It's Vegas Baby!!

[billryan]

    When one cant defend their position, its always better to belittle the others. Who says 5 plus 3 is 8. If I'm only counting for fun, why cant I call it 11?

[Vman96]

I answered you post, how about answering my question. if the play that started this discussion truly has an error rate of 4 cents, would you consider this error/deviation large or small and would you say that over time, the cumulative effect of this play, would have meaningful impact on one's results. or, was it a whole lot about nothing.



Meaningful? Meh. Holding 2 to the Royal Ace high is a fairly small error in Deuces. But it also appears somewhat frequently as well leading to an overall return drop of 0.06%. Many players' error rates when attempting to play optimal are worse than that. For someone that plays fast (800 hands/hr) that's 60 cents per hour at quarters. $600 per 1000 hours. I'd avoid it, but if more chances at long shot royals adds excitement for Phil and his wife, then it's not that big of a deal.

But that also assumes the only change made. The more changes made, the more they add up. Phil has said he doesn't go for inside straights in deuces either. That's another 0.08% off. Not great, but could be worse. But not being diligent enough to bother to play the best games available to you (highest expected return after factoring in comps) is much more costly than these mild deviations from optimal play. For deuces, the next step below the "Airport" paytable is usually 1.33% lower return but can be avoided in quite a few casinos with some scouting work...some of which has been done by others on VPFree2.

[notes1]

point out where I said 'all math players play on a positive games'.

point out where I said 'everyone who plays perfectly on a positive machine wins all the time'.

point out where I said 'a casino would not allow people to beat them'.

I thought math folks were all about accuracy.

I will attempt again to get an answer to a simple question, that the school teacher refuses to answer, are you guaranteeing/stating that all players who play perfect math, and only play on positive machine, over a long duration, will have net positive results?

a simple yes or no will do.

you do not just get to ask the questions, you also need to answer them, you may have forgotten to answer these, all of them.

[notes1]

    When one cant defend their position, its always better to belittle the others. Who says 5 plus 3 is 8. If I'm only counting for fun, why cant I call it 11?



you are the expert at belittling.

[notes1]

vman, I would like to hear your opinion on whether a math player who states they 'should win', is cutting it pretty close to the line, as one should expect to win.

and, keep in mind, that if some novice player makes a statement that they 'felt' they would win or declare if they wore green undies, they win, some of the math players 'belittle' the heck of that person.

[notes1]

play on a positive machine, play perfectly, one should win. that does not insinuate one should expect to win? that would not lead some naïve player that they too, should expect to win?

listening to some of the math folks defend the language they use, is like listening to a Clinton news conference. the parsing of words is legendary.

'I did not have sex with....'

[DAAnMAAn]

Fun post. I've been asleep behind the wheel I guess because it's already at 17 pages and don't remember seeing it...Playing against the math will cost long term, short term not so much. What is long term? Depends who you ask. Some say lifetime, one year, a royal cycle, whatever.Regardless, there are math people, there are recreation people, and alot in between. The important thing is we all play vp because...like the lotto players say, "you got to play to win!" The satisfaction of the jackpot comes with those that make the errors and those who don't. And we need everybody playing whatever path is up the mountain.Red Rock and South Point are great places for VP...and there are others...but notice most are off-strip.The only advice I can think of at the moment for those stuck with bad paytables out there and upset about it is to either stop playing there, or demand/convince the owners that it's in their interests to have the better paytables for x,y,z reasons. Otherwise, what stops them from offering games like 6/5 bonus poker if people continually play it?So, the point is there is no point, just the thrill of playing vp. Thanks for the post Phil...great trip report and I understand where you are coming from, math or no math.Cheers

[markinca]

play on a positive machine, play perfectly, one should win. that does not insinuate one should expect to win? that would not lead some naïve player that they too, should expect to win?

listening to some of the math folks defend the language they use, is like listening to a Clinton news conference. the parsing of words is legendary.

'I did not have sex with....'

If this is too hard for you to comprehend, look at it from the side of the casino then. In a given, say, hour, is a casino guaranteed to make money off of video poker (and for simplicity, ignore any comps/cashback/etc and assume these are all positive house-edge games)? What about a day? What about in 10 years?

Does a casino expect to win money every hour? Yes. Are they guaranteed to win money every hour? No. Does a casino expect to win money after 10 years? Yes. Are they guaranteed to win money after 10 years? If you think this answer could even plausibly be 'no', then honestly this is beyond hope.

[markinca]

And I'll even try giving another example. I'm going to offer you a positive-expectation game. It's played on a regular double-zero roulette wheel, and I'll restrict you to only betting on one number only, but if that number hits, I'll pay you 40:1 instead of the normal 35:1. In the long run, you should be up huge on this game.

But should you expect to win any given session? No, you'll lose 97% of your spins (37 out of 38 spins).

[FloridaPhil]

Over the years we have tested many changes to VP math strategy.  Most have failed miserably, a few we have kept.  At this time I am playing exactly according to VPW.  My wife only makes the 2 card royal change in the previous post and she definitely hits more wild royals than me.  There is no way we will ever be able to notice the long term effects of this change in our lifetime.  If someone else is in the corner chuckling because she's funding their play, we're OK with it.  However, we think it's better off not said.This "my way or the highway" VP strategy attitude comes from Bob Dancer.  I understand his motivation as this kind of talk sells books and radio shows.  Rush Limbaugh and his wantabe Shawn Hannity do the same thing in the world of politics.  They got rich from insulting people and polarizing the public into opposing camps.  We currently live in a world where all of a sudden it's OK to be crude
and say whatever comes to your mind without thinking about how it affects others.   Our politicians
talk like sixth graders and never offer solutions, they just ramble on
about how the other guy or gal is always wrong.  Not everyone is red or blue, most are somewhere in between.  It's the same with VP.