Hi group,
Since there has been fairly active discussion of bankroll and streaks
lately, I'd like to give you some stats I just added up from my own
records. I don't have as long a play history as some, but I have
lgged a lot of hours (over 1 million hands) on progressives from 7/03
to now.
The numbers I present below are at least 95% from dollar games; there
is a good 100-coin penny that I play on rare occasions, and I played
one cycle on a 50 cent machine in February. The games have been
mostly 9-6 Jacks or Better, 8-5 Bonus and 8-5 Aces and Faces with
single forays into 15-10 Double Deuces, 7-5 Bonus and 9-6 DDB. This
background is to show that I have kept my bankroll risk constant and
my volatility as low as possible throughout this period.
I am spurred to write now, because I just got a couple of hits to
bring my bottom line to a new high and I thought this would be an
encouraging time to do it. That said, I want to show the amount of
patience it has taken to get here. The game enforces patience on you,
so I claim no superiority in that regard.
Okay, here goes.
My last high point was a $6,500 royal on 6/27/04. After that time I
played 871,865 hands and got 11 more royals without enlarging my
bottom line. At the worst point, my high-to-low loss was $22,134 or
about 4 royals (remember, they were progressive).
Considering more broadly, my progressive game net (total session
win/loss plus cashback) was positive in 2003, NEGATIVE for the ENTIRE
YEAR of 2004 and is now positive for 2005. This is on games with an
average theoretical return (game plus cashback) over the whole period
of 100.94%.
That's pretty much the worst of it. I don't consider my results very
much out of the norm or unusually ugly, just very long swings in
outcome. Unfortunately, my results on standard games are even worse,
but again not something I would start conspiracy theories over. (At
least not today; there have been times...) It is just sobering to see
what you are up against if you are considering taking on Lady Luck as
a serious hobby.
To bring you up to the present, last Friday I was running four royals
behind my expectations based on strategy-adjusted RF frequencies from
WinPoker. Then I hit royal #12 (relatively speaking) to finally put me
over the June '04 hump. I got an additional royal yesterday to
solidify the gain and bring my number of royals back to only a mild
(26 actual vs. 28.4 predicted) deficit.
Finally, to paint a happy face on these years of play, the stats above
didn't include coupon cash or contest prizes. Coupons carried me to
breakeven in 2004, but a near total lack of contest prizes meant the
year appeared to any rational observer as a total waste of
considerable time and effort. This year, however, I've landed two big
prizes to make it a very rosy year indeed.
My secondary point is that without promotions, you may be hard pressed
come out very far ahead at all, although you could always have much
better luck than I've had. When I first began playing I considered
only return plus cashback and expected to walk in and make $X/hr. How
naïve! My game win/loss plus cashback was still negative after two
full years of (heavily) playing only positive expectation games (both
progressive and standard). I supported my bankroll entirely off of
coupons and contests, and at some points it was touch and go.
Promotions, especially contests, require planning as detailed as
learning a new strategy and considerable time to execute the plan you
develop. I really hate having to attend drawings on weekend nights
because of the crowds, smoke and drunk drivers, but it is necessary to
make a go of VP these days, IMHO.
Sam