Thoughts For Beginners

[alpax]

I am so weary of the Vegas guys touting mathematics and bring up professional players who claim to profit from the game alone.  We get it.  Unless you can consistently play video poker with an edge, there will always be a long term cost to play.  The alternative is to adjust your cost to your own personal level of comfort.  If that level is $100 a day or $10,000, the only one who is paying that bill is you.  When I'm stuck in a casino and all they offer me is a 97% game or worse, I know they are trying to shake me down.  I adjust my play  to counter that tactic and I win by limiting my loses.  If they offer me a game with less than a 1.5% edge, I'll play their games with max coins and be happy with the cost.



I know there was a post prior about people in the area wanting to play DDB at all costs.

Who cares about other people do?

More of them will play the slots which have higher holds. I do not think you could stop millions of people across the country from playing.

All that matters is what YOU do.

I looked up flights from the Orlando, Florida to Las Vegas, Nevada

Frontier Airlines offers a non-stop round trip (provided the departure time is early at 7:45am) for $157 before taxes/fees.

The SouthPoint casino offers complimentary shuttle service from the Airport to their casino.

The SouthPoint casino offers for quarters, 9/6 Double Double Aces and Faces Edition which with optimal play returns 99.46%, thats before the slot club that redeems $3 for every $1000 played (800 rounds of max quarter VP)

The promotion for February is Money Madness. Two random progressive meters run up, three random players a day (high roller or penny pincher with their card put in) will win around $1000 - $2500 in free play.

I am sure people who play adequate amounts will not have to pay the $59 a night hotel fee.

I think this will beat anything cost wise that Phil will come up for himself.

[FloridaPhil]

Saving your money and flying to Vegas so you can play only 100% games is good advice.  However, if you want to play more often and your local casino only offers negative games, you have a number of options.1. Don't play2. Play max coins and accept the cost as entertainment.  2. Play slower which reduces the number of hands played per hour3. Reduce your session time which reduces the number of hands played4. Play short coin which reduces the amount of your total wager5. Play and run for the exit on the very first jackpot (does it all)Each player must make these decisions for themselves.  Telling a player that any one of these options is better or worse uses faulty logic as you don't know each person's goals, game preferences, skill level, tolerance or budget.  The casino operators and stock holders want you to stay long, bet big, dream bigger and believe you can beat the game.   Who are you playing to please?  Mr. MGM?  Bob Dancer?  Billy Ryan? or yourself?   I play my way because I like it and it works for me.  That's all there is to it and nothing more. 

[alpax]

I am not trying to please anyone, as DDB is not my favorite video poker game. I just mentioned what I would do if I really wanted to play DDB given if the pay schedules are horrible (and are subject to tax in Mississippi, and require $5 denomination in Florida and Cherokee to play the good returning ones) in the Gulf Coast.

I can tell you are trying to please "beginners", but they will be disappointed eventually with the end result.

I picked option 3 for myself "Reduce your session time which reduces the number of hands played", the results are outstanding from my point of view.

[FloridaPhil]

I've tried them all.  Playing my way allows me to play all the video poker I want without costing me a bundle of money.  It's exciting and retains the possibility of a max coin jackpot which keeps me playing.  I play a lot more hands for my money than most players do and I break even more often.  The casinos want my money, so I still get stacks of offers.   Unlike others, I've never said it was the only way to play.  I even said I don't play that way if the odds plus comps are over 98%.  If math, jackpot pictures and logic don't work for you, there must be some other reason you can't accept something does what it's suppose to.    We're still waiting for Billy's Negative Game Strategy.  He'll be sure to post something he thinks is clever, but there will never be anything of substance.  Hang around and see if I am right about that.

[ukaserex]

Well, if nobody else does, I understand where Phil is coming from.

I wouldn't do it myself, but if it brings him some enjoyment, no harm.

I think for a lot of players (as opposed to Advantage Players) it's about being in the moment. We *should* save our money for a trip to Vegas where we can play better pay tables - but often times, traveling for some isn't practical and isn't fun. If you're not a high roller, one could argue the hundreds spent on air-fare could be added to the bank roll (or subtracted from the losses).

And I want to correct Phil on one point.

The casinos don't want you to lose! Not the way you think. They want you to win, but to keep playing and give it back. Yeah, it's still losing, but I've never gotten a hand payout and not have them genuinely smile at me.

They even ask if you want, cash, check or direct deposit!

[FloridaPhil]

[quote=ukaserex]The casinos don't want you to lose! Not the way you think. They want you to win, but to keep playing and give it back.[/quote]Absolutely.   All my strategy does is keep you from doing that or at a minimum slow the losing so you can enjoy it a little longer.Just so you know, I rarely play any video poker game anymore with odds less than 98%.  If I do, I may play for an hour or so and let that be.  Tampa is the only casino where I regularly play CS as the good odds start at 50 cents and the single coin 50 cents and up are better than the max coin quarter odds.

[billryan]

I've tried them all.  Playing my way allows me to play all the video poker I want without costing me a bundle of money.  It's exciting and retains the possibility of a max coin jackpot which keeps me playing.  I play a lot more hands for my money than most players do and I break even more often.  The casinos want my money, so I still get stacks of offers.   Unlike others, I've never said it was the only way to play.  I even said I don't play that way if the odds plus comps are over 98%.  If math, jackpot pictures and logic don't work for you, there must be some other reason you can't accept something does what it's suppose to.    We're still waiting for Billy's Negative Game Strategy.  He'll be sure to post something he thinks is clever, but there will never be anything of substance.  Hang around and see if I am right about that.


I've already posted my strategy. Get to a G.A. meeting. Anyone who understands the math ,as you claim to, and plays anyway has an addiction. Can't help you until you recognize that.
If the only bar near you sold Only recycled piss, would you justify it? An addict would.
In NY, I lived about five miles from a casino that had horrible games. I never went there to play, only for a couple of parties I was invited to.
That's how a non-addict handles bad games.
I also don't pretend it's me against the world. I leave that to the addicts, as well

[FloridaPhil]

[quote=billryan]la la la la la la ....  repeat[/quote]As usual no strategy, just BS. 

[olds442jetaway]

I agree with Phil and UK. Casinos want you to win and have an overall good experience. They want you back over and over again or to even almost live there like me. They want you to tell others what a good time you had so they will go. And yes they want you to play forever so you will ultimately give it back and more. I stay overnight at the casino between 100 and 150 nights a year. Other than the smoke which I hate, I really enjoy the overall experience. My other hobbies and interests are all still there and back burnered for the most part and from time to time, I pick them up again. My losses compared to coin have now fallen to less than 2% and I can live with that. I have no doubt that if I had my discipline in better order, I would be able to quit ahead on nearly every trip with the very mild mild Martingale clone method I play along with some Phil pot shots. I keep track of my max up and down stats per session and since I have thousands of sessions and millions of hands to use as a base, I know the above to be true at least for me. Some of my friends have tried to use the casino as a part time job and have been hammered and quit. They unfortunately played slots and with 85-90 percent returns were never ahead like me nearly every session at some point. I have seen some of them go like 300 spins and not hit anything. The one and only one advantage they might have had is some of the jackpots they hit were much higher than mine but were few and far between and of course all of them gave it right back even doing wacky things like playing 100 dollar machines. The casinos know it is a little harder to make quick money from vp players and that is why we have reduced comps. They also know most of us will be back over and over again and they can count on a nice steady income from most of us vp players.

      Edited to add, my overnight session Sunday night set an all time record speaking of being ahead for a time with the least money risked and most money ahead. I am not going to post all of the details because I embarrassed to report that I turned a 40 dollar free play into being up over 4k at one point in the session sadly to settle for a still great session up just under 2k. Just too many pot shots, playing dollars once I got up ahead so far, and just being stubborn. All of this was done without even one Royal which I just don't get for the most part anymore. The quad deuces, 5 of a kinds, 5 aces, and wild royals were really wild though. I had one hand where if my last card on DDS produced the royal, the hit would have been 100k. Needless to say, I rarely take pot shots like that with max bet of 25 bucks on a dollar DDS machine. In hindsight I am sorry I didn't take a pic of the before with 4 cards and the after with the wrong 5th card. Oh well, besides fun, discipline, discipline, discipline must reign.

[FloridaPhil]

Olds, Don't try telling any of that to Billy.   He's a big time Black Jack player you know.  He only stops by here to keep us in line.   Come to think about it, if he was that successful he wouldn't have time to repost everything I say.   Didn't I say that about someone else on this forum once?