Should You Play VP Bigger?

[FloridaPhil]

The results in this kind of intelligent gambling are MUCH safer and MUCH less volatile than putting your money in the stock market.

I have an idea. Why don't I call the IRS tomorrow morning and tell them I want them to let me play VP with my IRA because Bob Dancer says it's less volatile than stocks. When we privatize Social Security, lets send our money to South Point. I wonder what my accountant would say? Before I dialed him on the phone my wife would have me carted off to the nut house.

You guys need to lighten up. The Recreational Forum is not about playing VP with an advantage. It's about small time video poker players, the same ones that are paying your bills. If someone wants to talk about holding red aces on Tuesday, I want them to be able to. There are millions of people who enjoy video poker as a game. I'm one of them. All I want from VP is entertainment and that can come in any form I want it to.

The most common game at the casino where I play is 8/5 Double Double Bonus. I don't expect anyone who is serious about long term profit to play this game, but they do. These players play that game because they like it. It just so happens that the cheapest way to play that game is single coin as small as possible. One of the worst ways is $5 a coin. This is what I am talking about, not some dream game with an edge as big as Texas.

[markinca]

The most common game at the casino where I play is 8/5 Double Double Bonus. I don't expect anyone who is serious about long term profit to play this game, but they do. These players play that game because they like it. It just so happens that the cheapest way to play that game is single coin as small as possible. One of the worst ways is $5 a coin. This is what I am talking about, not some dream game with an edge as big as Texas.

And this what you just don't get, no matter how many times people have to tell you. I'm sure almost all AP's would also agree with you that playing $5 8/5 DDB is bankroll suicide, unless there's some sort of ridiculous drawing/comp overlay that could turn even 8/5 DDB into a positive play.

Literally no one is saying or has ever said that you should walk into your local casino and hit up the $5 VP machines and you'll be an AP, rolling in money. That's not how any of this works. That you still don't understand this astounds me, frankly.

[paco13]

If I'm dealt 2 red Aces and 2 black Aces on a Monday which 4 Aces should I hold? Or does it depend on what game I am playing?

[Tedlark]

Are you playing in Atlantic City?????

[paco13]

Yes.

[billryan]

Then it doesn't matter. Whatever you discard will reappear.

[olds442jetaway]

Playing big win or lose have severe tax consequences. If you live in CT, even if you offset all of your gross gambling winnings with your losses on your Federal return, W-2Gs or more correctly gross gambling winnings of a hundred to two hundred grand when added to your other income, could boost your Federal MAGI to a point where you are not allowed to make your Roth IRAs. Keep going up and you will lose some of your itemized deductions. Yes, you can offset your gambling losses as an itemized deduction, but in CT, you will also get wacked 6 percent or so on your Gross gambling winnings depending on your Ct gross income. Ct does not allow you to offset your gambling losses. You could easily end up writing a check to Ct for ten grand or so even though you had a big gambling loss on the Federal side. Been there done that and its not fun. Keep running up your Modified Adjusted Gross income and your itemized deductions start to phase out as well. Tax law is extremely complicated and each person should consult their own tax adviser. You can read the various IRS publications too on the exact numbers where you begin to lose your Ira and itemized deductions on the Federal side. If you are a dollar player, and play regularly weekly or even more frequently, it is very easy to fall into this trap. I know first hand. If you play 20,000 hands or so a week as a dollar player on say job, in the long run, you will hit a Royal every 2 weeks or so and at 4 grand a pop, that's around 100k in W2-Gs a year right there. If you play other games like DDB, Bonus Deuces Wild, DDS etc. you could end up with many many W-2Gs by the end of the year and still have lost a bundle.

[FloridaPhil]

Here's what I'm saying. Listen up so I don't have to continually say it over and over again.

I want the Recreational Forum to be a place where members can discuss any VP strategy or game they desire in any way they wish. It should not be used to discuss positive game strategies at all. It should not be used to discuss APs or professional gambling period. We should be able to do this without having every word we say picked apart by someone who never plays these games.

Millions of players play negative VP games every day. You are not going to change that. Some do it by choice, most have no better option. If you are going to play these games you are going to lose long term. I want to be able to discuss ways to reduce that cost. I want to discuss things that don't work and why. I personally think this is more helpful to more people than teaching them to play games that do not exist where the majority of players play VP in 2018.

Bob Dancer and his students need to stop taking everything I say as a personal assault on his strategy. It's not. In his world his strategy works. It doesn't work in mine because I lose money on every hand I play no matter what strategy I use. Because of this fact, I play small and do things that I like without checking the math. The net result is I am entertained at a discount.

If we can't get this basic principle, there is no use in having a VP forum. We just sit around all day and recite pages out of Bob Dancer's books. I've read those books dozens of times and I don't need to do it again on this forum.

[tech58]

I have read thru this entire thread. Some of it twice.

The script is the same. Apples and oranges!!

FP i do not play the way you do but most VP players do. To discuss your thinking can be helpful to others. Can i suggest something? do your thing, reply to like minded posts, and ignore the oranges people. In my opinion they are small minded LOSERS.

[markinca]

You're absolutely right, Phil. This forum should not be a place where you discuss AP strategies. The problem here is that YOU continue to not only bring them up, but misconstrue them, make false claims, and then people have to come to correct you about all the nonsense you spew, and then you claim THEY are bringing up AP strategies. Unbelievable.

Just as an example, if you were to say something like, "A lot of AP's play $5 VP games, but the ones around me have horrible paytables and there just aren't many good promotions/drawings to make it work, and I don't have the bankroll for it anyway", that's fine. That's understandable.

Instead, you say, "AP's tell me to play $5 VP games - well that's dangerous because <blah blah blah>". Well, for starters, no one has ever said that everyone should play $5 VP. You make stuff up, people correct you, and nothing changes. Why? Because you don't actually read what anyone says. You just wait for your turn to talk. It's infuriating.

If you want this forum to be only centered around recreational play, then YOU need to do a better job of sticking to it. Stop bringing up AP play. Stop bring up Dancer. Stop.