harrah's st. louis is done for me

[BobDancer]

[QUOTE=royal flush] any czr/harrahs game has poor paytables at 25c dollar level and at high levels with comps/points the plays are iffy at best
At Caesars AC, I was playing a Five Star Poker Machine with 9/7 TDB Double-Pay $1. Dealt FH was 250 rather than the usual 200 for Double-Pay.
 
So to your point, Royal Flush, I would not agree with you.   [/QUOTE]
  We have a debate between RF and BJ! As a gambling writer, these are initials I use frequently. I agree with RF that in general harrah's has poor pay tables for $1 and lower games. I also agree with BJ that occasionally you can sometimes find hidden nuggets if you scout out all the machines. The particular game he mentioned (TDB Double Pay) is not a game on the radar of many players here, but it was a good find for him. I hope he did well. Scouting takes time/energy/knowledge. It only pays dividends sometimes. Machines like All Star Poker or Five Star Poker can contain one hundred or more different game combinations to check. But that also means one hundred or more different game combinations for slot departments to screw up on because each particular game combination needs to have a number of exactly right settings made. You'll find a lot more "better than typical for that casino" or "worse than typical" games on these machines than on others simply because of the sheer number of different things the slot department needs to get right. Bob

[BillyJoe]

[QUOTE=billy joe][QUOTE=royal flush] any czr/harrah's game has poor pay tables at 25c dollar level and at high levels with comps/points the plays are iffy at best
At Caesars AC, I was playing a Five Star Poker Machine with 9/7 TDB Double-Pay $1. Dealt FH was 250 rather than the usual 200 for Double-Pay.
 
So to your point, Royal Flush, I would not agree with you.   [/QUOTE] 
I also agree with BJ that occasionally you can sometimes find hidden nuggets if you scout out all the machines. The particular game he mentioned (TDB Double Pay) is not a game on the radar of many players here, but it was a good find for him. I hope he did well.
 
Bob[/QUOTE]
No scouting was required, Bob. I have to thank one of the AC regulars (but I can't remember who it was, sorry ) from this site for pointing me to this bank of machines near the 'horsey parlor' prior to my visit. This was only my 2nd trip to AC, both of which because of 7Star events there, so by no means do I know where all the desirable VP games are in AC.
 
I like the Five Star Poker $1 Double Pay machines, and finding the TDB game on it with a good pay table was a real bonus. I did well on those machines during my stay. No $64k dealt RF like @Caesars LV, though.   

[rascal]

Going back to the original post: I travel about 4 or 5 months of the year and one thing I have learned is that all hotels, casinos, airlines, etc, are for some strange reason staffed by humans, and humans do in fact screw up badly at times. I just very recently had a confirmed (and doubled-checked) room reservation at one of the finest hotels in New Orleans screwed up. It would be so easy for me to quit going to this place due to this screw-up. But the error occurred because a human being made a mistake, so I am more than willing to continue to do business there. However, if errors of this magnitude continue to occur, then of course I will take my business elsewhere. My point, Cook, is that with a hotel or any other place of business, I think it is only fair to make a judgement based on the level of service you have received over a period of time, rather than on one visit. Yes, of course, hotels (and especially upscale hotels) promote their "perfect at all times" service. But the reality is that our fellow humans perform this service and they do indeed have bad days, terrible days. In my case at the New Orleans hotel, it was a perfect storm and everything that could have gone wrong for desk staff that day in fact did go wrong. I understand this and I am willing to give them another chance. Your frustration is so totally understandable, really it is. But don't let one bad experience become the factor on which you make a final judgement about anyone or any place.

[Dave E.]

At Caesars AC, I was playing a Five Star Poker Machine with 9/7 TDB Double-Pay $1. Dealt FH was 250 rather than the usual 200 for Double-Pay.
 I have never played Double Pay but the Wizard of Odds website says that to get the true return on Double Pay, the returns of the deal paytable and the draw paytable must be averaged. Then videopokerhelp says if the draw paytable is 99.58% 9/7 TDB, then the deal paytable is 98.86%. Therefore the total return is 99.22%. Am I missing something? References: http://wizardofodds.com/games/video-pok ... ouble-pay/ http://videopoker.fws1.com/doublepay.htm

[BillyJoe]

[QUOTE=billy joe]
At Caesars AC, I was playing a Five Star Poker Machine with 9/7 TDB Double-Pay $1. Dealt FH was 250 rather than the usual 200 for Double-Pay.
 
I have never played Double Pay but the Wizard of Odds website says that to get the true return on Double Pay, the returns of the deal pay table and the draw pay table must be averaged. Then video poker help says if the draw pay table is 99.58% 9/7 TDB, then the deal pay table is 98.86%. Therefore the total return is 99.22%. Am I missing something?

References: http://wizardofodds.com/games/video-pok ... ouble-pay/

http://videopoker.fws1.com/doublepay.htm[/QUOTE]
DARN  !  
 
Looks like I was STILL supposed to lose money on that machine. Oh well - maybe next time..
 
But that is a GREAT Bob Dancer question, Dave. I hope that he responds.  

[DaBurglar]

I take credit for the "Horsey Parlor" verbal guidepost, I like my posts to be unique and memorable, mostly for my own benefit since I often forget what I write or say .... I just wish this forum was a little more PG-13 and allowed an occasional F-bomb here and there.....I meaqn geeesh, we are talking about gambling in sin city arent we??  You oughta here the typical language at any given poker bar in Downtown Vegas, it'd make George Carlin's corpse blush!   Boob Dancer is 100% correct about the possibility of people making mistakes when setting up the paytables on machines, it happens all the time.  Last month, I reluctantly stopped at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut for a couple hours while my brother finished up a tourney final table.  I actually found a bank of VP machines where 5 of the 6 machines had a crappy bonus Poker paytable setting of typical 6/5, but one of the 6 was set at 9/6!!!   The JOB paytable on the same machines was set at 7/5 so clearly someone goofed... Of course, it is possible that, on the other hand, some casinos might intentionally put these "nuggets" as Bob calls them out there, so that people like Bob and myself and anyone else who is a serious player keeps coming back.   Here's the flip side though:  In 2 hours of playing this 9/6 Bonus game, anyone want to guess how many quads i actually hit (I played slowly, about 800 hands in this 2 hours)??? Hint:  If the goose that lays the golden eggs suddenly laid plain ol' eggs, thats how many quads I hit.    HAD TO BE RIGGED@!!!!!! 

[onemoretry]

Hint:  If the goose that lays the golden eggs suddenly laid plain ol' eggs, thats how many quads I hit.    HAD TO BE RIGGED@!!!!!! 

 I assume you are being sarcastic.  A mere 800 hands without a quad, which has about a 15% chance of occuring, is hardly big news.  

[DaBurglar]

I assume you are being sarcastic.  A mere 800 hands without a quad, which has about a 15% chance of occuring, is hardly big news.  
 Nope   i am truly po'd   totally miffed     I donated 2 hours of my life and x-amount of money in those 800 hands, I have every right to expect a quad here or there.  I'm thinking of suing....    Un-stinkin-believable

[BobDancer]

[QUOTE=Dave E.] [QUOTE=billy joe]
At Caesars AC, I was playing a Five Star Poker Machine with 9/7 TDB Double-Pay $1. Dealt FH was 250 rather than the usual 200 for Double-Pay.
 
I have never played Double Pay but the Wizard of Odds website says that to get the true return on Double Pay, the returns of the deal pay table and the draw pay table must be averaged. Then video poker help says if the draw pay table is 99.58% 9/7 TDB, then the deal pay table is 98.86%. Therefore the total return is 99.22%. Am I missing something?

It's been a long time since I researched Double Pay, but when I did, it was ALWAYS the case that the return on the DEAL section was HIGHER than the return on the DRAW section. Therefore, since the base game returns 99.58% my understanding is that the DEAL part of it is going to be in the 99.7%-99.8% range --- and then you should average the two numbers.Although there have been a very few exceptions, generally speaking the higher-ups at videopoker.com (i.e. Ernie Moody, Mike Fields) and IGT video poker (i.e. John Daley) believe that the law in certain jurisdictions make it so that betting extra coins MUST increase the theoretical EV. So while I'm not willing to bet the farm that this is the case here, my assumption is that it is very likely true. The fact that BJ said in his original post about this particular game that the dealt FH paid more than he was used to adds to the probability that the DEAL information on the wizard's website didn't apply.  If any of the AC folks go to that particular machine and accurately copy down the pay schedule for the DEAL part of that game I have an Excel program that determines how much it returns.  I'll post the my calculations here and forward it to Shackleford. It's his goal to have the wizard website 100% accurate. Although that's an impossible goal, he does correct any errors discovered. Bob

[BobDancer]

[/QUOTE]
No scouting was required, Bob. I have to thank one of the AC regulars (but I can't remember who it was, sorry ) from this site for pointing me to this bank of machines near the 'horsey parlor' prior to my visit. [/QUOTE]
 Paying attention to what is mentioned on sites such as this one, vpFREE, www.vpfree2.com, and www.wizardofodds.com is included in what I meant by "scouting."  Without trying to debate whether I used the right word or not, the point I was attempting to make was that successful players need to make efforts to find out where the good machines are. The slot director will be well aware of what's on his easy-to-find machines. These machines will be set to whatever the house standards are. The harder-to-find machines can hold nuggets.   Bob