Hi All,
I recently have become disabled, confined to a electric scooter,
but have the good fortune to have the time and the money to play
video poker 10-25 hours a week. I have not played for several years.
Recently I started playing again and would like some help, please.
The games I play are 25 cent fully loaded 10-6DDB, 9-6DDB, 9-
6JOB,and FPDW. I am also open minded to play 10-7DB. I can not play
$1 video poker or progressive over $1199 because taxable events would
affect my disability income I would like to know what the average
cost per hour is to me in each of these games between royals.Does
average cost include SD or variance? I would try to use the math
formulas to arrive at the answer, but the truth is I would rather an
expert explain or flat out tell me the answers. The answers will
probably influence the amount of time I play on each game.
I play mostly at the Gold Coast and Palms, but could play almost
anywhere. I'm a hillbilly so I prefer the GC to the more swanky Palms.
Still, I like the scenery at the Palms.
Any help would be most appreciated. Thank you in advance.
T.D.
My 1st post intro.and help with SD & Variance & wait cost
tdavenport51 wrote:
I recently have become disabled, confined to a electric scooter,
but have the good fortune to have the time and the money to play
video poker 10-25 hours a week. I have not played for several years.
Recently I started playing again and would like some help, please.
The games I play are 25 cent fully loaded 10-6DDB, 9-6DDB, 9-
6JOB,and FPDW. I am also open minded to play 10-7DB. I can not play
$1 video poker or progressive over $1199 because taxable events would
affect my disability income. I would like to know what the average
cost per hour is to me in each of these games between royals.Does
average cost include SD or variance?
Let me give you some rough, big picture info to help shape your
understanding. This isn't intended to comprehensively answer your
questions. I'll suggest that a general understanding of the variables
may be more helpful at this point in your play than the specifics.
"Average cost per hour" is relatively straightforward to determine.
Let's take an example playing $.25 vp, 600 hands/hr, on a hypothetical
game where the return of the game with perfect play plus other cash
benefits on the play give the play a breakeven expectation (100% ER).
In this case, if you assume that all other hands occur according to
their expected frequency, you look to run short of the 100% ER by the
return contribution of the missing royal ... which we'll assume
represents exactly 2% of the game return.
So, in this instance, your total wagers/hr = $1.25 x 600 = $750. A 2%
shortfall from that is $15/hr you expect to absorb from your bankroll
between royals. (You would adjust the 2% upwards or downwards to the
extent that your actual game expected return + cash benefits varies
from 100%.)
···
------
You go on to ask about variance and it's representation in this number
-- it's not represented at all in the $15 value. Your actual loss
experience (as your play certainly suggests) can run far afield from
that. For some of the games you mention, an hour's loss of $200 isn't
entirely uncommon.
Given the magnitude of variance implicit in play, it's akin to a
tsunami when compared against the steady outflow of "average cost".
How that plays out is that when playing a breakeven game you look to
lose, on average, the amount of the royal payout on your cumulative
play before hitting the royal, bringing you back to even.
During that time you anticipate that variance will swing you around
quite a bit. You hope for it to smooth out over extended play so that
ultimately any net loss attributable to it is relatively mild. With a
low variance game such as Jacks or Better, that's often the case.
However, when play runs consistently sour, you might find that you've
run a 2% negative variance from expectation and be down $2000 at the
time you hit the royal. Higher variance games leave you at even
greater exposure.
Things can run worse yet ... when you fail to hit the royal within
40,000 hands, but instead don't hit for 60K, 80K, or even longer --
leaving you behind $2K or even $3K after finally getting that royal.
(There's the upside where your results are actually better than
expectation and you hit 2 or more royals in rapid succession ... but
the focus here obviously is girding oneself for the sour side of play.)
------
Obviously I've gone well outside of your question, but I presume that
your ultimate concern is how much you might find drained from your
bankroll between royals. That concern reasonably extends to how much
you might find yourself short even after hitting and need to bridge
until your play swings in the other direction.
This broaches on the concept of the bankroll requirement of play --
how much you need to set aside to comfortably endure the downswings
(both hour-to-hour and the extended adverse play runs).
I'm not going to spill over into a discussion of bankroll at this
point. I encourage you to run a search on "bankroll" in the group
archives and explore what's been written on the subject here.
In addition, Jean Scott's "Frugal Video Poker", which has an excellent
discussion of the bankroll concept (along with other topics that make
it an indispensable player resource), is a very prudent investment.
Finally, it would be helpful to purchase vp tutor software that
provides a bankroll calculator and well as providing a graphic display
of sample bankroll volatility (a picture here is worth well over a
thousand words -- even if, in my lengthy posts, I occasionally make a
run that's on par with one or two of those "pictures" 
On the software front, I'm particularly fond of the Bankroll
volatility charts provided by Frugal VP or Wolf VP software. VP for
Winners software has a particularly fine bankroll calculator (also to
be found in FVP and WVP).
Explore these resources and maintain keen records on your play history
that all you to observe your own volatility experience over time and
you'll soon develop a keen expectation of what to expect and what to
adequately bankroll for your play choices.
------
A note re W2-G impact on disability benefit determination. A quick
review of the subject suggests that in most cases unearned income
(i.e. income not derived from wages) isn't factored in determining
your disability benefit. This includes interest income and likely
extends to income from winnings.
The one exception to this is Supplemental Security Disability Income
(SSDI). This is a program that augments the standard Social Security
Disability (SSD) program as a safety net for those whose benefit and
other sources of income fall below a set threshold. In this case,
most all income sources of counted in determining benefit eligibility.
Since progressives represent one of the most attractive play
opportunities, I encourage you to inquire how reported winnings would
impact your benefits.
- Harry
Let's look at one of the games you mentioned: 9-6DDB.
If you set out to play 25 hours a week of 9-6DDB at 500 hands/hr,
here's what you can expect to happen at the end of a week:
-$2,000, 1%
-$1,600, 3%
-$1,200, 11%
-$800, 25%
-$400, 43%
-$0, 61%
The 2nd figure in each row is the chance that you will lose more
than the amount of the first figure. For example, there is an 11%
chance you will lose more than $1200 for the week. There is a 61%
chance you will lose something.
That assumes perfect play and no tips, but also no cashback.
Let's say you don't want to lose more than $1200 in a week, so you
will quit if you are $1200 behind. That's fine, but then your
chance of losing $1200 rises to 17%.
Calcs were done with Dunbar's Risk Analyzer for Video Poker.
--Dunbar
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "tdavenport51" <tdavenport51@...>
wrote:
Hi All,
I recently have become disabled, confined to a electric
scooter,
but have the good fortune to have the time and the money to play
video poker 10-25 hours a week. I have not played for several
years.
Recently I started playing again and would like some help, please.
The games I play are 25 cent fully loaded 10-6DDB, 9-6DDB, 9-
6JOB,and FPDW. I am also open minded to play 10-7DB. I can not
play
$1 video poker or progressive over $1199 because taxable events
would
affect my disability income I would like to know what the average
cost per hour is to me in each of these games between royals.Does
average cost include SD or variance? I would try to use the math
formulas to arrive at the answer, but the truth is I would rather
an
expert explain or flat out tell me the answers. The answers will
probably influence the amount of time I play on each game.
I play mostly at the Gold Coast and Palms, but could play
almost
anywhere. I'm a hillbilly so I prefer the GC to the more swanky
Palms.
···
Still, I like the scenery at the Palms.
Any help would be most appreciated. Thank you in advance.
T.D.
FPDW lose 1% without royals, so cost about $7 per hour.
tdavenport51 <tdavenport51@yahoo.com> wrote: Hi All,
I recently have become disabled, confined to a electric scooter,
but have the good fortune to have the time and the money to play
video poker 10-25 hours a week. I have not played for several years.
Recently I started playing again and would like some help, please.
The games I play are 25 cent fully loaded 10-6DDB, 9-6DDB, 9-
6JOB,and FPDW. I am also open minded to play 10-7DB. I can not play
$1 video poker or progressive over $1199 because taxable events would
affect my disability income I would like to know what the average
cost per hour is to me in each of these games between royals.Does
average cost include SD or variance? I would try to use the math
formulas to arrive at the answer, but the truth is I would rather an
expert explain or flat out tell me the answers. The answers will
probably influence the amount of time I play on each game.
I play mostly at the Gold Coast and Palms, but could play almost
anywhere. I'm a hillbilly so I prefer the GC to the more swanky Palms.
Still, I like the scenery at the Palms.
Any help would be most appreciated. Thank you in advance.
T.D.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
You should be aware, of course, that any VP "win" that is not offset by a "loss" is taxable, not
just those over $1,199.
..... bl
···
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "tdavenport51" <tdavenport51@...> wrote:
I can not play
$1 video poker or progressive over $1199 because taxable events would
affect my disability income
T.D.