The wizardofodds has come up with a payout schedule and playing
strategy for ace invaders available through the vpfree links.
ace invaders strategy
Thanks, that was an interesting article - I wrote off this game figuring I was playing the game at least .3 under optimal strategy, and suspected 8/6 ( the best schedule in Vegas that I found ) was not all that good. True enough, Mike S pegs this game as worse than 9/6 double double playing perfect strategy. I would consider playing this highly volatile game only if I can find the 9/6 or full pay 10/6. Anybody know of any ?
PS - He says at the end of the artilcle , his analysis is .1% under what LED claims the payback is. I tend to believe the Wizard !
···
----- Original Message ----- From: "vpearlkc" <vpearlkc@yahoo.com>
To: <vpFREE@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2006 9:30 AM
Subject: [vpFREE] ace invaders strategy
The wizardofodds has come up with a payout schedule and playing
strategy for ace invaders available through the vpfree links.vpFREE Links: http://members.cox.net/vpfree/Links.htm
Yahoo! Groups Links
tomflush said, regarding Michael Shackleford (Wizard of Odds) and the
Ace Invaders Bonus Poker game: PS - He says at the end of the article,
his analysis is .1% under what LED claims the payback is. I tend to
believe the Wizard !
I would believe LED (Leading Edge Design) --- the numbers were probably
calculated by Chris Brune of IGT. Shackleford and Brune know each other
and respect each other (and I am friendly with both men and they are
both WAY out of my league mathematically speaking). With no disrespect
toward Mike intended, when Brune publishes a figure, I treat it as fact.
Plus, IGTs figures have to be approved by various gaming commissions,
which provides another check.
If the two men got together and compared notes, I'd say the odds would
be far more likely that Shackleford would end up agreeing with Brune's
figure than Brune end up agreeing with Shackleford's. (But I've been
wrong on handicapping before.)
One strategic ploy I learned when I was talking with Larry DeMar getting
ready to write an article about the game was that from a hand like 3344A
you hold all five cards. Shackleford's notation (two pair, aces=1) is a
bit hard to understand, but he says to hold four cards on this hand.
This could be a typo on Shackleford's part, Larry DeMar could be wrong
about the strategy, or it could explain why LED says the return is
higher than Mike says it is.
I am bcc'ing this note to both Mike and Larry. Larry is a member of this
forum and posts sometimes. I'm not sure if Mike is, but if he has any
response and would like me to post it, I will be happy to do so.
Bob Dancer
For the best in video poker information, visit www.bobdancer.com
or call 1-800-244-2224 M-F 9-5 Pacific Time.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Thank you Bob. Here is what I can add.
The game Ace Invaders was designed and patented by Omni Design Group,
like our company a small independent developer. http://www.odg-inc.com/
Michael did the initial mathematical analysis for Omni which I believe
is the basis for the data on his site.
Later, our company ( http://www.ledgaming.com ) licensed the game from
Omni and then we licensed it to IGT. All 3 companies worked together
to create the version of the game that is now approved and in casinos.
As Bob suspected, Chris Brune along with another mathematician in his
group did the analysis for the 6 paytables. Like Bob, my experience
with Chris has shown that when we have different results that I have
to find out what I did wrong. We hired an outside consultant to do a
seperate analysis to corroborate the findings of Chris' group. These
matching results are what Bob published in his article in the February
issue of Strictly Slots.
During the development process there were 2 significant design
decisions. The first concerned what to do when different ace
combinations can make the highest paying hand. We analyzed the ways
this could impact the player and came up with the "most ace" rule
which in rare cases would cause 4 Aces to drop from the top line to
the center line when either a straight flush or 4 Aces could result.
This "most ace" rule provides incremental gain due to those 4 aces
continuing to form 4 or 5 aces on the lower hand in this case. We
then had to add the "leftmost" rule to handle the case where multiple
aces could fill a straight as shown on the Wizard's web page (
http://wizardofodds.com/aceinvaders ). The leftmost rule doesn't
change the return of the game.
When Michael first worked on the game, the rule for dropping Royal
Flushes only included dealt Royal Flushes and we modified it to
include Royal Flushes that fill on the center line from a falling Ace.
I suspect that the gains from each of these changes combine to account
for the .1% discrepancy. The math for this game is extremely
complicated and I think that Michael didn't redo his analysis to match
the final version of the game which he seems to be saying on his site:
"I was hired to analyze this game in 2002. The analysis was so
complicated I don't care to try to explain it here. My original
returns for the bottom row were about 0.1% lower than that claimed by
Leading Edge Design. It is possible they are right so I inflated by
(sic) bottom row returns a little to match those by LED."
As for the hand of 2 pair with an Ace Kicker, the excellent strategy
at the Wizard's site shows 2 pair with the Ace worth 2.724 while 2
pair alone is only worth 2.654 so we all agree that the correct hold
for 2 pair with an ace kicker is to hold all 5 cards.
I hope that this information is helpful to clear up the discrepancy
and will be happy to answer any further questions here or through
email to info@ledgaming.com
-Larry DeMar
President
Leading Edge Design
http://www.ledgaming.com
···
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Bob Dancer" <bob.dancer@...> wrote:
tomflush said, regarding Michael Shackleford (Wizard of Odds) and the
Ace Invaders Bonus Poker game: PS - He says at the end of the article,
his analysis is .1% under what LED claims the payback is. I tend to
believe the Wizard !I would believe LED (Leading Edge Design) --- the numbers were probably
calculated by Chris Brune of IGT. Shackleford and Brune know each other
and respect each other (and I am friendly with both men and they are
both WAY out of my league mathematically speaking). With no disrespect
toward Mike intended, when Brune publishes a figure, I treat it as fact.
Plus, IGTs figures have to be approved by various gaming commissions,
which provides another check.If the two men got together and compared notes, I'd say the odds would
be far more likely that Shackleford would end up agreeing with Brune's
figure than Brune end up agreeing with Shackleford's. (But I've been
wrong on handicapping before.)One strategic ploy I learned when I was talking with Larry DeMar getting
ready to write an article about the game was that from a hand like 3344A
you hold all five cards. Shackleford's notation (two pair, aces=1) is a
bit hard to understand, but he says to hold four cards on this hand.
This could be a typo on Shackleford's part, Larry DeMar could be wrong
about the strategy, or it could explain why LED says the return is
higher than Mike says it is.I am bcc'ing this note to both Mike and Larry. Larry is a member of this
forum and posts sometimes. I'm not sure if Mike is, but if he has any
response and would like me to post it, I will be happy to do so.Bob Dancer
For the best in video poker information, visit www.bobdancer.com
or call 1-800-244-2224 M-F 9-5 Pacific Time.[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]