vpFREE2 Forums

Argosy Frustration

#1

I took a day trip to Argosy yesterday and had my most frustrating VP
session ever. I've been playing VP for 5 years, most often in
Vegas, 4 or 5 trips per year, and day trips to Argosy 3 or 4 times
per year. I play DDB, $1 (progressive) and play fast and usually
perfect.

On this trip, I played the same machine for 5 hours. I hit 4-4's no
kicker for $400 an hour and a half into my session which at that
time made me even. For the next three and a half hours, I hit one
more four of a kind, 10'2, for $250. Obviously, I lost a lot of
money($3000). The block of $1 machines were all busy , and no one
else seemed to be hitting either. My stubborness and optimism kept
me at one machine. Maybe I should have switched but I kept thinking
it has to hit something soon. It never did.

Incidently, last month, I played the same block of machines, same
game and hit Aces with a kicker 2 times in three hands for $4000,
played for 6 hours and walked away with a $3800 profit.

Has anyone else experienced this lenghthy of a drought?

#2

Yes, that sort of thing can happen, it is ugly, frustrating, and
expensive, but it's part of the game. I dumped $800 on the quarter
9/7 DB at MGM Detroit in one day about a month ago, and didn't get a
single quad. Ouch.

I took a day trip to Argosy yesterday and had my most frustrating

VP

session ever. I've been playing VP for 5 years, most often in
Vegas, 4 or 5 trips per year, and day trips to Argosy 3 or 4 times
per year. I play DDB, $1 (progressive) and play fast and usually
perfect.

On this trip, I played the same machine for 5 hours. I hit 4-4's

no

kicker for $400 an hour and a half into my session which at that
time made me even. For the next three and a half hours, I hit one
more four of a kind, 10'2, for $250. Obviously, I lost a lot of
money($3000). The block of $1 machines were all busy , and no one
else seemed to be hitting either. My stubborness and optimism kept
me at one machine. Maybe I should have switched but I kept

thinking

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "newnow2002" <newnow2002@y...> wrote:

it has to hit something soon. It never did.

Incidently, last month, I played the same block of machines, same
game and hit Aces with a kicker 2 times in three hands for $4000,
played for 6 hours and walked away with a $3800 profit.

Has anyone else experienced this lenghthy of a drought?

#3

Absolutely. Those two types of sessions make up at least a third of
my sessions, and not only in high variance games. I dropped $600 in
about an hour of play on dollar JOB on a recent double points day.

There are a number of responses possible. First, mathematically
there's nothing wrong with sticking to it and keep pouring the money
in, assuming you wouldnt be playing that game if you didnt have an
adequate bankroll. By the odds, a session that starts out bad can
turn at any moment. I try not to do this for purely psychological
reasons, but if you only get limited chances to play this may be the
best course.

Second, you can impose a stop loss on yourself for those kind of
sessions. I usually try to do this and just go home, since I'm a
local and its only a 45-minute drive, but it sounds like you have
further to travel so I can see you not wanting to do this. And even
for me I hate doing it if some limited time promotion is going on
like double point day.

The third mathematically sound approach is to admit a loss trip and
change games and/or drop down in denom. On my most recent double
points day at the place mentioned above, I got killed in dollar
Joker, losing $800 in the first 90 minutes. So I switched to a
quarter Bonus Deluxe progressive, and played happily for 8 hours at
breakeven, racking up a decent amount of cashback and contest
entries - not as good as if I'd stuck to dollars and had similar
performance, but far better than my actual experience with dollar
Joker in the initial stages.

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "newnow2002" <newnow2002@y...> wrote:

Has anyone else experienced this lenghthy of a drought?

Incidently, last month, I played the same block of machines, same
game and hit Aces with a kicker 2 times in three hands for $4000,
played for 6 hours and walked away with a $3800 profit.

#4

3 to 4 hours of play with no 4-of-a-kinds? It's happened to me several times. My personal (dubious) record is 13 hours of play with nothing better than a full house. Gives the expression "risk of ruin" a whole new meaning.

The other side of the token is also possible. A couple of Sundays ago, I was was at Harrah's KC with 'hockystl' and his lovely wife. My quarter AA machine went into what I call Berserk Quads Mode. According to my notes/calculations, I hit a quad about every 175 hands over a three hour period. Started with 400 credits, the machine was over 1400 several times and I finally cashed out at 1200. This happened to me once before, on a quarter AA machine at the Isle of Capri in 2002. On that machine, I played over 6 & 1/2 hours on the same $100 bill before cashing out $100 ahead.

carlos

PS Hocky did better than me! He went over to the $1 AA machines and hit a straight flush ($1000).

···

newnow2002 <newnow2002@yahoo.com> wrote:

I took a day trip to Argosy yesterday and had my most frustrating VP
session ever. I've been playing VP for 5 years, most often in
Vegas, 4 or 5 trips per year, and day trips to Argosy 3 or 4 times
per year. I play DDB, $1 (progressive) and play fast and usually
perfect.

On this trip, I played the same machine for 5 hours. I hit 4-4's no
kicker for $400 an hour and a half into my session which at that
time made me even. For the next three and a half hours, I hit one
more four of a kind, 10'2, for $250. Obviously, I lost a lot of
money($3000). The block of $1 machines were all busy , and no one
else seemed to be hitting either. My stubborness and optimism kept
me at one machine. Maybe I should have switched but I kept thinking
it has to hit something soon. It never did.

Incidently, last month, I played the same block of machines, same
game and hit Aces with a kicker 2 times in three hands for $4000,
played for 6 hours and walked away with a $3800 profit.

Has anyone else experienced this lenghthy of a drought?

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

#5

Has anyone else experienced this lenghthy of a drought?

Hahahahahahahahahaaaaaa!!!! WOULD that a mere $3000 session loss was
the worst I've ever had! I've had sessions that made my bankroll
look like the Hindenburg. I've gone no quads for 7 hours on $1 DB (-
$3500). I've played 9/6 dollar DB during some promotion over a week
end, hit a ROYAL, and STILL lost $6000. And then my dog died, my
girlfriend ran off with another guy, and my pickup truck left me.

The session you describe, while highly vomitworthy, is by no means
all that improbable. I would estimate about one in 200 sessions are
that stinky, or worse, playing a volatile game like DDB.

BTW, we refer to playing a "bad" machine on and on, hoping for a
turnaround, as "looking for the pony". The reference is to the old
joke about the overly optimistic little girl. Playing on while in
the throes of a $3000+ loss can certainly seem like shoveling shit.