vpFREE2 Forums

How Dumb Was I?

#1

Okay, sorry the first one apparently self-ejected from my email.

I won yesterday a coupon for a 50 coin bonus for a quad with full pay and
club card inserted (this is at the Reno Hilton).

The only play was pretty bad - 9/6 DB with a progressive meter at $1075.

I actually got some good play on the machine and my quads (5's) and walked
away with about a $60 profit. That part made it a good play but.. how dumb was
I to play in the first case?

Karen

···

--

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

#2

It depends on if it was 9/6/5 or 9/6/4. It was actually a slightly positive
play if it was 9/6/5. At 9/6/4 it was 99%

···

-----Original Message-----
From: krallison416@aol.com [mailto:krallison…@…com]
Sent: Saturday, March 20, 2004 3:16 PM
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [vpFREE] How Dumb Was I?

Okay, sorry the first one apparently self-ejected from my email.

I won yesterday a coupon for a 50 coin bonus for a quad with full pay and
club card inserted (this is at the Reno Hilton).

The only play was pretty bad - 9/6 DB with a progressive meter at $1075.

I actually got some good play on the machine and my quads (5's) and walked
away with about a $60 profit. That part made it a good play but.. how dumb
was
I to play in the first case?

Karen
--

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

vpFREE Links:

http://www.west-point.org/users/usma1955/20228/VP/Links.htm

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#3

You walked away with there money. I'd say you were pretty smart.

Ned C.

The Wild Joker

···

Randy C <randyc@uclalumni.net> wrote:
It depends on if it was 9/6/5 or 9/6/4. It was actually a slightly positive
play if it was 9/6/5. At 9/6/4 it was 99%

-----Original Message-----
From: krallison416@aol.com [mailto:krallison…@…com]
Sent: Saturday, March 20, 2004 3:16 PM
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [vpFREE] How Dumb Was I?

Okay, sorry the first one apparently self-ejected from my email.

I won yesterday a coupon for a 50 coin bonus for a quad with full pay and
club card inserted (this is at the Reno Hilton).

The only play was pretty bad - 9/6 DB with a progressive meter at $1075.

I actually got some good play on the machine and my quads (5's) and walked
away with about a $60 profit. That part made it a good play but.. how dumb
was
I to play in the first case?

Karen
--

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

vpFREE Links:

http://www.west-point.org/users/usma1955/20228/VP/Links.htm

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

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

#4

If you start off knowing it's a short pay game (and it
sounds like you did know that, or at least suspected
it) and you left with your original stake plus some of
the casino's money, I don't see how anyone can say did
something dumb.

The only thing "dumb" would be to expect that to
happen every time, and you didn't say you expected
that.

carlos

···

--- krallison416@aol.com wrote:

---------------------------------
Okay, sorry the first one apparently self-ejected from
my email.

I won yesterday a coupon for a 50 coin bonus for a
quad with full pay and
club card inserted (this is at the Reno Hilton).

The only play was pretty bad - 9/6 DB with a
progressive meter at $1075.

I actually got some good play on the machine and my
quads (5's) and walked
away with about a $60 profit. That part made it a
good play but.. how dumb was
I to play in the first case?

Karen
--

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

vpFREE Links:

http://www.west-point.org/users/usma1955/20228/VP/Links.htm

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links

   To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vpFREE/

   To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
vpFREE-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

   Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo!
Terms of Service.

#5

Okay, sorry the first one apparently self-ejected from my email.

I won yesterday a coupon for a 50 coin bonus for a quad with full

pay and

club card inserted (this is at the Reno Hilton).

The only play was pretty bad - 9/6 DB with a progressive meter at

$1075.

I actually got some good play on the machine and my quads (5's) and

walked

away with about a $60 profit. That part made it a good play but..

how dumb was

I to play in the first case?

>>>>>>>>>>>>

9/6/5 DB has a return of 97.81% at reset. At RF $1075 it increases
to about 98.0%. Quad 5's 30 coin bonus gets it to about 98.2%. I
don't know how much the cash back rate is, but it would add to the
return also. In general, the RF must be $1966 (ingoring all other
factors) for the return to reach 100%.
So, if you played indefinitely you'd end up losing but, fortunately,
VP in short sessions is totally unpredictable. 9/6/JB, if available,
would have been a better choice.

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, krallison416@a... wrote:

#6

Carlos Lebron wrote:

If you start off knowing it's a short pay game (and it
sounds like you did know that, or at least suspected
it) and you left with your original stake plus some of
the casino's money, I don't see how anyone can say did
something dumb.

Without intending disrespect, Carlos, that sounds like you're
suggesting if someone dashes out in front of a speeding semi to grab a
dollar they spot in the middle of the road and manages to escape from
the venture unscathed with the buck, it wasn't a dumb move :wink:

Assessing the wisdom of Karen's play in this case is a matter of
looking at the reward relative to the risk AND whether she could
afford the loss if she wasn't successful in chasing her quad.

···

------

krallison416 wrote:

Okay, sorry the first one apparently self-ejected from my email.

Well, my reaction to your "subject only" post was that it's dangerous
to ask such an open-ended question in a group like this :wink:

I won yesterday a coupon for a 50 coin bonus for a quad with full
pay and club card inserted (this is at the Reno Hilton).

The only play was pretty bad - 9/6 DB with a progressive meter at
$1075.

I actually got some good play on the machine and my quads (5's) and
walked away with about a $60 profit. That part made it a good play
but.. how dumb was I to play in the first case?

My gut reaction before running numbers was that this was near
breakeven or nominally positive. For myself, I know from playing 9/6
DBDJ (8000 cr RF, ER 100.1%) that I'd only go after your promo it when
it was combined with good cashback and/or very attractive comps. The
losses can be dizzying. (Well, I might throw a $50 at it just for the
h. of it).

But I know more than a few players who will go after any positive
play, even if slim. In fact, I think B. Dancer is pretty much in that
camp and I have nothing but respect for his judgement (no need for
anyone to comment on that!)

------

That said, when you run the numbers, this promo offers a return of
about 100.3%.

If you find yourself in the casino without much info in advance, you
could come up with an approx. of this return with a couple of basic
calcs so long as you're aware of 2 things: 9/6 DB has roughly a 98%
ER AND the quads in 9/6 DB provide about 15% of that return.

The $75 advance in the RF meter adds a 7.5% multiple to the RF. If we
simply assume that the RF contributes 2% of the game return (as it
roughly does in most "Jacks or Better" type games), then the meter
advance increases the game return by 2%*.075=.15%. Not a big
addition, but we'll call the ER 98.2% before taking the promo into
consideration.

The average quad payout is about 325 cr. This is a simple average of
the pays on the 13 possible quads (250*9+400*3+800)/13. (The actual
average pay would reflect the fact that high card quads are more
frequent than low cards, esp. aces. But the 325 is good enough for
gub'ment work.)

Adding 50 to each quad pay is a 15% improvement on that 325. So, the
15% standard contribution of the quads is increased by 2.25%. Add
this to the 98.2% above and you get a total promo return of 100.4%.

Ok, so this isn't a calc you want to tackle after tipping a couple of
drinks. But it's pretty elementary math starting with some very
simple game facts for 9/6 DB. A player who keeps such basic stats (ER
and total quad return) for common games in their hip pocket will make
their former Scout leader proud (SEMPER PARATUS!)

- Harry

#7

My interpretation of the original note was a 50 coin bonus on any quad.

···

-----Original Message-----
From: brumar_lv [mailto:brumar…@…com]
Sent: Saturday, March 20, 2004 11:30 PM
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [vpFREE] Re: How Dumb Was I?

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, krallison416@a... wrote:

Okay, sorry the first one apparently self-ejected from my email.

I won yesterday a coupon for a 50 coin bonus for a quad with full

pay and

club card inserted (this is at the Reno Hilton).

The only play was pretty bad - 9/6 DB with a progressive meter at

$1075.

I actually got some good play on the machine and my quads (5's) and

walked

away with about a $60 profit. That part made it a good play but..

how dumb was

I to play in the first case?

>>>>>>>>>>>>

9/6/5 DB has a return of 97.81% at reset. At RF $1075 it increases
to about 98.0%. Quad 5's 30 coin bonus gets it to about 98.2%. I
don't know how much the cash back rate is, but it would add to the
return also. In general, the RF must be $1966 (ingoring all other
factors) for the return to reach 100%.
So, if you played indefinitely you'd end up losing but, fortunately,
VP in short sessions is totally unpredictable. 9/6/JB, if available,
would have been a better choice.

vpFREE Links:

http://www.west-point.org/users/usma1955/20228/VP/Links.htm

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

#8

I won yesterday a coupon for a 50 coin bonus for a quad with full

pay and

club card inserted (this is at the Reno Hilton).

The only play was pretty bad - 9/6 DB with a progressive meter at

$1075.

I actually got some good play on the machine and my quads (5's) and

walked

away with about a $60 profit. That part made it a good play but..

how dumb was

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, krallison416@a... wrote:

I to play in the first case?

Karen
--

******
So the Reno Hilton has nothing better to play?
******
Anyway, I assume this 50 coin bonus is for any quad, not just a set
of fives?

For future seat-of-the-pants evaluations try this:

Your Jacks games all the quads totaled at 125 coins contribute about
6%. Do a ratio. 50/125=N/6%, so N is 3/5ths of 6%, or about 3.6%.

What you lose playing short Jacks is about 1.1% for each coin for
straights, flushes and full houses. So if Jacks 8/5 was the game the
50 coin quad bonus would add 3.6% and lose 2.2% from the base Jacks
9/6.

*****

From your DB 10/7/5 schedule, you know you go for more straights and
flushes in the strategy, so you get more of them. Straights and
flushes contribute about 1.5% each, full houses stay about 1.1%.

*****

A progressive royal in Jacks about $500/1% is the ratio or .2%/$100
increase.

*****
Of course plugging everything into WinPoker, VPSM and FP will give
you the optimal strategy, but for cocktail napkin calcs this works.

#9

bluestreak86001 wrote:

For future seat-of-the-pants evaluations try this:

Your Jacks games all the quads totaled at 125 coins contribute about
6%. Do a ratio. 50/125=N/6%, so N is 3/5ths of 6%, or about 3.6%.

What you lose playing short Jacks is about 1.1% for each coin for
straights, flushes and full houses. So if Jacks 8/5 was the game
the 50 coin quad bonus would add 3.6% and lose 2.2% from the base
Jacks 9/6.

If I read this right you get:

9/6 Jacks return = 99.5%
- short pay 8/5 Jacks = (2.2%)
+ quad bonus = 3.6%

Expected Return of promo: 99.5 - 2.2 + 3.6 = 100.9%

That overstates the positive return w/ a 4000 cr. RF by a factor of 6:
.9% estimate here vs. .15% actual.

Add .15% to each estimate for the advance in the RF meter Karen
observed and you reduce the multiple of estimate/actual to 1.05%/.3%
-- a little over a 3x overstatement.

I've separately suggested a more accurate approach that requires
knowing only the 9/6 DB return and the quad contribution to return.

From your DB 10/7/5 schedule, you know you go for more straights and
flushes in the strategy, so you get more of them. Straights and
flushes contribute about 1.5% each, full houses stay about 1.1%.

In DB 9/6/5 you only push the straights since flushes don't pay a
premium vs. 9/6/4 Jacks (both 6 for 1). This may be, in part, where
your estimated ER gets inflated vs. actual.

The larger part of the inflated ER comes from your use of the 125 JB
quad pay, vs. the considerably higher average 325 DB quad pay, to
determine how much return is added by the quad bonus.

- Harry

#10

[Karen - Please excuse me while I talk about you like you're not here.]

Without intending disrespect, Harry, that sounds like you're equating short
pay VP with running onto the freeway. If you're going to use such
metaphors, I could respond with this: "That depends. If she absolutely
needed the dollar to save someone's life, no, it wasn't a dumb move."

Let's get back to reality. Karen indicated she knew the pay scale wasn't
very good. That she knows this but decides to play anyway tells me she's
going to the casino for fun. When you're there for fun, there really aren't
ANY dumb bets (no, not even Keno). Heck, even Jean has admitted she and her
husband play slots once in a while.

Want to use your criteria? Ok, lets: a) Karen didn't say anything about
not being able to afford the loss, so she wasn't dumb from that perspective,
was she? b) The only players that will pass your "reward relative to the
risk" test are those that ONLY play positive expectation games AND have the
bankroll to avoid RoR (thousands of dollars, for quarter players). I could
be wrong, but I think that's going to exclude about 98% of the people in
this forum.

Karen had a few bucks and a coupon to putz around with. She quit while she
was ahead. She had fun (I guess). She didn't do anything dumb.

carlos

PS Ok, here's some dumb behavior: I'm at the Argosy yesterday, seeing if
they've done anything good with their VP. Along one wall, there's a row of
eight quarter machines. No one was playing any of them. I'm standing in
front of a machine in the middle of the row. I'm reaching over the chair
and selecting the different games and checking out the pay scales. I
reiterate--NO ONE was playing ANY of the machines. This guy comes up and
says "EXCUSE ME" in a loud voice, grabs the chair, pushes it back (forcing
me to step back) and sits down to play. Nope, I checked, nobody's slot card
was in the machine and the credits were at 0. What a jerk.

···

-----Original Message-----
From: Harry Porter [mailto:harry.por…@…net]
Sent: Sunday, March 21, 2004 1:53 AM
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [vpFREE] Re: How Dumb Was I?

Harry Porter wrote:

Without intending disrespect, Carlos, that sounds like you're
suggesting if someone dashes out in front of a speeding semi to grab a
dollar they spot in the middle of the road and manages to escape from
the venture unscathed with the buck, it wasn't a dumb move :wink:

Assessing the wisdom of Karen's play in this case is a matter of
looking at the reward relative to the risk AND whether she could
afford the loss if she wasn't successful in chasing her quad.

------

#11

I avoid the Argosy except to go to the buffet, which is actually
fairly cheap and good if you're lowcarbing it. You didn't mention
if you found any improvement there. Is it still as pathetic as
before? This is the KC version of the Coast casinos trick. Take a
place with good VP, but minimal everything else (no hotel, bad
comps), and change it into a glittering palace with horrible VP,
while keeping all the things that kept me away from it in the first
place - no hotel, bad comps.

Done griping. BTW, Carlos, us KCer's appreciate your regular
updates.

PS Ok, here's some dumb behavior: I'm at the Argosy yesterday,
seeing if

they've done anything good with their VP. Along one wall, there's

a row of

eight quarter machines. No one was playing any of them. I'm

standing in

front of a machine in the middle of the row. I'm reaching over

the chair

and selecting the different games and checking out the pay

scales. I

reiterate--NO ONE was playing ANY of the machines. This guy comes

up and

says "EXCUSE ME" in a loud voice, grabs the chair, pushes it back

(forcing

me to step back) and sits down to play. Nope, I checked, nobody's

slot card

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Carlos Lebron" <calebron@s...> wrote:

was in the machine and the credits were at 0. What a jerk.

#12

> The only play was pretty bad - 9/6 DB with a progressive meter at
$1075.
... nothing better to play?

9/6 jacks or better

#13

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Harry Porter" <harry.porter@v...>

Adding 50 to each quad pay is a 15% improvement on that 325. So,

the

15% standard contribution of the quads is increased by 2.25%. Add
this to the 98.2% above and you get a total promo return of 100.4%.
- Harry

I need to mention how right you were Harry, and how wrong I was in my
post! First of all, my feedback was based on a 30 coin bonus, when
the original post clearly said 50 coins. Bad start. Then I computed
the quad bonus as though only one type of quad counted, not ANY
quad. It's a good thing I don't run a nuclear power plant where
simple math mistakes like that can do real damage.

I plugged the numbers into WinPoker (RF=4300, QuadAces=804,
Quad2,3,4=411, Quad5-K=284) and it said the return was 101.525%. If
that's correct (and given my track record on this subject, it may not
be), it was not a dumb play at all.