One Coin Quarters Con't

[FloridaPhil]

I went to the Tampa Hard Rock yesterday for day two of my single quarter experiment.  As before I didn't hit a quad on the first $20 at max coins.  I do this because it seems to me that on my best days I hit one right away and I want to take advantage of it when it happens.  OK, now I have $100 left and played DDB single quarters for the rest of the day.  To make a long story short, I played for 4 hours, got 4 aces wo kicker once, quad 4s with an ace once and some regular quads.  At the end of the day I got a straight flush, which was kind of a nice send off.  I was dead tired and the whole day cost me $20 total.   I have yet to have a really good day where I can switch to max coins, but I've played about 6,000 hands for a  total cost of $60.  Playing this way lets you see a lot more hands.  Obviously, playing a 95.5% game is a long term loser.  As recreational players, we lose even money because we often bust before the good hands bring us back.  

[olds442jetaway]

Way to go Phil and some nice hits too. A lot better than my average loss of 30-60 dollars an hour playing 5 or 10 quarters per hand. Now if I can only overcome the lure of the occasional W-2G playing larger amounts.  You would think that would be an easy decision to make with only 1 W-2G for the year and at least 400,000 hands played  this year.  The comps  come close to making up a loss like that, but that is when you value them at a retail price for everything offered and of course you can't put the comps in your pocket for the next trip to use as your bankroll for that day.

[FloridaPhil]

I have the same problem, but I think I'm well on my way to working this out.  What got me thinking about this was the realization that even when I hit a Royal I sometimes come home a loser.  What good is it to pump $1,000s into a VP machine just to experience a great win or two?  Suppose I play 5 sessions and lose $250 each time playing max coins, then on the sixth session I hit a Royal for $1000.  I still lost $250, but I go home with a smile feeling like a winner.   If I play the same sessions single coin, I only lost $50?  Not really,  I actually made $200 more than I would have playing max coins...   It's all in how you look at it.   

[olds442jetaway]

I agree and how about this. On the rare occasion you do hit the Royal for 1k, you
' justify " pumping 2 or 3 hundred back in before you quit for the day. You think that no matter what I still go home a winner for the day and somehow " forgot " about the last 7, 8, or more losing sessions. If I am unable to force myself to play 1 coin quarters most every time, I may try nickels since they start paying the correct amount with 5 nickels in and you have the option of going up to 40 nickels per bet. I don't know if that is an option in Florida. The only problem is the paytables for all of the nickel games are all around 95%. This game is so streaky, sometimes I think a couple of percent on a paytable doesn't matter that much in any given day. If you play 4,000 hands for the day at 5 nickels a hand, you are cycling through 1,000 dollars and 2 % of that is only 20 bucks. I haven't read all of your posts, but I don't remember there being a nickel option in Florida. There is actually a penny option too in Ct., but only at Foxwoods and not Mohegan where I play. You can have lots of fun with that. They do pay the correct amount for the Royal with 5 pennies in and the games have an option to choose between  1 hand or more all the way up to 100 hands. There are not that many of them, but I know where they are at Foxwoods. If you come up north sometime, I can tell you where they are as well as where the 2.5. and 10 cent games are at Mohegan. Good luck and health to all................................................ PS....The Bonus Poker 100 play penny game at Foxwoods is a 6/5 game and it pays 2 for 2 pair. Not all that bad in the short run. You can get a 98% game there on Joker Kings at the 10 cent level too on the same machine. I forget if the DDB penny game at Foxwoods is 7/5 or 8/5, but it is one of those.

[Minn. Fatz]

  As recreational players, we lose even money because we often bust before the good hands bring us back.  

There's a mathematics for that too. It's called Risk of Ruin; the late Michael Canjar did some important (and mathematically very advanced) work on that with respect to video poker and similar games. But the short version is that if you play only games with a negative expected return your risk of ruin is always 100% -- eventually you will lose your whole roll.

Me, I draw the line at increasing the casino's edge even more by playing less than whatever amount of credits per hand gets me 800 per credit for a RF. So when I play, even with a negative expectation, I play the highest-return machine I can find, and afford. Plus I set per-session and per-day win and loss limits and stick to them.

Good Mathematics!

[Vman96]

I haven't read all of your posts, but I don't remember there being a nickel option in Florida.

Yeah, that's what he said previously. Otherwise, playing 5 nickels could be better. The best nickels I can find locally is 6/5 Super Aces Bonus (97.78%). But given the good availability of full pay units at the quarter level in the area (9/6 JoB, 8/5 Bonus, 9/6 DDB, etc.), short playing quarter machines is technically the better option in terms of return at my two closest casinos.

[FloridaPhil]

At this time we do not have a nickel video poker option in Florida.  8/5 DDB is about the best quarter DDB game you can find in the southeast.  One coin returns 95.6%. Max coins returns 96.7%.   At 800 hands an hour single coin I'm giving up $8.80 per hour to play. Max coins costs me $33 an hour.  If I play for 4 hours, that's $35 vs. $132.  But, the numbers don't tell the whole story.  On really bad days, you often bust early playing max coins.  This takes you out of the game and gives less time for the big paying hands to occur.  The hard part for me was getting my mind adjusted to playing the game at the lower stakes.   It works for me because I can always switch to max coins if the machine goes crazy and starts pumping out quads.  Because I'm going to the casino with only $120 in my pocket, that's all I can lose.  I feel really good about my decision to switch to single quarter play.  Like a big weight has been taken off my back. 

[olds442jetaway]

Wish I could borrow a transformer from Mr. Spock and beam down a couple of these games we have in Ct. to other parts of the country. I'm talking about the single line VP machines that allow up to 25 units bet and in denominations of 2,5,10,20, and 25 cents all in the same machine. Pay tables are no good averaging around 95% for the games, but you have so many options depending on how your day is going. For instance, last night and early today at Mohegan Sun I was able to eek out a small profit on all of the 6 different machines I played. I played an unusual version of Bonus Poker where the biggest jackpots are on the Royal and the same 4,000 units for 4 Aces when A  C  E  $  is spelled out. It also pays a similar schedule to Bonus Poker for the Aces and other quads. 9/6 too and 2 for the 2 pair, but a big penalty built in by paying 2 for 3 of a kind. At any rate starting at the minimal level and using one of my Martingale clone methods it worked on all of the machines. I only had to bet up  to the 25 unit max with my method on one machine so I had to switch to nickels on that one. About 10 minutes later though, Aces appeared with another quad of 4s a few minutes later. I was back at the 2 cent level when I caught the fours, but I didn't care at that point. In the long run even giving up 5% to the house you can play these for three dollars an hour assuming you play five units at the two cent level per hand and play 600 hands per hour. These machines get tons of action and that is why I have to play them late at night and early AM. and I'm sure the casino does well with them. I don't know how much management listens to VP players anymore, but it might be worth a shot to try and get some of these or similar ones put in where you play. They are really fun on low budget days or any day for that matter. 

[Vman96]

Yeah that's pretty bad ACE$ Bonus. It pays back 94.21%. I think CET bartops in Vegas offer the 10/6/4/2/2/1 version (95.36%).

The best penny game in the STL area also has an odd paytable. It's Deuces wild, but gives 1120 for 1 (5600 for 5) for the Royal. 1120/200/25/16/13/4/3/2/2/1. This does give the game a nice 97.5% base return. It also has Super Times Pay on it, making it 97.77% overall. Only one unit will let me play it for 6 cents minimum though. :( I'm usually playing 30 or 36 cents if I can get on it though.

I really need to find the 5600-coin royal machine Lucky Larry found last summer...lol: 1120/200/25/15/9/4/4/3/2/1 with STP (99.96% w/STP) I'd pump a buttload of money into a machine like that...lol

There are also about a dozen bartops in my local casino that will let me play 6/5 Super Double Bonus (96.87%) for as cheap as 5 cents a hand or any other amount up to a dollar a hand.

So in my area, St. Louis, you can play some decent games for really, really cheap.

And in Tunica, I often play 9/5 DDB with Double STP (98.37% w/DSTP) for 14 cents a hand. They also have the weird 5600 RF table on their 50-play deuces wild machines (97.77% w/STP version).

[olds442jetaway]

Just back from another Mohegan Sun trip and luckily had some success this time. Tried 1 coin quarters  for several hours and only 1 quad, but no major losses. Tried my Martingale clone method on the Ace's Bonus game starting at the 2 cent level, but nothing was hitting and after a couple of hours found myself at the ten cent level with almost 2 dollars a hand being bet. Down almost 200 at this point, I bailed out for the night and decided to get up early about 5 and play some 9/6 JOB no points machines. I also use a Martingale clone method on this game when playing quarters and it can get too expensive pretty fast if quads and full houses aren't hitting. Held my own for about an hour and was dealt a straight flush with 5 in. That gave me some extra ammo. Would you believe 5 hands later, I was dealt 3 to a Royal and luckily drew the other 2 Diamonds I needed. The only bummer was I had 6 coins in, so a W-2G was issued. Not complaining though as this is only my second one for the year and they came pretty close together only about a month or so apart. Met a nice retired couple who spend a lot of time at South Point in Vegas. They say it is great for VP and they do much better there than Mohegan. If anyone had any input or experiences at South Point, I would love to know. Now the trick is to get back to 1 coin quarters for awhile instead of giving back today's Royal in just a couple of sessions.