ab4nita wrote:
I'm learning DW and need help with a couple of plays. I don't have
a book on DW with play explanations and wonder if some of you might
help. In practicing on my computer , the following hands (listed
below) I played incorrect but do not understand why.
deuce, K-hearts, A-hearts, 4-spades, 6-diamond.......I held the
deuce, Ace and King of hearts. According to the computer, I should
have held the deuce only.
I certainly do not understand all there is to know about penalty
cards at this point but I didn't think any of these should be
penalty card situations.
Can anyone explain these plays and why my play was incorrect?
Hey Nita,
The two situations you identify are exceptional. Even the Advanced
FPDW strategy provided by vp Strategy Master (VPSM), which
incorporates key penalty card situations, would play these as you did.
The consideration that comes into play here in determining the truly
optimal play isn't a penalty card situation but instead factors in
what cards aren't present in the hand.
There's a large void of mid-range cards. This means that if you hold
only the deuce, you have a relatively strong chance of completing a SF
(not to mention basic straights as well). That's just enough of an
added boost to the value of the deuce hold to make it very marginally
a stronger hold. If you go with the w-2RF hold, you're not losing a
terrible amount (.0037 coins, or about one-hundredth of a penny).
Most advisors, including Dancer, would advise sticking to the w-2RF
hold until you've pretty much got the game down cold. But grasping
why WinPoker flags this as a minor error helps to understand the game
as a whole. Take notice of the small cost and chalk it up as
something you may chose to master later.
btw, it can be fun to examine a hand like this more closely. Go into
the Analyze/Any Hand feature and enter the cards. You'll see an
analysis of each of the 32 possible holds -- EV and the completions
possible on the draw.
Now, click on the 4s and change it to 8s and you'll see how these
values change so that the deuce is now the less favored hold. You can
experiment with other card values to get a sense of where the break
points are for low cards and high cards.
Frugal vp software allows you to do similar analysis, but I find the
menus and graphics of WinPoker more comfortable to use. However,
Frugal should be given it's due. In initially learning a game, the
ideal software will only flag deviations from basic strategy -- and
Frugal has got the right idea on this. I prefer FVP early on in the
learning curve and transition to WinPoker when I'm ready to really
nail things (though I don't abandon FVP at this point; there are far
too many neat analysis features available in it for further
understanding of a game).
- Harry