W wrote: At Barona last weekend, I never saw an error
in the auto hold through two
hours of play on one of the 3-play .50 JOB machines listed in VPFree2.
Where the auto-hold is going to miss is on penalty card
situations --- for example in 9/6 Jacks or Better it will play Ah Kh Qs Js 9c
the same as Ah Kh Qs Js 8c, whereas competent players hold AKQJ in the first
case and ‘QJ’ in the second. Whether a particular player notices this or not
depends on the player’s skills. And there will be hours-long sessions where one
of these hands doesn’t come up at all.
In games like Jacks or Better where the flush returns 6
for 1, penalty cards are few and relatively inexpensive. On these games, with
the auto-hold on, you can bang away like it’s a slot machine without giving up
too much. On games where the flush only returns 5 for 1 (like Bonus Poker,
White Hot Aces, Super Aces, Super Double Bonus, etc.) penalty cards are much
more common, and more expensive to get wrong. In these games, where you have a suited ‘KT2’ through ‘KT8’, the
auto-hold will usually hold ‘KT’ rather than just the king by itself.
On Joker Wild games, where penalty cards abound, auto-hold
doesn’t do well at all. What’s worse, for players who use the auto-hold as a
learning device, it will teach you how to play incorrectly.
Bob
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