Dueces Strategy Questions

[FloridaPhil]

My wife would agree with you about the Royal.  She plays .25 Jacks and has only had one Royal in her life so far.  I couldn't play one coin Jacks either.  It's so boring anyway, I can't imagine taking that away too.  Deuces is another matter all together and a quad deuce is so much more common than a royal.   Once I hit one I often move up in denomination and get another one.  I've had way more $1,000 quad deuces than quarter $1,000 royals. To me, a royal is a quad deuce that pays $50 more.  I realize this isn't for everyone, but I find much better pay schedules at higher denominations and I can't afford to play max coins at that level.  

[BillyJoe]

VPFW gives completely consistent advice based on the pay table. 



QD, try putting a 0 payout into the RF on Full Pay DW in VPW, and see what happens to the frequency of the RF. It changes.   I found this by accident when exploring an approach of eliminating the EV effect of an RF, since they occur so rarely.  Always wondered how a hand's frequency could change with a paytable change. I thought we were using the same 52 cards.  I asked Bob Dancer about this, but he just said that I had the wrong numbers.  Ever since I saw that, I, personally,  have been a little leary of VPW calculations.

[shadowman]

Billyjoe, it's not the frequency of the dealt cards that changes, it's the frequency of the results. The results are dependent on the strategy used and the optimal strategy changes with any change in the pay table.
 
When you look at the frequencies in VPW you are seeing the effect of strategy changes.

[BillyJoe]

Billy Joel, it's not the frequency of the dealt cards that changes, it's the frequency of the results. The results are dependent on the strategy used and the optimal strategy changes with any change in the pay table.
 
When you look at the frequencies in VPW you are seeing the effect of strategy changes.
Thanks, Shadow. That's what I suspected, but Bob told me that I was wrong, and that pay tables do not effect hand frequencies. Oh well...  So the hand frequencies that you see in VPW are not just the mathematical chances of a particular hand occurring, but rather, are a function of the strategy that you employ in holding particular dealt cards. With that said, then I should be able to increase the frequency of RFs by only holding RF-capable cards, right ? 

[Quad Deuces]

If you hold more cards to the royal, you will get more royals.  If you hold less, you will get less.The software would certainly not put any weight into a strategy of holding royal cards if royals are set to pay 0.  (Would they pay for a flush or straight flush in that case either?  Don't know how it's programmed.  I would assume zero means zero.) Fewer royal draws held?  Lower Royal Flush frequency.

[onemoretry]

With that said, then I should be able to increase the frequency of RFs by only holding RF-capable cards, right ? 


 For sure, if you draw more often for royals, you'll get more of them. But, since you will often be making an inferior play, in the long run you will have less money in your pocket.

[BobDancer]

[  So the hand frequencies that you see in VPW are not just the mathematical chances of a particular hand occurring, but rather, are a function of the strategy that you employ in holding particular dealt cards.


  Absolutely not.  The hand frequencies shown on VPW are the mathematical chances of a particular hand occurring using the very best strategy available. If you use a different strategy than that, the hand frequencies in VPW will not change. But your results will not match what is shown there. Several times in this thread, BJ, you indicated that I gave you incorrect answers to your questions. If this actually happened, I apologize. If I answer a question I try to do so accurately. What I suspect happened is you are not accurately remembering what your question was and what my answer was. When you "summarized" them, you came away believing I misled you.  If you post the actual question you asked and the actual answer I gave, most people here would likely conclude my answer was both reasonable and informative. Bob

[BobDancer]

It's interesting to note that Dan Paymar in his book entitled "Video Poker Optimum Play" states that these hands are worth very little and indicates you may be better off not playing them at all.    



  It is very unlikely that Dan was speaking about the specific pay tables being referred to in this post. Dan was likely referring to FPDW which is a very different game. Assuming his comments automatically translate to every other Deuces Wild pay schedule is unfair to him and unfair to you. In NSU, for example, these K-High 2-card royals are usually eligible to be held and it is only when considering penalty cards that you would throw them away. If you're not going to get into penalty cards, they should NEVER be discarded. Dan would make the OPPOSITE conclusion to what he said for FPDW if he were speaking about this game. Bob  

[FloridaPhil]

Good discussion.  I can see that throwing away those hands could be costing me.  They may be worth little, but they occur often.   I think what I'm going to do is keep them and start throwing them away when I have a flush or a straight penalty.  It might not be perfect in every case, but I can live with this rule and it's a lot closer than I am now.

[BillyJoe]

[QUOTE=billyjoe] [
  
So the hand frequencies that you see in VPW are not just the mathematical chances of a particular hand occurring, but rather, are a function of the strategy that you employ in holding particular dealt cards.
 
 
Absolutely not.
 
The hand frequencies shown on VPW are the mathematical chances of a particular hand occurring using the very best strategy available.
 
If you use a different strategy than that, the hand frequencies in VPW will not change. But your results will not match what is shown there.
 
Several times in this thread, BJ, you indicated that I gave you incorrect answers to your questions. If this actually happened, I apologize. If I answer a question I try to do so accurately.
 
What I suspect happened is you are not accurately remembering what your question was and what my answer was. When you "summarized" them, you came away believing I misled you.
 
If you post the actual question you asked and the actual answer I gave, most people here would likely conclude my answer was both reasonable and informative.
 
Bob[/QUOTE]
Bob, please refer to a thread that I started in Forum-Video Poker-Video Poker Strategy called "Let's Compare Some Games". I was interested in the effect that a zero RF value would have on the EV for two games: FPDW and TDB. As I said in the thread, I used your VPW software, and the RF frequency changed for FPDW. Here it is, direct from VPW, with 0 value RF...
Occurs Every
61,761.24
4,899.73
582.33
311.52
243.20
15.34
46.90
61.93
17.64
3.50
1.83

I said in that thread -

"Using Bob Dancer's VPW program (now pay attention Bob), I decided to look at returns WITHOUT RFs.
 
In FPDW, an RF occurs every 61.7k hands, but in TDB, every 45.3k hands - more frequently in TDB, but still, both are pretty big numbers for a recreational player. So if we take out the RFs (is - made them a 0 pay), what would be the returns? FPDW would be 99.054 and 9/7 TDB would be 98.052 - still a full 1% better for FPDW."
 
You said in that thread -
"The royal occurs about equally frequently in FPDW (45.3K --- NOT the 61.7K BJ states) and 9/7 TDB (45.4K). Taking out the royal won't change things."
 
Above, you said -
"The hand frequencies shown on VPW are the mathematical chances of a particular hand occurring using the very best strategy available.If you use a different strategy than that, the hand frequencies in VPW will not change."
 
So, Bob, as you requested..

"If you post the actual question you asked and the actual answer I gave, most people here would likely conclude my answer was both reasonable and informative."
 
As a side note, Webster's New World Dictionary defines "frequency" as "the number of times any action or occurrence is repeated in a given period".
 
So "most people" out there, which statement of Bob's "was both reasonable and informative"?