vpFREE2 Forums

Do paytables really matter to 99% of VP players?

#21

Ah, the confusion between short-term and long-term resurfaces once again.

The person playing a poorer paytable takes a hit every hand but might not be "giving up money" THAT DAY unless he or she is playing thousands and thousands of hands which confirm the mathematics. These players are instead looking at the short-term net result.

Yes, if you play $10,000 through a machine you SHOULD lose about $175 less playing $1 9/6 Jacks @ 99.5% vs. $1 9/6/5 DB @ 97.8%. But if you hit quad aces or 2-4s on the DB game you can probably come out ahead that day even though you're playing the "poorer" game choice.

This exact scenario happened to me twice last year. Once at Flamingo I was on the lone $5 9/6 Jacks in High Limit. I broke even while a man three seats away playing $5 9/6/5 DB hit four aces.

The same thing happened in Harrahs high limit on another trip.

Clearly, I probably play many more hands than either lucky winner. So, over time, the math should favor me.

But for short-term players, their odds on any given day aren't as atrocious as this thread has suggested. These players don't amass the thousands of hands needed to validate the math of expected return. If you run simulations you will see that 9/6 Jacks doesn't ever exactly return 99.5% on a low number of trials. Sometimes it returns more, many times less. The short-pay players clearly depend more on luck than skill. For short-term play that actually makes sense to me. You need to be lucky.

The reality is that casinos profit from two types of players. Obviously, they profit in the aggregate from long-term play by many players on poorer paytables.

But they also profit from full-pay players like many of us who can take a beating in the short-run and overextend themselves expecting that their 2% advantage over the short-pay player will pay off. And unless you play lots and lots of hands, it may not. Because full-pay means nothing in the short run.

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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Nathan O. Roemer" <public@...> wrote:

My question is, "if there is a better paytable available, why NOT
play it?" There's no point in giving up ANY money if you don't have
to, right?

#22

Nope. That's why I said it was a funny story.

Kurt

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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "maclarenv12" <ahduff@...> wrote:

Did you determine how much gas you would burn while idling in line? And then of course how much that gas would cost to replace at the .01 lower rate......

#23

This reminds me of when the Dallas airport charged 50 cents to ride the terminal-to-terminal shuttle. If you did not have 50 cents they had a convenient change machine that would give you 95 cents for a dollar.

In fact, why don't casinos start charging 1% of each tranaction at the ticket/change machines. Surely no one would care about losing and additional 1% in the long run or the short run.

Playing short pay machines is like driving without a seatbelt. The odds are you will not have an accident today, so why bother?

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--- On Fri, 7/31/09, mikeymic <mikeymic@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: mikeymic <mikeymic@yahoo.com>
Subject: [vpFREE] Re: Do paytables really matter to 99% of VP players?
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, July 31, 2009, 12:52 PM

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups. com, "Nathan O. Roemer" <public@...> wrote:

My question is, "if there is a better paytable available, why NOT
play it?" There's no point in giving up ANY money if you don't have
to, right?

Ah, the confusion between short-term and long-term resurfaces once again.

The person playing a poorer paytable takes a hit every hand but might not be "giving up money" THAT DAY unless he or she is playing thousands and thousands of hands which confirm the mathematics. These players are instead looking at the short-term net result.

Yes, if you play $10,000 through a machine you SHOULD lose about $175 less playing $1 9/6 Jacks @ 99.5% vs. $1 9/6/5 DB @ 97.8%. But if you hit quad aces or 2-4s on the DB game you can probably come out ahead that day even though you're playing the "poorer" game choice.

This exact scenario happened to me twice last year. Once at Flamingo I was on the lone $5 9/6 Jacks in High Limit. I broke even while a man three seats away playing $5 9/6/5 DB hit four aces.

The same thing happened in Harrahs high limit on another trip.

Clearly, I probably play many more hands than either lucky winner. So, over time, the math should favor me.

But for short-term players, their odds on any given day aren't as atrocious as this thread has suggested. These players don't amass the thousands of hands needed to validate the math of expected return. If you run simulations you will see that 9/6 Jacks doesn't ever exactly return 99.5% on a low number of trials. Sometimes it returns more, many times less. The short-pay players clearly depend more on luck than skill. For short-term play that actually makes sense to me. You need to be lucky.

The reality is that casinos profit from two types of players. Obviously, they profit in the aggregate from long-term play by many players on poorer paytables.

But they also profit from full-pay players like many of us who can take a beating in the short-run and overextend themselves expecting that their 2% advantage over the short-pay player will pay off. And unless you play lots and lots of hands, it may not. Because full-pay means nothing in the short run.

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

#24

But full-pay is only relevant in the long run! It takes lots of hands to approximate the full-pay expected return. In a small finite number of hands anything can and does happen.

A different interpretation of my post using your analogy would be to compare the full-pay player driving with a seat belt but travelling only two blocks. That's what I mean by short-term.

Is that driver safer? Fine, I'll agree with you on that. But would there be a significant statistical difference in accidents? Probably not. And what if the full-pay driver drives more aggressively (because he knows he has an advantage, right?). He or she might just be the one having an accident while "Mr. or Ms. Short-Pay" does not. That's how many vpFREE members playing full-pay machines lose thousands of dollars every year. They run out of bankroll before achieving the long-term expected result.

Full-pay "superiority" assumes a near-identical distribution of outcomes to short-pay with greater payback. It is simply not mathematically predictable in the short run. That's why luck is the prevailing factor in those instances while skill and "the math" do take over in the much longer run.

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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, NC Wanderer <larbo929@...> wrote:

In fact, why don't casinos start charging 1% of each tranaction at the ticket/change machines. Surely no one would care about losing and additional 1% in the long run or the short run.

Playing short pay machines is like driving without a seatbelt. The odds are you will not have an accident today, so why bother?

#25

So, there is a 100% difference over the short term. That seem more relevant then the 2% difference or the long term that we always preach.
If we accept the premise that the "casual player" is unlikely to hit a royal flush, it follows that the casual player suffers at least as much from short-pay than the serious player.

I believe this is serious proof that pay tables do matter to 99% of VP players. We'll done.
TK in WIS

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----- Original Message ----
From: nudge51 <nudge51@cox.net>
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 9:18:12 AM
Subject: Re: [vpFREE] Re: Do paytables really matter to 99% of VP players?

Well, let's take a closer look at our hypothetical Reno player. He goes
there 6 times a year, playing 4 hours per trip, a total of 24 hours for the
year. He plays dollar jacks at a leisurely 600 hands per hour, and is not
all that lucky and does not manage to get hit by a royal during his entire
play ( not at all uncommon on only 14,400 hands). Since this is my post, I
am making his two game choices 9-6 JOB, 99.5439% ER or 8-5 JOB, 97.2984% ER.
I hate to bring up the scary thought of mathematics, but that is exactly
what all VP is, whether we choose to believe it or not, or if you think
short term or long. If we all had a DVR in our head, and could record each
hand of every session played, all the proof anyone would need would be right
in the playback. Anyhow, in Reno man's royaless year, if he chooses the 9-6
game, he can expect to average $73.08 per hour in losses, or $1,753.92 for
the year. If he picks the 8-5 game, he is facing an hourly whack of $140.75
or $3,378.00. Looks to me like the wrong choice of paytable would damn near
double his expected losses for the year. Each individual player would have
to determine for themselves if this is significant or not.
                                                         Nudge

#26

Ok, lets consider only the full house, I should come up every 87 hands or so, say 6 times an hour. Playing quarters that would be a loss of $7.50 an hour. Maybe it 3 in one hour, maybe its 9 in another. It does not take many hours to approach expectation and increase your losses playing 8/6 versus 9/6/.

The long run is only relavent for RF , SF, 4OAK, but normally short pay does not change the payback for those. Meanwhile you lose your ass at $7.5 an hour or more.

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--- On Fri, 7/31/09, mikeymic <mikeymic@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: mikeymic <mikeymic@yahoo.com>
Subject: [vpFREE] Re: Do paytables really matter to 99% of VP players?
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, July 31, 2009, 3:17 PM

But full-pay is only relevant in the long run! It takes lots of hands to approximate the full-pay expected return. In a small finite number of hands anything can and does happen.

.

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