vpFREE2 Forums

pick 'em session

#1

On another site, someone posted that they had lost $900 in 4 hours playing quarter pick 'em.

I replied back that to lose that much was a very unusual situation and that if it were a non regulated casino , I 'd be worried. This person replied back that I didn't understand pick 'em, or stats or much of anything.

My question to this group: "What is your worst pick 'em session ever?". Please include denom, length of session, coin in ( if known), coin out, if known and any comments about the session. Thanks.

John Zaroff
Delphi Electronics and Safety
313-996-3682 (w)
313-378-2987 ( Cell)
3133782987@vtext.com ( text page)

···

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#2

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "John.G.Zaroff" <John.G.Zaroff@d...>
wrote:
"On another site, someone posted that they had lost $900 in 4 hours
playing quarter pick 'em.

I replied back that to lose that much was a very unusual situation
and that if it were a non regulated casino , I 'd be worried. This
person replied back that I didn't understand pick 'em, or stats or
much of anything."

When I read John's post, that reminded me of the time how I wonged a
Max machine on the on mode (the return was 109+%) and proceeded to
lose $300 on a $0.25 machine in four hours - I was so p*ssed (okay,
I didn't lose $900, but I was playing a game at 109%!). As a
result of that event, I now tell people, you can hit a quad four
times an hour or one quad in four hours.

Going back to the pick;em post; if that situation happened, then I
believe it. This is video poker and strange things happen. For
example, an AP can go 300,000 hands under optimal play without a RF,
while the clown sitting next to the AP using a hunch strategy is
hitting RF's left and right.

My message to John and others like John is to pick up a book on
statistics and read up on "outliers." Outliers (like sh*t) happens;
it's just that everyone wants to be a positive outlier :wink:

#3

My personal worst is a $2,400 loss over 8-9 hours playing $1
($5/hand) full-pay PE. A week later I hit a RF ($6,000), so I really
couldn't complain...

"John.G.Zaroff" <John.G.Zaroff@d...> wrote:

On another site, someone posted that they had lost $900 in 4 hours

playing quarter pick 'em.

#4

My worst session with pick'em was over in a hurry. I put in $100 and
played FP $1 pick'em. 20 hands, and nary a paying hand. I rufused to
put any more money in the machine. I didn't even have time to order a
drink.

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "John.G.Zaroff" <John.G.Zaroff@d...>
wrote:

On another site, someone posted that they had lost $900 in 4 hours

playing quarter pick 'em.

I replied back that to lose that much was a very unusual situation

and that if it were a non regulated casino , I 'd be worried. This
person replied back that I didn't understand pick 'em, or stats or
much of anything.

My question to this group: "What is your worst pick 'em session

ever?". Please include denom, length of session, coin in ( if
known), coin out, if known and any comments about the session.
Thanks.

···

John Zaroff
Delphi Electronics and Safety
313-996-3682 (w)
313-378-2987 ( Cell)
3133782987@v... ( text page)

**********************************************************************
******************

Note: The information contained in this message may be privileged

and confidential and thus protected from disclosure. If the reader of
this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee or agent
responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient,
you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or
copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have
received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by
replying to the message and deleting it from your computer. Thank you.

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#5

"My worst session with pick'em was over in a hurry. I put in $100
and played FP $1 pick'em. 20 hands, and nary a paying hand. I
rufused to put any more money in the machine. I didn't even have
time to order a drink."

I used excel to calculate the odds of 20 straight losing hands:
Binomdist with 20 observations, each observation having a ~33.15%
chance of success, 0 succesful trials, and set to false. I get a
once in 3,151.36 occurrence. Ouch!

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "hamstockman" <AB6PQ@a...> wrote:

#6

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "John.G.Zaroff" <John.G.Zaroff@d...>
wrote:
...

My question to this group: "What is your worst pick 'em session

ever?". Please include denom, length of session, coin in ( if
known), coin out, if known and any comments about the session.
Thanks.

John Zaroff ...

Not my worst session, but I had a strange session 2 weeks ago at
Mohecan Sun in CT. Play fp 25c pick'em for 1 3/4 hrs, hit quads
trice and broke even. Hit one flush and 0 fh in that session. So
would have lost 1200 units w/o quads in that time.

David

#7

This would have to be the 500 credits (dimes so fortunately only $50
lost) at the Paiute Palace, Bishop, CA.
These were Bally mfg Gamemakers, and I don't suspect there was
anything illegitimate about them.
My dad hit a quad on .25 in the same 2 hours.

Another hi-roller hit a ROYAL (only $1 played, but $1K payout).
Then he came back and was trying 1-4 coin bets at $5 level.
Betting $20, he hit a quad for 400 x $5 = $2K payout.

Overall, I've been close to the avgs. on the game.

Of course - if you go say 50-100 hands without better than one pair
of nines, and very FEW 2 pair/3K or higher, you'll be losing in the
shortterm. Eventually, you will need to hit a ST/FL/FH (hopefully
more than one) to keep playing without feeding in more $$$$$....
Martin

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "John.G.Zaroff" <John.G.Zaroff@d...>
wrote:

On another site, someone posted that they had lost $900 in 4 hours

playing quarter pick 'em.

I replied back that to lose that much was a very unusual situation

and that if it were a non regulated casino , I 'd be worried. This
person replied back that I didn't understand pick 'em, or stats or
much of anything.

My question to this group: "What is your worst pick 'em session

ever?". Please include denom, length of session, coin in ( if
known), coin out, if known and any comments about the session.
Thanks.

···

John Zaroff
Delphi Electronics and Safety
313-996-3682 (w)
313-378-2987 ( Cell)
3133782987@v... ( text page)

**********************************************************************
******************

Note: The information contained in this message may be privileged

and confidential and thus protected from disclosure. If the reader of
this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee or agent
responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient,
you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or
copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have
received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by
replying to the message and deleting it from your computer. Thank you.

**********************************************************************
******************

#8

jason_c_vp wrote:

"John.G.Zaroff" wrote: "On another site, someone posted that they
had lost $900 in 4 hours playing quarter pick 'em.

Going back to the pick;em post; if that situation happened, then I
believe it. This is video poker and strange things happen. For
example, an AP can go 300,000 hands under optimal play without a RF,
while the clown sitting next to the AP using a hunch strategy is
hitting RF's left and right.

My message to John and others like John is to pick up a book on
statistics and read up on "outliers." Outliers (like sh*t) happens;
it's just that everyone wants to be a positive outlier :wink:

I'm with you when it comes to placing a lot of credence in even the
most aberational vp reports. Play long enough and most anything can
happen.

But let's look at this report with a very open mind. If we assume a
moderately fast play rate of 800 hph, this is $4000 coin in. The $900
loss represents a sustained 22.5% loss rate.

Pick'em has low volatility, right? Apparently this session evidently
lived up to that by going into the gutter early on and faithfully kept
on hemorrhaging.

···

------

So, let's assume that there was no occurance during the 4 hours of the
lesser occuring hands that would give us a 22.5% loss rate. We're
talking about 4 hours in which you see nothing better than a 3 of a
kind (and we're looking at a modest shortfall on those too). So, not
only are the usual sought for suspects (RF,SF,Quads) missing, but
there are no Full Houses, Flushes or Straights as well.

Now, combined you expect to see either a Full House, Flush, or
Straight about once every 94 hands. So, the idea of playing 3200
hands without seeing even one of these once stretches the credulity of
even this pretty gullible mind.

In truth, if I've done my math well, this particular possibility of no
FH/F/S has a probability of 1.5*10^(-14). Keep in mind that I haven't
compounded this by the unlikelihood that there'd be no quads or above.

Allow for probability of permutations in which you do get some of
these hands but fall considerably short in the 3K and below hands (to
still arrive at the 22.5% loss) and I still don't think you come up
with a number that doesn't make Megabucks look like a good prospect.

Pick'em can be surprisingly brutal at times, but obviously this
machine had the "Atilla the Hun" RNG installed.

- Harry

#9

fordscks wrote:

"My worst session with pick'em was over in a hurry. I put in $100
and played FP $1 pick'em. 20 hands, and nary a paying hand. I
rufused to put any more money in the machine. I didn't even have
time to order a drink."

I used excel to calculate the odds of 20 straight losing hands:
Binomdist with 20 observations, each observation having a ~33.15%
chance of success, 0 succesful trials, and set to false. I get a
once in 3,151.36 occurrence. Ouch!

Not to quibble, but my calculator produces an answer of 3,147.54 ... but I presume that you might have the fields in excel set to such a number of digits that it has repeatedly rounded the values. Still, that seems like a relatively significant difference for two computer-based answers. Just thought I'd point that out since I ran the numbers, too. Am curious why you'd resort to an excel spreadsheet to find the answer when it can be done on the calculator in just a few key strokes, but different strokes for different folks. :wink:

Cheers.

Bill Velek

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "hamstockman" <AB6PQ@a...> wrote:

#10

"Not to quibble, but my calculator produces an answer of
3,147.54 ... but I presume that you might have the fields in excel
set to such a number of digits that it has repeatedly rounded the
values. Still, that seems like a relatively significant difference
for two computer-based answers. Just thought I'd point that out
since I ran the numbers, too.

The difference is in the number of significant digits in the
calculations. Using a miss ratio of 66.84595%, would result in a hit-
ratio of 33.15405% as opposed to the ~33.15% posted earlier.

"Am curious why you'd resort to an excel spreadsheet to find the
answer when it can be done on the calculator in just a few key
strokes, but different strokes for different folks. ;-)"

1/[(.6684595)^20] = 3,151.36 is slightly faster.

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, Bill Velek <billvelek@a...> wrote:

#11

-$600 in a little over 30 minutes of $PE at Ballys. I estimate I played maybe 3K coin in before my wife dragged me gibbering incoherently while my bloodied fingernails clawed at the machine;-) You know I'm not really sad that particular machine has disappeared from the Ballys casino floor.

···

At 09:14 AM 9/13/2004, you wrote:

My question to this group: "What is your worst pick 'em session ever?". Please include denom, length of session, coin in ( if known), coin out, if known and any comments about the session. Thanks.