Crazy Luck Continues

[FloridaPhil]

[quote=case]You just don't understand what an AVERAGE of 40,000 hands means.[/quote]This number is meaningless.  If you play VP and don't hit a royal in 40,000 hands, you begin to think the games are rigged.  If you hit more than your share, you start believing you are an expert.  Most likely, neither are true.VP math calculations have value.  Odds calculations allow you to select the best games letting you play more hands with the same money.   Computer perfect play does the same thing.  Playing positive games perfectly gives you the best chance of a long term positive result.   If you do everything right and royals don't appear, your long term VP results will be negative.  So what is an average Recreational VP player to do?Find a game you can play close to perfect for as long as possible.  Play at a denomination where you are not unduly troubled if things don't go your way all the time. Find and play that game with the best odds you have available.   If you can't find a positive VP game, don't fret over it.  If losing on occasion bothers you, quit playing VP and find something else to do with your time.Comps have value, but don't accept bigger losses in return unless the trade off is worth the cost.  Playing quarter VP a couple of days a week, I average $50 a week in free play, that's like being paid for two royals a year for nothing.   If I'm flexible on my dates, I can get a free room at most any casino in this country.  My wife can never drink all the free cocktails they will give her and I can't eat all the free sandwiches.  Playing VP right is a deal.Using a low cash out limit will not make you a long term winner by itself.  However, it will greatly improve your attitude and keep you from panicking, taking pot shots, moving up in denomination or moving to high variance games.  Panicking causes more losses than all the bad games and hands you will ever play.  I learned all this the hard way and I'm telling you so you don't have to.

[Vman96]

To be honest, I have no idea where the 40,000 hand royal cycle number comes from or if it's even close to accurate. 


You don't know what a mathematical average is? But you will question those that say they profit from games and promotions that return greater than 100% on average?

[FloridaPhil]

I don't question those that say they win playing positive games.  I believe it is possible to lose playing positive games and win playing negative games.  Playing positive games perfectly tilts the odds of making a profit in your favor.  It does not guarantee a long term positive result.   Your personal result is determined by the length of time you play.  You can win long term playing Buffalo slots if you win and never go back.  If someone on this forum learns to play VP 100% perfect, only plays positive games and quits before he/she hits their first royal, they have an excellent chance of being a long term loser. Comps are determined by where you play. There is no way to make general statements that applies to every casino in the country.   A player who plays only in Vegas has a wide array of comps available to them.  I can name a dozen casinos where the comps are practically worthless.Players who play negative games far outnumber players who have access to positive games.  Telling them to not play is not telling them anything at all.  I have tried everything there is to try and I can tell you the strategy I have outlined above will either make you a profit or hold your losses to a bare minimum.   If you play small, play accurately, stop panicking and maximize the comps that are available to you, you can play negative games for very little money.  I think that's worth telling people about.

[FAA]

Another affirmation from up north. My bucket list dream dies a slow death by a thousand hands every weekend. Must embrace the quarter slog and keep the trip loss below $50.

[olds442jetaway]

I could start a 600k Royalless hand club, but I'm afraid I would be the only member. I'm 100 percent sure that if I said the membership requirements are that you had to have 3 such streaks in the last 5 years, I would be the only member.

[OTABILL]

FP: Congrats on your royal and hot streak. Hoping it continues

[FloridaPhil]

 [quote=OTABILL]Congrats on your royal and hot streak. Hoping it continues.[/quote]Thanks.  I don't expect it to.  I've been through streaks like this before.   It's different this time.  I finally have a handle on the personal demons that were causing me to go off the rails.   Mr. Dancer told me discipline was the key and he was right.  I thought low variance games were boring.  I thought accuracy wasn't that significant.  I thought my comps were less valuable because my casino didn't offer cash back.   I thought I couldn't win because I had to play negative games.  I concocted all kinds of schemes attempting to overcome what I thought was preventing me from winning.   My biggest fear was leaving the casino broke.  As it turned out this was the easiest thing to fix.  There is nothing boring about hitting a royal flush playing good old Jacks or Better or Bonus Poker.   You won't win all the time, but you will play a lot more hands.  More hands is the key to more royals.  Those high variance games the casino is offering are the casino's cash cows.  You may win once in a while, but overall you will be paying someone else's bills. I'm not on this forum to discuss professional video poker play.  I don't know anything about it.  I'm here to talk about playing video poker for entertainment.   If someone makes a little money along the way, that's good.   If you are looking for a foolproof way to beat the casinos, I can't help you.  I'll leave that up to others.

[FAA]

If it's not 99, don't waste your time. I like dollar thrills, but they give me the chills. I can rarely survive even ninety minutes. If I do get a quad, it quickly vaporizes in the greed fog. I need a decent balance. 90 minutes quarter plus thirty minutes dollar should make for an ideal session for me. No ninety, no dollar play.

[FloridaPhil]

[quote=FAA]I need a decent balance. 90 minutes quarter plus thirty minutes dollar should make for an ideal session for me. [/quote]Here's what I would do.  Take a daily bankroll of 1,000 coins ($250).  Start out playing JB or Bonus Poker quarters (max coins).  Play $20 each time and cash out everything over $50. When all your cash is gone, count up your white tickets. If you lost money leave the casino with what you have.  If you made money, you can leave or decide to play dollars with half your profit. When playing dollars, immediately cash out all wins over $100.  Repeat the process.  Your goal is to never leave the casino with less than you came in with.  You won't always make your goal and that's OK.  On very rare occasions you will lose all your money.  On rare occasions you will hit one or more dollar quads for $125, $200 or $400.   You could hit a dollar straight flush for $250.   You could hit a quarter royal for $1,000 or a dollar royal for $4,000.   More common you could run a $20 bill up to $100 with a couple of dollar full houses and a few three of a kinds.  Cash out your profit.Personally, I think you would do better long term if you never switched to dollar play, but you seem to enjoy taking risks.   If you hit a $4,000 royal, you could prove me wrong. This is not a guaranteed way to beat the casinos.  It's a way to play video poker and be at peace with what you are doing.  Continually playing until all your money is gone waiting for a jackpot big enough to walk out is the problem. You must have the discipline to stick with this plan and walk out before that happens.I am sure someone on this forum will come up with a long string of math formulas to prove what I am telling you to do won't work.  Try it.  I think you will see an immediate improvement in your attitude as well as your results.

[onemoretry]

I've found when I'm truly "cooking", I can play over 1200 hands an hour single line...if one is only playing between 700-1000hands an hour, then yes 200k hands is about 200-250 hours of play on single line games. If one plays 8-10 hours per day during a typical casino visit then this represents around 20-25 days in a casino playing VP, and if you play more per day then it's shorter. Thus, you are looking at perhaps 6 casino "stays" of 3-4 days each... that's not exactly heavy if it's spread out over 9-12 months... This is all quite true, but FAA's posts did not suggest at all to me that this is his playing style. His subsequent post confirmed that fact.