Playing less than max coins?

[FloridaPhil]

I've been experimenting with a strategy that I read about on the Slot Advisor website and am interested in the forum's opinion.  This strategy assumes that it's not worth the effort to play max coins because a royal only comes around once every 40,000 hands or so. I have been told that the royal bonus is only worth about 1%.  The strategy uses the play coins button to move up and down depending upon the last hand's winnings.  I used Dancer's Video Poker for Winner's software to test it before I tried it in a casino and it seemed to have promise.  Betting one coin when you are losing seems to conserve your money when you run into long dry spells.  I recognized that this strategy should allow me to play at a higher demonization while lowering the risk of ruin.  Last week, I tried it at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi.  I have also found that Deuces Wild seems to work better with this strategy as the game is very streaky.  Anyway, I played 4 days at 1$ denomination with a $2,000 bank roll. After 2 days of hard playing, I was only down about $300 with no quad deuces.  If this had happened with max coins, I would have been busted in the first day. I finally got lucky and hit 2 sets of quads for $400 each and one very nice $1000 quad.  I love this strategy as it makes the game even more exciting.  I am prepared to take a possible $250 royal and am strictly a recreational player.  I also realize that a professional would think this strategy is pure nuts.  What do you think?

[Eduardo]

Well, first of all... if you had fun, then great. That's what it's all about.
 
But strategy-wise... no, it does not seem like a wise way to play.
 
First, playing 1 credit dollars is not really "higher-denomination" at all, compared to quarters. I mean, your bet each hand is smaller, AND you lose the opportunity at a royal.
 
Are you losing money fast than playing 5 coins? Of course! 1/5th as fast in losing streaks. But listen... your wins are only bringing you back at 1/5th the rate too, PLUS you still can't get that royal!
 
I would play quarters over single coin dollars any day.
 
If you really want to lower your risk of ruin, play nickels. To me, it sounds like you're more of a quarter player though.
 
You won't get much of a rush moving up to dollars if you're not playing max bet, and when that royal comes along it will be so sad. The royals are what this game is all about. That's why they are rare, and that is why they are so sweet.

[FloridaPhil]

I agree with all you said.  Here's the point.  By playing $1s and moving the coin bet up and down, you always have a chance at the biggest jackpot ($4,000 Royal) while risking less money.  For example, discounting the royal which I haven't had for a year, I can possibly win $250, $400, $750 or $1,000 on quads and there's always the chance of hitting a $4,000 Royal.  I like to play $1s, but the losses depress me.  Playing full coin quarters is fine, but I'm never going to hit a $1,000 quad that way and I get a kick out of the bigger win.  My wife plays full coins and I am playing the crazy way.  So far, we are about even.  It's very interesting...

[Eduardo]

How do you hit a $1,000 quad without max bet?


 
You could do what I do... put aside part of your bankroll for this higher limit play on dollars (still playing max bet) and part of your bankroll for quarter play (also at max bet).  Then you at least make the most of whatever you are playing, and the max bet quarters will last longer. If you win at the dollar level it's wonderful. But if not, you still have bankroll to keep playing without giving up anything.
 
It's just not worth it to me to get anything but the best when I finally get that royal.

[BillyJoe]

A generous pay table may be a good reason for playing a higher denomination VP machine at less than max coins. For example, if the paytable on a $5 VP game is much better than the $1 version, playing one $5 coin may make sense over the max 5 $1 bets. Short of hitting an RF, the payback may be greater for lesser hands, with the same amount of coin-in.
As far as strategies go, my experience has been that you didn't know you were on a "streak" (good or bad) until it was over, and there was nothing you could do about it, like increasing or decreasing your bets.  

[brmcc74]

I personally would never play less than 5 coins. I know the feeling of not getting RF's. I dont hit too many either. The payout is right on the screen to show the difference as to why not play less than 5 coin. That being said, it kills me to see these people playing a 100 play @ $.03 or .04 a hand. Why not just play .01 a hand and make it last longer? .01 to .04 pays the same.

[FloridaPhil]

Thanks for the info.   By-the-way, here's how the strategy works.  You aways bet 1 coin plus the number of coins you won on the last hand. If you won zero you bet one coin on the next play, won 2 bet 3, won 8 bet the max 5 coins and so on. The jury is still out on this mixed coin bet stategy.  It's a lot of fun to have a chance at a 5 coin $1 jackpot while only risking $1 when you are losing.   It's also surprising how fast you can get ahead if you have a good run and how slow your money goes away if you are on a bad streak.
 
Your comment about the better pay table is particularly timely.  At the Beau Rivage they have a few 9/6 dollar J/B machines and a lot more 8/5 or 7/5 quarter J/B.  I suspect it's better playing 9/6 dollar J/B at one coin at a time than playing 8/5 quarters at max coins.

[shadowman]

No betting system can change the expectation of a game. That is simple mathematics. Your system will work for you sometimes and against you other times. The reason is simple ... the machines are random. You can just as easily hit all your better hands when betting at lower denoms as when betting at higher denoms.
 
The cost of not betting max is 1-1.5% based on the game. So, anyone can calculate how betting less than max will affect their results. Take 9/6 JOB as an example. If you bet 1-2-3-4-5 your average bet is 3 coins. Since you get the RF bonus 1/5 of the time you only lose about 1%. So, using a 600 hands/hour  speed you would bet 600*3 or $1800 an hour. Your return would be about 98.5% so you would expect to lose 1.5% of $1800 or $27/ hour.
 
If you played max coin the return is 99.5%. You would be betting $3000/hour (600*$5), so your expected loss is $15/hour. Which is less than the short betting system as I described. You would also earn fewer points which would decrease CB/BB/comps. Doesn't sound real good to me.
 
Now, I could have looked at all the possible results to determine the precise figures for your described strategy, but I think you get the picture. It won't come out much different.
 
Finally, consider what would happen if you only bet one coin on every hand. You would bet $600/hour. Your loss rate would be 1.7% or around $11/hour. Less than both of the previous situations. And this is for what many people consider to be a good VP game. The fact is betting short coin will often reduce the amount of money a player will lose on negative games.

[New2vp]

The jury is still out on this mixed coin bet stategy.You don't have to wait for the jury to come back to make a decision;
math can do it for you.  It just depends on what numbers are most
important to you and how much you like breaking up your play by
switching bets on most hands.

Certainly, the EV is lower when playing less than full coin.  Some might
like evaluating their bet on each hand based on the result, but of
course the result on the last hand will not tell you anything about the
result on the next hand.  So, there is nothing to favor this strategy
more than shadowman's example of simply betting the cycle of 1, 2, 3, 4,
5 coins regardless of the result (or any other such sequence of bets).

With 9/6 Jacks or Better, the breakdown (if one plays perfect Phil strategy) is:

54.6%          1 coin
11.7%          2 coins
  9.5%          3 coins
  6.1%          4 coins
18.1%          5 coins

This ends up at 98.85% EV vs. the 99.54% from playing 5 coins.  The
standard deviation is 10.24 coins per play vs. the 5-coin standard
deviation of 22.09 coins.  If the comparison is dollars with the Phil
strategy vs. quarters with the 5-coin strategy, the comparison standard deviation is $10.24
with the Phil strategy vs. $5.52 with quarter max-coin play.

The average play with the switching-coin strategy is 2.215 coins per play vs. the standard of 5.

At 600 hands per hour, the 5-coin strategy loses an average of $13.68
per hour vs. an average of $15.26 per hour with the switching-coin
strategy.

One other thing that has not been mentioned yet.  You probably cannot play
as fast when changing your bet 62.0% of the time (which is what would
happen with perfect Phil strategy at 9/6 Jacks), so that will cut down
your losses on negative play games some.  Of course, not playing at all
will cut down your expected loss even more...but that's no fun!Summary:  To each his own! (Or her own, when applicable)

[FloridaPhil]

Thanks for the great input.  I can see that this strategy is just randomly causing me to switch denominations on the fly.  I could probably get the same result by playing 1/3 of my session at .25, 1/3 at .50 and 1/3 at $1.00.   It does seem that the game, especially deuces, runs in high and low streaks which make the coin change betting strategy seem workable.  But, mathematically it makes no sense.