Understanding NSUD Two Card Straight Flush Holds

[alpax]

I have been practicing NSUD (NSU Deuces Wild 44 25-16-10) on this website's training mode as well as the VP Pocket (by Action Gaming) on the mobile device, one part I seem to have the most trouble with is the 2 card straight flush or the 2 card royal scenario, either discarding the entire dealt hand or keeping the two cards. With these errors, I've been playing at about 97% accuracy.

The 2 card straight flush or royal flush holds is not part of the basic strategy, it is a conditional exception that maximizes the overall return.

http://wizardofodds.com/games/video-pok ... 200-d-800/

I suppose if it requires straight memorization, it will probably take more practice and effort (than even learning the basic strategy) to be able to remember them all to get the full 99.7283% return. I think the exceptions that regard the Wild Deuce is easy enough to remember.

The last two gaming sessions, I have been getting away with using the WizardOfOdds NSUD intermediate strategy that returns 99.7278%. It is much easier to understand, not sure if people use this or make all efforts to maximize their return by memorizing all exception scenarios.

http://wizardofodds.com/games/video-pok ... gly-ducks/

Edited: Forgot to even ask, is there an easy way to memorize these exception scenarios?

[Vman96]

Well if you look at the details of the strategy exceptions on the Wizard of Odds strategy maker, you'll see that many of the excepted hands follow a pattern.

For the 2 card straight flush draw holds, you need no flush penalties and one inside straight draw penalty at worst (89 suited needs to be double inside no penalties at all).

To toss KQ, KJ, or KT suited in favor of garbage, you need a flush AND a straight penalty.

Also to hold KT suited over the lower end inside straight draw like 678TK, you need no flush penalty to hold KT suited in that example.

For KJ suited over an inside straight, it has to be 789JK with no flush penalty.

This might not cover everything, but it's most of these scenarios. Is it worth the extra ev? Meh. If you're playing some promo with an advantage, then this could slow you down possibly costing you more.

[alpax]

I was initially looking for the pattern with straight and flush penalties (I know them for the JoB/DDB/BonusDlx I been playing), but did not see very distinct patterns with NSUD.

The 6-7 straight flush, the 3 is a straight penalty, but I do not see a 4 or 5 involved in any of those exceptions. Some of them revolved around high cards too, like Jack/Queen/King/Ace where a straight cannot be connected to those.

The royal flush penalties/exceptions revolve around low cards like 3,4 or even 9 which does not connect on a straight. Hence it is mind blogging when I first look at it, but I probably need to see deeper into the exceptions.

The 6 thru 10 and 7 thru J inside straights vs 2 to a royal were easy to understand, as well as the Ace-10, but everything else needs further evaluation.

Probably it is more looking like memorization is the key, for the time being, the intermediate or even the basic strategy will do, it is still the highest returning game at the local casino regardless.

I am not sure if the intermediate strategy does return just 0.0005 from full optimal play. I'll trust the Wizard and JB.

[alpax]

Did not think of the opposite situation, the situations where you discard all the cards over the 2 card straight flush are more frequent, so if I get a 6-7 straight flush and see a 4,5,8,9,10 I'd just probably discard the entire hand.

9 does connect to a Jack or King, so nevermind there too.

[Vman96]

Yeah you got the right idea for analysis, but penalty card scenarios are hard to find sometimes. And each one of these cost very little in ev when ignored. Most full basic strategies are within 0.01% of optimal. One nasty exception to this is 2 pair joker poker, and its difficult basic strategy is within 0.025% of optimal.

It's much much better to have basic strategy down cold.

[Kibel x2]

I just bought a 'Rosetta Stone' course to translate this thread...I'll get back to you later.

[olds442jetaway]

Even if I had all of this down pat, I think I spend more just in waitress tips for one session than I could ever possibly save. I agree with vman. Get the basic down cold. Also slowing down your play on a nice but short hot streak can cost money as well as things like playing so fast one of your hold cards disappears before you have a chance not to hit draw. This happens to me someties. I hold 2 or 3 cards, and go fast right to the draw button. In the interim, one of the holds disappears due to a sticky button or sometimes it never was held, but you hit the button and thought it was. I just don't see how messing up for a tenth or so of a percentage point is worth worrying about when so many other factors come into play. As an example, if you run 5k through a machine in a session and the percentage difference on all of this is a tenth of a percent, and you do everything else perfectly, we are talking about a difference of 5 bucks in 8 or 10 hours of play.

[alpax]

Good point olds, there could be other tip expenses through the restaurants or cocktail service that needs to be paid out to a point where full return is almost meaningless. There are much more exception situations in NSUD than in JoB or Bonus Deluxe, but I think the basic strategy on the WizardOfOdds site is enough. Although its advised to be able to play at 98% before playing at a live casino, I will still go with the basic strategy as there is a promotional gift giveaway. I lost the last two sessions, I do not think knowing the most optimal draws would even help on unlucky days.

I tend to play much slower when I play for real money, at about 625 hands an hour for 2500 hands per session last 4 hours. I aim to have at least 8 of these sessions every 6 months to retain Gold status (tier 2 out of 4). There has been at least a few times where I have misplayed a winning hand dealt from playing too quick.

a) Two Pairs 6655, I held the 6 pairs but only one of the 5, and the draw came out with the 5 on the first card with a 7. I've missed out on a full house.
b) A dealt flush. I thought I held all 5 cards, but the middle one had a faulty button so it did not hold, ended up drawing nothing good to replace the flush I lost.
c) A dealt 3 of a kind 8's. I wound up only holding 2 when I realize held the third 8. The draw came out with an another 8, still retained the 3 of a kind but could have had more.

There is a classic argument where playing fast only benefits people playing in advantage positive expectation situations or racking up entries in a contest period, thus playing slow hurts in those situations.

[olds442jetaway]

600 hands/hr is the most I am comfortable with. My sessions are usually 8 hrs or so though with a short break in between. I guess that is why I site examples of stuff using 5,000 hands in a session. At Mohegan Sun on the vp machines that do pay points, that will only get you 10 points that you can spend worth 10 bucks and about 10 status points assuming each hand is played at a dollar. So for me to maintain level 3 which they call Ascend status, I need 1400 status points every 6 months. ( They break the year in half. ) That means I need nearly 60 status points a week or 6 sessions. I will never be able to maintain that unless my average bet is 2 bucks for the 3 average sessions per week. Most likely I will drop to level 2 next time which offers much fewer benefits, but should save me 20k or so based on what I have been hitting lately. I don't know how these 98-99.5% machines can keep costing me so much but they are.
     What they should be costing me is just simple math. 750,000 dollars a year coin in a recent average x 1 percent as an average house edge ( assuming nearly perfect play ) or about 7500 bucks a year. The 20k or 30k number times 2 for my actual cost is just ridiclous and cannot be justified or afforded any longer that is for sure.

[alpax]

I think 6 months is the trend lately for most casino clubs. I just barely play enough to make it to the 2nd tier every 6 months. It requires 50,000 tier points, $2 coin in for 1 point on 9/6 Job or $5 coin in for 1 point on NSUD/Bonus Deluxe. I reached the Gold status for until July 2015, so starting in January I have to accumulate that many points again. I can freely play NSUD on my next session. Level 3 status Platinum is 4 times greater at 200,000 tier points, which just about requires once a week 6 hour session play.

There is a huge difference between Tier 1 (everyone) and Tier 2.

My sessions are short as I do not have the starting bankroll of $12,000 for dollar denominations VP, I supposed to play quarters but only JoB is the good game at quarters. So I just play spurts at a time, 8 sessions across those 6 months. I break the sessions down since free play is issues weekly and food comp is issued every half month. .46% house edge for JoB on $12500 coin in just about what I get for weekly bounceback+food+cashback. I am playing with the Dancer mentality thus far, but it will not work unless if I do hit a royal flush anytime soon.

On the games from this website, since the buttons are a keyboard, I can play over 1000 hands an hour, but I still make errors from playing too quick. My mistakes are costly too. So every hand I double check to slow down the pace.

$20k or 30k is a rough loss from being under royaled by more than 10 cycles. At this point only potshots can help salvage most of those losses if you can happen to hit them to the extent that Phil can. I lost that much playing slots prior to this year, its a devastating feeling.