Strategy for earning comps

[onemoretry]

If you play 50 hands at single coin on a 95% quarter video poker machine, switch to $1 max coins on the 51st hand and hit a royal flush for $4,000 what are your results?  It's true that is an extreme example, but there's no getting around the fact that the odds of a royal flush are exactly the same on the 51st hand as the first.   If you extend that example down to include straight flushes, 5-of-a-kinds, wild royals and quad deuces, you can start to see how the Cheap Strategy actually works.
The combined probability of all those premium hand is a touch over 1%. It's not at all unusual to have dry spells with no premium hands. I've been playing full pay deuces in the monthly contest, and have had many, many, 500 hand sessions with no deuces, wild royals, or five of a kinds, and perhaps one or two straight flushes. My return for these poor sessions is 80-90%, which would translate to a loss of $250-$500 if I was playing full pay dollars.

You have done well with your strategy, and I congratulate you. My question would be: "Have you done well due to the strategy, or is it because you've been lucky and hit more premium hands than would be expected?"

[FloridaPhil]

 











[quote=onemoretry]You have done well with your strategy, and I congratulate you. My
question would be: "Have you done well due to the strategy, or is it
because you've been lucky and hit more premium hands than would be
expected?"[/quote]What happens when you play using the Cheap Strategy is not apparent until you try it for a while.  In Deuces, I consider every hand to be treading water until I hit a royal or a quad deuce.  It is very common to hit a long run of single coin hands with nothing happening, then hit one decent max coin hand that makes up for all the bad hands preceding it.  For this reason you can play many more hands than you would expect if you were playing straight single or max coins.  So you could say I hit more jackpots because of the increased number of hands played or you could say I had more chances at being lucky.   In addition, the Cheap Strategy allows me to occasionally play above my bankroll without fear of busting for the day.  I take full advantage of this and play $20 using the Cheap Strategy at the $5 level about once an hour.   About half of my total winnings this year happened while I was doing this.  Over the past six months I would still have been slightly ahead, but I hit two $1,000 quad deuces, one $625 wild royal and a bunch of $125 wild royals during these so called pot shots. If even one of those quad deuces had been at max coins, I would be ahead $4,000 more than I am now.  I don't want to think about where I would be if i had hit a $5 max coin Royal!There is no way to put a "slide rule" (math formula for you younger players) to playing this way.   By nature video poker is random to start with, winning 4 coins is random so switching to max coins is random and so on and so on...   No formula can explain the unexplainable.  I'm only relaying what happens. 

[onemoretry]

  Over the past six months I would still have been slightly ahead, but I hit two $1,000 quad deuces,
Those are very nice - are they full pay dollar hits?

If so, how many full pay dollar hands do you estimate you've played in that period of time?

[Vman96]

[QUOTE=FloridaPhil]
  Over the past six months I would still have been slightly ahead, but I hit two $1,000 quad deuces,
Those are very nice - are they full pay dollar hits?

If so, how many full pay dollar hands do you estimate you've played in that period of time? [/QUOTE]

He's never played full pay deuces in his life...

I would assume the dollar hits are on his best local option (98.91% deuces)

[onemoretry]

He's never played full pay deuces in his life...

I would assume the dollar hits are on his best local option (98.91% deuces)

That's what I meant to say - and worded it poorly.

[FloridaPhil]

[quote=vman96]He's never played full pay deuces in his life... [/quote]Not only have I never played it, I've never seen it...   I suppose this game is still available in Vegas. We never go there anymore since they turned the place into a circus.  You can't even see the strip anymore with all the condos and such, they treat you like a herd of cattle and the sleaze factor is way out of control.  The old Vegas was sooo nice.  I don't know who they think their customers are anymore, but it's not us.As stated previously, if I find a 99% plus video poker game I play max coins.  Video Poker odds are not even close to that in much of the Southeast and if you do find it, there's only a few old machines in some hole in the back of the casino somewhere.  If you want to play a lot of video poker these days you need two strategies, one for 99% and up and one for garbage odds.  This way you can adjust your strategy to the conditions and hopefully stay ahead for a change.