We've heard about it, and I saw it. The Great Video Poker Blunder

[Alan Mendelson]

We've all heard about it and vowed that it would never happen to us because we are too smart.

Well, I saw it happen.

A player made only a ONE COIN BET and hit a royal flush that would have been a PROGRESSIVE ROYAL FLUSH.

She was sitting next to me. Photo below. One coin and instead of getting something like $27,000 it was just $1,250.

When she gasped and I saw the royal, I yelled out "congratulations -- you got it!" And then I saw only one coin in, and I almost fell off my seat.

When the floor person came over for the handpay she looked at the screen and muttered "what a waste." I had already turned to the player to my left and muttered "moron." And the player to my left laughed and said "super idiot and she probably doesn't realize what she did."

On the other hand we can't feel too bad for her. Maybe $5 was all she could afford... though on a $1 game a royal was worth $4,000 or more if a progressive.

And had she pressed max bet instead of a single coin she might have gotten a non paying hand.

I know you want to know if she had been playing five coins on each hand before? And the answer is no: she was only playing one coin.

By the way, this was at Bellagio a few weeks ago.

It breaks your heart. And it makes you swear over and over again not to make this blunder. (Am I being too tough?)

[jbjb]

Yeah that hurts. Scroll to the bottom here even though it's only quarters...

http://wizardofvegas.com/forum/gambl...ealt-royal/29/

[Alan Mendelson]

jbjb I've seen it happen as well on a 25-cent game. The time I saw it, a player at Rincon could only afford one coin in and she was actually very happy to have hit 250 coin pay since it was all she could afford.

Of course the most aggravating "win" I ever saw was when Jason and I were both at Rincon and an elderly couple was playing the 100-line video poker machine for one-cent, one line... and they were dealt a royal. They were celebrating like they just hit Megabucks.

[arcimede$]

I see short coin royals all the time. Where I play it is almost as common as max coin royals. Many people think higher denomination machines pay back better but cannot afford to bet the maximum.

[Alan Mendelson]

Many people think higher denomination machines pay back better

That's very interesting, and may come from all of the various "reports" about higher paying slot machines having better percentage returns. The error, of course, is that video poker games are not manipulated as slot machines are.

[RS__]

Long story short (this was a few years ago, shortly after I first started playing/learning VP). I was playing some VP and ended up with a $79 voucher. Anyway, found myself at the $5 denom machines [very big for me at the time]. I started playing $25/hand. Up down, up down. Ended up with $4. Boo. I cash out, look at cashier area and it's super long and the nearest ATM-casher-outter machine is far away. So I figure I'll just $1 1-coin until it goes to $0 or $5 then max bet. Bet 1...lose....#2...lose...#3...lose....#4, get dealt 3 to a royal. I got a sick feeling in my stomach, "I know....it's going to happen....my first RF is going to be a short-coin bet and....." royal flush. Grr...

[redietz]

While one should never do this, I think you're being too hard on her. The fact is that if anything, including micro-timing, had changed because she had instead been playing max coins, she almost assuredly would not have hit the royal in that session, so while it's true that her single coin behavior caused her to not hit the progressive, it also caused her to hit the royal. Butterfly effect and all that.

I look at it this way. In all likelihood, it was a positive. She hit a royal she probably would not have hit, and she learned to play max coins on a progressive. That's a good outcome, all things tallied.

[regnis]

Towards the end of my 12 year royal drought, I was playing $1.00 triple Play Super Pay--$18 per throw and getting murdered. Down to my last $12 on the voucher and decided not to feed anymore and leave. You can't play 2 lines at $6 each on this game, so it deals 3 hands at $4.00 each.

Dealt 4 to a royal and draw the royal twice!!! Wanted to kill myself but will never play short again. Either cash out or feed the extra couple bucks.

[Rob.Singer]

I have a completely different view. Who cares how many credits are bet beforehand. You win anything and you were lucky to do so. If this report had been made about the "stupid lady who bet one credit and lost it" we'd be hearing from the confused AP crowd about how smart this lady was to be playing only one credit on a -EV machine. Instead, we get plenty of reverse Monday morning quarterbacking.

[jbjb]

Negative EV has nothing to do with it. I'd love to only bet the bare minimum on any game on losers and max bet on winners.

[Rob.Singer]

Of course it does. Playing as small as possible on -EV is what an AP calls "smart".

[jbjb]

I'd prefer, although I always don't, to never play anything -EV. And when I am, I find the lowest limit possible. He'll, I'll play 1¢, 1 line vp to just kill time.

[arcimede$]

Of course it does. Playing as small as possible on -EV is what an AP calls "smart".

How little he knows about APers. I doubt there are any that would call playing a -EV machine smart no matter how much they were betting.

[LoveVP]

It actually happened to me last year when I was playing $5 jack or better at Caesar Palace high limit room, $25 a hand is just too much for me, instead of $20000, I got $1250. It was even dealt to me. I learned my lesson and only play $1 machine with max bet from then on. I was lucky enough to have won 2 Royals on $1 machine this year, one of them was dealt to me too. I guess the point is not everybody can afford $25 a hand.

[Alan Mendelson]

Thanks for joining and for posting LoveVP. You recognized the problem. Had you hit a royal on a $1 game for the same $5 played you would have been paid $4,000 instead of $1250. But you are still due congratulations because it was $1250 and there's nothing wrong with hitting that.

Several years ago the progressive jackpot at Rincon on its $5 DDB was near $50,000 and TWO PLAYERS both hit royals playing only one coin during the time that progressive was building. It seems there are a lot of players who play one coin or less than five, even on progressives.

[redietz]

I'm going to quickly repeat an old anecdote of mine that is embarrassing but funny, and that keeps with this theme.

I was at the Palms, waiting for the sports book to open. They had some promo in progress where if you had your card in a machine and were playing, you received some free breakfast or something for minimal play at certain hours. So I plunked down at a progressive quarter video poker machine with true FPDW and started playing a quarter at a time until the sports book opened. Sure enough, after 10 minutes or so, I hit the damned royal. The woman next to me just looked in horror and said something like, "I'd rather not have hit it." I didn't get upset, as I was just playing for the promo and killing time, and oh well, so I was okay with it. There was still 10 minutes or so until the sports book opened, so I resumed playing with max coin. The woman who chided me left.

Bingo bango. In a handful of hands, I hit the royal -- again. For the full amount. Yay. I collected my cash and went to the sports book. Karma was good.

The story has a ridiculous postscript. Later that day, at Palace Station, where I had gone to get my football entries put in, I noticed that their cumulative jackpot was near the point someone had to hit it. The rules were you had to have your card in a machine and be playing, and the winner got some enormous amount, while everyone else got $50 or something. Well, it was approaching the 100K max jackpot, and someone had to hit in 10 or 15 minutes, so I once again sat down and started playing -- a quarter at a time. You know the story...yes, hard to believe and funny as hell. A third royal! For one coin. Oh, I am an idiot....

Anyway, I have never had another day with multiple royals, and I will never have another three-royal day in my life, I am sure.

Why was I not really upset with this? Because if the timing of the day changes at all, or a button push is a moment different, the day transpires differently. So I will take the outcome of that day while having a good story to tell.

[FABismonte]

I think that a one coin royal is not "The Great Video Poker Blunder." The real GVPB is a four coin royal. In that case the player is using 4/5 of a full hand but without the enhanced payoff at the royal for all five coins.

By contrast one coin may make some sense if one only can play a the higher denomination game with one coin.

It is not exactly pertinent but thirteen years ago when I was a relative VP newbie, my wife and I were visiting friends in the Bahamas. We walked into the Atlantis Casino and I saw a $5 single line VP machine with a nine/six payoff for full house/flush. We did not come to gamble on vacation so I only had a couple of hundred dollars with me. I played one $5 coin at a time. They were really coins as there was no TITO on the machine. Within thirty hands I had three Aces dealt to me three times. The third time I hit the fourth Ace. I watched the credit meter zoom past the 25 coins I expected, then hit 125 then stopped at 160 credits. I has intensely curious as to why I had such a big payoff. Then I noticed that I was not playing JOB 9/6 but rather DDB! I confused a full pay JOB with a short pay game. I scooped up the coins after hunting for a plastic bucket and surprised the wife. It was a hit and run as there was much more to see and do than gamble away at short pay machines.

FAB

[Rob.Singer]

I'm shaking my head at all these tales of so-called woe. You should always be thankful for winning anything. Besides, I thought everyone understood that it's impossible to have hit those royals by dealing a hand a mili-second earlier or later. Saying after the fact that "I should have been playing max coin" simply means you would not have seen that royal. I've hit a $1 royal with 2 credits while waiting for someone at a bar at the Rio, and I had no regrets whatsoever.

[Alan Mendelson]

The millisecond of hitting the max bet button is the same millisecond hitting the bet 1 coin button. But I won't argue with one coin bettors because you only help grow the jackpots for the rest of us.

[Rob.Singer]

I wouldn't bet on that being the case. Most people don't hit the "Bet One Credit" 5 times. Their hand moves to a different button, maybe an inch away or maybe a foot away. That's all it takes.