I have only found the Tom Ski's Basic Strategy for Pickem video
poker, but I do not find it comprehensible at all. Could you please
explain the strategy listed on the link, or how a player could decide
which alternative pile of cards to pick based upon the Tom Ski
strategy set forth? When I just read the strategy page, it doesn't
make sense to me. Any help would be appreciated, and I think that
any further explanation to decipher the strategy would be appreciated
by all members of the group.
Pick "em PKM Strategey
The terminology used is fairly standard and becomes easier with experience.
I will try to help..
Here is an extract from the Pick- em strategy table....
3.1729 QJTs
2.8271 KQJs, KQTs, KJTs
2.6312 High Pair, 99-AA
2.4362 Royal, Ace Hi
This tells us that a suited Ten jack queen is the best shot at getting an improvement
in a situation where you could have a ten jack suited on your must keep two cards and on the piles of three cards one could be the suited queen and the other a matching high card .
If , however your 3 card Royal contained an Ace you would be better off keeping the high pair.
I would suggest that you get yourself a copy of a video poker tutorial program, such as Frugal VP or Winpoker, where you can practice the games and plug in specific hands to analyze.
Regards
A.P.
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----- Original Message -----
From: sgabobble
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, December 29, 2003 11:26 PM
Subject: [vpFREE] Pick "em PKM Strategey
I have only found the Tom Ski's Basic Strategy for Pickem video
poker, but I do not find it comprehensible at all. Could you please
explain the strategy listed on the link, or how a player could decide
which alternative pile of cards to pick based upon the Tom Ski
strategy set forth? When I just read the strategy page, it doesn't
make sense to me. Any help would be appreciated, and I think that
any further explanation to decipher the strategy would be appreciated
by all members of the group.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
"I have only found the Tom Ski's Basic Strategy for Pickem video
poker, but I do not find it comprehensible at all. Could you please
explain the strategy listed on the link, or how a player could
decide which alternative pile of cards to pick based upon the Tom
Ski strategy set forth? When I just read the strategy page, it
doesn't make sense to me. Any help would be appreciated, and I
think that any further explanation to decipher the strategy would be
appreciated by all members of the group."
I have played A LOT of Pick'em. Here's a (slow, but fool-proof)
technique I've used to teach people to play pick'em:
1) Use one hand and 'hide' one of the two fixed cards (the fixed
cards are located on the left of the screen and these are the cards
you must keep). Let's start with the left fixed card.
2) Compare the left fixed card with EACH of the 2 stacks (recall
eack stack
has a face up card and two faced down cards).
3) It should be clear which of the two stacks is the best match for
the left fixed card (at worst, it's doesn't matter as both are
equally bad so you pick'em, get it!).
4) Do the same (follow steps 1 thru 3) for the right fixed card.
5) Compare the best choice between the the left fixed and right
fixed (again this ought to be obvious).
I'll go over 1 example in detail: (6d 9c) 6hxx 9sxx (the fixed cards
are 6d & 9c; xx denotes unseen cards -- d is for diamonds, c is for
clubs, etc.)
-- If you cover the 9c, you then are choosing being a low pair
(6d6h) or a 2 card straight with 2 gaps & 1 high card (6d9s) -- it
should be obvious to choose the low pair which is listed next to EV
of 1.1418 (using the advance strategy for a full pay table) over the
0.5230 EV for ST 2 Gaps 1 Hi Card (or "HC").
-- Now cover the the 6d -- you are now choosing between a 2 card
straight with 2 Gaps 1 HC (9c6h) or a high pair (9c9s). Take the
high pair with EV of 2.6312 over EV of 0.5230.
Step 5 says compare the two choices: low pair w/ EV of 1.1418 or hi
pair w/ EV of 2.6312. Obviously, you take the hi pair. If you do
this enough, you can see the short cuts
Now, you can make sense of TomSki's strategy. If you keep in mind 9
is a high card, then his strategy is easy to use because you are
asking yourself five simple questions [note the following steps is
copyright by moi that I used it to develop my own Pick'em strategy]:
1) How many High Cards do I have?
2) Can I make a Flush?
3) Can I make a Straight?
4) Do I have a Low Pair?
5) How many Gaps do I have?
Once again, with the left fixed card, you only had 1 HC, you can't
make a flush, you can make a straight, you have a low pair, and you
have 2 gaps. Solution take the low pair because you had too many
gaps with the HC [or called ST -1] [Btw, I advised TomSki to adopt
the High Card - Gap covention, i.e ST +1 is JT8 because it has 2
High Card and 1 Gap, ST +0 is T87 b/c of 1 High Card and 1 Gap.]
With the right fixed card, you had a high pair (ding ding ding
ding!!), you can't make a flush, you can make a straight, you don't
have a low pair, and you have 2 gaps. So you choose the high pair
over the ST -1.
The last (or 5th) step says the high pair is an easy choice over the
low pair. As you can see, these 5 questions will help you identify
the hand ranking on TomSki's strategy, which is driven by HCs.
I hope my comments help; please ask if you have a difficult hand and
I will walk you thru it. By the way, if you can make a flush and
you can also make a straight, then you've made a straight flush (for
all you purist, a royal flush is a special case of a straight
flush), which is very strong hand. I now leave you with one very
controversial example: (Js Td) Ts Ks [see PS for solution]
Cheers.
PS Btw, TomSki is an amazing guy and his software is awesome. As
for the correct choice, the EV play is to choose 3 to the Royal
Flush: TJK of spades. However, the pair of Tens is an equally
acceptable play in my book.
···
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "sgabobble" <sgabobble@y...> wrote: