How much do we still not know?

[chattycattty]

I Agree with Chattycatty
It happened to me on this trip several times. I was dealt 4 To the Royal (open Ended) Needed the Ace of Diamond. Didn't get it. Next deal, the first card was the ACE of Diamond. Also many many hands I was Dealt 3 ACES, never got to hit the 4th Ace, and Baaam the next deal the missing ACE shows up....
After reading all these comments and getting the info, I am seriously considering to stop playing High Limit VP. I rather play a game like BlackJack or Baccarat. What is the point of me playing a perfect strategy game when the machine is programmed not to give me that "MAGIC" card anyway. It just doesn't make sense at all. I am glad I am not the only one that makes these type of observations. Billyjoe, I respect your opinion as well. You have no doubt played far more hands of video poker than I have. The truth is anyone's guess. The mind is powerful and can believe what it wants to believe.

I remember a few years back, someone, I do not remember who, posted that he or she never could get a 4oak when they were dealt 2 matching cards at either end of the five card draw. Every time I get dealt this I think of this and therefore cannot remember the last time I converted this type of 4oak.

Sometimes I think we need to just block everything out and play like we are expecting to win. Knowing proper strategy is important but timing and luck is even more important. The last thing we need is to be distracted, or be obsessed with stuff we have no control over, or let our minds play tricks on us.

[Vman96]

I remember a few years back, someone, I do not remember who, posted that he or she never could get a 4oak when they were dealt 2 matching cards at either end of the five card draw. Every time I get dealt this I think of this and therefore cannot remember the last time I converted this type of 4oak.


I am confused on the wording...what positions are we looking for the initial pair? These were my latest occurrences. A lot happened in late April and in Feb.

Positions 1 and 5?
June 16th - Ameristar St. Charles (first hand of the day too I think also lost almost $300 at live poker that day too...ouch)
Early morning April 29th: Hollywood St. Louis 4 Aces on 35/8/5 Bonus...meh
Feb. 12th: Treasure Island (First quad of Feb. Vegas trip)
Jan. 26th: Ameristar St. Charles quad after I hit 4 Aces for $200.

OR

Positions 1 and 2?
Early morning April 30th - Hollywood St. Louis (my g/f) 22 22 Q at Super DDB
Late night April 29th - Ameristar St. Charles (me) 22 22 J at Deuces...Damn pennies though!

(I think that might be the only two I have though one of which isn't mine...surprising)

OR

Positions 4 and 5? I seemed to get a crapload of these...

Sept. 3rd - Planet Hollywood...Day 1 in Vegas!
Aug. 30th - Hollywood St. Louis when I met Tedlark

(and 4 more times between April and July)

March 29th - Ameristar St. Charles $400 quad queens on Ultimate X quarters, tied for biggest hit in my life...

(3 more times in Feb. with twice in Vegas, 1 in Nov. 2013)


So if I counted up right (113 quads that are my own on the phone):

4 since Oct. 2013 holding positions 1 and 5

only 1 since Oct. 2013 holding positions 1 and 2

a whopping 11 since Oct. 2013 holding positions 1 and 2



Hell I'm bored and need to drain my phone battery anyway:

Here is the breakdown of all the pairs to quads on my smartphone by held by position (position 1 is far left and position 5 is far right):

12 - 1
13 - 3
14 - 9
15 - 4

23 - 7
24 - 4
25 - 7

34 - 5
35 - 7

45 - 11

Total: 58 of 113 total quads
Average per position 5.8

Probability of having 1 or less quads in a position based on these averages: 1.85%

Probability of having 11 or more quads in a position: 3.1%

Extremes are a little more extreme than one might expect, but still a pretty small sample.

[chattycattty]

I am referring to positions 1 and 5. And seriously, cannot remember converting a single one into quads since reading that observation several years back unless I was playing a 50 or 100 hand video poker game.

[DaBurglar]

LOL   V-man wins the title of best analytical methodology by a Video Poker dot com Poster!!!!!     Dude, you and your phone battery  beat the crap out of me and all my loose leaf notebooks with cranberry juice stains going back to 1997!!!!    wowzer......I too have had the experience of seeing the card I desperately needed for a big win  SHOW UP on the very next deal, but like others have pointed out, this is something  Our mind plays tricks on us with, in that we remember certain things much more readily and prominently because it SUITS or subconscious thinking and desires.     Subconsciously, we want to believe  the machine might be rigged  because if that is true, then it removes much of the responsibility we hold for our LOSING  at video poker.    Therefore, we remember PROMINENTLY all the times when our needed card shows up on the very next deal....it makes sense when you think about it.......but as I have half-heartedly  thumbed through all my data and notes and computer files and spreadsheets trying to actually quantify this scenario,  I cannot find any true pattern or predilection on the part of the games to do what it is we are thinking here.    Nah, instead I just think that, IF......IF a casino is going to tip the balance EVEN further in their favor when it comes to VP,  it is done with the simple act of having the machine DEAL more non-paying dead/dud hands.   

[DaBurglar]

Listen, Guys...

I've been inside a current gen (not latest, the ones just before latest which are very much still current) machine.

I've studied all of the physical components and determined that there is nothing special.

I've studied the software, I've key chipped this machine and explored all of the menu's available. There's nothing there. It's all pay tables and denominations. They chips are region coded and region regulated.

I've spoken to Tech's. I've spoken to slot managers.

Nobody gives a hoot'n crap about trying to manipulate a machine. Think 1970's arcade when you told the fat guy that the bumper on your kiss pinball machine wasn't working right and you got that look like WTF. These are the casino professionals. The slot mgr at Harrah's doesn't even know what denoms are on his machines. They are no super genius's by any chance and there is no greater conspiracy to rig machines.

Now with all that said, any individual could manipulate a machine but not these guys. No way. The plug goes there is about all your gonna get out of them.

Things run hot things run cold. Study the math. We are human and can perceive what we consider think is manipulation of random events. Nope, it's what I keep saying as Randomly random. Again, not to say that IGT isn't coming up with new ways to seed their RNG and that may produce slightly different random numbers, but nobody is throwing the win/no win switch at the casinos. I've had quad aces on the CRT machines and I've had them on the flatscreen.

RoveerRoveer, thanks for this incisive post, and thanks for sharing the efforts you made at your own EXPENSE......Did you uncover or encounter anything at all that you feel has helped you Improve either your game or your chances of winning?    By that, I'm not, repeat  NOT , asking if you found a way to cheat, but instead some methodology or practice that helps us players get a legitimate edge or lessen house edge......for example, such a thing I am talking about  MIGHT be to wait a certain amount of time in between deals,  or press "Hold" in a certain sequence, or press certain buttons a certain number of times, etc.   SOme of us might call these things "bugs" or glitches,  but until or when a casino or manufacturer actually FIXES these glitches, it is all's fair in love and war (and VP) out there?having said all that,  I personally still hold out the possibility that there is a way or method (or option or menu, etc   take your pick on the actually wording or description of such a thing)   for a casino to SET the VP game to deal a certain percentage or rate of NON-paying  dead or dud hands.    it is obviously a simple straightforward scenario, the RNG simply (and "Randomly") spits out the sequence of one of the NUMEROUS possible sequences that signify a non-paying dud hand.     Since we know each of the 52 (or 53-54) cards in a playing deck receives its own numeric identifier, it is easy to compile and identify the combinations of numeric identifiers that would embody NON-paying hands.      You can see how and where this is going.....with today's generation of lightning fast processors and memory and such,  this is not a farfetched scenario, TECHNICALLY speaking....in fact it has NOT been farfetched for a LONG LONG time by now.The fact Roveer did not specifically encounter a MENU  or an OPTION that would signify a "DUD hand setting"  does not mean it does not exist.For now, I will abide and agree with Roveer in that it is not LIKELY that casinos cannot (or DO NOT)  set any of their machines to deal more crapola than is statistically expected.......but I will be keeping my eyes and ears/hearing aids, wide open!!

[BillyJoe]

Once again, I stand by my original premise on this subject - the casinos just DON'T NEED TO DO IT.

They make between 1% and 5% on all their VP machines, and that assumes OPTIMUM PLAY AT MAX BET. Don't forget about all the short-coin play, and the folks that really have no clue.

VP has, for a long time, provided Tier Credits at a rate of 1 per $10 coin-in at most large casinos, where slots (where they CAN control payout percentage without displaying a paytable) is 1 per $5 coin-in. Many casinos now are also limiting or eliminating comps or credits on VP machines that approach full-pay. Why would they do that if they could simply restrict payouts ?

[Tedlark]

  DaBurglar do you still keep copious notes on your play as you have in the past?   Simple yes or no question.

[DaBurglar]

Once again, I stand by my original premise on this subject - the casinos just DON'T NEED TO DO IT.

They make between 1% and 5% on all their VP machines, and that assumes OPTIMUM PLAY AT MAX BET. Don't forget about all the short-coin play, and the folks that really have no clue.

VP has, for a long time, provided Tier Credits at a rate of 1 per $10 coin-in at most large casinos, where slots (where they CAN control payout percentage without displaying a paytable) is 1 per $5 coin-in. Many casinos now are also limiting or eliminating comps or credits on VP machines that approach full-pay. Why would they do that if they could simply restrict payouts ? I agree that this is the LIKELY and probable reality Billyjoe, in MOST places like Vegas/Reno and other markets.     But you need to at least consider the extreme end of this argument/scenario you outline, and that is "Why would they need to do that if they could restrict payouts (or increase dud hands even?)"    Well the answer is simply IF the casinos took MANY of their machines and set the dud rate down in the range of 87% return even though the paytble says 97% or 98 or even 99, then very soon MUCH of their customer base who play vp would totally give it up.....as it is many of us are sensitive to paytables and when they drop like they have been it does impact peoples' play....not everyone but some.     But if VP machines really started to gobble cash without giving back anything, then the casinos would have NOTHING (or almost nothing).So I envision a running balancing act.......during my extended AC statistical nightmare, I would sometimes find a machine that seemed to be "normal" (again this was mostly 99% games I was playing) in what it distributed as results.  Others however were not normal.   Look at it this way......none of us can factor out the "HUMAN" element in all of this....greed, incompetence, and just plain malice and malfeasance are things were just cannot wish away, and which always have the potential to enter the picture.      We say "CASINOS DO NOT NEED TO CHEAT"....well, that's what we think and it seems reasonable and logical.   But People are NOT always reasonable & Logical (see tedlark.)Banks were plenty profitable BEFORE Mortgage Backed Securities entered the picture....and then they were extremely profitable BEFORE they started doing credit default swaps on garbage rate MBS' products......they did not NEED to leverage themselves 45 to 1 (or worse)  but hey, they did!!!   lol

[Vman96]

Many casinos now are also limiting or eliminating comps or credits on VP machines that approach full-pay. Why would they do that if they could simply restrict payouts ?

Totally agree. The best payback machines at Horseshoe Hammond are mostly slapped with either $50 per tier credit, or $25 per tier credit. Same with the Vegas and AC properties. If the machines were not required to deal random, equally probable cards, why bother with doing this? I have yet to hear a good answer to this question either.

Conversely, my local casino used to offer "double points" on one video poker bank. It had crap games like 6/5 DDB loaded on it looking for suckers, which it sometimes got. A 9/6 DDB bank was adjacent to it...

[DaBurglar]

[QUOTE=billyjoe] Many casinos now are also limiting or eliminating comps or credits on VP machines that approach full-pay. Why would they do that if they could simply restrict payouts ?

Totally agree. The best payback machines at Horseshoe Hammond are mostly slapped with either $50 per tier credit, or $25 per tier credit. Same with the Vegas and AC properties. If the machines were not required to deal random, equally probable cards, why bother with doing this? I have yet to hear a good answer to this question either.

Conversely, my local casino used to offer "double points" on one video poker bank. It had crap games like 6/5 DDB loaded on it looking for suckers, which it sometimes got. A 9/6 DDB bank was adjacent to it... [/QUOTE]The 50 for 1 point machines most likely are totally random and correct, but we all know the "take" for such machines is down for casinos that offer them.......in AC, the CET  50 for 1 machines are ALWAYS open, whereas before when they earned normal comps they were ALWAYS full (you could never reserve such machines).       My crappy statistically aberrant results in AC were MOSTLY on 99% games!  Hence my outrage.......but it makes sense:  Casinos take fairly strong paytables which attract players, and then sucker punch them with a setting that deals dead/dud hands at a rate far in excess of the expected 55% frequency.     That is the scenario that makes most sense to happen.....But again, I am NOT saying this definitely happened (or happens) only that I think it could be possible with certain machines and that today's economic/business environment and the times we live in ADD to the likelihood that we might have unfair machines in our midst.But we all need to remember....casinos are LOSING business in many markets, and constantly lowering paytables and comps and giving less and less is making th eproblem WORSE.    Hence that is why we cannot ALWAYS revert to the logic "well all a casino has to do is lower the paytable etc."   That is a self defeating strategy long term.     But so is cheating right?      Gee, I guess casinos are really screwed  lol!But of course, we know they are screwed in many cases....as I said before we are seeing things today happen that barely less than a decade ago would have been  INCONCEIVABLE! (that's for all you Wallace Shawn  Princess bride fans)       Before 2005-2006, NO one foresaw how so many casinos in so many markets would be gasping for life at this stage......Casinos going bankrupt on a massive scale?!?!!?    again.....INCONCEIVABLE!!!!