Judy's New Strategy

[FloridaPhil]

Forum members who read my posts know that my wife and I play video poker together most of the time.  My wife is an excellent video poker player, but very conservative.   She plays quarter single line deuces wild exclusively and is significantly ahead over the past year.  Royals and quad deuces seem to show up for her on a regular basis.  On our recent trip to the Hollywood Hard Rock, I convinced her to add a little more risk to her game by occasionally increasing her bet.  My current strategy is to play max coin quarter DW $20 at a time switching to dollar play when the counter reaches $40 or more, then switch back to quarter play at $20. This has been working for me, so I thought she should give it a try.  When playing this way you frequently lose your $20 profit and find yourself right back where you started with $20.  Every once in a while, you hit a string of good hands at the dollar level.  We ride these runs setting $100 increment stop limits along the way.  Four times in three days of play, we both ran a $20 bill up to $400 and cashed out.  We never hit a $1,000 quad deuce or a royal flush of any kind and both came home a few hundred dollars ahead.  You need more bankroll to play this way, but it works pretty well.  I don't trust this to work with anything other than deuces wild due to the tendency for the game to run in streaks.  Try it yourself.  If you find a casino with decent odds at all denominations, there's no penalty and it's a lot more exciting than flat betting quarters.

[FAA]

You got that right. Tremendous luck for the daring duo. JOB seems to run in streaks too, but DW is probably streakier due to the higher variance. Quarters all session is getting dull. And I certainly won't resort to the craps table for excitement again.

[FloridaPhil]

I'm not totally convinced that our strategy of moving to dollar play on a run up is a real long term advantage.  Hard to tell, but it has worked so far.  On a negative game the math says we will lose more.  If you get lucky like I did three weeks ago and hit a $4K royal, you build up a lot of confidence.  Time will tell.

[olds442jetaway]

Great while it lasts. Unfortunately, long term, the more we bet, the more we lose. You know I know a lot about that.

[billryan]

I'm not totally convinced that our strategy of moving to dollar play on a run up is a real long term advantage.  Hard to tell, but it has worked so far.  On a negative game the math says we will lose more.  If you get lucky like I did three weeks ago and hit a $4K royal, you build up a lot of confidence.  Time will tell.



If moving from quarters to dollars can give you a real long term advantage, imagine the gain in moving to $5 or $10.
Unless the higher denominations offer better pay tables, any perceived advantage is an illusion. I'm pretty sure you know this.

[FloridaPhil]

[quote=billryan]Unless the higher denominations offer better pay tables, any perceived advantage is an illusion. I'm pretty sure you know this.
[/quote]Yes I do.  Fortunately when you hit a $4K royal flush doing this, it keeps you ahead of the math for quite some time.  I am a believer in math predicting what is probable.  I am also a believer in the ability of the RNG to do whatever it damn well wants.  I must admit it is exciting when you switch to dollar play and that alone is worth the cost to me.  If it pays off, all the better.  

[billryan]

I was playing pennies, at $1 a spin. Accidentally hit the nickle button so now I'm in for $5.
Get dealt a pair and two deuce. Four of a kind for $20.
If I'd drawn the 5oak, I'd have been in video heaven.
As it was, a few hands later I hit a $25 wild royal and left up a few shekels.

[alpax]

I just take it for what it is, a personal preference to enjoy the game.

A good amount of players here play for the big premium quad plus kicker jackpot hands that come once in every while, and find a thrill in that despite the money that can be lost in between them on a dry spell.

Phil and Judy enjoy riding on streaks, where betting bigger will be rewarding when the streak happens (without anyone predicting). The trouble lies when the streaks are not long enough. If the streaks are long, more money is won, and it is much easier to remember experience a long streak.

The only biggest criticism of the published C.S. is the lowered expected payout for the shorted royal. This prescribed strategy (more like an approach) does not lower the overall return as no shorted royal is played, it slightly increases variance to make it possible for a 98.9% game achieve slightly over 100% return for the lucky players.

This is by no means a critique of how anyone plays but to help others understand better. Phil and Judy played VP long enough to know whats best for them.

[FloridaPhil]

[quote=alpax]The only biggest criticism of the published C.S. is the lowered expected
payout for the shorted royal. [/quote]CS was never intended to be a "winning" strategy.  It's total goal was to increase playing time while limiting losses on seriously negative video poker games.  I developed this strategy as a way to survive the horrible Beau Rivage Biloxi pay tables on our three day video poker trips.  I don't know how many players in the US have to put up these odds to play, but I suspect it's quite a few.  Our current strategy is simple, we play max coins and If we can't play deuces wild at  a minimum of 98.9% we don't play.  If you have to play video poker with odds worse than that, my opinion is you're better off playing single coin quarters or even nickels.  I also realize most players won't do so because it takes most of the excitement out of the game and hitting a short coin royal is such a bummer.

[Lionqueen]

I receive offers to Beau Rivage Biloxi, the chartered flight etc and have thought of trying it out but didn't realize they had horrible pay tables. I appreciate the warning and will stay away.