vpFREE2 Forums

The Montana Play

#1

"Won't you meet me in Montana
I wanna see the mountains in your eyes
I've had all of this life I can handle
Meet me underneath that big Montana sky"
Donny & Marie, I think

Greetings from the Montana Brewery, 128 N 28th St, Billings,
Montana. It's a balmy 19 degrees outside with wind gusts to 30 MPH,
up from the below zero stuff of the last few days. The town is still
digging out from under the snow of the blizzard that blew through.

I'm Having the Nachos Alfredo, with a couple of pints of Custer's
Last Stout while waiting for Miss America to walk through the door.
I thought I'd drop you a line while I'm waiting.

The Montana Play is officially over. My covert operation is at an
end. They finally learned how to add and subtract, multiply and
divide.

It's was a ten-coin nickel play, or a two coin quarter play,
whichever you prefer to call it. Hey, don't laugh at me. Wait until
you hear the details.

It was a Joker Wild Game (one joker). The payscale was:

RF...............800
5K...............250
JR...............200
SF................50
4K................25
FH.................9
FL.................5
ST.................4
3K.................1*
2P.................1

*That's right, the 3K paid even money. But the best is yet to come.

There were 3 bonus hands each having a 1% progressive meter. These
were mostly individual progressives. At some spots 2 or three
machines were linked together. At preset the meters looked like this:

5 Aces.................$600
4 Natural Aces.........$150
Full House w/3 Aces....$100

The only one of these progressive where the joker played was in the 5
Aces hand. The others had to be natural.

Montana law is no jackpot over $800, so the 5 Aces meters would go to
$800 and stop. The other meters never got that high so they could be
counted in totality on the play.

I'm down to a 25% charge so I've got to run. But first, a pop quiz,
kids!

1. Where would you put the theoretical payback of this game?

2. What kind of a theoretical hourly rate would you put on this play?

3. If you played this game for 50 hours per week for six months,
what is the estimated number of W2G's you would figure to accumulate?

You are not going to be able to run this game comprehensively on any
of the existing programs. I expect your answers to be on my desk in
half an hour.

P.S. I'm the King of the Lowrollers, baby!!! Don't ever forget it!

#2

mickeycrimm wrote:

It's was a ten-coin nickel play, or a two coin quarter play,
whichever you prefer to call it. Hey, don't laugh at me. Wait until
you hear the details.

It was a Joker Wild Game (one joker). The payscale was:

RF...............800
5K...............250
JR...............200
SF................50
4K................25
FH.................9
FL.................5
ST.................4
3K.................1*
2P.................1

*That's right, the 3K paid even money. But the best is yet to come.

There were 3 bonus hands each having a 1% progressive meter. These
were mostly individual progressives. At some spots 2 or three
machines were linked together. At preset the meters looked like
this:

5 Aces.................$600
4 Natural Aces.........$150
Full House w/3 Aces....$100

The only one of these progressive where the joker played was in the 5
Aces hand. The others had to be natural.

Montana law is no jackpot over $800, so the 5 Aces meters would go to
$800 and stop. The other meters never got that high so they could be
counted in totality on the play.

I'm down to a 25% charge so I've got to run. But first, a pop quiz,
kids!

1. Where would you put the theoretical payback of this game?

2. What kind of a theoretical hourly rate would you put on this play?

3. If you played this game for 50 hours per week for six months,
what is the estimated number of W2G's you would figure to accumulate?

You are not going to be able to run this game comprehensively on any
of the existing programs. I expect your answers to be on my desk in
half an hour.

I've been at dinner, Micki, so forgive me for sliding in the back
door. Limiting myself to 30 minutes, I come up with around a 7%-9%
play (I'll put the minimum estimate at 6.6% - I'm winging a guestimate
of how much on top of that aggressive play for the A's adds. (I can
show my work upon request :wink:

If you assume a 10-coin machine that plays at a moderate speed, say
800 hph, hourly coin in is $400 ... making this about a $35/hr play
with fairly low bankroll requirement.

I see a negligible incidence of $1200+ payouts on the progressive
meters. (i.e. don't sweat W2-G reporting)

I didn't get a chance to check my work within your time constraint.
Be easy on me :wink:

- H.

#3

That's not the Montana song I thought you would have used here.
Y'know, something about raising a crop of dental floss lol.

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "mickeycrimm" <mickeycrimm@...> wrote:

"Won't you meet me in Montana
I wanna see the mountains in your eyes
I've had all of this life I can handle
Meet me underneath that big Montana sky"
Donny & Marie, I think

#4

1. I would put this at over +8% with a hyper-aggressive, high-
variance "Ace Attack" strategy.

2. The hourly return depends on how many hands you can slam through in
an hour, which depends on the condition of the machine, how often Miss
America (or at least, Miss Montana, or even Miss Billings) walks
through the door, etc. At a very modest speed of 800 hands/hr, which
would be $400 coin-in, you're making over 30 clams/hr.

3. Is this a trick question? With Montana's (asinine) $800 jackpot
limit, do you ever GET a W-2G?

What outed the play for you? I ran across something similar in
Hamilton one fine summer day, and vacuumed all the progressives, which
were $800/max for the five aces, $350 for the natural AAAA, and $170
for the AAAxx. Don't ask me how they got that high. I checked back on
my way back through and the progressives had been removed.

#5

tralfamidorgooglycrackers wrote

2. The hourly return depends on how many hands you can slam through
in an hour, which depends on the condition of the machine, how often
Miss America (or at least, Miss Montana, or even Miss Billings) walks
through the door, etc.)

Well, I see that as an all or nothing proposition. Growing up in
Northern Michigan, I know the truth of the lyric "the Northern girls
with the way they kiss They keep their boyfriends warm at night". I
suspect that Montana gals have that honed to a science ... don't plan
on wearing socks to bed to stay warm. (And let me tell you the folly
of a mid-winter campout some day ...)

If there's to be any female distraction during play, you size things
up pretty quickly. An aggressive, let's not waste time, "Is that a
wad in your pocket or ..." calls for an executive decision. Are we
talking about a proposition from a pro (in which the answer is, "I'm
on the clock"), or an approach by someone only a fool would entertain
with their prowess while at the machine for any length of time ...
head to the bar (assuming there's any need to flirt at all -- an art I
suspect has been efficiently refined in MT as well).

- H.

#6

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Harry Porter" <harry.porter@...>
wrote:

mickeycrimm wrote:
> It's was a ten-coin nickel play, or a two coin quarter play,
> whichever you prefer to call it. Hey, don't laugh at me. Wait

until

> you hear the details.
>
> It was a Joker Wild Game (one joker). The payscale was:
>
> RF...............800
> 5K...............250
> JR...............200
> SF................50
> 4K................25
> FH.................9
> FL.................5
> ST.................4
> 3K.................1*
> 2P.................1
>
> *That's right, the 3K paid even money. But the best is yet to

come.

>
> There were 3 bonus hands each having a 1% progressive meter.

These

> were mostly individual progressives. At some spots 2 or three
> machines were linked together. At preset the meters looked like
> this:
>
> 5 Aces.................$600
> 4 Natural Aces.........$150
> Full House w/3 Aces....$100
>
> The only one of these progressive where the joker played was in

the 5

> Aces hand. The others had to be natural.
>
> Montana law is no jackpot over $800, so the 5 Aces meters would

go to

> $800 and stop. The other meters never got that high so they

could be

> counted in totality on the play.
>
> I'm down to a 25% charge so I've got to run. But first, a pop

quiz,

> kids!
>
> 1. Where would you put the theoretical payback of this game?
>
> 2. What kind of a theoretical hourly rate would you put on this

play?

>
> 3. If you played this game for 50 hours per week for six months,
> what is the estimated number of W2G's you would figure to

accumulate?

>
> You are not going to be able to run this game comprehensively on

any

> of the existing programs. I expect your answers to be on my desk

in

> half an hour.

I've been at dinner, Micki, so forgive me for sliding in the back
door. Limiting myself to 30 minutes, I come up with around a 7%-9%
play (I'll put the minimum estimate at 6.6% - I'm winging a

guestimate

of how much on top of that aggressive play for the A's adds. (I can
show my work upon request :wink:

If you assume a 10-coin machine that plays at a moderate speed, say
800 hph, hourly coin in is $400 ... making this about a $35/hr play
with fairly low bankroll requirement.

I see a negligible incidence of $1200+ payouts on the progressive
meters. (i.e. don't sweat W2-G reporting)

I didn't get a chance to check my work within your time constraint.
Be easy on me :wink:

- H.

Harry, you will have to forgive my irreverent post of last evening.
I was suffering delusions of grandeur brought on by a pint and a half
of Custers Last Stout. They were not lying. It is stout!

I started in on this game by running the payscale on Frugal and Win
(87.45%). That became my starting point. And I had the strategy on
Frugal which I verified on Win. Then I had to put the ER on some
hands that you just don't see in regular VP to see where they would
be inserted in the strategy.

Then I did some chart tweaking and analyzing with the main move being
putting 1 Queen above all the RF2's. I had to use the Queen because 1
Ace is not on the strategy chart. The only difference between the
two holds is the Queen makes about 500 more stratights. Because of
the bonus hands 1 Ace goes from not making the strategy chart to a
hand that is worth over 40%. It shoots up well above the RF2's. The
Analyzer now put the game at 86.25%

Then I discover that holding a pair with an Ace kicker comes into
play. The difference between the two hands normally would be holding
the kicker would cost you 20% in ER on the hand. So I calculate how
often I see a pair with an Ace kicker. Every 12 hands. So now I
discount that off the return of the game and my new starting point is
84.6%.

Frugal has a real handy timesaving tool. In the Add Statistics
feature the "appeared" box shows the number of combinations on the
deal that represent that hand. So I take that frequency and multiply
it by the frequency for converting it to the desired hand. I came up
with these numbers for the Aces Full:

Dealt Aces Full.............................9,964
Dealt 3 Aces into Aces Full................11,611
Pair of Aces into Aces Full.................4,663
1 Ace into Aces Full........................6,389
Pair into Aces Full........................17,361
Pair w/Ace Kicker into Aces Full........... 4,529
Aces Up into Aces Full......................3,623

It Averages to 899.4.

Then I take the payoff, 200 bets, discount the normal Full House,
then divide 191 by 899.4 for a 21.28% add-on. I go through the same
process with 4 Aces(5,220) and the 5 Aces (126,325)and get another 6%
add-on.

I add everything up and I've got myself a 111.88% game. Hey, if I'm
off a little I don't care. Plus I've got two meters running at 1%
each. The 5 Aces meter stops at $800 so it doesn't add much.

My Artichoke Vegetable plate has arrived so I must take a short
break.

#7

The name of the game is Jackpot Aces. The one I described is the new
version. There are about 5500 machines that have this game spread out
among 1,675 gaming establishments in the state.

The Aces Full hand paying $100 was clearly a mistake. Normally, this
hands starts at $10, $12, $15, $20. I found the mistake in only about
20 locations spread out amongst Billings, Great Falls, Butte, Missoula,
and Whitefish.

The game had an autohold that was about 80% correct. You had to touch
the screen to change the cards. I could crank 1000 hands per hour but
over a six hour period I would get out about 5000 hands, what with
breaks and everything thrown in.

I think the problem with the game is one would just about have to be
totally blind to lose money in the long run. People played the game,
they were terrible players, they had no clue as to the big edge, but
how are they gonna lose in the long run.

#8

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "tralfamidorgooglycrackers"
<tralfamidorgooglycrackers@...> wrote:

1. I would put this at over +8% with a hyper-aggressive, high-
variance "Ace Attack" strategy.

You are right. It an Act Attack game.

2. The hourly return depends on how many hands you can slam through

in

an hour, which depends on the condition of the machine, how often

Miss

America (or at least, Miss Montana, or even Miss Billings) walks
through the door, etc. At a very modest speed of 800 hands/hr,

which

would be $400 coin-in, you're making over 30 clams/hr.

I averaged $450 an hour in wager. I put the theoretical payback at
over $60 an hour which is about where I came in at.

3. Is this a trick question? With Montana's (asinine) $800 jackpot
limit, do you ever GET a W-2G?

Once again, you are on the ball. You can't get a W2G in Montana
because the biggest jackpot is $800.

What outed the play for you? I ran across something similar in
Hamilton one fine summer day, and vacuumed all the progressives,

which

were $800/max for the five aces, $350 for the natural AAAA, and

$170

for the AAAxx. Don't ask me how they got that high. I checked back

on

my way back through and the progressives had been removed.

I stopped into Billings last year just to visit the Crystal Lounge on
1st and Broadway. Back in 1984 I had played lots of stud poker but
at the Crystal they were dealing this newfangled game called Texas
Holdem. It was the first time I ever played the game.

Anyways, they got about 15 machines in the poker room. I
think "You're not going to find anything if you go over and punch up
payscales. This just ain't the country you would find an overlay."
So I go over punching up payscales and come across this Jackpot Aces
game. It was different from the new version. You had to bet $1.25,
but the flush payed 6 and the straight payed 5. The royal paid only
$800. The rest of the payscale was the same. This is the game you
described in your above post.

So I see these meters and I look at the payscale and I don't know
what to think. I don't have any tools with me to analyze the game.
My laptop was in storage in Las Vegas. I see the big numbers in the
progressives but I'm also looking at a 3K that pays only even money.
I take off walking through downtown and check other casinos. I'm
seeing the Aces Full at $200, $250 and the 4 Aces at $350, $400. I
didn't know it then but this money was built up throught short coin
action.

So I write everything down and figured to analyze it the nest time
I'm in Las Vegas.

I screwed around and didn't analyze the game for almost a year. When
I did I was shcoked. I headed straight for Montana. But they were
changing the game out from the $1.25 version to the 50 cent version.

The game was on 5500 machines in the state and it was virgin
territory--not a video poker pro in sight. I would have loved to
have had that shot at sweeping those machines out.

I know why they changed the game out. The bet was to high for
Montanans. This is the land of the five dollar bill. If you look
around these little casinos at what bills the public is putting in
the machines the great majority is five dollar bills. A 50 cent bet
is called "betting high" here.

So thats how I stumbled onto it. Just blind luck.

#9

The vpFREE database lists some rather dreadful 25 cent games for this
casino. Is anyone familiar with higher denomination (i.e. $1, $5, or
$25) games there?

Bob Dancer

For a 3-day free trial of Video Poker for Winners, the best video poker
computer trainer ever invented, go to //www.videopokerforwinners.com

<http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=97359714/grpId=4641017/grpspId=1705065732/m
sgId=83777/stime=1201047483/nc1=4767085/nc2=4507179/nc3=4990213>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

#10

The Double Diamond progressives are the best plays there. I've seen $1
ones get to $7K. My last visit in 2006, there was nothing better than
7-5 BP.

Except for the odd tribal casino, Canadian casinos are mostly owned by
the province's lottery. Pretty much the best situations I've seen
there involve pick'em and maybe .4 on the card.

Bonne chance, monseuir.

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Bob Dancer" <bdancer@...> wrote:

The vpFREE database lists some rather dreadful 25 cent games for this
casino. Is anyone familiar with higher denomination (i.e. $1, $5, or
$25) games there?