New Strategy in 2012

[BillyJoe]

Well, I had a good 2011 in VP, thanks in part to some nice hits, even though I played mostly volatile VP games, like TDB. I was thinking, though, of changing my strategy for 2012, and play less-volatile games with the best pay tables that I can find (see Frank and Shadow, I do pay attention to you ). I am a casual player, making several trips to Vegas each year, and will still play only on the Strip, so I don't expect to find any 'advantage' opportunities, nor big progressives, during a 4-5 day stay. That said, my question for Frank, Shadow, New2VP and others, is this: If I find a decent pay table, say 99%, on a JOB or Bonus machine, for example, do I increase my ER by playing multi-line (like 5 or 10 way) versus just single line?

[Eduardo]

  ER is based on the pay table, not the number of lines.  Your volatility will change. Get dealt a royal and you will be happier. Get dealt nothing too many times and you will be less happy. The more hands played at once, the more things tend to "average out" I find. As long as you are picking up some wins along the way it's more enjoyable. Will you win more? Well, that depends on what cards you get.  Maybe you are wondering if you are more likely to come away with a winning trip (with more hands played). I'm not sure of the distribution of possible positive and negative scores to answer that.

[New2vp]

Certainly it is good to have goals. From reading your posts, it appears to me that your goals are obviously more than maximizing expected value, which I am not dissing in any way. The more lines you play on less than 100% games, the higher your expected loss.  That being said, based on your past high-volatility multi-line play that I have read about here, I believe you will be bored to death and not have the fun that you had in the past if you restrict your play to single line. When playing strictly for fun at this Web site, I almost always prefer 5-play or 10-play, but of course, I'm not risking anything but time.  Playing single line after that sure feels slow and boring to me, but maybe not to everyone.Needless to say, on single line, it is going to be difficult to have any $64,000 jackpots on single line (unless you play $25 or $100 per coin machines).  Of course, playing higher denomination on single line negative games also increases your expected loss.  And I doubt if many single line thrills can beat the thrill of a large dealt hand on multiline games.  (Maybe hitting a high-level progressive might be one such way, referencing the thread about Huck Seed.) Please don't think I am in favor of limiting your fun.  I think I should be asking your advice to have fun rather than the other way around! You just have to decide how much in the way of expected $ you are willing to trade for the level of fun that you get from various denominations or numbers of lines.

[BillyJoe]

Certainly it is good to have goals. From reading your posts, it appears to me that your goals are obviously more than maximizing expected value, which I am not dissing in any way. The more lines you play on less than 100% games, the higher your expected loss.  That being said, based on your past high-volatility multi-line play that I have read about here, I believe you will be bored to death and not have the fun that you had in the past if you restrict your play to single line. When playing strictly for fun at this Web site, I almost always prefer 5-play or 10-play, but of course, I'm not risking anything but time.  Playing single line after that sure feels slow and boring to me, but maybe not to everyone.Needless to say, on single line, it is going to be difficult to have any $64,000 jackpots on single line (unless you play $25 or $100 per coin machines).  Of course, playing higher denomination on single line negative games also increases your expected loss.  And I doubt if many single line thrills can beat the thrill of a large dealt hand on multi line games.  (Maybe hitting a high-level progressive might be one such way, referencing the thread about Huck Seed.) Please don't think I am in favor of limiting your fun.  I think I should be asking your advice to have fun rather than the other way around! You just have to decide how much in the way of expected $ you are willing to trade for the level of fun that you get from various denominations or numbers of lines.

Thanks for the feedback ED and New2VP. I was thinking that having 10 draws at dealt trips, for example, would yield a more positive ER than just a single line draw. That's what I was not sure about. But if I understand you correctly, then, taking the "fun" and "bored" factor out for a minute, if I am playing anything other than a pay table with a 100%+ ,  then playing multi-line versus single line will not increase my overall ER for a trip.  Do I have that right?

[Eduardo]

Figure in comps too but yes. I only count free play that I earn, myself. If you see great value in other things you receive then those may factor in as well.  But if I earn a free $50 taco at a fancy restaurant, I don't count that as $50 in my winnings because I probably wouldn't have ordered a $50 taco without that. I do count it as happiness in my belly. If you are going to eat at a certain restaurant any way and end up getting it comped as a result of your play, sure... I guess that could figure in. I don't usually earn enough for those things to matter.

[BillyJoe]

Figure in comps too but yes. I only count free play that I earn, myself. If you see great value in other things you receive then those may factor in as well.  But if I earn a free $50 taco at a fancy restaurant, I don't count that as $50 in my winnings because I probably wouldn't have ordered a $50 taco without that. I do count it as happiness in my belly. If you are going to eat at a certain restaurant any way and end up getting it comped as a result of your play, sure... I guess that could figure in. I don't usually earn enough for those things to matter.

Valid point, ED. What I usually do, though, if I am looking to get a few more comps or tier credits during a trip,like if there is a special promotion going on for reaching a certain amount of earned credits, is find a slot where I can at least break-even for a session. At the casinos that I frequent, comp and tier credits are usually 1:5 on slots, but 1:10 on VP.

[Frank Kneeland]

Well, I had a good 2011 in VP, thanks in part to some nice hits, even though I played mostly volatile VP games, like TDB. I was thinking, though, of changing my strategy for 2012, and play less-volatile games with the best pay tables that I can find I'm going to let shadow and New2VP answer your other questions, I wanted to focus on something else, you! Hats off and celebrations all around. What you are describing is nothing less than an understanding of one of  life's great secrets, and it can help you be far more than merely a better gambler: The role of chance.You employed a strategy in 2011 and it worked for you in 2011, and yet your eyes are open to the possibility that chance and not your actions and choices were the cause of your success. Even in the blinding light of success you are looking past that to the shadow of future choice cognizant of the fact that in gambling the past may not be the best predictor of the future. Do you have any idea how rare that is? Kudos!You are also considering going from games with huge swings to ones with less fluctuation, which is even rarer. The tendency amongst gamblers, and especially problem gamblers is to go up in denomination and to play riskier and riskier games. The direction you are headed is towards safe, controlled wagering and very low risk to ever develop problems.Given the incredible year you had you may never top that, and if you change to safer games you probably never will, so don't try. Know that you dodged a semi-truck and revel in your choice not to keep playing in traffic.~FK

[Frank Kneeland]

P.S. The Variance of games has no effect on your comp tier. Even the best casino tracking systems only look at action and game return. They are variance blind. In other words playing $100,000 through on 9/6 JoB with 99.54% return would be the same for comps as playing $100,000 through on any 99.54% return game.~FK

[New2vp]

if I am playing anything other than a pay table with a 100%+ ,  then playing multi-line versus single line will not increase my overall ER for a trip.  Do I have that right?
Multiline does NOT change ER (the percent of bets gained or lost) of a game, whether the game is negative, positive, or breakeven.To determine the expected number of coins lost per hour, you need to multiply the ER by the number of coins bet per dealt hand and then multiply that number by the number of dealt hands played per hour.  (If you are playing a dollar machine, this will also be the number of expected dollars lost per hour; if you are playing any other machine, you need a final multiplication based on the value of each coin.) If you have an ER of 99%, for single line, your expected loss per dealt hand is 1% x 5 coins = 0.05 coins.  Multiply that by your number of dealt hands per hour to get your expected loss per hour.  If you play 600 hands per hour, then that would be 600 hands per hour x 0.05 coins per hand = 30 coins lost per hour. If you have an ER of 99%, for 10-play, your expected loss per dealt hand is 1% x 50 coins = 0.50 coins per dealt hand, exactly 10 times your expected loss in coins for single line but the SAME PERCENTAGE OF THE AMOUNT BET on each dealt hand.  Now, your expected loss in coins per hour on 10-play might be less than 10 times the expected loss in single line if you play fewer dealt hands per hour when you are playing multiline. If you only play 500 hands per hour of 10 play, your expected loss in coins per hour would be 500 hands per hour x 0.50 coins per dealt hand = 250 coins lost per hour. I apologize in advance if I went into too much detail, but based on your question, I thought it best not to make too many assumptions and err on the side of overexplanation. Probably the worst of both worlds, too boring for the things you already understand and too complex for light skimming of the things you might not.

[Webman]

The important question is, were you wearing your VideoPoker.com hat last year? Because I've heard good thing about the ER wearing those things.