money I ever made on them, I dumped into VP. I haven’t played any since, though there is a hard core following still on the old machines. I have seen them wait till someone goes broke and leaves, sit down, and hit immediately. I have one friend who still does that, but like me he doesn’t like to quit playing the slots even when ahead a bunch and I do the same on VP many times. His year end percentage of total return is better than mine though. 😬 usually a minor loss by year end of less than 1 percent of coin in. I have no idea how he does it!!

Jstark
Video Poker Master
Posts: 1306
Joined: Thu Jul 04, 2013 10:16 pm

Post by Jstark »

BobDancer wrote:
Sat Jul 02, 2022 12:03 pm
Jstark wrote:
Fri Jul 01, 2022 8:03 pm
case wrote:
Fri Jul 01, 2022 7:48 pm
Some slots have a much higher return than VP. You just have to know what your looking for. Hard to find VP much above 101% but I am talking about advantage slots that are left in an optimal position.
Exactly. Much easier too.

It was said in this thread that I've been known to play some slots --- and I plead guilty as charged.

In terms of being easier, I'm not so sure. Yes the hitting the button when you find such a game is trivially easy compared to knowing a video poker strategy, but it's not at all trivial to know when a slot machine is in a positive state. There are truly hundreds of different slot games that are positive some of the time, and each one has a different way of being evaluated. And there are ALWAYS new games coming along that need to be evaluated and usually there's not a website you can go to to find out how to play it advantageously.

Plus, in Vegas anyway, there are several hundred slot machine hustlers active on any given day. If you watch a game that sometimes becomes positive, every 5 minutes or so a player comes by, hits a few buttons to check to see if it's positive now, and then moves along if it's not. So not only do you have to know what to look for, you have to find it and play it before the others. Not so easy.

In video poker, you can know beforehand that you are going to be playing a particular game (say $1 JoB) on a given day --- and you want to play 3 hours to get enough points for . . . whatever. If you're a slot player, you usually have no idea what games you'll find today. Some of these games take a long time to find and then are over after only a few spins. Slot hustling takes a lot more scouting than playing video poker does. And many times, you can't find a good game to play at a given casino on a given day. Depending on your physical condition, walking around a lot scouting may not be so easy as going directly to a machine, sitting down, and playing.

There are more disagreements associated with slot hustling than in playing video poker. Say a player is on a "ripe" machine, and only has a few dollars of credits left. Sometimes you'll see more than one player just waiting to see if the current player goes broke --- and then they rush to sit down when that happens. You'll sometimes get "I was here first," "No, I was here first" disagreements. Players are not always gentlemanly in solving these disputes. This can happen with video poker progressives, but there are so many more chances it happens with slots.

It takes every bit as much discipline to play slots well as video poker. You might know, or think you know, that such and such a machine is playable if a particular meter gets to, say, 50. Assume it's now at 45. it's not really a good play, but whoever gets on next will probably play until it's resolved. If you don't get on now, you won't get the machine. But it may not be positive now, you're not sure. You see these dilemmas EVERY DAY. How do you deal with them?

Finally, don't ask me what games I play and how I recognize when these games are playable. I'm not an expert as I am in vp, but I'm far more than a novice. I'm neither giving away nor selling that information. Those of you who see me on such a machine can learn whatever it is that you learn by seeing me there, but you'll still have no idea of what was the condition when I chose to sit down. The situation when you see me may be much different.
Point taken. But by "easier", I'm no doubt talking about the actual play of the game. Certainly some games are frustrating as hell (like chasing a 4x on Buffalo Diamond, see my "Why I don't play Buffalo Diamond" thread.). As for competition taking things low? Let them! They'll learn their lesson eventually and bust out. I see it all the time.

Post Reply