Biloxi on the cheap...

[FloridaPhil]

We're off to Biloxi this Sunday on a three day video poker trip.   I did a little investigation to determine just what the Beau Rivage comps are worth.  A room at the Beau over the three days we will be there is $69 a night or $89 a night for an ocean view plus taxes. This comes to about $300.   Free drinks, coffee and snacks at the cafe is worth another $100.  The plane flight would be worth $600 for both of us, but we don't use it. If you fly you have to rent a car or you can't surf the casinos like we enjoy doing.  So for us the comp is worth about $400.  My average loss over the years staying at the Beau has been about $1,000-$1,500 a trip.  I've won there too, but the losses far outnumber the wins.  The cheap strategy has been working so well this year that I've decided to use it this trip.   The deuces wild odds at the Beau Rivage are the worst I have ever seen at 94.76%.   Unless you're incredibly lucky, max coin play with those odds is a blood bath no matter what strategy you use.  I will take a $20 pot shot occasionally at the $5 machines, especially if I get up on them. If I can get out of there with a total loss of less than $500, I'll be happy.  We'll see what happens....

[Vman96]

What's 94.76%?

I thought standard deuces for that payout was 800/200/25/15/10/4/3/2/2/1 = 94.82%

Note: Changes from FPDW in bold.

Do the paytables change at all with denomination?

ALSO, IF they have deuces wild with STP available, I can GUARANTEE the paytable is higher than 95%, and I world strongly recommend playing that for one line with or without stp. The lowest STP dueces game IGT allows is 20/10/8/4/4/3 = 95.96% before stp.

[FloridaPhil]

The last time I was at the Beau in the spring the deuces pay table was 20/10/8/4/4/3/2/1 .  According to Video Poker for Winners, that's 96.964% max coin and 94.761% short coin. The pay table was the same throughout the casino, even in the high limit room.  In fact, some of the high limit pay backs were even lower, like 8/5 quarters at the bar and 7/5 Jacks for dollars and higher. I've never seen a casino drop the odds for playing more money, but that the way it was.  A few years ago, they started offering 9/6 Jacks in a few floor machines, but quickly dropped them.  I think this is a perfect scenario for using the cheap strategy;  "Wanting to play as long as possible, as cheaply as possible and the comps don't mean much".

[Tedlark]

Good luck Phil. Have you calculated how much your short play will cost you in terms of comps?

[Vman96]

I get 94.76% for single coining that paytable as well. But max coin for that game is only 95.96%. Better game than 7/5 DDB though.

Min coin strategy:
http://wizardofodds.com/games/video-pok ... 200-d-250/

Max coin strategy:
http://wizardofodds.com/games/video-pok ... 200-d-800/

[FloridaPhil]

We value the three nights rooms and such at about $400.   We can pick our dates, so it doesn't matter when we go.  With all the casinos in the world and with most offering free rooms and food, we haven't been back to the Beau Rivage this year.  It's a great hotel and we would be willing to pay to stay there if they dropped our free rooms.   Of course we would play at some other casino with better odds.  Funny thing, we would play max coins and never leave if the video poker odds were just a little better.  We understand the casino needs to make money, but they don't have to turn us upside down and shake out our pockets!  Maybe they'll get the message some day, but as long as slot players will play anything with a coin hole I doubt it will happen. 

[olds442jetaway]

Enjoy the trip Phil. Just a thought on something with the single coin system. If the machine you are playing offers Bonus Poker Deluxe, have you ever thought about playing max on that game right after you hit your 4 or more on Deuces?
     The reason I say this is the following... and granted it would be a pain to switch back and forth...Your shot at Deuces quads is in round numbers 5,000 to one as you know and of course that gives you 200 for 1 if it hits.
     With a shot at 80 for 1 in roughly once every 400 hands on the Bonus Poker Deluxe game, I wonder if you would do better in the long run on those kind of hits.
     I don't know the paytables where you folks play, but at Mohegan, it is a 8/6 game. The hurt of course is getting paid one for one on the 2 pair. Anyway, just a thought and if anyone else wants to chime in feel free. Have a great trip.

[Vman96]

Enjoy the trip Phil. Just a thought on something with the single coin system. If the machine you are playing offers Bonus Poker Deluxe, have you ever thought about playing max on that game right after you hit your 4 or more on Deuces?
     The reason I say this is the following... and granted it would be a pain to switch back and forth...Your shot at Deuces quads is in round numbers 5,000 to one as you know and of course that gives you 200 for 1 if it hits.
     With a shot at 80 for 1 in roughly once every 400 hands on the Bonus Poker Deluxe game, I wonder if you would do better in the long run on those kind of hits.
     I don't know the paytables where you folks play, but at Mohegan, it is a 8/6 game. The hurt of course is getting paid one for one on the 2 pair. Anyway, just a thought and if anyone else wants to chime in feel free. Have a great trip.



If the Beau would offer this for 7/5 or better, I'd say go for it. Would they...um...doubtful.

[notes1]

Phil, good luck in Biloxi. Took the same trip, out of NC to the Beau, earlier in the year. Beautiful property, very nice folks, but, the VP ate me alive .Their vp area is condensed, so as i moved around, i did not see much in the way of cash outs on the machines. My experience there is limited, but i would agree, they seemed to want every dollar i had in my pocket. Had a little better luck at hard rock and also went to harrahs. I think they have changed/enlarged the harrahs property. Let us know how it is. b/t/w, reading some of your posts, i noticed you have been to Cherokee a couple of times. This is my closest casino, so i normally go there once a month. Out of all the places i have been to this year, Cherokee is the only one where i at least see some folks hitting good hands. I am not saying one always wins, but, at least i always feel like i have a chance there. Unfortunately, many of their machines need upkeep/repair.

[alpax]

Good luck to you Phil at Biloxi.

It seems like the deuces wild paytable described is called the Midwestern Deuces

http://www.americancasinoguide.com/vide ... tions.html

I've checked out VPFree for Biloxi and it seems like Harrah's have far superior paytables than Beau Rivage at the quarter denomination. Might want to consider staying at Beau and going to Harrah's to play, it happens at Vegas all the time where people stay at The Venetian or Aria but play at Harrah's since they do not require high table minimums and the slots are slightly looser.

As for comps, the Sunday to Thursday rates are usually the cheapest in general and casinos usually comp those nights to anyone that plays since they cannot fill usual occupancy, its the more active or regular players that get comped for weekends or the high rollers that get comped for holidays.

If you must play on worst paying games (97.58% ER or worse), the good news is, the cheap strategy saves you more than 1/2 of what it costs to max bet all the time, these results are shown from over 25 million hands of simulated play with consistency.