"Guaranteed Play" Could Change VP-Very Interesting

[Howard_Stern]

Has anyone done the math? For 9-6 jacks I would suspect this game is horrible as the low variance would mean you do not end up more than 16 hands behind after 150 hands very often. In order to win you must be more than 16 hands ahead. I would suspect you would be between +16 and -16 a big percentage of the time. You are gaining versus normal vp whenever you finish play more than 16 hands behind but losing whenever you are better than that. (Note that a no quad no royal run for 150 hands will average about a 13 hand deficit.) If you are lucky to get an early quad and decide to quit you have given up most of your win to the $20 insurance fee. The variance is why other game types give fewer hands.

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----- Original Message -----
From: Harry Porter
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 12/19/2006 11:32:13 AM
Subject: [vpFREE] Re: "Guaranteed Play" Could Change VP-Very Interesting

murphyfields wrote:

I may be missing something here, but wouldn't this be profitable for
the casinos even with a good paytable?

In general with a game (with no gauranteed play), the higher the ER,
the less it costs you to play. A 100% game should cost you nothing
to play in the long run. Play the same game with gauranteed play,
assuming no change in strategy, and the casino makes $20.

There's been a bid of a misleading misconception (er, a redundancy I
suppose -- are misconceptions every NOT misleading in the phrasing
of there being a "cost" to play the game. The $20 is merely a buyin
for the standard 80 $.25 credits.

What you "pay" in exchange for the play guarantee is playing a
paytable that may be weaker than you'd otherwise accept (for John Q,
that supposition may be dubious

What you get in exchange for the weaker paytable is the economic value
of being able to run into negative credits without additional cost and
the option to quit early if you run up a decent profit ... at which
point the guarantee has little added value and now you're simply
saddled with the drain of the inferior paytable. I estimate for a
game such as Jacks that this may likely add 3%+ to the game ER.

However, I am very curious how this will effect comps. Taking a
simple system of $1 per point and playing dollars, will you still
earn 5 points per hand even if you have a negative balance?

The suggestion in the write-ups is that this would exactly be the case
and would be an aspect that would appeal to many. However, this
benefit is entirely illusory. If the overall ER should be inferior to
a standard game, the expected earned comps over a moderately short
period of time will be inferior.

- Harry

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

[tomflush1]

After reading all these posts about the game, it dont appeal to me at all, unless they have any of the following top games ( all full pay ): Joker kings, All american, downtown deuces, 10/7/80 double bonus poker, 17/15 loose deuce.

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----- Original Message ----- From: <howard.w.stern@earthlink.net>
To: <vpFREE@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2006 9:28 PM
Subject: RE: [vpFREE] Re: "Guaranteed Play" Could Change VP-Very Interesting

Has anyone done the math? For 9-6 jacks I would suspect this game is horrible as the low variance would mean you do not end up more than 16 hands behind after 150 hands very often. In order to win you must be more than 16 hands ahead. I would suspect you would be between +16 and -16 a big percentage of the time. You are gaining versus normal vp whenever you finish play more than 16 hands behind but losing whenever you are better than that. (Note that a no quad no royal run for 150 hands will average about a 13 hand deficit.) If you are lucky to get an early quad and decide to quit you have given up most of your win to the $20 insurance fee. The variance is why other game types give fewer hands.

[Harry_Porter]

howard.w.stern wrote:

Has anyone done the math? For 9-6 jacks I would suspect this game is
horrible as the low variance would mean you do not end up more than
16 hands behind after 150 hands very often.

After the specifics in John's article clarified that you started with
0 credits rather than 80, I've been loathe to offer any further
observations until I had examined this thoroughly. However, my
initial inkling of the realities under this revised assumption were
similar to yours, particularly for a game like 9/6 Jacks.

Taking a quick peak at the results distribution for 150 hands, 81% of
the time you expect those hands to end in ending credits of less than
$20 for $.25 Jacks. The expected ending meter value under those
circumstances is $13. Thus you're looking at a negative EV on the
game of $7 vs. playing a standard 9/6 Jacks game. That's an ER
sacrifice of about 1.3% on 150 hands of play.

So, at this point I'm entirely satisfied that the game is unattractive
for 9/6 Jacks (confirming my gut feeling above).

(Note, under the earlier assumptions for play, the game necessarily
entailed a weak paytable and as a consequence there was added value on
the upside in quitting early -- added EV. If you now assume a
"playable" game like 9/6 Jacks, that aspect of the analysis vanishes
entirely.)

An analysis for a game such as DB or DDB, or even DW still remains --
where, as you note in your full post, higher variance increases the
value of the GP feature. There's still considerable room for an
attractive game.

Unfortunately, early details indicate that the number of hands
guaranteed is variable -- either 150 or 75, depending upon the
specific game. You can count on higher volatility games as being
limit to 75 hands. Until details are disclosed concerning the number
of hands that will be featured for a given game type it's not possible
to analyze this any further.

My bottom line position is still that the featured games could still
be quite attractive. However, as I've said before, the likely appeal
of the game to players who are largely paytable insensitive lends a
strong likelihood that propsects are very weak.

Of course, it's entirely possible that further clarification of game
details will necessitate revision of this rough workup.

- Harry

[Harry_Porter]

I wrote:

The expected ending meter value under those circumstances is $13.
Thus you're looking at a negative EV on the game of $7 vs. playing a
standard 9/6 Jacks game. That's an ER sacrifice of about 1.3% on 150
hands of play.

It should be apparent I dropped a (-) sign from the $13. With an
expected loss of $13 but an actual cost of $20, the consequence is an
EV hit of $7.

So, at this point I'm entirely satisfied that the game is
unattractive for 9/6 Jacks (confirming my gut feeling above).

I want to note that this analysis has assumed play with standard
ER-optimal 9/6 strategy.

However, when the meter is negative (which is expected to be the
majority of the time) it's to your benefit to play a more aggressive
strategy since modest advances gain you something less than their full
face value.

Consequently, there is greater EV to be pulled out of this game. The
analysis involved to assess the precise appropriate strategy is one
that I first alluded to as being extraordinarily complex.

It's unlikely that I'll come forward with any specific suggestions
other than if you find yourself down by more than $20, where I expect
the chance of recovery to a positive meter of any amount will fall
below 10%, it's time to go "balls to the wall" for quads and royals.

- Harry

[Harry_Porter]

I wrote:

> The expected ending meter value under those circumstances is -$13.
> Thus you're looking at a negative EV on the game of $7 vs. playing
> a standard 9/6 Jacks game. That's an ER sacrifice of about 1.3% on
> 150 hands of play.

Given that you're talking about $187 coin-in on 150 hands of quarter
play, that 1.3% is off by a factor of 5. (And such a misstep in a
calculation was why I was inclined to hold off with an updated
analysis until I scrutinized my scribblings carefully.)

The EV hit for 9/6 JB Guaranteed Play is 6.7% -- Howard's assessment
of a "horrible" game as has been described is clearly on target.

Maybe we're talking about a game that could be expected to net the
casino returns that are more typical of slots than any vp. However,
my guess is that we're still short a few hard details on the play
specifics.

Someone has got to have some stronger facts.

(Come on, Bob ... cough up. I'm sure you nailed the specifics with
keen precision at the Gaming Expo, no? I know you'll treat us with a
precise analysis in your column. Give this amateur a break in having
a go at it with some solid game info that might put a rest to my
floundering with the partial info writers have disclosed to date ...
please??

- Harry