vpFREE2 Forums

Auto Hold in vp - What percentage is wrongly HELD? honest or not?

#1

Played a bank of Multi-Play, Multi-Denom, 10-Play machines recently
which are set with the Auto Hold feature. I noticed that many of the
automatically HELD cards were wrong (see samples below). When this AUTO
HOLD feature is set, are the machines expected to HOLD the cards
incorrectly 10% of the time? 20% or do some of these machines
automatically HOLD the cards correctly 100% of the time?

Samples: in 9/6 DDB and 9/6 TDB
1. Ah Kd 9c 4s 7d The machine held Ah Kd.
2. Ah 10h Qd 7s 3c The machine held Ah 10h.
3. 3h 5h 7h Qd 8c The machine held 3h 5h 7h.

Thanks.
Gilbert

#2

I don't really know, but I suspect that these machines rely on a
simplified table driven strategy for the autohold feature which is
probably better than the complete guessing strategy that many people
use, but far from optimal. I have seen deuces wild games with autohold
that always hold a third card with two deuces (2,2,K for example).
After all, it *is* still three of a kind :slight_smile:

Back when the really good video blackjack game was available (the one
with early surrender vs. 10 and Ace, 3:2 blackjacks, let it ride, etc.)
some of these machines had autohold enabled. I hated this feature,
because it made many errors, and it was easy to forget to override the
autohold suggestion when you were playing quickly. One example: it
would NEVER suggest a surrender, even though with early surrender
proper strategy dictates that you should surrender quite often. I'm
guessing that the autohold recommendation on this game was incorrect on
about 5% - 10% of the hands.

EE

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "gilbert_616" <gilbert_616@...> wrote:

When this AUTO
HOLD feature is set, are the machines expected to HOLD the cards
incorrectly 10% of the time? 20% or do some of these machines
automatically HOLD the cards correctly 100% of the time?

#3

To be fair to the manufacturer, these WMS machines did have a
disclaimer that stated the autohold suggestion might not always
indicate the optimal play. I don't know if all machines with autohold
have this disclaimer.

EE

···

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

guessing that the autohold recommendation on this game was incorrect
about 5% - 10% of the hands.