My free play results

[jbjb]

The denomination makes no difference to me. 1 cent or $100 credits, I'm going for the right play.

[Alan Mendelson]

The denomination makes no difference to me. 1 cent or $100 credits, I'm going for the right play.

Really? Then put yourself in the shoes of Joe Blow who usually plays 25-cent video poker. He gets the urge to play one hand of $100/coin VP. He's dealt AKQJ9 of spades. What would your advice be to him?

Here's what I'd say: can you afford to lose that $500, and would $2500 make a difference to you?

[monet]

The denomination makes no difference to me. 1 cent or $100 credits, I'm going for the right play.

Really? Then put yourself in the shoes of Joe Blow who usually plays 25-cent video poker. He gets the urge to play one hand of $100/coin VP. He's dealt AKQJ9 of spades. What would your advice be to him?

Here's what I'd say: can you afford to lose that $500, and would $2500 make a difference to you?

Really bad analogy or hypothetical. You gave Joe Blow a 47-1 shot for 400 thousand dollars!! That's life changing money and it's by far the mathematical play.

800-1 on his money on his one time pull for fun!? Go Fuck Yourself!

You act like he can't make another flush or straight or pay pair!?

Even pros don't get many 47-1 shots for 400 dimes!!

Rethink the stupid hypothetical question and make it more difficult to decide.

[Mission146]

I think a very good hypothetical is say you are vulturing Ultimate X, let's make it three-play, $5 denomination and you're a low-level hustler:

Anyway, you're on TDB and you get dealt A-A-A-4-x, the right play is to hold A-A-A-4, but the A-A-A draw still gives you a much better opportunity to get a very high paying hand. Specifically, without multipliers, it's 4k for no kicker and 20k for a kicker.

I think it's a mistake between $90-$100 per hand without any multipliers, but we're three-handed, so the mistake is about $280-something before multipliers and then another $90-something for each multiplier over 1x.

Again, you're just vulturing. You're not sitting there playing sessions of TDB as a matter of habit. Obviously just holding AAA would be completely unjustifiable if you were playing sessions of TDB. In fact, you hate TDB and would need a REALLY good reason to ever play it.

What do you, personally, do?

[monet]

I think a very good hypothetical is say you are vulturing Ultimate X, let's make it three-play, $5 denomination and you're a low-level hustler:

Anyway, you're on TDB and you get dealt A-A-A-4-x, the right play is to hold A-A-A-4, but the A-A-A draw still gives you a much better opportunity to get a very high paying hand. Specifically, without multipliers, it's 4k for no kicker and 20k for a kicker.

I think it's a mistake between $90-$100 per hand without any multipliers, but we're three-handed, so the mistake is about $280-something before multipliers and then another $90-something for each multiplier over 1x.

Again, you're just vulturing. You're not sitting there playing sessions of TDB as a matter of habit. Obviously just holding AAA would be completely unjustifiable if you were playing sessions of TDB. In fact, you hate TDB and would need a REALLY good reason to ever play it.

What do you, personally, do?

I call that game two for one. No multipliers so worst case scenario he gets his money back right? Still can make a full house or the Royal. Sounds like a free shot. I would talk him into holding the 4. Joe Blow isn't going to know he should hold the 4 and is going to only hold trip aces. However, many ploppies always hold the biggest payday holds so there is that. Other Ploppies might botch the whole hand.

[Alan Mendelson]

The denomination makes no difference to me. 1 cent or $100 credits, I'm going for the right play.

Really? Then put yourself in the shoes of Joe Blow who usually plays 25-cent video poker. He gets the urge to play one hand of $100/coin VP. He's dealt AKQJ9 of spades. What would your advice be to him?

Here's what I'd say: can you afford to lose that $500, and would $2500 make a difference to you?

Really bad analogy or hypothetical. You gave Joe Blow a 47-1 shot for 400 thousand dollars!! That's life changing money and it's by far the mathematical play.

800-1 on his money on his one time pull for fun!? Go Fuck Yourself!

You act like he can't make another flush or straight or pay pair!?

Even pros don't get many 47-1 shots for 400 dimes!!

Rethink the stupid hypothetical question and make it more difficult to decide.

So it's easy for you to go for the royal and sacrifice a dealt flush for $2500 ?? Well, I'm certainly not in your class. I struggle with dropping a dealt flush every time I get dealt a flush with four to the royal. But at $1 VP or $5 VP I go for the royal -- and I have. However, I never had that problem the few times I played $25 VP.

If I ever played $100 VP (and I never did) and faced the problem I would be making a lot of phone calls before I pushed the buttons.

[The Boz]

And Alan wonders why he never had a winning year.

You can’t make this shit up, even if you tried.

[AxelWolf]

Really? Then put yourself in the shoes of Joe Blow who usually plays 25-cent video poker. He gets the urge to play one hand of $100/coin VP. He's dealt AKQJ9 of spades. What would your advice be to him?

Here's what I'd say: can you afford to lose that $500, and would $2500 make a difference to you?

Really bad analogy or hypothetical. You gave Joe Blow a 47-1 shot for 400 thousand dollars!! That's life changing money and it's by far the mathematical play.

800-1 on his money on his one time pull for fun!? Go Fuck Yourself!

You act like he can't make another flush or straight or pay pair!?

Even pros don't get many 47-1 shots for 400 dimes!!

Rethink the stupid hypothetical question and make it more difficult to decide.

So it's easy for you to go for the royal and sacrifice a dealt flush for $2500 ?? Well, I'm certainly not in your class. I struggle with dropping a dealt flush every time I get dealt a flush with four to the royal. But at $1 VP or $5 VP I go for the royal -- and I have. However, I never had that problem the few times I played $25 VP.

If I ever played $100 VP (and I never did) and faced the problem I would be making a lot of phone calls before I pushed the buttons.

Yes, the first call should be to your son so he can make a decision as to if he wants to get paid back $2500 or have you go for it so he can be paid back in full if you hit.

[mickeycrimm]

I don't know enough to know what the right move is, but I would have assumed the 3 low cards was better.

But can someone tell us what the difference is in actual dollars and cents. Are we talking pennies or 10ths of a penny or what. Is it even material is really my question.

https://wizardofodds.com/games/video...hand-analyzer/

The EV on suited 5-6-7 is 2.895467 coins vs. holding Q only which is 2.386174 coins. The total difference in expected return is (2.895467-2.386174) = 0.509293 coins, which comes out to about 12.732325 cents, which is very nearly 10% of the total amount that was bet that hand.

Depending on the denomination and number of hands being played, the cost of the error can go up (or down if it is single-handed at a lower denomination).

Anyway, Alan plays a fair deal of video poker, so the more you repeat this error, the more it costs in total in the long run.

Like Alan said, "This is 8/5 Bonus Poker which has a return of 99.17%," well, not playing like that it doesn't.

Funny thing is it would have been a bigger mistake had the hand not contained a straight penalty card against the SF draw.

If you hadn't made this post I would have.

[mickeycrimm]

The frequency of holding 567 suited and making a straight flush is exactly the same as holding a pair and making quads, 360.333

Alan, what do you think now?

[mickeycrimm]

I always like have fun with numbers. Here's some more interesting stuff about video poker and the 52 card deck. After the initial five cards are dealt there are 47 remaining cards in the deck.

There are 1081 two-card combinations left in the deck
47X46/2X1 = 1081

There are 16215 three-card combinations left in the deck.
47X46X45/3X2X1 = 16215

There are 178365 four-card combinations left in the deck.
47X46X45X44/4X3X2X1 = 178365

178365/16215 = 11
178365/1081 = 165
16215/1081 = 15

There are exactly 11 times more four-card combinations in the deck than three-card combinations.
There are exactly 165 times more four-card combinations in the deck than two-card combinations.
There are exactly 15 times more three-card combinations in the deck than two-card combinations.

There are no fractions involved. Only whole numbers.

[Mission146]

If you hadn't made this post I would have.

Thanks!

[Alan Mendelson]

The frequency of holding 567 suited and making a straight flush is exactly the same as holding a pair and making quads, 360.333

Alan, what do you think now?

I think the same thing after this discussion as I did after I had the same discussion with Rob Singer years ago. As I posted earlier, Rob also said the correct hold was the three SF cards. But the strategy I learned and followed is that you had a better chance getting your money back just holding the queen.

Why do you raise the question about the odds of getting four of a kind? I was not holding the lone Q to get four of a kind. Honestly, I was running my free play through once to maximize the value of the free play. Holding the lone queen did that by giving me four chances to pair the Queen or draw another paying pair or better.

As I read years ago, holding three small SF cards was nothing but a long shot -- and a tremendous long shot. It's 1/1081 to draw the straight flush, right Mickey? I wrote that number before in this thread but it was overlooked.

Ive had similar dealt hands over all the years I've played video poker, and never once did the SF cards show up on the draw. Gosh, how many times have all of us been dealt four to the royal and the single draw card was a blank? You saw in the video that on one hand I was dealt three to the royal -- also a 1/1081 draw -- and that was a miss too.

The reason I posted my free play video was to show an example of real results. This isn't armchair gambling, but it certainly brought out the Monday Morning Quarterbacks.

The rationale for not holding three small SF cards is sound -- because even a pair doesn't pay. And as I said make the SF draw with one high card or two and that changes everything.

You call it the wrong play -- but it was the right play for me. I wanted to convert free play to cash. But I assure you if there were four dealt cards with only one card to draw (as in a dealt four card royal) I would have taken the 1/47 shot. But a 1/1081 shot with only forty hands to be played? No thanks.

[Mission146]

Alan,

It's your money or FP, so you play however you want. It's not for me to tell you what to do with your money. As long as you understand the EV costs, then I feel like I've done my part to try to help you. I play a -EV game every now and then, so it would be hypocritical for me to tell you that you can't play VP the way you want to.

[mickeycrimm]

The frequency of holding 567 suited and making a straight flush is exactly the same as holding a pair and making quads, 360.333

Alan, what do you think now?

I think the same thing after this discussion as I did after I had the same discussion with Rob Singer years ago. As I posted earlier, Rob also said the correct hold was the three SF cards. But the strategy I learned and followed is that you had a better chance getting your money back just holding the queen.

Why do you raise the question about the odds of getting four of a kind? I was not holding the lone Q to get four of a kind. Honestly, I was running my free play through once to maximize the value of the free play. Holding the lone queen did that by giving me four chances to pair the Queen or draw another paying pair or better.

As I read years ago, holding three small SF cards was nothing but a long shot -- and a tremendous long shot. It's 1/1081 to draw the straight flush, right Mickey? I wrote that number before in this thread but it was overlooked.

Ive had similar dealt hands over all the years I've played video poker, and never once did the SF cards show up on the draw. Gosh, how many times have all of us been dealt four to the royal and the single draw card was a blank? You saw in the video that on one hand I was dealt three to the royal -- also a 1/1081 draw -- and that was a miss too.

The reason I posted my free play video was to show an example of real results. This isn't armchair gambling, but it certainly brought out the Monday Morning Quarterbacks.

The rationale for not holding three small SF cards is sound -- because even a pair doesn't pay. And as I said make the SF draw with one high card or two and that changes everything.

You call it the wrong play -- but it was the right play for me. I wanted to convert free play to cash. But I assure you if there were four dealt cards with only one card to draw (as in a dealt four card royal) I would have taken the 1/47 shot. But a 1/1081 shot with only forty hands to be played? No thanks.

It's not 1 in 1081. It's 3 in 1081. In other words 1 in 360.3333. There are three combinations that make the straight flush. When holding 567suited you can catch 34, 48, 89.

[Dankyone]

Not to mention, a flush or straight (or 3 of a kind) can be hit when going for that Straight Flush.

The game has been “solved” but of course Alan knows best, a “special play” that gives him a better chance of hitting any winning hand must be better in this case than the mathematically correct play...

[AxelWolf]

holding A 10 off J Q SS OVER JQSS

How does that cut down on variance?

That hand is even more baffling than the other one. It won't cut down on variance, all you do is limit yourself to inside str8's and pay pairs. That hand contradicts whatever Alan's excuses for why he played the other hand badly. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you have a way better chance of getting your money back with JQSS over the A high inside with 3 high cards.

[monet]

Not to mention, a flush or straight (or 3 of a kind) can be hit when going for that Straight Flush.

The game has been “solved” but of course Alan knows best, a “special play” that gives him a better chance of hitting any winning hand must be better in this case than the mathematically correct play...

He is being Asshole Mendlebread. He thinks nobody but him and Singer are the real life players on this board. He believes Free Play is different from cash. He believes Free Play changes what strategy should be. He believes that he saw 18 Yos in a row. He believes that we really care which we don't. He owes his Son money and has a daughter in trouble. I for one am not ever going to talk or try to help him again. He can go Screw.

If a player only goes to the machines to pick up free play they run all sorts of risks these days. It works for his kind because after he picks up the Free Play he is going to the dice pit and Casinos don't bother dice players like him about anything. Stations aren't giving any trouble to this guy who deposits his monthly income at their tables. This pertains to Vegas in current conditions.

[Dankyone]

It never crossed my mind that using free play would change anyone’s play strategy...perhaps some people are as dumb as they appear.

[monet]

Not to mention, a flush or straight (or 3 of a kind) can be hit when going for that Straight Flush.

The game has been “solved” but of course Alan knows best, a “special play” that gives him a better chance of hitting any winning hand must be better in this case than the mathematically correct play...

The best part of all of this when you watch Mendlebread and Singer on Youtube... Singer will constantly tell you why you should only hold the lone Ace because he can't tell you how many times he has made quad Aces from that Hold so he changes basic math and theory to adjust to the anomaly. Now all of a sudden Mendlebread reverses the theory and can't comprehend that he can make two pair and three of a kind from this hold as well not to mention all the other hands that can be made that you all already spoke of. Not only all of this but he refuses to understand that the one gap SF Draw is better than the High Card.