I have been in direct communication with Bob Dancer, requesting a
correction and apology for his statement in his 11/8 column. In his
last post to me, he said,
If you want to quote the entire piece you wrote in VPT on that
subject on vpFREE, and quote my paraphrasing of it, I'll be happy to
apologize if I was substantially off. But I don't think I was. My memory
might be slightly off (as yours may be), but there was no deliberate lie
on my part. I 100% believe you advocated playing less than max coins at
FPDW when 4-of-a-kinds were coming around less than normal.
The actual quote from Dancer's column of 11/8:
"Paymar also wrote that if four-of-a-kinds weren't coming around
frequently enough in Full Pay Deuces Wild, you should cut back to one
coin at a time until the machine starts rewarding your adequately."
I have carefully scanned every article that appeared in Video Poker
Times during the few issues that Dancer was associated with it, and
there is nothing in any of those issues about one-coin play. The only
article that he could be thinking of was one that appeared in the
7/11/94 issue of Card Player magazine.
That entire article is reproduced below. As you can see, it has
nothing to do with a machine not giving enough four-of-a-kinds, or
any other consideration of a machine "running cold." I think most
readers here will agree that the article's advice is sound. This is
the only article I have ever written suggesting that one should ever
play one coin.
And, yes, this article is also included in my book, "All the Best of
Video Poker Times", but as it says on the inside front cover, the
book includes articles that I originally wrote for other publications
(most notably Card Player).
One-Coin vs. 5-Coin Play
by Dan Paymar
Several writers have stated that you should always play the maximum
number of coins on any video poker game. Playing fewer coins reduces
the payback, but only because you don't qualify for the jackpot
payoff on a royal flush. The long term loss is 1.5% on
Jacks-or-Better, or a bit less on wild card games. It would be
heartbreaking to hit a royal and be paid only $62.50 instead of
$1,000 (or higher in the case of a progressive jackpot). Many go on
to say that it's better to play five coins on a quarter machine than
one coin on an otherwise identical dollar machine. Your bet per play
is roughly the same, but you get the full payoff if you hit a royal.
So far, so good. The problem is that this has been repeated as dogma
by gaming columnists who are not very knowledgeable about video
poker. The advice is often simplified to the effect that it's always
better to play five coins on one machine than one coin on a similar
machine of the next higher denomination. The example often given is,
in effect, "If you don't want to bet $1.25 per play, then don't play
a quarter machine. Find a nickel machine of the same type, and always
play five coins." This would be good advice if they didn't substitute
"same type" for "otherwise identical." To clarify this, consider the
following:
Assume for the moment that your game of choice is Jacks-or-Better,
but you don't want to wager $1.25 every play. Sure, there are many
nickel machines around, but instead of the full-pay 9/6 payoff
schedule (full house and flush) most of them have an 8/5 schedule.
This is the "same type," but it's not "otherwise identical." True, we
would gain 1.5% by playing five coins to qualify for the royal, but
that's in the long term. More importantly, the reduced payoff
schedule costs us 2.23%, so we not only lose a net 0.73% but also
have larger bankroll fluctuations due to this loss being in the short
term!
It's even worse on Deuces Wild. Full-pay Deuces (15/9/5 for
5-of-a-kind, SF and quads, respectively) will yield about 100.75%
payback. Playing fewer than five coins costs about 1.18%, but the
16/10/4/3/2/2/1 payoff schedule found on many nickel machines costs
nearly 6%, so you'd be giving up an additional 4.8% by playing five
nickels instead of one quarter!
As you can see, it's not as cut and dried as it's often presented,
but to state it as simply as possible:
If you can't find a nickel machine with as good a payoff schedule,
you're usually better off playing only one quarter instead of five
nickels.
In Las Vegas it's easy to find full-pay quarter machines of almost
any kind you like, while there are very few full-pay nickel games.
But don't get the idea that the above statement is true only where
full-pay machines are available. Suppose you are in a casino where
the Jacks-or-Better choice is a quarter machine with an 8/5 schedule
or a nickel machine with a 6/5 schedule. If we play five nickels
instead of one quarter, the reduction by two on the full house costs
2.3% for a net loss of 0.8%.
If the nickel machine has a 7/5 schedule, however, the loss is only
1.15%, so you gain 0.35% by playing five nickels instead of one
quarter on the 8/5 machine (although you still have slightly larger
bankroll fluctuations).
It's rare that a casino has full-pay dollar machines and no full-pay
quarter machines; in fact, just the opposite is often the case, so
this discussion generally applies only when deciding between nickel
and quarter machines.
···
--
Dan Paymar
Author of best selling book, "Video Poker - Optimum Play"
Editor/Publisher of VP newsletter "Video Poker Times"
Developer of VP analysis/trainer software "Optimum Video Poker"
Visit my web site at www.OptimumPlay.com
"Chance favors the prepared mind." -- Louis Pasteur
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