Denomination Dilemma

[FloridaPhil]

Balancing your desired time of play with your bankroll is a very common problem. You can't solve this problem with a math formula.

If you play dollar 9/6 Jacks, your bankroll may not be large enough to last through the swings of the game and your play will be cut short. Playing 9/6 Jacks, you may receive the W2-G you desire. It could be a very long time or it could happen in the next 10 minutes. If the comps and free play you receive do not make the overall game positive or you make too many errors, you will lose money.

If you play 8/5 quarters, you will be able to play four times longer with the same bankroll. You will see more quads, but they will be smaller. You may see more royals, but they will be smaller as well. Your comps and free play will be less. They will not be large enough to overcome the house edge.

You have a number of choices. You could only play when you have an edge on the house. This means you won't play as much VP. You could increase your bankroll and play 9/6 dollars. You could lower your expectations and play 8/5 quarters. Ultimately, your results are going to depend on the frequency of royals. There is no such thing as a guaranteed not to lose video poker game.

Everyone is different. My bankroll may be larger. My tolerance for losing may be less. My skill may be less. I may make more errors. My comps could be more. I expect to lose long term no matter how I play, so I play the way that gives me the most enjoyment for my money.

[FAA]

I appreciate the options. I think that I will just come with Caesars TITO! This prevents any dopey impulse dollar play. I’ll play my FP on dollar. I will grin and bear an hour or two of quarter play and leave. At least CET won’t compromise my 9/6 JOB and 8/5 BP.

[FloridaPhil]

My personal suspicion is that none of today's casinos are beatable long term. At least mine aren't. For this reason, I assume I am going to pay to play. If I play with this assumption, I am better able to manage the cost and disappointment when things don't go my way. We all want to win big. Few of us are willing to risk serious money to prove it can happen. How much you can afford to risk is not the issue. How much you are willing to lose between wins is.

I fight this battle every time I walk into a casino. Do I play big or small? Do I take a chance that I will go home early or stay small and win small? Try as I might, some days are losers no matter what I do. I believe the best way to tackle this is to treat the game as entertainment. I play the way that provides me with the most entertainment for the money I am willing to pay. What happens next is up to the RNG.

If you are asking if I play quarters or dollars, I play both. I play quarters about 2/3s of the time. I reserve some of my daily bankroll for dollar play. The danger is I will hit a big dollar jackpot and give it all back. To fight that urge, I set low dollar cash out limits and stick to them. This takes discipline. Do I think doing this will beat the casino? No. Do I enjoy playing this way? Yes.

[FAA]

Zero long term beatable non Nevada casinos. I had a long dollar Caesars session before my Ocean beating, the opposite of last trip. This inflated my hubris and I was quashed. I will carefully sequester my funds and play $40 HL after FP on way out. Long trip; I should take that much risk. But just casually planting myself in the room at the outset and expecting a winning day? Foolhardy in the extreme! WTH was I thinking?

[Webman]

Phil,
I thought this was exactly the sort of discussion you wanted in the Recreational forum. Someone is asking about the preferred way to play two negative situations and receiving good advice without any sort of ridicule for playing the game the way they want to.

Then you show up and start throwing in bits about beating the casino, advantage play and having an edge. That has nothing to do with this discussion. This is the recreational forum.

Look at the people posting in this topic so far... FAA, Eduardo, Tedlark, Waiting4rf. Do you think any of them don't already know about your feelings on beating the casino long term, playing the way you want to play, "managing the cost and disappointment?" Why are you opining on those things now, again, here?

WHY IS THIS A PROBLEM?
I know, you say "if you don't like what I have to say, don't read it." The problem is two-fold. First, you post lengthy things so often, in so many topics, people who want to read the forum actually have to read them or scroll past them repeatedly without knowing what they said. It might be a good excuse if you were only talking about topics that you start. But expecting people to not read the replies in a topic is unreasonable. That's not how forums work.

Secondly, in your off-topic rants, you throw in things like "My personal suspicion is that none of today's casinos are beatable long term." Well, that's great. And not to do with the current subject. But what it does do often is then bring a retort (being false, after all) and before you know it, we are stuck again discussing advantage play in the Recreational forum. Something you despise, despite doing it twice already in this topic. We can't have good discussions like this if you continually throw out the same statements that have been argued against so many times.

I don't know how I can be more clear about this. You already have hundreds of posts on these subjects. Those posts are still out there for the masses to read and be enlightened by so you don't need to keep bringing them up in unrelated topics and throwing things off track.

I guess I've made one more warning than I said i would, because It seems such a silly thing to be banned for, but my patience is up.

I think I've explained it all enough times in enough ways, that it should be clear that I DO want you to participate, but to do so in a way that benefits everyone here, which means not repeatedly bringing the same things up. Share your new experiences. Leave your "life lessons" and advantage play rants to your past posts that live on.

No reply necessary, I ask that people resume the original discussion and not get off track responding to my post here. I just want to be (even more) clear about the circumstances.

[billryan]

Zero long term beatable non Nevada casinos. I had a long dollar Caesars session before my Ocean beating, the opposite of last trip. This inflated my hubris and I was quashed. I will carefully sequester my funds and play $40 HL after FP on way out. Long trip; I should take that much risk. But just casually planting myself in the room at the outset and expecting a winning day? Foolhardy in the extreme! WTH was I thinking?

I'm just going to tell you you are very wrong. You can believe it or not.

[FloridaPhil]

FAA asked a good question. These are same questions most all Recreational Players are asking. Should you play 9/6 dollar Jacks or Better or 8/5 quarters? With the right comps, 9/6 dollar Jacks may be profitable, 8/5 quarter Jacks is not. "Beating the casino" is another way of saying "making a long term profit". I have no problem using different words in my posts. I think it's important to remind people that I do not play VP for profit.

One word of advice I would give FAA. If he is going to switch between quarter and dollar play like I do, I think he should change games. Hitting a dollar jackpot is a rare windfall. He should play a game where the windfall is significant enough to make it worthwhile. If he plays quarter 8/5 Jacks, switches to 9/6 dollar Jacks and hits a quad, he is paid $125.00. A royal flush is so rare he may never hit one at dollars. Why not play Deuces Wild and be paid $1,000 for a quad deuce that is nine times more frequent? A significant portion of the $1,000 and up jackpots I have hit came playing dollar or five dollar Deuces Wild after a switch.

[Tedlark]

Phil you COMPLETELY missed Webman's point: IT IS NOT IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO REMIND PEOPLE THAT YOU DO NOT PLAY VP FOR A PROFIT! The forum got that message the first 300 or 400 times you mentioned it.

Webman stated for you to not repeatedly bring the same things up and here you go. Without printing it on the front page of USA Today: no one here really cares that you do not play vp for a profit.

I told myself over a month ago that I would not respond in the forum like this to your posts and here I go. The forum is also tired of hearing about video poker hits that you made centuries ago. Like Janet Jackson said: What have you done for me lately," not "What have you done for me 20 years ago?"

I have a name for people who live in the past such as you do, I call it "Al Bundy Syndrome." Remember when all Al Bundy had to talk about was the time he scored 4 touchdowns in a single Polk High School football game? Ring a bell?

[FloridaPhil]

If I don't tell them my motivation for playing VP, players may conclude I am playing for profit. Switching denominations on a whim is not long term profitable. I do it because it gives me a chance at a W2-G jackpot at a discount. It seems as though I can't win. Whatever I say on this forum becomes an issue. Even when I agree, it's turned into a negative.

Why don't we just ban all discussion except for posting wins? How many times are we allowed to say "Congratulations" without repeating ourselves? Playing most video poker games in the year 2019 is not about making a long term profit. It's about figuring out how to keep the casino from cleaning out your bank account. We can pretend that isn't true or we can discuss ways to reduce the cost.

[OTABILL]

But if you still have that goal of a handpay, you'll never see it on single line quarters.

Unless of course, it's a progressive.

Ted is spot on. Years ago my wife and I hit progressives on single line $.25 that generated both a hand pay and w-2g and even handpays on progressives and jackpots below the W-2G threshold.