Poker Today vs Poker Yesteryear

[FloridaPhil]

[quote=notes1]Some may be weary of reading comments about how some feel the machines
have changed, but I can assure you that there are also those of us who
do not look forward to another post about a how a 1 or 2 tenths of a
percent advantage is going to produce some great change in results.[/quote]

[FAA]

a lot of players will cash out or take their gains from a quad, but
few cash out from the mid range wins. if there were more mid range
wins, to make the overall percentages stay the same, but players were
not cashing them out, the casinos would benefit by players just playing
those wins back into continued play and eventually losing. in
other words, how many would cash out a win when they get a couple of FH
and a flush, as opposed to those who cash out after a quad?    Yes, you raise a very interesting dilemma indeed. You're winning, but no sizzling hand that screams Cash Out. In such a fix myself recently. My $25 voucher yielded $20. It hit $30, then back to $20 due to greed. Two full houses later, $36. Half hour behind schedule to hit second casino; hung around for quad/high progressive royal. Neither came, and I took six bucks from previous high water mark as a sign to cash. En route to give sixteen bucks back in the subsequent hour, it seemed. Why consent? My stubborn cashing out after a quad philosophy has burned me too often!

[FloridaPhil]

This talk of cashing out reminded me of something strange I witnessed on our last visit to Biloxi.   A guy was playing DW next to us for two days while we were there.  He seemed to cash out on every win.  I suspect he cashed out on all straight flushes and above.  Anyway, he would build up a stack of tickets and run over to the cash machine and redeem them about once every 15-20 minutes.  My wife and I keep watching him with interest because we had never seen anyone do that. He sure got a lot of exercise running back and forth, but I suspect he went through a bunch of shoes.   Later, I thought about this and it did slow his play quite a bit which was an advantage in the casino where we were playing. He told me later the machines were rigged.  I nodded and kept to my own business.  Weird.... 

[onemoretry]

This talk of cashing out reminded me of something strange I witnessed on our last visit to Biloxi.   A guy was playing DW next to us for two days while we were there.  He seemed to cash out on every win.  I suspect he cashed out on all straight flushes and above.  Anyway, he would build up a stack of tickets and run over to the cash machine and redeem them about once every 15-20 minutes.
There is a person like that at Seneca Niagara who plays single line 25c 7/5 bonus poker adjacent to where we play. He cashes out after every single win to the very annoying (after a while) machine generated fake noise of coins hitting the hopper.

I have been tempted to ask him if he considers it breaking even if he costs the casino as much in paper and wear and tear on the machines as he loses - but so far have resisted it.

[Eduardo]

[QUOTE=Eduardo]Right. If there are fewer jackpots and also fewer "common wins" and also the payback is not altered, then that means more mid-range wins to make up the difference. Unless I am missing something.

 eduardo, this is an interesting possibility you brought up. if 'common wins' were described as pairs, two pairs and trips and 'jackpots' were quads, then mid-range could be FH, flush and straights. some players have commented they see longer dead periods, where they would get few common wins and many also complain they see less jackpots, aka quads. a lot of players will cash out or take their gains from a quad, but few cash out from the mid range wins. if there were more mid range wins, to make up the overall percentages stay the same, but players were not cashing them out, the casinos would benefit by players just playing those wins back into continued play and eventually losing. in other words, how many would cash out a win when they get a couple of FH and a flush, as opposed to those who cash out after a quad?    [/QUOTE]

Right, if it's actually happening. My point is that this is easily measured. I'm not saying it's happening or not happening, I'm saying if it is then someone could actually prove it with data instead of speculating about possibilities. Otherwise everyone with a bad run will continue the rumors.

[spxChrome]

I just wanted to add the guy that wrote this has about 15 published books on gambling and this was an update to his VP poker book as he found our more information on the new VP RNG. So its not in his original book but it is available on his downloadable version.

What he claims is happening is what I am experiencing when I play VP. It's easy to understand why people who play a few times a year playing small demon poker can not relate. But when you play over 1 million hands a year for over 10+ years it doesn't take long to see a shift in expectations. Especially if it happens right after a new CPU has been installed into a machine even though the paytables where not altered. Out of my last 5 hand pays 4 of them have been made hands. This is over 200,000 hands on 10/6 DDB & 9/7 TDB single line.   I can also say for the year my garbage quads are over 4 to 1 for 400-800+ quads. For every quad Ace I get I get quad 8's at least 4 to 5 times more so I think it goes beyond full houses but into quads. So I may get 8 x 250's and play them off as they come trying to get the $2000. So mathematically the machine has paid me the same but you don't get the big one that lets you go home a winner so the payback % is satisfied and the casino wins. It all makes perfect sense to me and exactly how it is playing out over the past few years.

[ko king]

[QUOTE=notes1]
[QUOTE=Eduardo]Right. If there are fewer jackpots and also fewer "common wins" and also the payback is not altered, then that means more mid-range wins to make up the difference. Unless I am missing something.


 
eduardo, this is an interesting possibility you brought up. if 'common wins' were described as pairs, two pairs and trips and 'jackpots' were quads, then mid-range could be FH, flush and straights. some players have commented they see longer dead periods, where they would get few common wins and many also complain they see less jackpots, aka quads.
 
a lot of players will cash out or take their gains from a quad, but few cash out from the mid range wins. if there were more mid range wins, to make up the overall percentages stay the same, but players were not cashing them out, the casinos would benefit by players just playing those wins back into continued play and eventually losing.
 
in other words, how many would cash out a win when they get a couple of FH and a flush, as opposed to those who cash out after a quad?    [/QUOTE]

Right, if it's actually happening. My point is that this is easily measured. I'm not saying it's happening or not happening, I'm saying if it is then someone could actually prove it with data instead of speculating about possibilities. Otherwise everyone with a bad run will continue the rumors.[/QUOTE]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
 
Who would anyone prove it to, who would listen. I remember driving by the local gaming commission office, it was about the size of living room and nobody was there. You're right though individual results would be easily measured, but so what. I had two consecutive years worth of spread sheets with every little tidbit of information any player could possibly keep. For two consecutive years I played only one game DDB at only one denomination, $2 at max play. I had the date played, hours played, amount of hands played, every quad hit, both large and small, every straight and royal flush, the only thing I did not keep up with was the full houses, 3 of a kind, two pair and pairs. I even had my player statement to back my records up. I won't go into how much money I lost but it was considerable. It was very easy to see why I lost far below the advertised pay back percentage, I had hit the above average on Royal flushes for both years, hit just above the average for straight flushes, I even thought I had the answer as to why I and other players had done so well on those two hands. What was missing was quad aces w/kicker (4 below the average for two years), quad aces ( 9 below for those two year), quad 2,3,4's w/kicker (12 for those two years), quad 2,3,4's (19 below), standard quads (just below the average). During those two years of play I recieved 3 "dealt" royals, far above the expected average, like I said I thought I had the answer to whay that was. Equipped with all this info/eveidence I decided to present my case, people seemed interested at first even though they didn't have the slightest idea about poker statistics, pay back percentages or averages. I was told each and every machine would be tested and they would get back to me within a week to 10 days. It took far longer to get my questions answered or really dealt with but was persistant and determined to get an answer. I guess they finally figured out I wasn't going to just forgive and forget. Finally I went back in and was told that all the machines were operating "with-in the curve" except for a couple of the lower denomination machines. I had no idea what "with-in the curve meant" so I ask them to explain. Turns out the machines were sort of like slots when it came to pay back percentages, to operate "with-in the curve" the machine must be returning between 84-99.99%. When I pushed the matter a little further ,obviously to far as to why I had came up so short on the quality quads for two consecutive years and inquired about how the denomination I played fared on the "curve" level. I was told they had done everything they could to satisfy my questions and if I wasn't happy with my results to go play somehwere else. I later sent an e-mail to the head of gaming and was sent a rather threatening and nasty return concerning lawyers. I dropped any further inquiries. So I ask you even if you had concrete evidence what would or could you possibly do with it?

[notes1]

KK, i have told you a number of times how much i enjoy your posts, but this is the best ever. there is just so much info and the story is great.  it is disturbing , but not surprising that regulators in some juristictions, have no clue about some of the games you were asking about. from the way you tell the story, they simply group slots and vp results together, making sure they pay the minimum/max allowed under state law, rather than testing to make sure they match with the advertised paytables. these are supposed to be the folks protecting the public, it seems as they saw you as the enemy. makes one wonder when someone threatens legal action when one is seeking the truth, what are they afraid of.  i will accept the notion that when the machines leave the manufacture, they meet legal requirements. but, after that, when they get into a casino, who knows what is done to them. maybe the regulators response was just an isolated bad event. i doubt it. no one is really checking these machines in many casinos.

[FAA]

Right, if it's actually happening. My point is that this is easily measured.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I beg to differ. Who wants to become an actuary while gambling? I can't even keep an accurate count of my total number of hands played! Do I sit there with index cards for every type of win and check off whenever I have a mid size win? #unrealistic

[FAA]

Excellent post, KK. I'm surprised you did not suffer a hernia from your exhaustive efforts. Where was this again?