Skill vs Luck in Video Poker

[Rob.Singer]

Ok, not a big deal for me but I think it would be interesting to try. It sounds like there's no way to stop teams with skype and/or multiple Internet hookups from different providers, is that what you're saying? Maybe Nv. has that on their list of things to figure out--or do you think they are just trying to prevent traditional electronic style cheating?

If cheating is as easy as it sounds, where did all these supposed six & seven figure a year winners come from who were,complaining when online poker was shut down here?

[Alan Mendelson]

There are lots of ways to cheat in online poker. You and some friends can be at the same online table and also be on your cell phones at the same time... there is no limit to the opportunities for collusion.

In October of 2011 I did a report here on the website about an effort by California brick and mortar casinos including card rooms and many of the Indian casinos -- several dozen in all -- supporting an intra state online poker operation only for California. You can see it here: http://alanbestbuys.com/id104.html but you'll have to scroll down as the report was from more than six months ago.

The California initiative which is now in the State Legislature and would have to be approved by voters is designed to keep all of the poker money in the state, instead of a national online poker network that would likely send California profits to Nevada.

Personally I wouldn't play online poker for real money. Though I have played on sites for free that do pay real money because the sites carry paid ads. So far, my total winnings from these free sites is $12. That's twelve dollars, because I won three tournaments (one winner per tournament). Each tourney had more than 300 players so I feel really good about my huuuuuuuge winnings. LOL

[redietz]

I suspect many of the big winners Rob mentions were collusion experts of the first degree. And this skips the blatant in-house cheating at sites like Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker. The fact is, any time you sit down at a cash table, you may be the only one not in on the cheating. And in tournaments, you may sit down with 300 people, and 50 of them can be one coordinated bot network.

[Alan Mendelson]

Speaking of bots... I played in one "money tournament" (free to enter but final table was paid cash) about five years ago where one "player" was knocking out player after player with the most incredible draws you could imagine. I did not bet at this table, just sat there and let my blinds go. This player literally played any two cards -- 8-2 off, 10-3 off -- total junk and always managed to win with full houses or flushes, just incredible stuff.

I later found out that (after I lost) that this "miracle player" went on to win the tourney. I sent in a complaint. And the online poker casino sent me an email a few days later to say this particular account was suspended and being investigated. That's all I ever got out of them. I think it was the "house player" meant to keep "real people" from winning the free tournament.

[Vegas Vic]

Vegas Vic wrote: "isn't it still a matter of luck in live poker to get good cards from the dealer or a matter of luck when you out bluff your opponent? I know that bad luck is often a crutch whenever a bad beat takes place. "

Yes, it is a matter of luck what cards you are dealt and what cards are given to other players as well as to the table in the case of community cards. The skill is what you do with the cards you have. If you are bluffing and no one "calls your bluff" then it is either skill because you made a convincing show of strength or it is luck that no one called and everyone fell for your act. However, you can't bluff a video poker machine. You also can't make a big raise to get the VP machine to fold, and those are some of the skills of live poker.

Vegas Vic also wrote: "The rake, which generates the needed revenue, basically neutralizes the skill factor among players from the casino viewpoint."

Whoa Nellie... the casino card rooms don't care if you win. You're not winning the casino's money. In ALL cases you are winning the money from other players. Even when you win a bad beat jackpot you are winning money contributed by other players. The casino "rake" only pays for the dealers, the building, the lights, the AC, and gives the casino profit on every hand played. But when you "win" you never hurt the casino.

By the way, at many casinos you cannot take out markers or have a line of credit in the poker rooms because there is no incentive for the casino to lend you money. Since there is no profit from your betting, except in the rake, giving markers (loans) does nothing to help casino profits.

1. "The skill is what you do with the cards you have" is exactly what I said about VP. So, you agree that VP skill is a factor in winning, right?
2. What's with the "whoa, Nellie"? The rake, which is the source of the casino's poker revenue, is a neutralizer of the player's skill within the game. Accordingly, and you couldn't connect the dots, the casino doesn't care who wins. They have their share.

[Alan Mendelson]

1. "The skill is what you do with the cards you have" is exactly what I said about VP. So, you agree that VP skill is a factor in winning, right?
2. What's with the "whoa, Nellie"? The rake, which is the source of the casino's poker revenue, is a neutralizer of the player's skill within the game. Accordingly, and you couldn't connect the dots, the casino doesn't care who wins. They have their share.

1. I never said there wasn't skill in video poker. All I suggested was that there is more skill involved in live poker. I think I said that several times already, too.

2. I don't understand when you say "The rake, which is the source of the casino's poker revenue, is a neutralizer of the player's skill within the game." Please explain how it is a "neutralizer" of the player's skill?

[Rob.Singer]

There is skill involved in video poker, but very, very little. You can make a listing of simple common sense things any budding vp player has to know or write down before playing, but nothing comes of any of it unless the right cards get dealt and/or drawn. Luck is such an overwhelming factor that I am being kind by identifying skill at 5%.

[Alan Mendelson]

Well, Rob, 5% as the skill level for video poker just might be right -- and it might be enough. In live poker, the estimate I like is that skill is only 20% of the game. In any game of chance -- video poker, live poker, bingo, roulette -- skill can only have a small impact since much of the game is out of your control.

I actually consider craps to be a game that is a skill game, but to be honest, while it is a skill game no one has the skill needed to win -- which is the skill to control dice. If you did happen to have the skill you would break the casinos. So keep practicing guys.

[Rob.Singer]

I also think knowing how to count cards accurately in BJ is a good skill and should be up there at about 30% because it is so tough and tedious to do for any length of time. Plus it is not welcome and you have to hide it with skill. But video poker? Ha! That's entirely why I developed my play strategy based on maximizing luck and taking the most advantage of it when you see it, by all the cashouts. As you know I tried the "skill" route, and eventually discovered that it is only luck which gives your skill any meaning at all. Luck defines skill.

[arcimede$]

I suspect the difference between the return of a VP game for an expert player and one using just common card sense might very well be about 5%. An expert at JOB would have a 99.5% return and the non-expert about a 94.5% return. I assume this is what you meant, Alan. This gets a little less true in wild card games where common card sense might lead more people astray.

However, think about how this plays out. If I have a $1000 bankroll playing dollar JOB I'd lose .5% (or $5) every time I played through the bankroll (on average). This would allow me to play around 1000/5 iterations. This is 40K hands.

With the 94.5% game the player loses $55 each time or 1000/55 = 3600 hands. So, would you rather get over 10x the number of hands or not? (it's actually fewer hands in both cases due to a diminishing bankroll but since it impacts both situations I ignored it).

And of course, if you apply that to games like FPDW you end up making money vs. having a 95.75% return and losing that $1000 in about 5K hands. Looks like that skill difference is pretty important.

[Alan Mendelson]

I think your numbers are "good" here, Arc, and I don't disagree.

If you play live poker, and you don't have the skill to recognize that you are being bluffed, you can easily fold the winning hands. I have bluffed players into folding the nuts, and I have been bluffed into folding the nuts. I've also raised pre flop forcing players to fold hands that would have won on the river, and players have raised during the hand to force me to fold cards that would have made the winning hand on the river.

In live poker, skill can also increase the dollar-value of your hand. The familiar "check raise" is often used to improve payoffs when you have winning hands.

Unfortunately for video poker plays, you can't interact with the machine to force the machine to fold, or to pay you more than what your hand is "worth."

edited to add:

In live poker, you don't have to even make a pair to win -- and sometimes to win a big pot. "Ace high" can win, and often does.

One of the first "lessons" I learned playing live poker came about five years ago when I had AK in spades and the flop came three red small cards. There was a bet after the flop so I folded. As I folded I flashed my cards to the player on my right, to show him how frustrated I was that my ace-king of spades missed the flop. In fact, it missed the turn and river too. After the hand finished he said to me, "Give me AK and I will win every hand." And I said, "even when you miss the flop?" And he said, "I don't need to hit the flop when I have AK to win the hand."

I never forgot that. And what I've learned since then is that a lot of players win hands without even making a pair.

[Rob.Singer]

The numbers posted by arci make little sense, because he is incapable of ever responding to anything without looking at it in perfect math terms over a period of time. That's fine and dandy of course if it makes one feel good about how to analyze a game by the book, but the machines have no idea that's being done and all they do is spit out cards ONE AT A TIME. If they don't cooperate with the math--which by and large they never do--then the analysis is worthless, instantly causing slot card fluff and phantom bucks to become the overriding factor for the session.

Common sense is required to be able to unroll toilet paper, cross the street, and turn on a radio. Does that mean there's some kind of skill involved? Of course not, just plain old coordination. And skill doesn't alays work in the most important of times anyway. I'm a very skilled and experienced walker, yet I ended up spending a night in the hospital a few days ago after gashing my head from a fall. I'm also the smartest, most skilled video poker player who's ever lived, but I lost as an advantage player.

Stick with the best of luck folks.

[Alan Mendelson]

Rob, the "math" isn't off by that much, I have found. Over the last six months, I have had several "promotions" where I had $2,000 or $2,500 of free play. And when I ran that "free play" through 8/5 Bonus once, I found I was either very close to the "expected return" or actually did a bit better when I got lucky. The worst I did was get back about $2100 on $2500 which was an 84% return on a game that is supposed to payback 99.2% over the "long term."

[redietz]

Rob must be feeling a bit better.

Anyway, the salient point here is that it isn't the degree of skill involved that's important. What's important is what does the difference between unskilled/skilled mean to the loss/profit equation.

Maybe there's a huge gap between highly skilled poker players and amateurs, but if the rake is too high even the best will operate at a loss. The key is whether the skill difference provides the bridge to profits. Anyone with skill can win at FPDW, but someone who doesn't know the strategy will lose. So skill turns red into black, even if the skill is pretty easy to learn and not terribly sophisticated.

[Alan Mendelson]

Maybe there's a huge gap between highly skilled poker players and amateurs, but if the rake is too high even the best will operate at a loss. The key is whether the skill difference provides the bridge to profits. Anyone with skill can win at FPDW, but someone who doesn't know the strategy will lose. So skill turns red into black, even if the skill is pretty easy to learn and not terribly sophisticated.

I have to disagree. First about live poker: Poker rakes hit small players the hardest. When you get to bigger $$ games the rake becomes insignificant.

When I played that low level limit game, the rake actually took away my small profit. But it was a low limit game and a "skilled, advanced" player would not have been playing that game, putting their bankroll at the jeopardy of a rake.

Rakes hurt small players, not big players. If a skilled player sat a table with a high percentage rake he really isn't that skilled. That day I wanted to practice playing "limit" since Im normally a no-limit player, so it made sense for me to play at that low limit, high rake game.

And I will disagree that "anyone" with skill can win at FPDW. While I have experienced play at close to the expected return, I would never bank on winning at any video poker game including FPDW. Gambling is still gambling and I don't care what the odds, payback, hold, or number of coin flips, or number of shells with a pea are.

Statements that "anyone can win" at FPDW is just as dangerous as saying the odds on the point of 4 in craps has no house advantage. It doesn't mean you will win.

[arcimede$]

I see wheels and Alan are still in denial of reality. They get close to accepting it once in awhile and then run right back into fantasy land where they can hide from the truth.

No one argues that casinos profit from VP machines. Why do they profit? Simple, because the cards really do come randomly and over time provide results that meet expectation. The vast majority of games are negative and vast majority of players don't come anywhere close to optimal play. So, why do they accept it for a casino but then turn around and claim that players will not see their share of expected results? Don't ask me. It certainly isn't logical.

[Alan Mendelson]

What is the point of your last post Arc? Rob doesn't deny that the casinos make a profit from their VP and I certainly don't disagree. What "denial" of reality are you talking about? Or... do you just like to write out criticisms of your two best friends here??

[Rob.Singer]

I see wheels and Alan are still in denial of reality. They get close to accepting it once in awhile and then run right back into fantasy land where they can hide from the truth.

No one argues that casinos profit from VP machines. Why do they profit? Simple, because the cards really do come randomly and over time provide results that meet expectation. The vast majority of games are negative and vast majority of players don't come anywhere close to optimal play. So, why do they accept it for a casino but then turn around and claim that players will not see their share of expected results? Don't ask me. It certainly isn't logical.

There's more of your typical nonsense, and as usual all you did was guess wrong again. I did multiple articles on actual machine hold percentages, and not really to my surprise none of the ones I was allowed to look at on Wynn's floor, Sam's Town's, and Casuarina--of which all had at least 80,000 coin-in and as high as 1.2million--were anywhere close to the "expected mathematical return". They were all quite a bit below, excluding those 12 dollar FPDW machines I got Wynn to put in. Those, because of having ONLY expert players banging away at them continuously, had a better overall percentage for the players but they still made money for the casino even after the slot club benefits were factored in.

Redietz, thank you, I AM feeling much better today. I have been told not to go out until tomorrow though and at that, only for short walks until another week passes.

Arci, why are you now calling me a new incomplete name? I told you we have TEN wheels, fourteen if you count the car. I know you get tired of cleaning floors and washing sheets, but please get it together. Chin up my friend! Everyone's doing better, they're gaining weight, it's summertime in Minnesota, and gas prices are coming down! What could be better than all that!?

[arcimede$]

"What "denial" of reality are you talking about?"

"Gambling is still gambling and I don't care what the odds, payback, hold, or number of coin flips, or number of shells with a pea are."

[Rob.Singer]

"What "denial" of reality are you talking about?"

"Gambling is still gambling and I don't care what the odds, payback, hold, or number of coin flips, or number of shells with a pea are."

C'Mon arci, put the mop down and answer the questions.