Cheap Advantage Play?

[billryan]

In Phil's mind, no one beats the game without making millions selling books.
I hear the same garbage at blackjack tables. Casinos invented basic strategy, you can't count six deck shoes, the decks are rigged, so on and so on.
Most people learn from their mistakes. Others embrace them. Diversity rocks!

[FloridaPhil]

There is a lot to talk about here.

First, I realize Bob Dancer did not invent Advantage Play Strategy and I have acknowledged that in previous posts. I believe it was originally proposed by Dan Paymar. Dan Paymar had a good idea with his Optimal Play Strategy. What Bob Dancer did was take it to a different level, add a million dollar testimonial to it, make it his own and market the concept.

I have no problem with the strategy itself. I do not think the Strategy alone will make you a winner. This is the main problem I have with Bob Dancer's marketing. If you can't lose, you never quit. If you can't lose, you increase your bet to make more profit. I believe this is dangerous and risky advice that no one should follow. If Bob Dancer wants to use it, he knows the risks and has the resources to shrug off his losses. Marketing this concept to people who may not have either, is irresponsible in my opinion.

Increasing your "coin in" to earn more comps sounds like a good idea on paper. Unfortunately, in most of today's VP games you will pay many times more for what those comps are worth. In my world, VP games are 96%-99% games. If I play max coins all day, I can lose $200-$300 dollars a day 8 out of 10 times. One or two out of ten times I will hit a royal for $1,000 or a run of quad deuces and recover some of my money. The free play will be about $20 a day and the points will buy me lunches. Over time, I will lose a minimum of $5,000 a year. The casino will let me stay in the hotel anytime I want for free. This works for them because I can easily lose up to $1,500 on one of those trips.

What has proven to work better for me is to play small and pay for my own comps. Sometimes, like in Biloxi, the comps are valuable enough to justify the cost to play bigger. This is because staying at the Beau Rivage is a vacation that we very much enjoy.

How much you bet and how you play VP is a personal choice. Ted likes to play multi line games. Olds likes to use Martingale. Someone else on this forum make enjoy playing slots or Blackjack. I am not crusading against any strategy as long as you enjoy what you are doing. What I am against is experts making statements that "Return" in video poker is ever guaranteed. I am also against using this logic as justification to put more money at risk.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, the casino is going to win long term. If they don't, they will change the game or the rules. This is not the year 2,000. Casinos don't make major mistakes. The casino knows who wins and who doesn't. Win too much and your comps will be reduced. Win too big or too long and they will ask you to play somewhere else. If you want to live a nice lifestyle from video poker, you will need to invent a new strategy because the old one doesn't work anymore.

[Waiting4RF]

You have to be intelligent to be an AP. You have to be intelligent to understand how an AP makes their profit.

[FloridaPhil]

You have to be intelligent to be an AP. You have to be intelligent to understand how an AP makes their profit.

I am an intelligent individual. I assume you are as well. I am not perfect and I do not know everything there is to know. I have the a lifetime record of accomplishment. I have few regrets.

I do not care how APs make their money. I do not care how much money they make. What I care about is someone who may not be as intelligent as we are believing Advantage Play Strategy is infallible and finding out it isn't. Video poker is gambling. It's not calculating the trajectory to the moon or uncovering the human genome. There is risk in gambling. If you are lead to believe you can't lose by using Advantage Play Strategy and the cards do not appear as predicted, you will lose regardless of the games you play, your skill or your bankroll. You and I don't know if we will be here tomorrow. How can we possibly know our long term results in advance?

[FloridaPhil]

I apologize in advance for any grammatical or spelling errors in my posts. The 15 minute time limit is not near enough time to edit a worthwhile post and find all the errors. If the purpose of setting this time limit was to make errors more numerous, it works. If someone retroactively changes the meaning of their post, they should be called out for it. I suggest we go to a 30 minute editing limit. That should give everyone a chance to get things right.

[Tedlark]

Phil, in many of your posts you state that you think it is "evil" to market a "can't lose" video poker strategy and to then sell (in some way, shape, form, market, or package) this strategy to those unassuming players who may not know better. Fighting back against this is your battle cry.

Have you any proof that once a player walks into a casino AND LOSES they continue to follow such a "can't lose" video poker strategy? If a player did in fact did buy into such a strategy how long do you think they would continue to follow it if they lost in a casino?

[billryan]

Phil thinks it. Therefore, it is. Truth be damned.

[Webman]

I apologize in advance for any grammatical or spelling errors in my posts. The 15 minute time limit is not near enough time to edit a worthwhile post and find all the errors. If the purpose of setting this time limit was to make errors more numerous, it works. If someone retroactively changes the meaning of their post, they should be called out for it. I suggest we go to a 30 minute editing limit. That should give everyone a chance to get things right.

30 minutes it is.

[FloridaPhil]

Have you any proof that once a player walks into a casino AND LOSES they continue to follow such a "can't lose" video poker strategy? If a player did in fact did buy into such a strategy how long do you think they would continue to follow it if they lost in a casino?

Hopefully they are smart enough to learn from their mistakes. Why don't the experts say this?

"Advantage Play Strategy gives you the best chance of playing winning video poker. Video poker is gambling and as such your results are based on chance. Be aware that your results may vary. Past performance is not indicative of future results." Do not play video poker with money you can not afford to lose.

This would be very similar to the disclaimer that is used when selling option investments. Stating that math makes Advantage Play Strategy infallible is what I have an issue with. When I buy an option, I am gambling that something will happen. I know the risk and I reap the reward or suffer the loss. If I wrote a book that said I have an investment strategy that can guarantee a profit, they would throw me in jail.

If our expert comes out and verifies the disclaimer above or says something similar, I would be satisfied. I doubt he will because he has spent years teaching people that the casinos can be beat through skill and intellect alone. If anyone beats the casino long term they had those attributes "and" they were also extremely lucky.

[OTABILL]

For what it is worth, I am tired of repeatedly reading about Advantage Play on the recreational forum. It belongs on the Strategy Forum. Secondly, enough with BD, etc. Phil please let it go. There are so many other areas to discuss that apply to recreational players that have nothing to do with AP and BD. Thirdly, to critics of FP, enough with sarcastic comments that don't add anything to the discussion. If you don't agree with something, just say it.