Well this makes 4 weekends in a row that I have headed up the hill to
play and practice VP. I stayed at the Isle of Capri this time. Most of
my room comps I have so far are from Fortune Valley and those are only
good Sun-Fri. I have been giving The Isle a lot of action lately so
some room comps and $$$ would be nice to see start showing up. I have
really been wanting to get away from the 9/6 JOB game and start finding
something with a better EV. I have been spending a lot of time scouting
pay tables for different games as well as other local casinos. Like
others have stated The Isle and Ameristar seem to pay the best. Fortune
Valley and Century Casino seem to be on the low end. But there sure
seems to be a lot of people that line up to play anything that says
video poker on it, no matter what it pays. I have Jean Scott's Frugal
Video Poker tutor on the computer and I have been spending lots of
hours on it learning strategies of other games so I can find a
new "core game" to play. What I have found though is a lot of the pay
tables in the casinos leave a lot to be desired. I realize that in the
casino data base on this site you can find some current info(thanks for
your help casino monitors) and it seems like the casinos with outdated
info are not worth updating due to poor pay schedules. Anyway, sorry
for getting side tracked. The game that I seem to enjoy playing and has
a EV of 99.8% is Triple Bonus Poker Plus and with cash back from the
Isle it seems to hold a positive value. Any other thoughts on this? Any
help would be appreciated.
Also one other note, for those of you that play dollars, while in
Fitzgeralds today I noticed they had a Double Bonus Progressive that
was up to about $7500 for the Royal. I put a $100.00 through it which
went rather fast. But my bankroll is more geared for quarter machines.
I hit lots of 4 of a kinds on Triple Bonus plus this weekend, came out
ahead, but still no Royals, been over a year now and still waiting on
the next one. Bobby
Just back from Blackhawk
Hi Bobby,
I checked the inventory a few weeks back at the Isle, and I think the listed machines are still there. They have removed the small cage, and shuffled the machines into that area. I've not had a chance to track them all down, so I've not updated the inventory with new locations. I took a very quick look at Ameristar last weekend and I think its still OK, too.
As you noted, the Triple Bonus Plus looks like the highest EV anywhere in Blackhawk or Central City. The variance is VERY high on this machine, though. 44 vs. about 25 for deuces and under 20 for JOB. No quads and this game will be painful.
Be sure to call to book rooms as Isle of Capri/Colorado Central Station. When I've called, the rates have been around $100/night on weekends vs. over $200 on their web site. We don't really play that much, so you should do better. And I spend too much time playing blackjack or poker.
Colorado law specified 100% max payout, so we'll never get FPDW or anything else really good.
Jon
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]