Short term strategies, part deuce

[oej719]

I like smiling too. I am smiling now. I know a guy that when he smiles the gaps in his teeth appears to form the letters "artt". How weird is that?

[rolanddude]

     Hello, I thought
that since this week has been one of the busiest ever in the history of this
forum I would try to subjectively bring all of you up to date as to what is
going on.  First some background on me
and why I even come to this website...

     I have been a
“gambler” in a sense all my life, taking chances here and there that others are
unwilling to take.  Who would have
thought that 12 years ago that I could start a totally unique music store in a
small town in central Florida based
on a concept that everyone thought was impossible.  My wife and I developed a program that
teaches retirees and older adults how to play a musical instrument (piano,
guitar, keyboards, banjo,…etc.) from the very first time they sit down with
us.  They leave our store being able to
play a popular song they know in just ONE lesson.  A dream come true for them…A seemingly
IMPOSSIBLE dream, defying all previous assumptions that it takes years of
lessons and theory and practice and so forth just to make music.  Now music stores across the country are all
starting “Recreational Music Making” workshops using the system and support
material my wife and I authored.  Large
International instrument makers have purchased the right to use our materials
and promote them to their dealers. 
Everyone BELIEVES us NOW!!  I never accept the premise  “It Can’t Be Done!”.

     After playing
Blackjack and Craps for 12 years, I started learning to play Video Poker 6
years ago. (I became legal 18 years ago) 
I got on the web bought books, learned optimal strategy, purchased
simulators, practiced, and armed myself with a bankroll.  I was ready for my next trip to Vegas Baby!!!

     I quickly learned
that it wasn’t so easy to find the “Right” kind of machines to win in the “long
run”.  When I would find the “Right”
machine I would sit and feed it’s seemingly endless appetite with my money.  My sessions were long and frustrating
although I rarely went through all of my bankroll for the session.  I would eventually tire and cut my losses and
get up.  Grind and Grind and Grind and
still end up down some.  After a few
trips like that I just played at my favorite casinos:   “Right” machines be damned…Six years total so
far down over $30 GRAND.

     Last May I was
surfing the net and read for the first time someone’s alternative approach to
the game.  I scoffed at first and dismissed
it as another fantasy but just for fun tried a session on VPFW using his newest
strategy for any size bankroll…”Advanced Romp Thru Town”.  It was interesting, tedious at first, but a
unique approach…unique approaches have faired well for me in life so far!

     As I played I
started having questions about ARTT and emailed the author of the system and
told him that I was coming to Vegas in July and asked a few questions about
ARTT because I wanted to try it on the trip. 
In his reply he invited me to join him for a day while on my trip to see
for myself how he played it.  I accepted.  We played on the same machine at Planet
Hollywood and he even bankrolled half the session.  For the next 3 days I played on my own his
system and come home ahead for the first time ever playing Video Poker.

    In August my life
took a tragic turn when I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Stage 3.  After many nights in the hospital fighting
off several infections I started a 6 month battle against it that I am proud to
say I have apparently won pending my PET scan results.  I am definitely ready to resume my life!

     It was during
these six months that I lay in my bed, or sat at the computer playing trials of
ARTT wanting to prove over time that it was either a good play or a bad
play.  I have kept tedious records of how
it compared to expert play from hand to hand. 
(208 sessions and close to 100K hands so far.  I am up overall on both approaches.  However, ARTT is $115 dollars ahead.)  I thought it to be somewhat surprising.  I did make an error in my comparisons
though…In expert play I never changed games during a session.  In these comparisons I did.  So I
thought I would come to VideoPoker.com to see if anyone wanted to help me
compile more session results running this new comparison hand by hand.

     I entered the
strategies forum and saw a topic on money management and rng experiment.  I entered and it went directly to the most
recent posts.  I couldn’t believe what I
saw…An apparent beehive of inaccurate descriptions of my friend and his current
experiment that no one knows yet if it has any merit.  He’s playing a nickel per hand to see how
many times a certain (coincidence?) happens in real casinos across southern Nevada.

     Before I could
state my purpose for being here, I came to his defense and began to give my
account of the experiences I’ve had in my dealings with the man; which were
completely contrary to the crap flying out of the mouths of the ones who were
posting.

It all led to Webman shutting down both threads because I
did not know that I wasn’t allowed to mention the author of whose system I am
currently vetting.  (Only oej is allowed
to mention him because of his childish, derogatory slams against the man’s
appearance as evidenced in his post today in this thread. He has Webman’s full
support in doing this as evidenced in his post telling me not to moderate the room when I called for the removal of oej’s
signature which mentions my friend’s name on my “Short Term Strategies”
thread.) 

     I quickly
realized that I had jumped into a den of lions where all is not fair.  The resulting very popular and active thread
went down many paths discussing philosophy, math, history (Which finally had to
be given up because of some members’ unwavering stance that things are
predestined and we can’t learn from the past to change our destiny in the
future. Since I believe in God I believe that our destiny is yet to be written.
It is dependant upon the choices that we make by following certain rules set
forth.  “Miracles” that defy laws happen
all the time),  and many other things that
were off topic from my original reason for coming here.  I thought it was very entertaining
though.  Matching wits, splitting hairs
as thin as shadow wanted to split them using his own challenges and motives against
him. Sometimes it resulted in the topic being dropped completely sometimes
not. 

     Trying to get
back on topic I posted the results of my sessions to this point wanting to
discuss them and discuss how to play ARTT so that I could recruit some help in
trial playing it. (all while comparing the results hand by hand to expert play)

     What
happened?  Immediately my results were
questioned as to their accuracy and seemingly impossible result of my largest
winning session.  After I explained HOW I
win much more than my goal in some sessions nobody even responded further on
the matter.  They just sat and waited or
threw out other barbs or arguments supporting why they will never play this
way.  “It can’t be done. You are in a
dream world Joe.  Why should anyone waste
their time?”, All of these things I have heard before in my life and it never
stopped me from succeeding at the “impossible”.

     Before things
disintegrated throughout 25 pages of posting Shadowman’s initial assessment of
ARTT’s approach was as follows…”But it also means that playing positive games
still nets out to a positive expectation. While ARTT doesn't help, it doesn't
hurt either.” (pasted from page one of
my thread)

     I think Shadowman
is correct when he says about ARTT “ it doesn’t hurt either”.  Let’s not even go any further throughout the
postings and reargue all points brought up in the thread. (it is an
entertaining read for those who enjoy debate shows and things like that)  If Shadowman posted that it “doesn’t hurt
either” when compared to expected results then
it seems that more of you would at least be interested in trial playing it with
me to compile a larger collection of stats than what I can collect on my own.

     In closing, AND THIS IS IMPORTANT, I have disclosed
who I am, where I live, my real name, my personal website that shows pictures
of me with my family and friends doing the things I enjoy doing. (Fishing,
Partying, Sponsoring “Hawaiian Tropics” pageants, etc.)  I am an open book!  No One
relative to these threads was willing to do the same. (not even share their
results in detail opting for the rather vague “over the year” terms instead of
sessions and stats)  Instead they prefer
to remain anonymous in their “Boys Club” forum as they argue their points.  Not willing to show me personally like
someone was.  NOTHING is real to me regarding someone’s arguments and claims
unless they tell me who they are and attempt to show me something to prove
themselves.  Trust speaks more to me than
math. (EV & ER can only be attained with perfect play…who here is Perfect!)

 

     Remember that if
you want to help in any way to prove ARTT right or wrong then email me at Rolanddude@aol.com …

 

Joe Carter

[EDC1977]

To my fellow forum folk, I send my gratitude for including mois with your company and props. No telling what he's cooking up right now but sure hope he realizes how much static he's created. I'd prefer it if he just hung out with his mentor and enjoyed those world class perks thatthey earned while playing less than positive machines. (one of them deleted posts stated playing less than positive BP)I can't figure out how he could be playing 6/9 machines. Are they Asian or Australian? (as in right-to-left?)Anyhows, again, kudos to all.

[rolanddude]

To my fellow forum folk, I send my gratitude for including mois with your company and props. No telling what he's cooking up right now but sure hope he realizes how much static he's created. I'd prefer it if he just hung out with his mentor and enjoyed those world class perks thatthey earned while playing less than positive machines. (one of them deleted posts stated playing less than positive BP)I can't figure out how he could be playing 6/9 machines. Are they Asian or Australian? (as in right-to-left?)Anyhows, again, kudos to all.sorry for being dyslexic last night edc...it was on 9/6 DDB.  Long day of dodging rocks being thrown.

[shadowman]

Joe, as I've already stated numerous times, running a few tests through a VP program provides you with too small a subset of the possible situations you might run into at a casino. You will see a bias that makes it "appear" to be profitable. Just remember there are more unique scenarios in just 100 hands than there are atoms in the universe.
 
In a simple 6 level Martingale progression there is only ONE losing situation. That's it, 1 out of 64 times would you hit the situation that invalidates the strategy. Clearly a person could miss this one situation if they only used practice to determine it's merit. However, in real casinos no one has ever broken the bank using Martingale.  
 
If you want to discuss the non-monetary benefits or problems of playing any (or a specific) strategy that is fine. I'm all for it. Rehashing the discussion of histories is useless.

[Tedlark]

Thanks for answering my challege cd, you beat me good. What was your strategy, ARTT, or just plain luck?  Thanks again,  Ted.

[EDC1977]

Over 22K members and only a few bothered to voice their opinion. What do you think about that Ted?

[New2vp]

So I
thought I would come to VideoPoker.com to see if anyone wanted to help me
compile more session results running this new comparison hand by hand.     What
happened?  Immediately my results were
questioned as to their accuracy and seemingly impossible result of my largest
winning session.  After I explained HOW I
win much more than my goal in some sessions nobody even responded further on
the matter.  They just sat and waited or
threw out other barbs or arguments supporting why they will never play this
way.  “It can’t be done. You are in a
dream world Joe.  Why should anyone waste
their time?”, All of these things I have heard before in my life and it never
stopped me from succeeding at the “impossible”.I simply used subtraction to point out if you did what you said, you could not have had the results you posted, which calls into question the veracity of your statements.  Given that no one could know what other deviations from your own rules that you made, sorry, no one could help you accumulate more simulations, a job best left for a computer, anyway.  You'll find answers a lot quicker with computer simulation.  Sure, the computer will not mistakes that you might make nor deviate from its programming, but it will give you an upper limit as to how good of results you can expect. One thing that the gambler inside me makes me do is ... When I make a
hit that puts me up well over $100 (like in this case it was a total of
$446+ dollars)  I can't help but believe that I must be "hot" and risk
$100 of my winnings to see!! So I continued playing on the same game
and denom until I lost $100 from the highest total attained.(in this
session I was playing DDB...I'll explain in the next paragraph)  As I
recall, I hit a regular quad and then Aces no kicker shortly thereafter
to put me back ahead. What you proved by your answer was that you didn't follow your own rules when doing the "test."Further--and I guess you don't see it since you quote your relatively low profit figures (ARTT ahead of "advantage play" by $115, or being ahead in 208 sessions by $654.80) as some sort of evidence--you also proved that, if you had followed your own rules, you would have never hit quad aces for $800 and your overall profit of $654.80 would have been a loss.Of course, to me this one hit isn't relevant in analyzing ARTT, but since you seem to think profit or loss in your personal simulation is important, this should be devastating.  But, if history teaches us anything, I know you'll recover quickly, hurl some personal insult towards me, give out new information about your system that you somehow failed to include in over 100 posts already, engage in double-talk using irrelevant analogies, or not understand the logic in my words since you've never seen a picture of my face.I can see at least one reason why (other than simply poor luck) that you would have been an unsuccessful advantage player since you can't help yourself from playing on hunches like "I've hit big, I must be hot!"  If you cannot follow your own rules, you'd likely have trouble following any disciplined approach.  And of course, since you were at home and not in a casino, there is really no reason that you would not have followed your own rules and simply started another session to add to your list of "evidence."  Does the "hotness" go away when you start a new session?A future non-response to some illogical argument on your part does not justify the lack of clear thinking and logic in said argument.  It just means that I've adjudged you not to be interested in finding any objective truth and that my time is better spent on other pursuits.Please note that I'm not defending any type of play, just pointing out gaping holes in the credibility of your words.  The more you post, the bigger the holes.  Next time, be a little more careful in constructing your numbers.  Don't worry, just start over.  Sooner or later, you will have another run that shows profitable results.  Just be certain to ignore those negative ones that you get along the way as they won't be much help in convincing whomever you are trying to convince.Or who knows?  Get another IP number and browse the net for another facebook and make some posts in your defense.  No one at this forum would suspect that.  Then you would probably convince even more people.

[Tedlark]

Come on now Ed, are you trying to bait me? I laughed yesterday when I read Marie write about yogurt and water again in a different forum talking about Michigan video poker.

[cddenver]

I entered the strategies forum and saw a topic on money management and rng experiment.  I entered and it went directly to the most recent posts.  I couldn’t believe what I saw…An apparent beehive of inaccurate descriptions of my friend and his current experiment that no one knows yet if it has any merit.  He’s playing a nickel per hand to see how many times a certain (coincidence?) happens in real casinos across southern Nevada.
 
I'm glad you brought that experiment up, and that based on the results he's posted so far you agree with the experimenter that real machines currently aren't working in a random fashion.  Um, I mean that you're leaning towards his view. 
 
We've had several posts about how little sense that particular kind of rigging would make - a dropped card coming back up in a different suit on the draw - as it's so easy to spot.   Relatively simple to implement, but with only a little more work the rigged program could cause some other useless card to come up.  Much more difficult to detect by players.
 
If one accepts this theory of machine rigging then it would involve a group of casino execs acting in concert; acting individually they'd each come up with different ways of rigging their machines.   Depending on how widespread the rigging is, many execs could be involved.  In my mind's eye I see a big meeting of these execs making this decision to rig their machines, then trying to save a bit of money by having one of their teenage children make the fix at home, for free.   That's the degree of sophistication shown in a rig like this, certainly no experienced VP player was consulted as to the likelihood of whether a fix like this would be spotted.
 
Don't forget several of the basic tenets of conspiracy theory:
 
1)  The likelihood of any secret being kept is inversely proportional to the number of people in on it.  In this case, lots and lots of people involved, from execs down to the people actually replacing chips.  Depends on how widespread the rigging is.  Just southern Nevada?  All of Nevada?  A few other states?  All of the country?
 
2)  The likelihood of any secret being kept is inversely proportional to the length of time it's kept.  Sooner or later someone always spills the beans.
 
The experimenter we've both been referring to bases his theory on the current economic slump.   When things turn around - which could be a long time - I assume that normal game chips would be put back in.  Even after normal game chips were back in machines, that wouldn't change the fact that they HAD BEEN rigged for a period of time.  Same penalties - fines, revoked licenses, possible imprisonment for those involved, and also those lovely civil lawsuits.
 
Given all that - why not just legally lower paytables?  No fines, no revoked licenses, no jail time.  The same person doing the rigging experiment has said that we're all addicts anyway, and will play anything.