Bob Dancer's LVA - 8 SEP 2015
Why I Don't Play Progressives
http://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/bob_dancer/2015/0908.cfm
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It's nice to know that Boyd is democratic and shafts all of their winning customers. I thought it was just me. A.P.
From: "vpFREE3355 vpfree3355@gmail.com [vpFREE]" <vpFREE@yahoogroups.com>
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, September 8, 2015 8:48 PM
Subject: [vpFREE] Bob Dancer's LVA - 8 SEP 2015
Bob Dancer's LVA - 8 SEP 2015
Why I Don't Play Progressives
http://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/bob_dancer/2015/0908.cfm
*************************************************
This link is posted for informational purposes
and doesn't constitute an endorsement or approval
of the linked article's content by vpFREE. Any
discussion of the article must be done in
accordance with vpFREE's rules and policies.
*************************************************
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Sorry I forgot to switch to plain text, resulting in the garbage at the bottom.
A.P.
________________________________
From: "vpFREE3355 vpfree3355@gmail.com [vpFREE]" <vpFREE@yahoogroups.com>
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, September 8, 2015 8:48 PM
Subject: [vpFREE] Bob Dancer's LVA - 8 SEP 2015
Bob Dancer's LVA - 8 SEP 2015
Why I Don't Play Progressives
http://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/bob_dancer/2015/0908.cfm
*************************************************
This link is posted for informational purposes
and doesn't constitute an endorsement or approval
of the linked article's content by vpFREE. Any
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Bob wrote: " "Unfortunately," I hit too many royals on $2 9/6 Bonus Poker Deluxe machines at the Suncoast a couple of years back and that killed my mailers at Orleans, Gold Coast, and Sam's Town as well."
Pretty strong endorsement for playing max-non-Royal strategy to get the most value from the mailers and non-Royal hands before you get "no-mailed".
max-non-Royal Bonus Deluxe looks something like this:
ER=99.1%, VAR=25
2PairOrBetter>4SF>HP>4FL>4STo>3SFo>3FL3-1H>4STi4-3H>2FL2H>3SFi>KQJ>4STi2H>2H>1H>3SFdi>4STi
This is a good example of why you can't just look at video poker in isolation, the optimal strategy depends on the complete situation which varies by casino.
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Bob wrote: "Should I find that situation again, I'll sit down again. But I'm not holding my breath."
So, I think we've established that you do play progressives, it's just a question of at what point you begin play.
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NOTI wrote: Pretty strong endorsement for playing max-non-Royal strategy to get the
most value from the mailers and non-Royal hands before you get
"no-mailed".
. . .
This is a good example of why you can't just look at video poker in isolation, the optimal strategy depends on the complete situation which varies by casino.
Not for me. 99.1% wouldn't have gotten me in there in the first place.
Also, it's one thing to know after the fact that Suncoast royals would nix mailers from several related properties. It's hard to know that up front.
Also, it happened my royal cycle at the Suncoast was about 20,000 hands over an 8 month period. Other casinos, my royal cycle seems to be 80,000 hands --- at least for certain periods of time. I have no idea how many royals I'm going to hit at any particular casino in the next six months.
Were I underroyaled at Suncoast --- equally probable as what actually happened --- playing the special strategy gives up half a percent needlessly. Most $2 and $5 players cannot afford to give up a half percent and still stay in business.
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Bob wrote: "--- playing the special strategy gives up half a percent needlessly. Most $2 and $5 players cannot afford to give up a half percent and still stay in business."
Of course you could afford it if the extra benefit of additional mailers was greater than a half of a percent? Sometimes giving up a little in one spot gains more in another spot. That's why it pays to look at the bigger picture.
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noti, last I checked, 99.1% + even 1% in mailers didn't make a play.
I get what you're trying to say in principal, but in practice I give this one squarely to Bob.
Frankly, all too often you appear more focused on the theoretical than the practical. (I'm beginning to think of you primarily as an "armchair player")
- H.
---In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, <nightoftheiguana2000@...> wrote :
Bob wrote: "--- playing the special strategy gives up half a percent needlessly. Most $2 and $5 players cannot afford to give up a half percent and still stay in business."
Of course you could afford it if the extra benefit of additional mailers was greater than a half of a percent? Sometimes giving up a little in one spot gains more in another spot. That's why it pays to look at the bigger picture.
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NOTI wrote: Of course you could afford it if the extra benefit of additional mailers was greater than a half of a percent?
You are using after-the-fact thinking.
How could I have know I was going to go on a royal binge ahead of time?
How could I have known the Suncoast was going to respond as they did?
Since then other Boyd properties have gone on their own mailer purges. Had I still be playing at those properties, I might well have been caught up in another purge before now. Many other players were. So how am I going to predict the value of "future mailers?" I can definitely feel the half-percent loss NOW in using your recommended strategy. You seem to want me to compare that to some unknown benefit of receiving mailers in the future.
I don't think anybody knows how to do this.
Even without these insurmountable problems, I don't believe the mailers there are near a half percent there for strong video poker players.
I agree with Harry's description of you. You strike me as a very bright theoretical analyst with very little tempering from the real world problems players face.
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What management will do is very unpredictable. I was playing a
progressive years ago and was told to leave. There were other pros
playing next to me and I assumed I was the first of a major purge.
They're all still playing there. But nightoftheiguana has a point.
Many pros act as if there's no cost to hitting jackpots. Reduced
mailers is hardly the only one. 1/2% sounds high, generally, although
in the example that Bob gave in his article, it was many times that.
Playing for a $70,000 royal as if it were worth $70,000 when the cost
of hitting it was most of it would probably reduce the value of the
play by thousands of dollars.
you wrote:
NOTI wrote: Of course you could afford it if the extra benefit of additional mailers was greater than a half of a percent?
You are using after-the-fact thinking.
How could I have know I was going to go on a royal binge ahead of time?
How could I have known the Suncoast was going to respond as they did?
Since then other Boyd properties have gone on their own mailer purges. Had I still be playing at those properties, I might well have been caught up in another purge before now. Many other players were. So how am I going to predict the value of "future mailers?" I can definitely feel the half-percent loss NOW in using your recommended strategy. You seem to want me to compare that to some unknown benefit of receiving mailers in the future.
I don't think anybody knows how to do this.
Even without these insurmountable problems, I don't believe the mailers there are near a half percent there for strong video poker players.
I agree with Harry's description of you. You strike me as a very bright theoretical analyst with very little tempering from the real world problems players face.
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007 wrote: . . . Reduced mailers is hardly the only one. 1/2% sounds high, generally, although
in the example that Bob gave in his article, it was many times that.
Playing for a $70,000 royal as if it were worth $70,000 when the cost
of hitting it was most of it would probably reduce the value of the
play by thousands of dollars.
The $70,000 royal was in Gary, Indiana at a casino I was not planning to ever visit again. There were no playable games there to make it worth the time and energy to get there from Las Vegas that I could see. There were nearby casinos, and the Horseshoe in Hammond, IN had a loose high limit area --- although there was a WG2 tax there that I wasn't positive about.
Future mailers were NOT on my radar. I had no "backup" person to hold the machine while I slept or ate. I was in a "hit it now or lose the opportunity" mode. Although the word hadn't crept out yet about the machine, there were two different players who came up to say hi while I was playing. They recognized me from my classes in Las Vegas. It was only a matter of time before "guess what Bob Dancer is playing at the Majestic Star" word got out --- and when that word got to the right ears, I would lose the machine as soon as I had to sleep again.
Undertaking a strategy to reduce how often I hit a "one-time-deal" royal wasn't anywhere in my top 200 ideas for how to play that "find." Although anything is possible, coming across a machine where a casino has dumped $50,000 from another game is a once-in-several-lifetimes event. Most people never find such a situation. I'm not strategizing about the "next time" I come across such a situation.
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Bob wrote: "You are using after-the-fact thinking."
Nope. Not suggesting that at all.
Bob wrote: "How could I have know I was going to go on a royal binge ahead of time?"
You don't, that's just one of the possibilities. Of course it's less likely with max-non-Royal strategy.
Bob wrote: "How could I have known the Suncoast was going to respond as they did?"
You can assign probabilities, I suggest the probability for that would be high. It's no secret that many casinos don't like Video Poker players.
Bob wrote: "Even without these insurmountable problems, I don't believe the mailers there are near a half percent there for strong video poker players."
OK. That's solvable, right? Whatever the value is of future mailers, that's the amount you can afford to be less aggressive in chasing the royal. You don't know when you will get a royal, but you do know the average time it will take. You don't know exactly the value of future mailers, but you can make some educated guesses.
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007 wrote: "Playing for a $70,000 royal as if it were worth $70,000 when the cost
of hitting it was most of it would probably reduce the value of the
play by thousands of dollars."
Min-cost-royal is probably the better strategy for a progressive royal, it's in Frank's book.
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Min-cost-royal is probably the better strategy for a progressive royal, it's in Frank's book.
That may be a good rule of thumb, but it depends on the situation.
With a lot of competition, as is normal, strategy should approach
assuming the value of the jackpot is the jackpot, but a team that has
a progressive locked up should play even less aggressively than
Min-cost-royal.
007 wrote: "With a lot of competition, as is normal, strategy should approach
assuming the value of the jackpot is the jackpot"
Assuming a recurring play, you will eventually get a royal, and min-cost-royal strategy will still be the strategy that yields the lowest cost to get that royal.
On a one shot deal it may be appropriate to use max-Royal strategy as in tournaments, depending on how you value getting that one particular royal.
If you want to play one hand at a time, gambler's anonymous style, and you value only per hand EV, then maxEV would be the optimum strategy. But one hand at a time would put little value in the meter rate, if you value the meter rate you move away from one-hand-at-a-time strategy.
That's quite a range of strategies, so obviously it very much depends on the particular situation.
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Bob wrote: "Although anything is possible, coming across a machine where a casino has dumped $50,000 from another game is a once-in-several-lifetimes event. Most people never find such a situation. I'm not strategizing about the "next time" I come across such a situation."
It's rare, but I wouldn't say it's that rare. Casinos have to move progressives somewhere, it's public money, they can't just pocket it. An illustration of the value of scouting. In your situation probably max-Royal strategy was called for, as in tournaments. You want that $50,000+ royal and the cost is somewhat irrelevant and nowhere near $50,000, what's most important is time. You have no guarantee of getting that royal unless you team the machine, but you're taking your best shot with max-Royal strategy.
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According to Frank Kneeland, the best strategy when a team has a bank locked up is based on a 100% game. For 9/6 Jacks that would be a 4880 coin royal. It drops the royal frequency down in the 36,000's. The effect is you are milking the meter for all it's worth.
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Min-Cost strategy has the lower cost but Max-EV strategy has the higher hourly rate.
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maxRoyal strategy on deuces gets the royal cycle down to about 23,000, so if you can put in 23 hours at 1000 hands per hour, you've got about a 2/3rd's shot at the royal progressive. The cost of using full aggression against the royal is high, you can do the math yourself, but obviously if the royal is high enough and the base machine bet is low enough, cost is irrelevant. And of course if you can put more than 23 hours into the play, you have time to extract some more value from the base game. As usual it comes down to time and money.
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In the good old days of Reno when there were so many plays around it was hard for a mid-range pro like me to decide which play I should be on...I always played the quarter bartop progressives in the Cal-Neva when the royal was at $2300 or higher. I lived just two blocks west of the Cal-Neva.
The Skywalk had a multi-game progressive with all the games on the same meter. 9/6 Jacks was the best game. The meter ran at 2%. The keno lounge bartops has the same setup but with just a 1.5% meter. And there was another bank downstairs with the same setup and a 1.5% meter.
The playable number was $2300 because that's when Winston's team came in. But they knew better than to try and lock the bank up. They would take half the machines. The rest of the players were lone wolves like me. To keep things simple I used a strategy based on a 9200 coin royal. I didn't concern myself with breakpoints above 9200 coins because it has very little effect on the royal odds.
The biggest effect on royal odds is holding the 3 card royals over the high pairs. But you hit all those breakpoints before the royal is even at $1500. It drops the royal odds down into the 33,000's. After that breakpoints don't mean a whole lot.
So there would be 10 guys all playing an aggressive royal strategy, and all cranking out at least 1000 HPH. The royal was usually hit within a few hours. But I do remember one runaway royal. It was in the Skywalk and the meter ran to $5700 before the royal hit.
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