The following rose out of a need to calculate the EV of a short pay
Super Double Double Bonus game. I couldn't figure out how to change
the paytables in either WinPoker or FVP. The user friendliness
aspects in both these games are abysmal.
In FVP, specifying the various kicker payoffs was the problem. I am
sure it is possible, but certainly not intuitive. The kicker card
designations kept changing on their own; so it seemed.
In any case, while the absolute EV does depend on the exact paytable,
the relative fluctuation for a "minor" change in a frequent hand
should be "roughly" the same for s family of games. With that
assumption, I went to the RoR analysis page in WizardOfOdds -
http://tinyurl.com/y6m8l6, which is patterned after (or linked to)
the one at GamblinTools.Net.
This features eight popular games, with "standard" paytables, which
can be esaily changed, to calculate the changed EV. Further you can
input Cashback percentage and it will calculate a RoR based on
Bankroll you specify, or needed Bankroll, for a given RoR figure.
While the set of games doesn't include SDDB, it does have DDB. I
think it can be used to calculate, not the absolute EV values, but
the effect on EV for a unit change in some lower level (FH,
Flush,...) payoffs, which would be reasonably close to those for SDDB.
For example,
DDB EV
9/6 98.981%
9/5 97.8729%
8/5 96.7861%
8/6 97.8949%
Looking at these numbers, one can say that a change of one unit in
the payoff for either FH or Flush produces a change of about 1% in EV
(closer to 1.1% if you want to be more precise), which is what Linda
Boyd said in a recent post. ( I would be inviting the wrath of a
mathematician if I use the construct d(EV)/d(Flush) - but that's the
idea)
OTOH, if you change 3oak payoff from 3 to 2, the EV plunges to 91.5%
from 98.98% - a drop of 7.5%
Let's say an intern made a mistake in resetting the paytable on a DDB
machine and made an error, setting Straights to 3 and 3oak's to 4,
just reversing those two. What happens? The EV soars to 105.45%,
causing a sudden increase in the chartered jet business, with the
advantage players swooping down like vultures!
Ah, the sight of an Aladin with a lamp, looking for an "honest" game!