Strategy Question

[Alan Mendelson]

How about an old fashioned strategy question?

You have $100 (one hundred) of free play that you can use on video poker. You are comfortable playing only Jacks or Better. The casino offers only TWO denominations:

$1 Jacks or Better has a 8/5 paytable
$5 Jacks or Better has a 9/6 paytable

Which game do you play and why?

Now... consider this:

Your free play offer is now $1000 (one thousand). Does your choice about which game to play change?

[slingshot]

I thought you liked bonus poker. Why JOB?

[redietz]

This is a trick question, right? If you play the 9/6 machine, once every so many hands an electrified seat fries your scrotum, right? Or Guido is standing there to collect the $50 you owe him for the night with his sister, and it ain't going to go well if you can't pay him, right?

Or am I missing something?

[Alan Mendelson]

Can't get a straight answer????

[coach belly]

Is the object just to run the free play through...play the minimum number of hands, then cash out?

Or is the $100 FP part of your bankroll, with more play to come after the FP is converted?

[Alan Mendelson]

coach belly, thanks for asking some good questions. I deliberately left out any other details so that each of you would offer a strategy that may or may not include such details.

I am in the office and I posed the question to Jason. I'll give you his answer:

He would play the $100 as one coin on the 9/6 Jacks game. He would play the $1000 as five coins on the 9/6 game.

[coach belly]

an electrified seat fries your scrotum?

My first thought after reading the OP was...which one of the latent adolescents around here would devolve this thread into an exercise in middle-school genital humor?

I made Ozzy, Biloxi, the wormm, and the ditz all chalk.

[coach belly]

coach belly, thanks for asking some good questions. I deliberately left out any other details so that each of you would offer a strategy that may or may not include such details.

I am in the office and I posed the question to Jason. I'll give you his answer:

He would play the $100 as one coin on the 9/6 Jacks game. He would play the $1000 as five coins on the 9/6 game.

Why are 20 one-credit bets preferred over 4 five-credit bets?

9/6 JOB is a -EV game...right?

I've read here that the longer you play -EV, the more you will lose.

[mickeycrimm]

I would play off the free play at the denomination I played to get the free play.

[slingshot]

I would play artt style at 1,2,and 5 credits for the 9/6 20 credits until I won $100 or lost the credits.I've done it 3 times and my worst was +$45 and best +$205.. But that was bp.

[coach belly]

I would play artt style at 1,2,and 5 credits for the 9/6 20 credits until I won $100 or lost the credits.I've done it 3 times and my worst was +$45 and best +$205.. But that was bp.

Sounds like you didn't hit any quads, so you would have done better with JOB?

[slingshot]

Sounds like you didn't hit any quads, so you would have done better with JOB?

Don't know. The hope is to hit $100 profit (20 credits) with a timely flush or full house but if a quad comes at 5 credits, so much the better. While a Royal is unlike!y-not impossible. It's just that some of the quads on bp have a higher win value than job and still you have the 2 pair at double the bet.

[Rob.Singer]

At $100, if your goal is to mug the place for as much as you can and leave, you play only the dollar machine, 8/5 or not, and at max bet. 8/5 vs. 9/6 is negligible with those amount of credits, and it's meaningless with that amount of money on a $5 machine.

At $1000, you play the $5 9/6 machine, one credit at a time.

[mickeycrimm]

At $100, if your goal is to mug the place for as much as you can and leave, you play only the dollar machine, 8/5 or not, and at max bet. 8/5 vs. 9/6 is negligible with those amount of credits, and it's meaningless with that amount of money on a $5 machine.

At $1000, you play the $5 9/6 machine, one credit at a time.

Video blackjack would be a better option.