Video Poker Forum

I am planning to start a new Deuces wild strategy. Deuces is still my favorite game. I will be taking a hit long term of a percent or so on 15/9/4/4 deuces over 9/6 job, but I just can't play job anymore for hours and hours straight. Just tooooo boring for me. What I am going to do is play 1 unit until I have a net loss of 200 credits. Them I am going to play whatever number of credits I need to be even if I hit deuces. I will have to do a little simple math before every hand, but no big deal. I realize this is a version of the Martingale Method. I think the most hands I have ever played without hitting deuces was about 45,000 or 3 long sessions. If the Royal hits, so much the better, but I can't break my streak of only one Royal every 120,000 hands so why bother even going for it. This method I am going to try will be easier for me if I start on pennies, otherwise it will get quite expensive for every hand. Only 1 trial so far and it was scary. I was up to 16 quarters without deuces, but they finally hit a couple of weeks ago and bailed me out. What is the most hands roughly anyone has played Deuces without hitting them on a regular Deuces wild game? Just curious and I know I am running the risk of busting the bankroll too playing this way. Seems like I remember someone posting that they had gone 60,000 hands without deuces, but I can't remember who or when the post was.

I'm not sure about this stategy. There is no way to predict when any hand occurs. Just because you haven't hit quad deuces in 200 hands or 20,000 does not mean you are about to.  My strategy of increasing your bet after every win of 4 coins or more seems workable to me only because the max coin hands are totally random and possibly in sync with the flow of the game... (?).  In deuces, most of the wins are bound up in quad deuces and royals.  The trick is to find a way to hang in there long enough for those hands to happen.  Playing one coin does that, but the wins are also scaled down and you are giving up at least 1% on the Royals.  I totally agree that Jacks is boring.  It might be different if I was playing $100 a point and drew 4-to-Royal. 

Martingales only "work" on even-money propositions where there is no betting limit and the bettor has an infinite bankroll. But if DW is your favorite...

The Wizard of Odds gives a .00021 probability of quad deuces or a Royal for Ugly Ducks. You can expect to hit that once in every 4,762 hands.

However, you won't see quad deuces or a Royal over 10,000 hands about one-eighth of the time; in 20,000 hands once in every 67 times; and in 22,500 hands (half your "personal best") once in every 113 times. If you want to keep your "risk of ruin" lower than any of those you'll have to play so you won't run out of credits before you hit one of the big ones.

Also according to the Wizard, quad deuces and Royals only account for about 4.6 percent of the return from Ugly Ducks. Over half the return comes from paying hands from straights through non-deuce quads.

http://wizardofodds.com/games/video-pok ... uces-wild/

I'm going to give it a try. Luckily, I can start with pennies although the paytable is poor. If I get up to a dollar or so a hand after a long run without deuces, I can switch machines to get a better paytable. I am sure at some point, the bet will get too high for my bankroll and I will of course lose for that session. I'll report back after a dozen or so sessions with the results. I plan to have a loss limit of 300 or so per day. Also it is possible I could play so long and run out of time, but not money for that day. In that case, I will have to pick up my bet where I left off on the next trip. Four Deuces have popped up in 8 consecutive sessions so far at some point during the day with some of them being toward the end of a very long session. I don't know how high my bet would have been since I was playing a different way at the time.

If I went 20,000 hands without hitting quad deuces, I would be playing another game for a while.  That's a pretty bad streak for deuces.
 
One of the best things about Video Poker is that you can change your strategy around and turn the game into anything you want it to be.   I don't enjoy playing straight up max coins anymore.  I know what the eventual outcome is going to be and I don't like the odds.  That's why I like switching between single and max coins.  There's always the hope that something great is going to happen and that's the fun of gambling.  I can't imagine a worst way to make a living than sitting in a casino and pounding away at Jacks for years on end.  Just shoot me.... 

A loss limit is a good idea whatever money management system you're using. So is a win limit.

I have no plans to try to make a living at VP, tho I'd like to be able to make it into a profitable (or at least potentially profitable) hobby some day.