question of the day

[wildman49]

The casino I play at has this DDB pay table. I have sat down and tried to understand the holds on VPW but seem to make many small errors. For someone like me that plays many hands a month, even with them errors would it be worth trying to get .10 or .20 percent more out of this DDB vs 9/6 JOB?

[onemoretry]

Without knowing how small the small errors are, and how many there are it's hard to say. That said, I think your long term return would likely exceed that of 9/6 JOB.

But, you would be taking on a much greater variance, and have to be prepared for that. It's a personal choice.

[dinghy]

DDB is not a difficult game, but it sounds like a different learning technique would help.

I always generate a ranked strategy chart for any game I want to learn. VPW can probably do it, otherwise Wizard of Odds has a strategy generator.

I refer to the chart for my decisions during practice, and usually I quickly move on to the "difficult hands only" mode.

Playing "basic" strategy, you'll still occasionally set off the error detector, but the mistakes will be insignificant. The Wizard's basic strategy returns 99.957% compared to 99.958 for perfect play including all penalty-card "exceptions." Basic is good enough.

Incidentally, your photo pay table is actually a 100.07% game with the 50-coin straight flush. The 99.96% game has a shorted straight flush (40 instead of 50).

[olds442jetaway]

I know you cannot out play the 99 percent and better games long term with a poorer pay table, but at Mohegan Sun with a combination of bets up to 25 per deal, multi denomination within the same game, and even line choice options, I have a big chance of hitting something decent on a mild progression up after losing x amounts of bets. The trick is to hit and run since the casino does have the advantage. The highest pay table I have found is 9 for the full house unless I missed it, but I doubt it. I think it’s 98.98 or so return at Mohegan. Just under 99 for the 9/6 DDB game. I don’t use my progression on DDB due to the high variance.

[New2vp]

I agree with OMT and dinghy and thought I might throw in a couple other comments.

Although I could read the per-coin payouts, I could not see the 5-coin payouts on the photo. I am guessing that Wildman made a change (to 200) only to the 5-coin payout while leaving the per-coin payouts at 50. That is the only way I could think that VPFW would produce those percentages for EV and Variance.

VPFW does list basic strategy exceptions but sometimes the basic strategy order for new games is a bit clunky, which could lead to making it more difficult to discern the best way to play. There are a couple such instances in this particular game, one of which is quite common.

When dealt suited 'JT' with an offsuit K, VPFW puts KJ first and shows 6 exceptions when you play JT instead. It is simpler to put JT first. Then, always select JT UNLESS one of the other two cards is suited with the JT, in which case, KJ has the higher EV.

The other rarer complexity shown by VPFW is putting 543-T98 suited ahead of QJ suited and then showing 3 exceptions. A better way is to remember that QJ suited is always better than the 3-card straight flush draw with no exceptions. (Of course, if the sf-draw is T98, hold all 5 cards because you would have been dealt a straight.)

Personally, with this game, I would try to play all the exceptions because there are not that many, and most are not that difficult. However, I agree that there may not be much difference in your monthly results.

Along with KJ vs. JT suited, the two that account for the most EV are listed first below:

1. With the 3-card RF-draw KQJ plus an additional face card, hold the pair of face cards if the 5th card is suited with the KQJ or it is a 9, T, or A.

2. With the 2-card RF-draws, KJ, KQ, AJ, AQ, AK, if there is another card that is suited with RF-draw, and you can hold KQJ9, AQJT, AKJT, or AKQT, hold the straight draw instead.

There are 3 other frequent situations that don't matter much in terms of EV that I will mention if you want to investigate but won't detail here:

(1) A vs JT suited, (2) QJ unsuited vs A, and (3) KT suited vs KT2-KT8 suited.

The only other minor set of exceptions includes when you play an ace instead of selected 3-card SF-draws: 432, 532, 542, 764, 865, 875, 976, 986.

Good luck, Wildman, whatever you choose. The increased variance will giveth and will taketh away. My guess, calculation actually, is that 54% of the time a 99.96% DDB player will outperform a 99.54% Jacks or Better player with both playing 50,000 hands perfectly in a given month.

It would not surprise me if the DDB player would outperform the JoB player by at least 10,000 coins 15% of the time, while the JoB player would be better by at least 10,000 coins 10% of the time.

[wildman49]

Thanks for all the info gang, yes I did change the pay table to 200 for the SF since that is the table at the casino I play at. To be honest I have not spent a ton of time learning the game but the little I did I found perfect play to be hard to understand. Just know JOB,NSUD and BDLX and was thinking a bit more EV at higher demon might be the way to go.

Someone did point out the swings are greater with DDB and that is something I don't much care for.

[olds442jetaway]

I agree Wildman. I am just not good at handling a high variance game. Especially if I use Martingale Clone which I almost always do. One way I get around the high variance a bit is to play 3 lines when I play 20/13 Bonus Deuces Wild on Spin poker. The one downside to that is if your deals are almost always lacking deuces, you will be punished times 3 because the top and bottom line end results will be usually garbage or close to it too. To me bonus Deuces is the most fun to play. One reason is I don’t like going for inside straights on regular deuces or even full houses with 2 pair which some days never or hardly ever turn into full houses. Bonus deuces avoids both of those scenarios, pays you extra for the low number 5 of a kinds, and pays double for 4 deuces with the Ace. The 5 Aces are 80 for one as well. I caught the deuces twice this week with the Ace. One major downside is the straight just giving you your money back, but you can’t have everything.

[dinghy]

Just know JOB,NSUD and BDLX and was thinking a bit more EV at higher demon might be the way to go.

Someone did point out the swings are greater with DDB and that is something I don't much care for.

The BDLX is the weak link there because it's the only one that's not full pay. You could plug the DDB into your lineup instead of the BDLX. Maybe drop down to 50c denom if you want to avoid taxables on the Aces with Kicker.

Another option would be the 35/8/5 Bonus Poker at 99.66%. Strategy should be almost the same as JOB.

[ash190]

If you're playing a ton of hands each month, even those small errors can add up, so it might be worth diving into DDB to squeeze out that extra juice compared to 9/6 JOB. Every little bit counts, right?

[olds442jetaway]

I wish I had 10/6 DDB at Mohegan Sun. I would try and wait out the variance if I did. 9/6 is the best I can get up there on quarters. I will have to check further on dollars, but I doubt it.