Does anyone ever come close to breaking even.

[olds442jetaway]

Heading up tonight and it will be a one coin nite on DW for me. My favorite game anyway except oej which they don't have anymore.

     Back from Mohegan. Lots of overnight play, but sorry to say, no deuces quads, no wild royals at max. Best hit was 5 of a kind at max on quarters. The wife made up for my failure on SCQ ( note new shorty ) however by hitting aces quads on a nickel game, aces quads with a kicker by drawing both the needed ace and the 2, and a really nice string of quads, flushes, full houses playing DDB>.... Her take was several hundred bucks even on nickels and that just about offset my failure as well as failure on Double Down Stud. I tried SCQ using the same rules on DDS, but hit nothing big on max following the same rules

[alpax]

Just as a rough example of the comps at Mohegan, free rooms usually Sun-Thurs. 800 use or lose choice credits every month to use in the lounge, buffet, or shows. 200- or so free play monthly, dining and gas credits for another 200 or so each month. Invites to some parties and shows. Gifts with a retail value of 50- or so per month. Most of those you don't want or need. So it probably comes out pretty close. I would still rather have the cash and pay as I go. I wish there was a bare bones comfortable casino like that close to home, but it doesn't and probably won't ever exist.

It is much more than what I get for my play, probably at least 5 folds. It all depends if you value all that you are offered or else it goes to waste. The hotel room stay is a commodity I once valued, but I learned staying overnight most of the time builds up your losses. I still get weekend stay offers for my losses on slots.

I will probably start keeping track of wins and losses starting next year in 2015 as well as coming up with better money management skills, but I estimate that I lost a few thousands since I played mostly single line $1 games without getting a royal flush. Thus it feels like I am playing at a 2% house edge and that grows the gap of breaking even very quickly I learned.

Probably the game plan for 2015 is quarter JoB (the only good game offerd for quarters) along with hourly NSUD potshots. Might think of a formula where I would take bigger NSUD potshots in the max bet $2 ($50 bill insert) or max bet $5 ($100 bill insert) range if the play session goes really bad.

[FloridaPhil]

If you have the bankroll to play dollars, why don't you try this?  Play single line standard deuces wild at $1 a coin.  Start out playing one coin.  When you win 4 coins, go to max. When you lose go back to one coin.  This will keep you interested because you will have still have a chance at a $1000 quad deuce or a $4,000 royal, but you will reduce your cost to play tremendously.  If you hit a single coin quad deuce it's still $200.  Even a single coin royal pays $250, so it's not all that bad of a result.  As my bankroll has increased I play this way 80% of the time and I love it.   Playing max coins all the time hoping to beat the house is futile.

[olds442jetaway]

I am going to try that Phil as soon as the bankroll builds up a little. I think though, I will pass on the machines that offer 25cent,50cent, and 1dollar options and find one that only offers the dollar option. In my experience, when a machine is cold, just upping the denomination doesn't change things and if anything, they get worse. Just one question. On any given machine at the dollar level, how long do you stay with that machine before you move on when it is in a real losing mode? Thanks. I lost track on how long now it has been since I hit deuces quads, but my best gurss is 30-40k hands. That is a lot since once every 5k or so is the average.

[wildman49]

I am going to try that Phil as soon as the bankroll builds up a little. I think though, I will pass on the machines that offer 25cent,50cent, and 1dollar options and find one that only offers the dollar option. In my experience, when a machine is cold, just upping the denomination doesn't change things and if anything, they get worse. Just one question. On any given machine at the dollar level, how long do you stay with that machine before you move on when it is in a real losing mode? Thanks. I lost track on how long now it has been since I hit deuces quads, but my best gurss is 30-40k hands. That is a lot since once every 5k or so is the average. I MOVE more then most. I do $40 in and play at the .50 level, when I lose $10 I move, lose another $10 I move. But it has to be slow in there to get a machine on the best pay tables.

[FloridaPhil]

30,000 hands is a very long time between quad deuces in a standard single line DW game.  The average is about one every 5,000 hands, so you should have 6 by now.  From my experience that's about right as I usually get at least one in a days play.  The good news is that you are probably going to get 5-6 in a row.  Anyway,  I like to change machines a lot.  If the machine eats my $20 in a short amount of time, I move on.  Deuces is a game of streaks.  I prefer the Cheap Strategy because it allows me to change my bet on the fly and adjust my bet to what's happening as it happens.  If you believe the games are totally random I realize this makes
no sense, but it keeps playing out time and time again. If you don't want to play $1 a coin, try 50 cents.   A max coin quad deuce is $500, which is still a nice hit.  Also, playing 50 cents a coin gets you to the dollar level much faster.   One thing I noticed when I was at the Mohegan Sun last summer that might make a difference. Max coins for me is never more than 5 coins.  If you are going beyond that, you may be tilting the win/loss balance toward the losing side.  Just a
thought... 

[olds442jetaway]

Funny thing Phil....Almost all of the Royals I see hit at Mohegan Sun are with 5 coins in. Granted that is what most people play, but I think there is something to the randomness or programing when you change your bet to an odd amount like 13, 7, 24, etc. I do that quite a bit due to my Martingale Clone method that I am about to back burner. I rarely hit the big hands with the big oddball amount bets. It is almost like 5 is the expected bet, so if someone plays 16 or something like that we have to make sure the big hands at that level are few and far between or we will pay out much more that if the patron hits at level 5. I know that makes no sense, but when you see these patterns for months then years and your expected loss instead of being 10k for the year is 40k, you really begin to take notice and if you don't you should....I am thinking 500 bucks should be enough for an average session with SCQ on a dollar machine and limit the max bets to five bucks. What do you think Phil? Another weird thing. Why do you preview your post and it looks good, post it, read it, and then see all of your spelling errors. That is what happens when you are 66 and still try to type 40 words a minute. By the way, I hate the new keyboards on new notebooks that are offset to the left of the screen. Give me my 12 year old Dell back please.

[alpax]

If you have the bankroll to play dollars, why don't you try this?  Play single line standard deuces wild at $1 a coin.  Start out playing one coin.  When you win 4 coins, go to max. When you lose go back to one coin.  This will keep you interested because you will have still have a chance at a $1000 quad deuce or a $4,000 royal, but you will reduce your cost to play tremendously.  If you hit a single coin quad deuce it's still $200.  Even a single coin royal pays $250, so it's not all that bad of a result.  As my bankroll has increased I play this way 80% of the time and I love it.   Playing max coins all the time hoping to beat the house is futile.




I know that I mentioned several times here that my local casino(s) offer the 99.5% pay tables starting at the dollar denomination, and I listened to the advice on the American Casino Guide (Steve Bourie the main authoer, Linda Boyd of Video Poker Edge, Michael Shackleford of WizardOfOdds, John Grobowski of CasinoCityTimes, Henry Tamburin of SmartGaming) to play the best paying tables as possible. Except for Jacks or Better, virtually all the other quarter games I've seen roughly have mid 97% return. At the same time I might have fell into the trap that the casino has set up.

My logic is that 2.5% house edge is 5 times greater than 0.5% house edge and the dollar is just 4 times greater than the quarter, hence my motive to play with dollars. Dollar games comes with bigger swings, I do not have the 3 royal flush bankroll $12000 upfront that is recommended. I make just one or two trips to the casino a month for the time being until I slowly get to that part, I lost a ton playing table games and slots before this year so I was at the point of considering giving up casino gaming entirely. I did have the Dancer mentality of picking the day of the month where the casino offers a promotional extra free play or a gift.

Playing Quarter Deuces Wild will be Fooler Deuces at 20-12-10 (97.58%), the Dollar Deuces Wild will be NSUD. I started doing the hourly potshots on the NSUD machines, I do 2 $20 ones since it goes by real quick.

I was advised that 99.5% games are considered to be great games and will stand to lose more money betting single coin than max coin from the royal flush payout penalty. One constant is the 9-6 JoB, which gains the more club points for the card in. I was able to retain my 2nd tier status (Gold) for another 6 months thus far. I can play straight up NSUD the next visit until January 2015 when the club points reset.

[FloridaPhil]

The Cheap Strategy was developed with a 5 coin max bet.  If you bet more than that, I think you are giving up too much for a 40% chance you will hit a paying hand.   I write Internet content for a living so I am used to editing my text a number of times.  What happens is I make a statement in my post then think of a better way to phrase it.  Sorry about that, it's just my style. I like playing dollars more than any other denomination, but you need a bigger bankroll to keep from busting.  The most common big jackpot for me is a $1000 quad deuce and they don't require a W2G.  I want to be able to play for at least 5 hours a session.  If you use the Cheap Strategy with dollars, you can usually get away with a $400 bankroll.  I approach the game differently that most players.  I think of every $20 bill as a separate pot shot.  I move around a lot and these days I hit the $5 machines at least 2-3 times a day.  Last Friday, I hit two wild deuces doing this which paid me $125 each time.   I did also hit a $200 quad deuce and a $250 natural royal flush which was very cool.  I play so many hands that I see quite a few royals and single coin royals don't bother me anymore.   For me, royal flushes always seem to come in pairs.  I hit one for $1000 the week before in Biloxi so I was expecting it.  

[olds442jetaway]

Hey Phil. I was talking about myself with the spelling errors. When I said you, I meant me and should have said why does one.... And the 40 words per minute. I think the last time I hit 40 words per minute without errors, the cutie who sat in front of me in high school was out for the day. . I always preview my posts and they usually look good until I post and then reread them. Then if it sounds better another way, I rephrase it. Sorry if you thought my entry below was referring to your posts. Only talking about mine. By the way, I am the one who is 66. You are just a youngster still.