4th of July Contest

[marie meijer]

Eduardo: "Hoochie mama! This one is hard to predict a score on... should be a lot of fun hands.
 
Dealt royals, sure... but will anyone hit one with a multiplier? That's harder to say. But a multiplied 10x Aces with kicker (or even 5x) would beat a dealt royal any way.  So many possibilities.
 
I'm going to throw a number out there any way... I'll say 27,500!"Oh Eduardo, YOU were the only one of 16, 264 members who had the courage, guts, bravado or chutzpah (for lack of better, nice words) to post a guesstimate. For that you deserve credit and admiration from all! However, there is still time for you to rethink and UP that figure! We, collectively, will still respect you.                        I am confident my family members will soon need an anger management HOT LINE because we are currently down to one working computer. I might need that hot line number in the near future, myself. And to think I used to really like this fun game, ever since the royal smiled on me with a 5 multiplier for $5000 in Jan! I am impressed beyond measure with the two members in first and second place!

[grandpa]

On the excellent advice of oej719 and cddenver, I registered for the contest despite the rules to the contrary. After several sessions, nothing has happened to make me a threat to the leaders but I'm pretty sure the dealt royal with a 10X bonus is waiting for me. At that point I expect that the VP S.W.A.T. team will be taking up positions around my house and the webmaster will be ordering me on a bullhorn to drop the mouse, but they won't be able to prove anything because I'm wearing a disguise while I play. Pretty clever, eh?

[cddenver]

On the excellent advice of oej719 and cddenver, I registered for the contest despite the rules to the contrary. After several sessions, nothing has happened to make me a threat to the leaders but I'm pretty sure the dealt royal with a 10X bonus is waiting for me. At that point I expect that the VP S.W.A.T. team will be taking up positions around my house and the webmaster will be ordering me on a bullhorn to drop the mouse, but they won't be able to prove anything because I'm wearing a disguise while I play. Pretty clever, eh?
 
I hope to see your name up on that list, grandpa.  The disguise is a good idea - fake 'em out.
 
As far as my own scores go, all I need to do is add one-little-zero to the end of my personal high score and I'll be right up there.  Just one-little-zero!
 

[faygo]

[QUOTE=grandpa]On the excellent advice of oej719 and cddenver, I registered for the contest despite the rules to the contrary. After several sessions, nothing has happened to make me a threat to the leaders but I'm pretty sure the dealt royal with a 10X bonus is waiting for me. At that point I expect that the VP S.W.A.T. team will be taking up positions around my house and the webmaster will be ordering me on a bullhorn to drop the mouse, but they won't be able to prove anything because I'm wearing a disguise while I play. Pretty clever, eh?
 
I hope to see your name up on that list, grandpa.  The disguise is a good idea - fake 'em out.
 
As far as my own scores go, all I need to do is add one-little-zero to the end of my personal high score and I'll be right up there.  Just one-little-zero!
 [/QUOTE]
 
Just don't put it in front of your score. I totaled up my top five , multiplied by 2 and am only 1815 short of first place.

[MikeA]

Man, it's frustrating with these contests.  In every one of them so far that I can recall, the winning hand has been one in which a monster deal (Royals every time?) has taken the cake.Top two scores now are Dealt Royals with 4x and 5x Multipliers.  It's only a matter of time before someone is dealt a Royal with a 10x Multiplier.So to win, one must only play the game like a slot machine and press deal.  If you aren't dealt a Royal, you aren't going to win so you might as well throw the hand in and try for the next deal.Introduce some skill into the game.  VP IS a game of skill after all.  Try it with single line and count the losing hands against us.  It will still be a Royal that wins, but if it is single line, at least a skillfully drawn Royal will be worth as much as one that is dealt.

[cddenver]

Man, it's frustrating with these contests.  In every one of them so far that I can recall, the winning hand has been one in which a monster deal (Royals every time?) has taken the cake.

Introduce some skill into the game.  VP IS a game of skill after all.  Try it with single line and count the losing hands against us.  It will still be a Royal that wins, but if it is single line, at least a skillfully drawn Royal will be worth as much as one that is dealt.

 
It is frustrating, isn't it?   I've given up on the top spots, but maybe can make the top 100 list if WM puts one out after the contest.  There's still a bit of strategy that can be used to make the top 10.  In my case, any time I'm given a multiplier of any kind I simply go for the complete gold - anything that doesn't give me a shot at Aces w/kicker or a RF gets dropped.  Other than deals with multipliers I've been playing my normal game.
 
I'll put my vote in with yours for counting losing hands against us.  Also, I'd suggest trying an "unlimited hands" contest - each player gets one session, which he or she can pop in and out of at any time.  The problem with that (I think) is that some players might simply create new screennames every time they got down a fair number of points, for a fresh start in the contest.
 
 

[Webman]

Yes, cd... there will indeed be a top 100 once again.
 
MikeA, thanks for the feedback as always. I'll be sure to pass it along and would like to discuss these things with you further.
 
There may very well be a 10x multiplied dealt royal still to come in this contest. And it could very well be you that gets it!

[Webman]

Also, cd... you are correct about the unlimited hands issue. If people got down too far, they would be inclined to just set up a new account and start fresh.  We would prefer that everyone play under a single account and we certainly do not want to punish our gold members for doing so.

[cddenver]

Also, cd... you are correct about the unlimited hands issue. If people got down too far, they would be inclined to just set up a new account and start fresh.  We would prefer that everyone play under a single account and we certainly do not want to punish our gold members for doing so.
 
Thanks - I wasn't thinking of Gold members when I posted that, it would  penalize anyone playing under a single screen name.  Didn't think of people creating new screennames during a losing-counts contest until I was typing my post.  That's cheating!  Some people will do anything to win. 

[New2vp]

One way to introduce some skill into these tournaments would be to disallow a player's best score or two and just make a player's 3rd, 4th, or 5th best score as eligible for the tournament.  Personally, I think the 5th best score would be a fine choice.
 
You may have to think about this a while because it is a bit more complicated to understand and to program, but it requires more skill to have the best 5th-place score than it does to simply be lucky enough to have a dealt royal lined up with a big multiplier.
 
The other downside is that the winning scores will be lower, but that could be a blessing.  It would give a better incentive for people to play longer and look at those ads more (for the off-gold members), since they may still have a chance later in the tourney because the top scores will not be as formidable.
 
Of course, there will always be luck involved, but the effects of requiring an improbable dealt monster to win the tournament would be lessened to almost zero.  It is really unlikely that anyone would be able to get 4 or 5 of those 30-Million-to-one hands (that is unless they have those superior pattern detection abilities that I keep reading about here).  And those playing more games would have a better chance.
 
I'm guessing that this would raise the spirits of the frequent posters who likely are also frequent tournament players and probably are a bit more skilled than the average player as well, because they would see more names that they recognize among the final leaders.
 
But, if you don't think much of my statistical consulting services here, remember that they are at least worth as much as you paid to get them.