vpFREE2 Forums

Lenny Frome Article

#1

Elliot Frome wrote:

I'm a novice at this cutting and pasting someone else's post and
then replying, so forgive me if I mess it up a bit.

I don't cut and paste. I just hit the Reply button, then insert my
responses where needed.

> Let's extend your example to higher paying hands. Suppose you
insert

five coins, and you get a flush. The payoff is 30 coins. You

choose

to Double Up. By your definition, you have now wagered a total of

35

coins. You have a 50% probability of receiving 60 coins, else you
receive nothing, so that's an average of 30 coins out. By your
definition, that's an average of 30 coins received for a total
35-coin wager, or only 85.7% payback. Does that convince you that
there's something wrong with this math?

There's a lot wrong with this math, but you haven't kept true to my
methodology. You wagered 5 coins and won 30. 30/5 = payback of
600%. you now wagered THAT 30 with a 50/50 shot of 0 or 60 for an
EV of 30.

That's a PAYOFF, not payback, and it has nothing to do with
calculating payback.
BTW, I think it was Lenny who make "payback" a commonly used term to
mean "Game EV".

And please don't ask me to keep true to your methodology. How could I
possibly do that when I know it's misleading?

You then calculated an 85.7% payback by saying 30/35, but that's not
how I would calculate it. I would use 60/35 (30 that you won at VP
and an EV of 30 for Double-Up). This calculates to 171.4% return.

I never said to use an average, but a WEIGHTED average. So, a 600%
return on a 5 coin wager and a 100% return on a 30 coin wager. So,
if you weight the 100% 6 times greater than the 600% (there are many
ways to do this, but let's go with writing 100 down 6 times and 600
once and the total is 1200% divided by 7 (6+1) and you get the same
171.4%!)

Nothing wrong with that math!

Nothing wrong with it except that it's even more twisted than my
example, which was intentionally wrong just to show numbers can be
thrown around to "prove" just about anything.

I suggest you read Peter Griffin's "Extra Stuff" book. On page 115 he
describes a betting system for craps with a 56% win rate. It's
achieved in a way similar to the way you're twisting things around.
Of course, he ends up showing just how ridiculous it is.

Let's look at this a different way. You put 1 coin in VP and you
hit a Flush paying 5 (you're stuck on an 8/5 machine!). You now bet
5 and get a Jacks or Better and you get your 5 back. What is the
return on your 'session'?

On this SESSION, your return happened to be 100%, but that's entirely
unrelated to EV no matter how you figure it. It's more likely that
I'll get no payoff, then the session return is 0%. The EV is the
weighted average (mean) of all possible outcomes.

In my eyes, I wagered 6 coins and won back 10 (5 each time). 10/6
is 166.67%. I may have 5 times the amount of money I started with,
but that is not EV or payback.

Sorry, Elliot, but what your eyes see and reality are two entirely
different things.

A computer simulation will not solve our 'dispute'. We are
disagreeing on the calculation, not the result. In your example,
unless we both agree that coin in was 35 and returned was 60, no
computer simulation will do us any good.

There is no "dispute." Just bad math. I'm sorry that you put down the
idea of a computer simulation. Are you afraid to do it?

It would appear that you are looking at the end result. I started
with 1 coin, I ended with 6 coins, thus a 600% return. This is a
correct calculation of the 'return of your money'.

If in a single event you start with one coin and end up with six,
then 600% is a correct calculation of "return of your money" on that
single event. Again, this has nothing to do with expectation of the
game as a whole.

And isn't the end result what is most important?

let's say I walk into a casino with 4 quarters in my pocket. If I
put 1 coin into a VP machine and play 1000 hands. The first 999
miraculously come up High Pair and the last one comes up a loser?
What was my payback? 0 coins returned, 1 wagered? 0%? or I walk
away with 3 coins, started with 4 so it's 75%?

What the heck does this have to do with this discussion? But your
payback for this strange session was 99.9% since you wagered 1000
coins and got back 999. The other three coins never entered into the
session.

Let's go to the old days before 'credits' on the machine, and rather
than playing the same 1 'coin', I start with a bucket of 1000
quarters. I play them one at a time and for the first 999 hands I
get my High Pair and for the last one I get a loser. The bin at the
bottom now has 999 quarters. What's the return on my session?
would ANYONE argue it's 99.9%?

No argument at all. In fact, this the same as my calculation above.
But this has nothing to do with the Double Up question.

I realize the Double-Up option doesn't allow you this choice.
It 'holds' the money and you decide to play or not. Once you decide
to 'play' you start a whole new game with it's own EV and this EV
must be weighted in the overall payback. Because Double-Up has a
100% EV, it's easy to 'lose' it.

Yes. That's how it increases the variance.

What if Double-Up had a 99% payback stand alone? what would its
impact to the overall experience be? It certainly couldn't have NO
impact to the combined game.

That's true. And neither does a 100% payback Double Up have NO impact
on the combined game. It increases the variance (but not the expected
return).

I'm glad a 10 year old article can generate such interest!

Elliot

So am I, and I hope we can be on good terms with each other. I'd like
to meet you.

If it's any consolation, I fell into this same trap of figuring that
a 100% return Double Up would shift the game's total payback closer
to 100%, whether the game's basic payback is below or above 100%, and
that's what I said in my newsletter and other places for a long time.

Now I know better. I have come to the realization that playing a
hand, followed by any subsequent double up, must be considered a
single play. True, it is more than one event, but the double up is
dependent on the play of the dealt hand, so they can not be
considered independently.

Dan

···

--
Dan Paymar, author of "Video Poker - Optimum Play"
Editor and publisher of "Video Poker Times" newsletter
Visit my web site at www.OptimumPlay.com

"Chance favors the prepared mind"
- Louis Pasteur

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

#2

Okay...here goes....

That's a PAYOFF, not payback, and it has nothing to do with
calculating payback.
BTW, I think it was Lenny who make "payback" a commonly used term

to

mean "Game EV".

And please don't ask me to keep true to your methodology. How

could I

possibly do that when I know it's misleading?

As I have countless examples of my dad's work in calculating Game
EV, I know how he calculated it. Coins returned/coins wagered. I'm
not even sure if the two of US are agreeing on that as the
definition of the game EV, yet alone we are clearly disagreeing on
Coins returned and coins wagered.

I'm not asking you to keep true to my methodology on the whole. I
simply meant if you're going to cite an example where my methodology
falls thru USING my methodology to make sure you stay True to it.
Otherwise, we'll really get confused.

Nothing wrong with it except that it's even more twisted than my
example, which was intentionally wrong just to show numbers can be
thrown around to "prove" just about anything.

I suggest you read Peter Griffin's "Extra Stuff" book. On page 115

he

describes a betting system for craps with a 56% win rate. It's
achieved in a way similar to the way you're twisting things

around.

Of course, he ends up showing just how ridiculous it is.

I haven't read the book (doesn't mean I won't search it out), but I
don't see where the logic is twisted. I'm still waiting for it.

On this SESSION, your return happened to be 100%, but that's

entirely

unrelated to EV no matter how you figure it. It's more likely that
I'll get no payoff, then the session return is 0%. The EV is the
weighted average (mean) of all possible outcomes.

Yes...a weighted average of ALL possible outcomes. Why would
throwing in some extra 100% possible outcomes not affect the
weighted average?

>In my eyes, I wagered 6 coins and won back 10 (5 each time). 10/6
>is 166.67%. I may have 5 times the amount of money I started

with,

>but that is not EV or payback.

Sorry, Elliot, but what your eyes see and reality are two entirely
different things.

Sorry, but I respectfully disagree.

>A computer simulation will not solve our 'dispute'. We are
>disagreeing on the calculation, not the result. In your example,
>unless we both agree that coin in was 35 and returned was 60, no
>computer simulation will do us any good.

There is no "dispute." Just bad math. I'm sorry that you put down

the

idea of a computer simulation. Are you afraid to do it?

Afraid..not at all. I'm a professional computer programmer. It
would take no more than an hour or two to set it up. But until we
agree on the calculation, there is no point. You say it's one
event, I say it's two events. I say if you put in 5 coins and get a
High Pair, and Double Up and win, that you've wagered 10 coins and
won 15. you're saying you wagered 5 coins and won 10. Until we
agree on a method for calculating what the program says, nothing
will be accomplished. If you'd like though, I'll write it and let
it sit there until we agree on how to use the numbers it will
produce.

>It would appear that you are looking at the end result. I started
>with 1 coin, I ended with 6 coins, thus a 600% return. This is a
>correct calculation of the 'return of your money'.

If in a single event you start with one coin and end up with six,
then 600% is a correct calculation of "return of your money" on

that

single event. Again, this has nothing to do with expectation of

the

game as a whole.

And isn't the end result what is most important?

The end result is of course important. To a professional gambler,
all that really matters at the end of the day is win or loss. Most
people are not professional gamblers. That's why most people in LV
can start with $100 and double it in the first 5 minutes, but won't
stop. They want their entertainment value too. They have in mind
they are going to gamble for 3 hours or 5 hours or 8 hours. What
this really means is that over that period of time they will be able
to wager a certain amount of money (i.e. 600 hands * 5 hours * 5
coins = 15000 coins). Since a hand of Double-Up using a portion of
that time, in turn takes a number of those hands, in turn a portion
of those coins, you must include it's 100% payback in your weighted
average in order to figure out how a player can expect to do over a
period of time or a set number of hands played or coin in.

this is NOT the same calculation as expected NET WIN or NET LOSS. I
think we're simply comparing apples to oranges, both intending to
describe the same thing, but not really.

>I realize the Double-Up option doesn't allow you this choice.
>It 'holds' the money and you decide to play or not. Once you

decide

>to 'play' you start a whole new game with it's own EV and this EV
>must be weighted in the overall payback. Because Double-Up has a
>100% EV, it's easy to 'lose' it.

Yes. That's how it increases the variance.

I'm not saying it doesn't increase the variance. but you are still
playing a portion of your hands at 99.5% and a portion at 100%
requiring the weighted average. IF the machine REQUIRED you to play
Double UP after every winning hand, I agree that THEN it is one
event inseperable and the payback would stay constant.

>I'm glad a 10 year old article can generate such interest!
>
>Elliot

So am I, and I hope we can be on good terms with each other. I'd

like

to meet you.

I consider this to be friendly discussion about a complex topic.
I'm sure we will meet at some point. As I work from the East Coast,
I'm not always able to make all the events in LV.

If it's any consolation, I fell into this same trap of figuring

that

a 100% return Double Up would shift the game's total payback

closer

to 100%, whether the game's basic payback is below or above 100%,

and

that's what I said in my newsletter and other places for a long

time.

Now I know better. I have come to the realization that playing a
hand, followed by any subsequent double up, must be considered a
single play. True, it is more than one event, but the double up is
dependent on the play of the dealt hand, so they can not be
considered independently.

I agree that if you consider it a single play that the EV will not
change. I have yet to see anything that has convinced me that they
MUST be seen this way. So long as I have the option to not play it,
I consider it two distinct events. At the point the screen pops up
to choose Double Down, the coins I won in VP are mine (mine, mine,
mine...all mine). When I choose to play, I'm starting a new game.
The fact that I only have this choice after a winning hand is what
limits the player's ability to play 100% all the time, but it still
makes it (to me) a distinct event. That's not to say I consider how
you view it as wrong, merely different.

At this point, I think we may have beaten this one to death for
now. I don't necessarily seeing us convincing the other. But then
again, if all the analysts/writers agreed on everything, there
wouldn't be the need for so many of us! :>

(*I'm going to go look for a really juicy article in my dad's
archives for next week*)

Elliot

#3

Although I concur with Dan's accurate description of the reasons
that doubling up does not affect the expected return of any game,
for positive ER video poker players the double-up option remains a
losing proposition, and not because of the increase in variance that
Dan describes (increased variance may interpreted as a negative
factor depending upon a player's objectives, but would not adversely
affect the expected return). Over any given period of time, the
time spent on playing the double up option (which does not affect
the expected return) would be better spent playing additional hands
of positive ER video poker, thus increasing the expected total win
for each session of fixed duration versus the same session with one
or more double-ups played. The opposite is true for the negative ER
player, for whom it is advantageous to spend as much time as
possible during a fixed-duration session doing things that do not
affect expected return (such as doubling-up or smoking a cigarette
or chatting with a cocktail waitress) rather than playing more hands
that add to the expected loss for the session.

-JAD

Elliot Frome wrote:
>I'm a novice at this cutting and pasting someone else's post and
>then replying, so forgive me if I mess it up a bit.

I don't cut and paste. I just hit the Reply button, then insert my
responses where needed.

> > Let's extend your example to higher paying hands. Suppose you
>insert
>> five coins, and you get a flush. The payoff is 30 coins. You
>choose
>> to Double Up. By your definition, you have now wagered a total

of

>35
>> coins. You have a 50% probability of receiving 60 coins, else

you

>> receive nothing, so that's an average of 30 coins out. By your
>> definition, that's an average of 30 coins received for a total
>> 35-coin wager, or only 85.7% payback. Does that convince you

that

>> there's something wrong with this math?
>
>
>There's a lot wrong with this math, but you haven't kept true to

my

>methodology. You wagered 5 coins and won 30. 30/5 = payback of
>600%. you now wagered THAT 30 with a 50/50 shot of 0 or 60 for an
>EV of 30.

That's a PAYOFF, not payback, and it has nothing to do with
calculating payback.
BTW, I think it was Lenny who make "payback" a commonly used term

to

mean "Game EV".

And please don't ask me to keep true to your methodology. How

could I

possibly do that when I know it's misleading?

>You then calculated an 85.7% payback by saying 30/35, but that's

not

>how I would calculate it. I would use 60/35 (30 that you won at

VP

>and an EV of 30 for Double-Up). This calculates to 171.4% return.
>
>I never said to use an average, but a WEIGHTED average. So, a

600%

>return on a 5 coin wager and a 100% return on a 30 coin wager.

So,

>if you weight the 100% 6 times greater than the 600% (there are

many

>ways to do this, but let's go with writing 100 down 6 times and

600

>once and the total is 1200% divided by 7 (6+1) and you get the

same

>171.4%!)
>
>Nothing wrong with that math!

Nothing wrong with it except that it's even more twisted than my
example, which was intentionally wrong just to show numbers can be
thrown around to "prove" just about anything.

I suggest you read Peter Griffin's "Extra Stuff" book. On page 115

he

describes a betting system for craps with a 56% win rate. It's
achieved in a way similar to the way you're twisting things

around.

Of course, he ends up showing just how ridiculous it is.

>Let's look at this a different way. You put 1 coin in VP and you
>hit a Flush paying 5 (you're stuck on an 8/5 machine!). You now

bet

>5 and get a Jacks or Better and you get your 5 back. What is the
>return on your 'session'?

On this SESSION, your return happened to be 100%, but that's

entirely

unrelated to EV no matter how you figure it. It's more likely that
I'll get no payoff, then the session return is 0%. The EV is the
weighted average (mean) of all possible outcomes.

>In my eyes, I wagered 6 coins and won back 10 (5 each time). 10/6
>is 166.67%. I may have 5 times the amount of money I started

with,

>but that is not EV or payback.

Sorry, Elliot, but what your eyes see and reality are two entirely
different things.

>A computer simulation will not solve our 'dispute'. We are
>disagreeing on the calculation, not the result. In your example,
>unless we both agree that coin in was 35 and returned was 60, no
>computer simulation will do us any good.

There is no "dispute." Just bad math. I'm sorry that you put down

the

idea of a computer simulation. Are you afraid to do it?

>It would appear that you are looking at the end result. I started
>with 1 coin, I ended with 6 coins, thus a 600% return. This is a
>correct calculation of the 'return of your money'.

If in a single event you start with one coin and end up with six,
then 600% is a correct calculation of "return of your money" on

that

single event. Again, this has nothing to do with expectation of

the

game as a whole.

And isn't the end result what is most important?

>let's say I walk into a casino with 4 quarters in my pocket. If I
>put 1 coin into a VP machine and play 1000 hands. The first 999
>miraculously come up High Pair and the last one comes up a

loser?

>What was my payback? 0 coins returned, 1 wagered? 0%? or I walk
>away with 3 coins, started with 4 so it's 75%?

What the heck does this have to do with this discussion? But your
payback for this strange session was 99.9% since you wagered 1000
coins and got back 999. The other three coins never entered into

the

session.

>Let's go to the old days before 'credits' on the machine, and

rather

>than playing the same 1 'coin', I start with a bucket of 1000
>quarters. I play them one at a time and for the first 999 hands I
>get my High Pair and for the last one I get a loser. The bin at

the

>bottom now has 999 quarters. What's the return on my session?
>would ANYONE argue it's 99.9%?

No argument at all. In fact, this the same as my calculation

above.

But this has nothing to do with the Double Up question.

>I realize the Double-Up option doesn't allow you this choice.
>It 'holds' the money and you decide to play or not. Once you

decide

>to 'play' you start a whole new game with it's own EV and this EV
>must be weighted in the overall payback. Because Double-Up has a
>100% EV, it's easy to 'lose' it.

Yes. That's how it increases the variance.

>What if Double-Up had a 99% payback stand alone? what would its
>impact to the overall experience be? It certainly couldn't have

NO

>impact to the combined game.

That's true. And neither does a 100% payback Double Up have NO

impact

on the combined game. It increases the variance (but not the

expected

return).

>I'm glad a 10 year old article can generate such interest!
>
>Elliot

So am I, and I hope we can be on good terms with each other. I'd

like

to meet you.

If it's any consolation, I fell into this same trap of figuring

that

a 100% return Double Up would shift the game's total payback

closer

to 100%, whether the game's basic payback is below or above 100%,

and

that's what I said in my newsletter and other places for a long

time.

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, Dan Paymar <Dan@O...> wrote:

Now I know better. I have come to the realization that playing a
hand, followed by any subsequent double up, must be considered a
single play. True, it is more than one event, but the double up is
dependent on the play of the dealt hand, so they can not be
considered independently.

Dan

--
Dan Paymar, author of "Video Poker - Optimum Play"
Editor and publisher of "Video Poker Times" newsletter
Visit my web site at www.OptimumPlay.com

"Chance favors the prepared mind"
- Louis Pasteur

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