Long term play is obvious, just do the perfect strategy, and that's
it. If the perfect strategy is too complicated and some holds with
penalties, say, bring you and advantage of pennies per century, just
ignore those.
Short term play is more subtle and the hold in DB you bring
illustrates this. Even playing short term, I will definitely dump the
full house. Maybe that's because I have gotten the quad aces with
kicker in DDB and the memory motivates me, LOL. I think it also has
to do with the amounts involved and with probabilities.
When to sacrifice EV short term? Only when you have a probability of
something hefty. Keeping the full house is the sure play in your
example, but what you gain is 50 coins, something that will
not "make" your evening as 800 coins would. That 50 is not hefty
enough.
As far as probabilities, dumping the full house in your example still
leaves you open for some nice hits. You will definitely have the
trio, that is already hit. You might still get a full house, you have
not renounced to a full house completely by dumping the pair since
there are lots of pairs in the sea. The 800 quad is there, waiting to
be born. So you still have bright horizons after you drop the full
house. Now, let's look at my TDB example in this way. By keeping the
kicker, you only have one card that will give you a quad, and only
one. Sure, it will give you the hefty quad but if not, you are stuck
with a trio, possibly a full house. If you dump the kicker, you might
still get a hefty quad, lots of possibilities for it, you also might
get the less plump quads, lots of ways to get those; and, of course,
you might still end up with a full house or just the measly trio.
So there are differences in the two examples, great differences.
Keeping the full house in your example is lowest EV than the three
aces, but not by much; probability wise your horizons are wider by
dumping the full house. In my example, keeping the kicker has a much
higher EV with a low probability of a successful hit, but dumping it
opens a wide possibility of hits, including the fattest one and some
plump ones. So your analogy of the two holds in TDB and DB, though
equally Faustian, is not totally Proustian.
E
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Harry Porter" <harry.porter@v...>
wrote:
Ed's TDB question brings to mind the 10/7 DB strategy change that
I've
advocated in the past (but which has been rather heated arguedly
against by one person - perhaps over on vpmail - who clearly holds
that "ER" is king).
When dealt an Aces FH (trip Aces), optimal ER strategy is to hold
just
the Aces and go for the quad. I've suggested that holding the full
house is a preferable alternative from the perspective of reducing
game volatility.
That guaranteed $50 (or 50 credits) is a very satisfactory reward
on a
hand, and it presents itself with sufficient frequency to add up to
a
sizable amount over a day or two of play.
Most importantly, the game ER of this adjustment is reduced from
100.167% to 100.166% - a negligible reduction in (most) anyone's
book.
Nonetheless, since I first asserted this position (which I largely
still maintain), I've reverted to breaking the full house in my own
play. After consistently losing my ass in active play over the
course
of a full year I finally came to the conclusion, "What the F***!"
In
the scheme of things, the reduction in volatility achieved through
this strategy adjustment seemed trival.
I'm still losing my ass on this game (which, of course, is why I now
walk around half-assed), but with each broken Aces FH there's a
little
ยทยทยท
more spice in my play.
- Harry