Big split poker at Peppermill

[Joe_Schober]

"fivespot" wrote...

but i DO have training software for Big Split, having commissioned a
friend to write it for me. (i can't redistribute it; don't ask.) i
have spent over a dozen hours practicing on this trainer.

based on the results of this practice, i am not going anywhere near a
real-money machine. nor do i expect to ever do so.

maybe everyone else is right, and it's an easy game. maybe it's just
coincidence that one of the only people with the actual ability to
measure their own error rate is also one of the only people who thinks
the game may be far more difficult than it looks.

Can you provide some detail on what categories of errors / examples of errors you observed in your play on the analyzer? Like with most video poker, it seems that the key is identifying certain patterns... and certainly in BSP, a major concern is making the most of the 3-card hand. (e.g. it's certainly easy to just play a full house if you're dealt one, but the embedded trips are a huge flag to look for other playable hands... ditto anytime you have three suited cards)

Thanks.

--Joe

[fivespot]

there are a lot of potential-error hands that you can group into
patterns, like remembering to play twopair/trips (8) instead of
boat/pair (5), or checking for an opportunity to play trips/straight
or trips/flush (4) instead of boat/high (2.5), or missing a hidden
three-card straight in a three-pair hand and playing twopair/pair (1)
instead of twopair/straight (2), or failing to recognize A23 as a
three-card straight, or whatever.

but it's not systematic errors that worry me. those are easy to fix
once you notice them. it's the rare inexplicable huge errors.

after i wrote that last post i went back to the trainer, because i am
stubborn. i played a couple more hours to get the hang of it again,
and then three hours to test my level of play. through 1300 hands i'd
made two small errors, one for a half-bet, one for a full bet. not
great, but not too bad.

then i somehow overlooked a three-card straight flush, played
straight/pair (2) instead of 2pair/strflush (7.5), lost 5.5 bets vs
optimal play, and my average accuracy for the 1300 hands plummeted
under 99.5%.

you can't make a mistake like that more than maybe once every ten
hours and have an acceptable overall level of accuracy. and how on
earth do you become confident that you *never* *ever* slip up like
that?

i mean, do you miss pairs in NSUD? i do. and pairs are easy to spot,
two identical ranks among five cards, duh. but missing a pair only
costs a quarter-bet, and if you do it once every 3-4 hours, you've
lost 0.01%.

i can't imagine playing NSUD where missing a pair once every three
hours meant you lost 0.5% of your total return, but that's what BSP is
like. it's a brutally unforgiving game.

best wishes,

five

···

Joe Schober <afljoeys@aol.com> wrote:

Can you provide some detail on what categories of errors / examples of errors you observed in your play on the analyzer? Like with most video poker, it seems that the key is identifying certain patterns... and certainly in BSP, a major concern is making the most of the 3-card hand. (e.g. it's certainly easy to just play a full house if you're dealt one, but the embedded trips are a huge flag to look for other playable hands... ditto anytime you have three suited cards)