vpFREE2 Forums

A Loose Deuces "experiment"

#1

For grins, I ran the following experiment, using Video Poker for
Winners.

Bankroll: $50,000 (I did not want to run out of money)
Hours played: 100 hours (10 ten-hour days)
Rate of play: 1,000 hands/hour
Total games played: 100,000 hands
Game played: Loose Deuces Wild (101.6%), 1-line, 50-cent

Probability of ending with a profit: 71.96%
Probability of ending with a loss: 28.02%
Risk of ruin: 0

There are lots more specific results, but one of the more surprising
things to me was that there was only slightly more than a 1%
probability of earning an average of more than $20/hour for the 100
hours of play.

Now I know a person would be "earning" more comps, by way of "points"
and things like that, so things are not as bad as they seem to be,
with this single experiment.

But, I did find the experiment interesting in light of the recent
availability of this game.

It seems to me that this is a lot of playing, with almost no chance
of making even $20/hour.

<smile> Makes me glad I am only a "recreational" player.

…..bl

#2

bornloser1537 wrote:

For grins, I ran the following experiment, using Video Poker for
Winners.

Bankroll: $50,000 (I did not want to run out of money)
Hours played: 100 hours (10 ten-hour days)
Rate of play: 1,000 hands/hour
Total games played: 100,000 hands
Game played: Loose Deuces Wild (101.6%), 1-line, 50-cent

Probability of ending with a profit: 71.96%
Probability of ending with a loss: 28.02%
Risk of ruin: 0

There are lots more specific results, but one of the more surprising
things to me was that there was only slightly more than a 1%
probability of earning an average of more than $20/hour for the 100
hours of play.

It seems to me that this is a lot of playing, with almost no chance
of making even $20/hour.

"Almost no chance" at coming in at just 1/2 EV, despite a 72% shot at
a profitable result? That should be cause for you to take a second
glance at your results.

I took a run at this with VPW and came up with the same profit/loss
odds, so I think we're looking at the same numbers. However, I read a
48.7% probability at coming in above the $40/hr EV ($4000), and a
60.7% probability at making your $20+/hr hurdle.

(Or are you just trying to corner the machine bank for yourself and a
few friends? :wink:

- H.

#3

Not "my results". I just turned on VPW and let it run.

.....bl

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Harry Porter" <harry.porter@...> wrote:

That should be cause for you to take a second
glance at your results.

- H.

#4

Harry Porter wrote:

> That should be cause for you to take a second
> glance at your results.

bornloser1537 wrote:

Not "my results". I just turned on VPW and let it run.

So did I. You really want to run it again and take a closer look at
the resulting chart.

If I read my scribblings correctly, the following probabilities fell out:

EV = 1.6% edge * $2.50/wager * 100,000 wagers = $4000

ending b/r,%

50,000 28.02%

50000-52000 11.27%
52000-54000 11.99%

54,000 48.70%

- H.

#5

It is possible that we did not run excactly the same "experiment". The "difference" may be
the "cut-off" limit that we used (the only thing that I did not state when I reported my
results).

I set things up so that I would only "quit" if I doubled my money. That is, starting with a
bankroll of $50,000, I would only quit if I reached $100,000. Of course, this never
happened. I set things up so that I would "never" quit and would always play the full 100
hours (100,000 hands).

What was your starting bankroll and what was your cut-off limit?

.....bl

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Harry Porter" <harry.porter@...> wrote:

Harry Porter wrote:

So did I.

- H.

#6

bornloser1537 wrote:

It is possible that we did not run excactly the same "experiment".
The "difference" may be the "cut-off" limit that we used (the only
thing that I did not state when I reported my results).

I set things up so that I would only "quit" if I doubled my money.
That is, starting with a bankroll of $50,000, I would only quit if I
reached $100,000. Of course, this never happened. I set things up
so that I would "never" quit and would always play the full 100
hours (100,000 hands).

What was your starting bankroll and what was your cut-off limit?

I ran the same parameters (as it happened, I also used a $100K quit
point, since it was assured that no sessions would end early).

I'm going to suggest, again, that a cursory examination of your
results (ok, the results you report from VPW :wink: doesn't feel quite
right.

Like I did, you found a 72% likelihood of ending with a profit. But
you find the odds of coming in with half expected profit for the
session to be extremely remote (and, presumably, the odds of coming in
at EV to be near non-existant).

That means 71% of the return is concentrated between 100% and 100.8%,
on a game with 101.6% ER. That's a rather remarkable peak.

I'm not trying to be a smartass ... just making clear the
improbability. I feel a lot better about results that are distributed
51%/49% around the mean.

Because your profit/loss stats were consistent with those I found, I
expect that the difficulty arose in reading numbers of the chart ...
which isn't exactly a smooth exercise. The correlation of displayed
values to the pointer position isn't the cleanest.

- Harry

#7

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Harry Porter" <harry.porter@...>
wrote:

Because your profit/loss stats were consistent with those I found, I
expect that the difficulty arose in reading numbers of the chart

- Harry

It was not my "eyes" looking at the histogram, it was my "fingers"
mistyping in the little spreadsheet that I worked up to summarize the
results. There was a "stealth" factor of 10 in what I used to
summarize my results.

Using a proper view of the VPW histogram, typing correctly in the new
spreadshet and double-checking with Dundar's software, I get
a "revised" result of something like:

2% chance of losing $150/hr
26% chance of losing $50/hr
55% chance of winning $50/hr
17% chance of winning $150/hr
1% chance of winning $250/hr

.....bl