My husband is a good vp player. 8 royals at the Cosmo one year alone. However, last two years are pretty bad. An IT guy sat next to him at the bar and told him that it is impossible to tell if you are playing with a single deck, two or even three. If so, then the odds listed on the front screen are based on what? Can the casino change the number of decks however they want?
Sorry if this message has repeated itself as I am new to writing to this site.
Sent from my iPad
Welcome to the forum
Hitting eight royals at the Cosmo is not an indicator that someone is a good player. Generally speaking, good players avoid the Cosmo because the video poker games there are not being good.
Even if he was playing good games there some time in the past, the number of royals someone hits is largely a function of:
a. Blind luck --- most hands ending in a royal do not require a large amount of skill to play. On some hands, bad players will get royals while good players won't. For example, consider KQJ of one suit, another king, and a fifth card. In many games, it's correct to hold KK, where you cannot get the royal. If someone holds the suited KQJ anyway, one time in 1081 he'll connect.
b. How many hours they've played.
c. Number of lines you're playing. If you're playing single line games, it might take 500 hours on average to hit 8 royals. If you're playing Hundred Play, it's conceivable you'll hit eight or more royals over one weekend.
d. Generally speaking, good players do not play at a bar. Buttons are stickier, games are often worse, and people are always talking to you making concentration on the game more difficult. Still, you can get your drinks faster and to some folks this is important.
I'd need to know quite a bit more about this "IT guy" before I accepted he knew anything about video poker. If he was a programmer for IGT for the past 15 years, then yeah, he knows what he is talking about. If he's a data base administrator for an insurance company, he may or may not be knowledgeable.
Also, you don't say precisely, but it sounds like you weren't there when the conversation took place and are repeating what your husband told you about a conversation he had while at a bar. There could easily be nuances to what was said that got missed somewhere along the way.
Games in Nevada generally have one deck per line played. Triple Play games use three decks. Fifty Play games use 50 decks. The designer/manufacturer of the games select how the game is played, with how many decks, and casinos do not change this.
Despite what this IT guy may or may not have said at a bar.
________________________________
From: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com <vpFREE@yahoogroups.com> on behalf of Caesarmalone caesarmalone@yahoo.com [vpFREE] <vpFREE@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2016 11:06 AM
To: vpfree@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [vpFREE] Triple deck??
My husband is a good vp player. 8 royals at the Cosmo one year alone. However, last two years are pretty bad. An IT guy sat next to him at the bar and told him that it is impossible to tell if you are playing with a single deck, two or even three. If so, then the odds listed on the front screen are based on what? Can the casino change the number of decks however they want?
Sorry if this message has repeated itself as I am new to writing to this site.
Sent from my iPad
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The one lingering point I don't think Bob addressed:
On Thu, 17 Mar 2016, Caesarmalone caesarmalone@yahoo.com [vpFREE] wrote:
told him that it is impossible to tell if you are playing with a single deck, two or even three.
If we are talking about single line video poker then this statement is obviously false. If you were playing single line video poker dealt from two decks, then you would see a hand with, for example, two aces of spades, at some point.
C wrote: "An IT guy sat next to him at the bar and told him that it is impossible to tell if you are playing with a single deck, two or even three."
Somebody should make a 5 deck draw poker game, the excitement would be hands like five aces of spades. They could make the cutoff 2 decks or whatever like they do on those blackjack machines so card trackers can't get a useful edge.
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(Theoretically speaking) card Counting a 5 deck VP machine? OMG, I think I just got a headache thinking about it. Hah, you could hit a full house and a flush on the same hand!
It seems weird to say you can not know how many decks are in play, especially since I've never seen nor heard of (from a reputable source) a suited pair (i.e.: two 5 of diamonds) on the same hand.
Theoretically, if VP had more than 1 deck, but was programmed so that no suited pair could be shown in the same hand (even discarding an ace of spades then redrawing an ace of spades)......I'd have to think the game would have the same odds/return. For instance, a four card Royal draw has a 1/47 chance of connecting to a royal flush. With 2 decks in play, the chances would go to 2/94 (since there exist 5 cards that cannot be repeated, but 2 of each, i.e. 104-10=94).
So even IF there were multiple decks in a single line VP game, and assuming it's impossible to ever get a suited pair, then it wouldn't matter if it plays from 1 deck or 500 decks, as the odds would be the exact same.
As far as video BJ, some machines have 1 deck and others have 2 decks (not including the "big tit" machines). And it tells you how many decks are in the shoe when you hit HELP PAYS/RULES button. Of course, they *could* be lying about how many decks are in play, but again, if there exists a rule (in the software) that says no suited pair is possible, then the odds should be the exact same on two decks vs single deck, like it would be in VP.
Plus, that'd be an incredibly stupid thing to lie about.
Sent from my iPhone
On Mar 17, 2016, at 2:30 PM, nightoftheiguana2000@yahoo.com [vpFREE] <vpFREE@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
C wrote: "An IT guy sat next to him at the bar and told him that it is impossible to tell if you are playing with a single deck, two or even three."
Somebody should make a 5 deck draw poker game, the excitement would be hands like five aces of spades. They could make the cutoff 2 decks or whatever like they do on those blackjack machines so card trackers can't get a useful edge.
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I think I have some insight as to why the IT guy said what he said.
Video Poker - Indian Casino style
I just came back from an Indian Casino where I suspected something was up with the Video Poker for a while now, for my experience there playing VP is very different than playing in Las Vegas (and it is nothing to do with the pay tables).
What is going on is that that Indian Casino is that they are simply returning the discarded card back to the deck rather than removing them. I noticed this when I got 4 to a straight flush (all hearts) on a JOB 9/5 machine with a King of of spades sitting in the center of the deal. Since I was down quiet a bit I took notice particular of this hand, so I selected my four hold cards (all the hearts) and then pressed the draw button. The Kink of Spades flashed but did not go away, and I lost the hand. I sat there stunned and realized that I had seen this before, where a discarded card comes back, but my mind at those did not really register that was in fact what was happening.
Returning the discarded cards back to the deck to be drawn from can indeed give the illusion that there is more than one deck at play, as players may claim.
The Wizard of Odds publishes the rules for VP here
http://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/basics/#toc-Rules
However, in Oregon the Indian Casinos are 'self-regulated' and they can do whatever they want with the games with impunity. If they chose to return the discarded cards back to the deck, this does obviously increases house edge by: You will get more 2 of a kinds and slightly more full houses, but the odds then for the 4-kinds, straight flushes and royals goes way up.
If you need an excuse to NOT PLAY video poker at a tribal casino, this is it then.
Mvetanen, in the case where you tried to throw away the King of Spades it sounds to me like you were playing a Class II machine.
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Hello Micky
Always enjoy your postings.
A while back I did ask a slot technician at that tribal casino if the VP was class II or III, and I was told that it was class III, the same as the Oregon Lottery VLT's (that have a return rate of 91%)
On my blog, I have a photo of a class II video poker machine
http://crapspoopshoot.blogspot.com/p/indian-casinos-omg-wtf.html
Note, that a class II VP machine will have a sixth bonus card that the machine picks to ensure that you win what the server says you won despite what you may have held.
Did you have a slot tech come and check the machine? If it is Class 3 it should say right on the machine that it uses one 52card deck (except joker games) and I would think you would have some recourse. My local casino has almost full pay 10/7 DB which I have played with considerable luck. Unfortunately only at $5. They short the rregular 4oak to 239.
Sylvia