vpFREE2 Forums

Autohold Question

#1

Many of us who live in California and enjoy this website also read
the vpFREE California website.

I saw a recent post about Barona which stated that a machine
didn't "hold" cards. The statement implies that some machines at
Barona do.

I've never been to Barona but emailed friends who visit there
regularly. Sure enough, more than one vpFREE member confirms that
several machines at Barona will "autohold" cards for you.

A critical part of my play is accuracy. It doesn't make sense to
expect a good return on a 99.5% 9/6 Jacks machine if I am
only "right" 85% of the time. I have to try to play as perfectly as I
can.

So how good are these "autohold" machines? Do they know a 4 card
flush is preferable to a 3 card royal in certain circumstances? Do
they know a suited 10-J is more valuable than an unsuited J-K in
specific situations? Or '10-Q' vs. A-Q? Is autohold accuracy also
dicounted by ignoring straight or flush penalties?

I can see an advantage of the autohold feature. If you trust it, your
rate of play per minute is limited only by how fast your fingers can
move. But if I have to analyze hands as usual for certain "exception"
plays, then the autohold feature actually reduces my speed.

Any comments?

#2

mikeymic wrote:

I can see an advantage of the autohold feature. If you trust it,
your rate of play per minute is limited only by how fast your
fingers can move. But if I have to analyze hands as usual for
certain "exception" plays, then the autohold feature actually
reduces my speed.

Any comments?

I've played autohold machines for extended periods of time. The play
strategy was surprisingly strong, but there were key plays that needed
to be corrected.

Play with autohold is faster, you just need to be vigilant for the
subset of holds that need correction. It reduces the likelihood of
error due to miskeying.

- Harry

#3

Yes, I have a comment. Accurate autohold is a bad idea. If the idea
were to somehow be implemented everywhere, it would signal doom and
the end of advantage play. I didn't know autohold even existed in B&M
rooms until I just read this post. I know they implemented autohold
several years ago with Microgaming's online software, and "bonus
whoring" by video poker dried up over night. If there are no poor
players donating money, there will be no opportunities for the skilled
player. That's my immediate take on it. Feel free to disagree, I'd
love to hear what others have to say about it.

···

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

I can see an advantage of the autohold feature. If you trust it, your
rate of play per minute is limited only by how fast your fingers can
move. But if I have to analyze hands as usual for certain "exception"
plays, then the autohold feature actually reduces my speed.

Any comments?

#4

autohold may be faster if you play it a long time...the only
experience i had has at gold coast where the machines had this feature
on for a day...it played much slower as you are really playing a
different game...checking the autohold for errors vs doing your own
holding...i automatically know what to hold, but don't automatically
know when the autohold will make errors that i need to fix...it would
take some time for me to get it up to speed...

···

I've played autohold machines for extended periods of time. The play
strategy was surprisingly strong, but there were key plays that needed
to be corrected.

Play with autohold is faster, you just need to be vigilant for the
subset of holds that need correction. It reduces the likelihood of
error due to miskeying.

- Harry

#5

Since this question recently came up, I casually observed some VP
players at Barona. And indeed, some of the machines were doing
autohold, while others in the same bank were not. Once you know which
machines will autohold and which will not, you can choose whichever
you wish. On the "circle of ten" almost-full-pay 25c/50c/$1 machines,
none have autohold.

I've only played using autohold a few times, and I don't know how
accurate the algorithm is. But I've never seen an autohold suggest a
play that I was sure was wrong - you'd have to have a strategy sheet
for that exact paytable (and many of these machines are pretty low
payout) to evaluate it. In fact, I've never seen an "Optimum Play"
machine (>100%) or anything even close to it (like NSUD) do autohold.
It seems to be just the lower-paying machines (<99%) that do. If a
casino were to put an accurate autohold feature on FPDW or 10/7 DB, it
seems this would be a sure money loser for them........

It seems clear that IGT or whoever makes the machines would be opening
up a can of worms for themselves if they implemented an autohold that
was not exactly correct (or at least damn close). They could be
accused of attempting to "trick" the user into making wrong plays, and
I'm quite sure they would not want to go there.

    Roberto-Tenore

···

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

Many of us who live in California and enjoy this website also read
the vpFREE California website.

I saw a recent post about Barona which stated that a machine
didn't "hold" cards. The statement implies that some machines at
Barona do.

I've never been to Barona but emailed friends who visit there
regularly. Sure enough, more than one vpFREE member confirms that
several machines at Barona will "autohold" cards for you.

A critical part of my play is accuracy. It doesn't make sense to
expect a good return on a 99.5% 9/6 Jacks machine if I am
only "right" 85% of the time. I have to try to play as perfectly as I
can.

So how good are these "autohold" machines? Do they know a 4 card
flush is preferable to a 3 card royal in certain circumstances? Do
they know a suited 10-J is more valuable than an unsuited J-K in
specific situations? Or '10-Q' vs. A-Q? Is autohold accuracy also
dicounted by ignoring straight or flush penalties?

I can see an advantage of the autohold feature. If you trust it, your
rate of play per minute is limited only by how fast your fingers can
move. But if I have to analyze hands as usual for certain "exception"
plays, then the autohold feature actually reduces my speed.

Any comments?

#6

But I've never seen an autohold suggest a play that I was sure was

wrong - you'd have to have a strategy sheet for that exact paytable
(and many of these machines are pretty low payout) to evaluate it.>
.........

It seems clear that IGT or whoever makes the machines would be

opening up a can of worms for themselves if they implemented an
autohold that was not exactly correct.......

It has been a long time since I've played a machine with autohold,
but the ones that I have played in the past definitely gave
incorrect advice for some types of hands. One specific example that
I recall was a deuces wild machine that would advise holding two
deuces PLUS one single card whenever two deuces were dealt with
nothing better. After all, a hand like 2,2,K *is* three of a kind,
and that is what was lit up on the pay table, so that's what the
machine said to hold. This is a horrible error.

I also remember a particular video blackjack game which had autohold
enabled on some machines. Among other errors, the machine would
NEVER suggest surrender, even though surrender was fequently the
correct play for this particular game.

Some machines with autohold will have language buried in the help
screens that states that the autohold feature will not necessarily
always suggest the optimal play, but I don't know is this language
is always present.

EE

···

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

#7

There are some jursidictions (don't know which ones, sorry) that require
autohold, and I believe it's available in all jurisdictions for the operator
to select. The autohold on the IGT machines are very accurate. I think most
of the mistakes made come from ignoring penalty cards.

···

On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 11:11 AM, mikeymic <mikeymic@yahoo.com> wrote:

  Many of us who live in California and enjoy this website also read
the vpFREE California website.

I saw a recent post about Barona which stated that a machine
didn't "hold" cards. The statement implies that some machines at
Barona do.

I've never been to Barona but emailed friends who visit there
regularly. Sure enough, more than one vpFREE member confirms that
several machines at Barona will "autohold" cards for you.

A critical part of my play is accuracy. It doesn't make sense to
expect a good return on a 99.5% 9/6 Jacks machine if I am
only "right" 85% of the time. I have to try to play as perfectly as I
can.

So how good are these "autohold" machines? Do they know a 4 card
flush is preferable to a 3 card royal in certain circumstances? Do
they know a suited 10-J is more valuable than an unsuited J-K in
specific situations? Or '10-Q' vs. A-Q? Is autohold accuracy also
dicounted by ignoring straight or flush penalties?

I can see an advantage of the autohold feature. If you trust it, your
rate of play per minute is limited only by how fast your fingers can
move. But if I have to analyze hands as usual for certain "exception"
plays, then the autohold feature actually reduces my speed.

Any comments?

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

#8

I routinely used the autohold feature on Double Bonus Double
Jackpot at Harrha's AC until that game was removed last year. DBDJ
was on 1995 vintage IGT Gamemakers although the chip may have been
newer. The autohold strategy wasn't too bad. The main "mistakes" it
made were to never forego a sure thing for the higher EV play. For
instance it would keep a full house even if it was AAAXX where the
correct DBDJ play is to hold only the aces. I found this logical
since I can only imagine the reaction of a naive player to the
machine NOT holding a dealt full house. I seem to recall that the
other "mistakes" were understandable as low variance choices.
Overall I rather admired the design of the autohold feature.

   I used autohold out of laziness. Once you learned its repetoire
of "mistakes" you could play with less hand movement. It also never
missed a low pair which for some reason is a failing of mine when I
play rapidly.

Don

Many of us who live in California and enjoy this website also read
the vpFREE California website.

I saw a recent post about Barona which stated that a machine
didn't "hold" cards. The statement implies that some machines at
Barona do.

I've never been to Barona but emailed friends who visit there
regularly. Sure enough, more than one vpFREE member confirms that
several machines at Barona will "autohold" cards for you.

A critical part of my play is accuracy. It doesn't make sense to
expect a good return on a 99.5% 9/6 Jacks machine if I am
only "right" 85% of the time. I have to try to play as perfectly as

I

can.

So how good are these "autohold" machines? Do they know a 4 card
flush is preferable to a 3 card royal in certain circumstances? Do
they know a suited 10-J is more valuable than an unsuited J-K in
specific situations? Or '10-Q' vs. A-Q? Is autohold accuracy also
dicounted by ignoring straight or flush penalties?

I can see an advantage of the autohold feature. If you trust it,

your

rate of play per minute is limited only by how fast your fingers

can

move. But if I have to analyze hands as usual for

certain "exception"

···

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

plays, then the autohold feature actually reduces my speed.

Any comments?

#9

Back in the late 90's, when the Peppermill in Reno, offered
FPKBJW, they had a bank of JW boxes that included the autohold
feature. To my knowledge, it was not possible to disable the
autohold on those machines, but it was reasonably easy to
overide it, after the cards were autoheld.

Because KBJW is my fave of of all VP games, and I have played
millions of hands of this game on software and in casinos, I am
quite proficient at the game. For those who are unfamiliar with
JW games, the strategy is reasonably complex, and includes many
penalty card situations.

For the most part, the autohold did not pay heed to penalty
cards. But the worst holding error that the system made was
to ALWAYS hold a 3 card SF over a small pair, even when the
SF was double inside, and included straight PCs.

I soon became frustrated playing these machines. It was taking
me so much time to "unhold" mistakes, that it was seriously
slowing done my play. Even worse, since you were "un-holding",
instead of "holding" cards, if one was tired or distracted, it
was very easy to make a mistake, forget the desired card was
already held, and in attempting to hold it, whiff it away
instead.

I usually opted to play FPDW instead, which was available w/o
autohold, in denoms. up to $1.00. Yes indeed! The good old
days!

~Babe~

···

====================================================
In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "tenore_s" <tenore_s@...> wrote:

....I've only played using autohold a few times, and I don't
know how accurate the algorithm is. But I've never seen an
autohold suggest a play that I was sure was wrong - you'd have
to have a strategy sheet for that exact paytable (and many of
these machines are pretty low payout) to evaluate it. In fact,
I've never seen an "Optimum Play" machine (>100%) or anything
even close to it (like NSUD) do autohold.

#10

Are there any machines in Las Vegas that use autohold?

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

#11

I saw a recent post about Barona which stated that a machine
didn't "hold" cards. The statement implies that some machines at
Barona do.

I've never been to Barona but emailed friends who visit there
regularly. Sure enough, more than one vpFREE member confirms that
several machines at Barona will "autohold" cards for you.

But if I have to analyze hands as usual for certain "exception"

plays, then the autohold feature actually reduces my speed.

Any comments?

I play at Barona quite often, and yes, some machines autohold, some
do not. Your post reminded me of a TV show about Vegas I saw a long
time ago. A woman was being interviewed in front of a VP machine and
incredibly, said something like " I just love this machine... it
tells me what to do!!!"It might as well say " Deposit more money!"
Wow.

I personally don't care if a machine holds or not. I've noticed that
autoholds differ in their bias. For instance, in DW, it might not
catch an inside ST, or a two card RF, or not hold two pair when the
paytable strategy indictes a hold.

The only time I trust the autohold is when I turn it on my practice
software. Doesn't cost a dime.

Once I know what the bias is, I tend to let it do most of the work
for me. That doesn't mean I don't keep a close eye on the holds
though. The danger is that a player, like the lady noted above,
trusts the autohold completely, removing the advantage of skill. The
casino laughs all the way to the bank.

Eric

···

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

#12

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

Once I know what the bias is, I tend to let it do most of the work
for me. That doesn't mean I don't keep a close eye on the holds
though. The danger is that a player, like the lady noted above,
trusts the autohold completely, removing the advantage of skill. The
casino laughs all the way to the bank.

I would think about this issue more if Barona were convenient to me. It
isn't, as I live closer to the Pechanga/Pala/Valley View side of the
area. And from what I've been told the autohold feature isn't seen in
any of those casinos.

Makes you wonder why Harrahs doesn't install it to "lure" people in to
all of their abundant 96-97% opportunities. But my zero tier score for
2009 probably tells you I'm not anxiously waiting for the answer.

#13

How accurate is the autohold program at Viejas?

···

--- On Thu, 1/29/09, mikeymic <mikeymic@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: mikeymic <mikeymic@yahoo.com>
Subject: [vpFREE] Re: Autohold Question
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, January 29, 2009, 1:55 PM

            --- In vpFREE@yahoogroups. com, "rosemontwestwood"

<rosemontwestwood@ ...> wrote:

Once I know what the bias is, I tend to let it do most of the work

for me. That doesn't mean I don't keep a close eye on the holds

though. The danger is that a player, like the lady noted above,

trusts the autohold completely, removing the advantage of skill. The

casino laughs all the way to the bank.

I would think about this issue more if Barona were convenient to me. It

isn't, as I live closer to the Pechanga/Pala/ Valley View side of the

area. And from what I've been told the autohold feature isn't seen in

any of those casinos.

Makes you wonder why Harrahs doesn't install it to "lure" people in to

all of their abundant 96-97% opportunities. But my zero tier score for

2009 probably tells you I'm not anxiously waiting for the answer.

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