Something to Think About

The lighter side... playing for entertainment, less concerned about "the math."
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FloridaPhil
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Something to Think About

Post by FloridaPhil »

You science buffs out there may recall the great physicist Albert Einstein and his quest for a "Theory of Everything". His lifelong quest was to find a mathematical expression that could explain everything in the universe. He ultimately failed. In the process, he made some great discoveries. Finding a TOE is one of the major unsolved problems in physics.

While we are down with the Coronavirus, I have given this some thought as it applies to video poker. As an exercise, I thought I would spell out my theory so we could discuss it among ourselves.

I believe long term video poker results are determined by three separate factors. I believe each of these factors is of equal weight. The amount of influence these factors have individually can vary on a hand by hand basis. Two of these factors can be influenced by a human player, one cannot.

Factor #1 Expected Return [ER]
Playing a game with a higher expected return is advantageous because it allows a player to play more hands with the same money giving you more chances at a jackpot. This is why choosing to play games with better pay schedules is recommended by the experts.

Factor #2 Skill [S]
Skill as it applies to video poker can included numerous abilities and courses of action. The ability to play computer perfect is one of them. Knowledge of comps and incentives is also a skill. Discipline is a another skill. Developing these skills and the ability to use them is a learned process.

Factor #3 Luck [L]
Luck or variance in video poker is inevitable. This is due to two factors inherent to the game, randomness and the fact that most of the return is accumulated in a few rare hands. In video poker, one hand can influence your results for many thousands of hands. It is also influenced by the number of hands played. The more hands played, the less the influence of luck.

Conclusion
The universe of video poker is like a huge ball with three smaller balls rolling inside it. All three smaller balls are constantly expanding and contracting. Games change, pay schedules change, comps change, skills degrade, you are alert, you are tired, you make mistakes, you get lucky and you get unlucky. Very skilled players can optimize the first two, minimizing the effects of the third. They cannot escape it entirely.

Long term results = [ER]+[S]+[L]

Comments?

Vman96
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Post by Vman96 »

The categories are fine within themselves, but they are far from equally weighted. And the relative value of the "luck" portion is heavily tied to the amount of hands played. The other two categories aren't.

FloridaPhil
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Post by FloridaPhil »

Vman96 wrote:
Tue Mar 31, 2020 5:20 am
The categories are fine within themselves, but they are far from equally weighted. And the relative value of the "luck" portion is heavily tied to the amount of hands played. The other two categories aren't.
I agree in principal. However, I don't believe many casual players play enough hands to remove [L] entirely. As Gronbog points out, their lack of [S] causes them to become victims of [L].

Professional players are not totally immune to the effects of [L]. They need [S] to make the game profitable. Do you believe a professional video poker player could survive today without comps and incentives?

onemoretry
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Post by onemoretry »

Phil, you said the factors have equal weight. Then, you contradicted yourself by stating that the importance of luck diminishes as more and more hands are played. Vman's post agreed with your contradicted version.

So, you switched gears (I couldn't resist that one, given all the recent car posts), to comment on your belief regarding how much casual players play.

FloridaPhil
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Post by FloridaPhil »

What we are discussing is difficult to prove in a simulation. All I know about my own video poker results comes from my own experiences. Here are two examples.

Over the two years I played CS and reported my results on this website, I never once played a positive VP game and I am positive I did not play computer perfect. The game I play the most was 95.853% at single coin quarters. I alternated between single coin play and max play according to the rules of the strategy. I used this same strategy to play $5 games along with a strict regiment of low cash out limits. Due mainly to lucky pot shots, I ended the two year test with a small profit. Over this period I estimate I played approximately 500,000 hands of VP. I should have lost money, but I didn't. Perhaps if I continued to play that way, I would have?

I play a minimum of 500-1000 coins of 99.578% TDB VP on this website almost every day. Webman started me out with 10,000 coins a number of years ago. I currently have over 45,000 coins. My total has been growing for over a year. There are no comps or incentives involved in my score. I doubt I play 100% accurately. Am I guaranteed to be a loser in the coming years? What would you think if I doubled my current score? Whether we like it or not, luck [L], both good and bad, is huge when it comes to this game. That's not a reason to throw what the experts tell us out the window and pick cards out of the air. On the other hand, it's not honest to claim skill can offset all luck.
Last edited by FloridaPhil on Tue Mar 31, 2020 7:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

olds442jetaway
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Post by olds442jetaway »

I agree with the 3 points, but I always have a problem figuring long term vs short term. I think we all tend to underestimate short term. I believe short term could be longer than one’s lifetime and millions of hands played. Otherwise, how could I be under Royaled by 40 percent after 20 million hands playedassuming even a 2 percent error rate? If I am incorrect, then pure luck has to be a major factor. I have personally seen a player hit a Royal just one hand apart and hit another one while waiting for a hand pay from the first two on adjoining machines. That same player who I ran into later in the session, said he hit a 4 th Royal after dinner. And would you believe, they were all in spades. I would see this couple often at Mohegan Sun. The guy was an accountant by trade. He always played either 5 quarters or ten quarters and only played job or bonus poker and only 99 percent games. Well about six months went by and I hadn’t seen them. When I finally saw the couple again at Mohegan, he said neither he or his wife had hit another Royal at Mohegan Sun for 4 months playing about 20,000 hands a week between them. They had been taking trips to Vegas and South point and doing fine out there. They finally cane back to play for. month at Mohegan Sun and about 4 weeks later playing there had hit no Royals again. I haven’t seen them since going on a year now. By the way, I never saw either one of them make an error in their play.

FloridaPhil
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Post by FloridaPhil »

In my opinion, there is no doubt playing only positive games perfectly gives you the best chance of making a profit. What I object to is someone claiming their results are entirely due to this concept. Even if the chance of failure is less than 1%, video poker will always be gambling. That is why comps and incentives are so important.

When I make a decision on how much it is going to cost me to play, I consider what I have to gain from it. It doesn't make sense to me to risk losing $300 to win $20 in free play or a bottle of booze that I don't drink. If the Beau Rivage wants to fly my wife and I to Biloxi for a free vacation, I may risk playing max coin quarters. When you are gambling, risk never goes away completely. Anyone who says it does is not being 100% truthful.

olds442jetaway
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Post by olds442jetaway »

I tend to weigh the costs too. I know going in for a session a nd playing just 5 quarters, I stand to lose 300 to 500 bucks on an off night. I factor in the value of the room, food, maybe gas, etc. but never the value of show tickets since I would never buy them anyway. Usually, the value of what I count about equals what I lose in an off night. It is not going to change my lifestyle or keep us from getting whatever we need. We have zero debt which goes against the grain and American way and has cost me more in taxes, but at least I can sleep at night. The tax thing though really rubbed me the wrong way so going forward if we ever do get to play again, it will be no hand pays. None do far for 2020. I may be considered a wack job, but other than one first mortgage that drove me nuts thinking about it, I have never financed anything. If I couldn’t afford. new car, I drove an old one. I worked my behind off on two jobs and a small side business and paid off the house in five years. Of course having no kids at the time helped with that

tech58
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Post by tech58 »

OLds, I am like you a zero debter. I have not had a car payment since 1969,or a mortgage payment
since 1990. Also never a $ of interest on a credit deal or credit card.
I am puzzled by your comment about "cost me more in taxes".
Surely you don't think that interest paid out during the year is beneficial because at tax time you get maybe 10-20% of it back ?

Gronbog
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Post by Gronbog »

FloridaPhil wrote:
Tue Mar 31, 2020 5:04 am
Factor #3 Luck [L]
Luck or variance in video poker is inevitable. This is due to two factors inherent to the game, randomness and the fact that most of the return is accumulated in a few rare hands. In video poker, one hand can influence your results for many thousands of hands. It is also influenced by the number of hands played. The more hands played, the less the influence of luck.
I have to dispute this "fact" (in bold above). This has been stated and corrected before in this forum.

If you have VPW, open up your favorite game and then select "analyse" and then "game". You will see a page showing the breakdown of the contribution of each hand to the strategy. The % return column shows the contribution to the overall return of each hand.

As an example: for 9/6 JoB:
  • The contribution of the rarest hand, the Royal Flush is only 1.98%. Many players give up more than this just by playing games with inferior pay tables. (8/5 JoB, for example)
  • The contribution of the top 3 rarest hands combined (RF, SF, Quads) is less than 10% and is less than the contribution from the full house, which is a relatively common hand.
  • Conversely, the contribution of the 3 most common winning hands, Jacks or Better, 2 pair and 3 of a kind is over 65% and the biggest contribution comes from 2 pair which is the second most common winning result.
So the notion that it is the jackpot hands which determine your fate is clearly not true. Try this with your favorite game and see what the contributions of those jackpot hands actually is.

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