Playing
conservatively at TDB is an oxymoron!!
Brian
The above value statement does not have anything to do with perfect
strategy.
If for some reason someone plays TDB often and invests a lot of money
in the game, then this person shouls follow perfect strategy which
maximizes his return long term. I'm assuming this person will play
long enough to cover several cycles of royals, say. In perfect
strategy you hold the cards that maximize your return. Holding three
aces and a kicker has more value, thus in this style of play you do
hold the kicker.
Very often people play games briefly that they never intend to play
seriously for a long time. I have read about dedicated video poker
players that play sometimes Megabucks, or Little Green Men. In that
spirit, someone might want to put a twenty on a TDB machine, be it
dollar or quarter, just for the heck of it. The cycle for a royal on
a typical machine is of the order of 40,000. The cycle of aces with
kicker in TDB is 14,227. Besides royals and aces, a TDB machine has
high paying quads. In this spirit, some people play a twenty on this
machine. The advantage for this style of play of the TDB machine over
the FPDW machine, for example, is obvious. The probability of hitting
some hand for over 400 coins in higher in TDB than in FPDW simply
because there are so many more hands in TDB that pay that much than
in FPDW. The idea is "I'll burn this twenty or get something." In
that spirit, you might consider 800 to be something; after all, 800
is 40 times the 20 you were going to burn. In this spirit, if you get
four aces with a kicker, the conservative hold for this very risky
investment of a twenty is to dump the kicker. Here is what happens.
By holding just the three aces, the probability of getting a hand
better than a full house is maximized, though not the EV (or is it
ER?). Well, that is why you were playing TDB anyway, not as a game to
extract value from long term, but to make a quick buck; and you chose
TDB specifically because it does have many high paying hands.
I don't see why someone might not want to do this on the way out of a
casino, after grinding for hours at a positive game and either
winning or losing. Now, if you play the game conservatively then you
would hold the kicker. By conservatively I mean in the recommended
way. You play a good paytable of TDB paying almost 100% in a casino
with other benefits for your play that make the play above 100%.
By the way, if I were in Las Vegas right now and wanted to blow a
twenty, I would probably go to that dollar Wheel of Fortune. Ten
million is a lot, and I hardly ever see it that high.
E
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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, BJayGold@a... wrote: