VP Short Term Strategy

[DOUBLE B]

When I see info on tournament VP it is always suggested that you do not necessarily play to correct strategy. Question: Why? I will wait to see what answers are given (if any) and then ask a few related questions. Thanks

[shadowman]

A tournament normally is played with a fixed number of hands. The only way to win requires hitting a RF or several quads. Therefore, the proper strategy is to maximize ones chances of getting these results. Note how this is different than normal VP where your results are really based on all the hands you play in your life. Having one or two better sessions at the cost of many bad sessions creates poor overall results.
 
For example, holding two pair will never provide a quad or a RF. So, it is wrong to hold two pair in a typical tournament. One caveat here. Once a person does hit a RF then playing standard strategy is often the best play. Gives you a better chance of beating out the few others who also hit royals.

[DOUBLE B]

Question #2-----------Sooooo-if I decide that I am going to play VP for only 5 or 10 minutes and I want to hit it big, my best play is down play correct  strategy and go "all in"" at every opportunity for the 5-10 minutes that I have decided to play? Is that correct? Thanks, Again!

[Eduardo]

Not, not correct at all unfortunately, at least in drawing the comparison to tournaments.
 
That would ignore a couple other factors of tournament play:
 
1) Your money is not at stake.
2) You MUST get a jackpot to win a tournament.
 
If your only goal is to hit a jackpot in 5-10 minutes then yeah... go ahead and play for the jackpots alone. The casino (and other players) will love you for it. You will certainly increase your odds of getting a royal flush in doing so. Unfortunately, the odds are still long enough that you will most likely lose more than you gain with that approach, and much more quickly.
 
If you really only have 5-10 minutes in your life to play video poker, then I say go for it. That's what gambling is about. But if you apply this strategy too many times, it will end up being a bad idea in the end.

[spxChrome]

I would say yes if your not into playing.  You would be better off putting $500 in a $5 machine than a .25 machine.  Hope for a big win and take it home or play for a few hours and let it whittle you down to nothing .25 at at time.

[New2vp]

Double B, It all depends on your goal.  Paraphrasing what has already been said, with a tournament, you generally want to maximize your probability of winning the tournament with no effect on your current or future bankroll.  (Those might almost be Eduardo's exact words.)If you simply want to maximize your chances at a royal flush, the strategy is easy:  just keep the suit that has the highest number, from the dealt cards, from Ten thru Ace.  That might be hard to convince yourself to do if you are playing for real money and are dealt  9e8e7e6e5e or 4 aces with a 7 in your eponymic game.  I don't think you would generally go so far as to want to toss all 5 cards from a small straight flush or keep only one of the quad aces for the tiny chance at a royal.  And if you think straight flushes or quads do have some value in addition to the value you place on a royal flush, you have to decide if they have more or less value than the ratio of the coins for the straight flush (4000 to 250 or 16 to 1) or the quad aces (4000 to 800 or 5 to 1) in the game that you are playing.  If you wouldn't toss them, you have to ask yourself how about a full house when I'm dealt 88877 or even QQQKK when two of the cards are suited.  And so on for all other combinations of dealt cards.The entire idea of "correct strategy" is maximizing the EV considering all the payouts.  If certain jackpots are subjectively worth more to you, you can simply change the payoffs using vp software or Web sites to what your personal relative values are and develop strategy from there.There are other ways to determine strategy if you have a different goal in mind.  If you were playing 9/6 Jacks or Better at "correct" strategy, you would expect 40,391 hands between royal flushes.  This would figure out to an expected loss of 921.10 coins including the 4000 coins that you would win with the royal.  If you increased the subjective value of the royal from 4000 to 4879.97 coins, you would decrease the expected number of hands between royals to 35,939 hands and your expected loss would be "only" 879.97 coins.  This is the minimum expected loss between royals when playing this game.  Of course, your expected loss per hand would be higher with this modification to "correct" strategy.But your favorite game, 10/7 Double Bonus works differently.  Because it pays so much for a flush, you hold more 4-card flushes that contain 3-card royals and go for straights more often as well with the result that the expected hands between royals is higher than Jacks or Better at 48,048.  And since this is a positive game, you expect a profit of 414.47 coins between royals (including the 4000 coins for the royal).  But you could get even more profit between royals if you subjectively valued the royal at only 3578.55 coins.  Here the RF value actually needs to decrease.  It would then take you an average of 50,010 hands to get a royal, but your average profit during that time would increase to 421.45 coins.  Similar to the situation with Jacks or Better above, while the total profit would increase, the profit per hand would unfortunately decrease.So, paraphrasing from that famous old movie, "You have to ask yourself, do you feel lucky?" or in other words specifically "Just what is your goal?" and "Can you stick with the selected strategy regardless of what cards you are dealt?"

[Eduardo]

That's right, it depends on what you're after. But you don't have to change strategy to have a good chance at winning in a short amount of time.
 
You could do as spxchrome says and play $5 instead, where you won't even need a kicker or a royal to win a large amount.
 
Or, increase your number of lines substantially by playing 5 or 10 play. On a recent trip I did just that on 50 play quarters ($62 a deal) and it worked out well for me. The odds were against me doubling my money, but if you just get dealt a 3 of a kind on a 50 play machine, you will be happy as you fill in a good number of quads as a result.
 
You might go home in the 5-10 minute that you are talking about, but you don't have to throw away good opportunities by compromising on strategy.

[spxChrome]

but if you just get dealt a 3 of a kind on a 50 play machine, you will be happy as you fill in a good number of quads as a result.

 
Don't bring up my painful memory of getting 4 to the Royal playing 100 play and not getting even 1 Royal

[Lucky Larry]

[QUOTE=Eduardo] but if you just get dealt a 3 of a kind on a 50 play machine, you will be happy as you fill in a good number of quads as a result.

 
Don't bring up my painful memory of getting 4 to the Royal playing 100 play and not getting even 1 Royal [/QUOTE]

Know that feeling.... last trip 4 to RF on 50 hands 4 times and not one RF. Hit RF holding three to RF on three different occasions the same night.   

[spxChrome]

[QUOTE=spxChrome] [QUOTE=Eduardo] but if you just get dealt a 3 of a kind on a 50 play machine, you will be happy as you fill in a good number of quads as a result.



 

Don't bring up my painful memory of getting 4 to the Royal playing 100 play and not getting even 1 Royal [/QUOTE]

Know that feeling.... last trip 4 to RF on 50 hands 4 times and not one RF. Hit RF holding three to RF on three different occasions the same night.    [/QUOTE]
 
lol yea those machines have a mind of their own.  I was playing a while back and after get trip Aces like 40 times without getting the 4th ace.  I hold a lonely 2 and up pops AA2AA.  Go figure