Quitting when ahead.

[Alan Mendelson]

A couple of weeks ago I pledged to myself -- and said it here -- that I would practice "quitting when ahead." I haven't been playing video poker much since making the pledge but I went to Rincon last night (Saturday night) because I had $475 of free play.

And that's all I used -- the free play.

To make a long story short, I turned the free play into about $2200, then lost all of it but $300 and then took that remaining $300 and brought home about $12-thousand. No royals, but a lot of quads. Yes, a lot of quads.



Most of the quads were on $5 Aces and Faces and the machine spit out a ticket each time I hit one. I had two handpays -- one for quad aces on single-line $5 Aces and Faces, and quad aces on a five-play $1 DreamCard machine. I wrote about my adventure on the "Casino Stories" page here: http://www.alanbestbuys.com/id242.html

And if anyone else has a great run of luck, as I had, send me your photos and your story and I'd like to add it to the Casino Stories page. And if you happen to be in a casino when someone else strikes it big, and you have a photo, send it along to me at alan@alanbestbuys.com.

By the way, every game I played during the evening was a negative expectation game: either 8/5 Bonus or 8/5 Aces and Faces.

[arcimede$]

Let me see if I understand this. You did not quit when you were ahead by over $2000 and as a result you increased that amount by 6 times. Is that your point?

I've pointed out this possibility many times. If you quit when you are ahead you may be limiting your wins at times. Of course, you may also lose all that you were ahead and more. It's called randomness. There is no set manner in which hands play out. You can win or lose at any time and since all hands are independent there's no time or dollar amount where a decision to quit will make any difference over time.

[Alan Mendelson]

Rob Singer criticized me before for not quitting when I was ahead by about $8,000 using free play at Caesars. To be honest about it, $8,000 wasn't going to trigger me to quit. But $12,000 does trigger me to quit using free play.

Had I lost the remaining $300 of "free play money" it would have meant nothing. I was determined not to reach into my wallet. So the choice was to play it through to see if I could reach my "win goal" (which is $10K+), and I did. So I bolted. There was no reason for me to keep playing.

Would you have kept playing Arc? I hit those wins rather quickly. I certainly had the energy to keep playing. Here it is almost 5 on Sunday morning and I still am wide awake. I could have kept playing but no, I left and thoroughly enjoyed the ride home.

But I do wonder if Rob will criticize me for not quitting when I hit about $2200 initially. I think he says that surpasses what his "win goal" amount is for free play.

[arcimede$]

Since it was a negative machine I would have played the money through one time and quit. I save my regular play for positive opportunities and then I quit based on how I feel, not how much money I've won or lost.

[Alan Mendelson]

I guess you'll never be playing video poker here in Southern California. Positive expectation games do not exist.

[arcimede$]

I guess you'll never be playing video poker here in Southern California. Positive expectation games do not exist.

Then I wouldn't play. You never really have figured that out, have you? I've played enough VP in my life that I don't need to do it for fun. I only play when it is profitable.

[Alan Mendelson]

Well, I play for fun. And casino play should always be for fun. I know too many so-called professionals who went broke. In fact, I play poker with lots of them, including the guy who cashed at the WSOP and now lives in his car in the parking lot of one of the local casinos here and has to hustle for buy-in money for $40 tournaments.

[arcimede$]

Just because a person calls themselves a professional does not mean they know how to win. The world is full of wannabes. In fact, there's one who goes by the pseudonym of Rob Singer.

[Alan Mendelson]

Just because a person calls themselves a professional does not mean they know how to win. The world is full of wannabes. In fact, there's one who goes by the pseudonym of Rob Singer.

You may be right that there are a lot of wannabes, but I would suggest to you that the guy who lives in his car at the casino in LA won more money playing in one tournament at the WSOP finishing at the final table, than you ever won in your life playing video poker. And he lost it all playing, of all things, video poker.

[Rob.Singer]

Alan, I would have only criticized you for not quitting at +$2200 if you said you were going to quit at that winning point beforehand. The fact that you kept up play until you DID attain or surpass your $10k win goal means you were a strong player this time. Hopefully, that will continue.

Regarding being able to make another $10,000 instead of bolting at +$2k: Sure it happens, but it overwhelmingly does not. If you set a $2k win goal and keep playing whenever that is attained, you can count on losing everything most of the time.

Right again Alan, vp is a for-fun game unless you do it for a living....or in the case of a certain anonymous poster here--as a last gasp of feeling alive before that day of judgment arrives.

[slingshot]

Alan, I would have only criticized you for not quitting at +$2200 if you said you were going to quit at that winning point beforehand. The fact that you kept up play until you DID attain or surpass your $10k win goal means you were a strong player this time. Hopefully, that will continue.

Regarding being able to make another $10,000 instead of bolting at +$2k: Sure it happens, but it overwhelmingly does not. If you set a $2k win goal and keep playing whenever that is attained, you can count on losing everything most of the time.

Right again Alan, vp is a for-fun game unless you do it for a living....or in the case of a certain anonymous poster here--as a last gasp of feeling alive before that day of judgment arrives.

OK. NOW you lost me. It was OK because he didn't SAY he was stopping at $2200?

[regnis]

OK. NOW you lost me. It was OK because he didn't SAY he was stopping at $2200?

Clinton said he did not have sex with that girl--so it's ok.

[Rob.Singer]

OK. NOW you lost me. It was OK because he didn't SAY he was stopping at $2200?

As far as I know, Alan said everything after the fact, unless I did not see a post where he gave a win goal for his $475 in freeplay beforehand. So for my comments, I can only go by what he said in his after-the-fact post. In it, he did say his stop-play point was at +$10,000 minimum. Yes that amount is hugely unrealistic given his freeplay amount, but at least he said he had a pre-play win goal. His only mention of the $2200 or whatever it is, was in regards to how much he initially was up.

[slingshot]

Clinton said he did not have sex with that girl--so it's ok.

OK. Now THAT is too funny!

[Alan Mendelson]

As a matter of fact, I never posted anything about the quick trip to Rincon on Saturday. I really had intended to go tomorrow, Monday, but my wife was out with the girls so off I went. Had I gone tomorrow, I would have had an extra $40 of free play.

As it stands now, I will probably not be going back to Rincon for the rest of the month as the remaining free play daily offers are not worthwhile.

I did not state here a "win goal." But Rob, didn't you say that you had a particular win goal for free play amounts? Is it some percentage of the free play amount?

Regarding my win goal of 10K for that free play, it comes down to this: if I am going to use their money, I am going to try to win big or it isn't worth going just to run a few hundred bucks through the machine. I started at $1 hoping to hit quad aces so I could move up to $2, and then hopefully hit something good or move up again.

I thought I was "on my way" when I had about $2200 at the $2 level... but we all know what happens when the going is good. It gets bad. But then I changed to a $5 machine and lightning struck.

What I didnt want to do when I had 12k in my pockets was to continue and risk losing that. 12k is a very nice win. When I was playing DDB and I hit quad aces with a kicker (it happened many time) I would bolt with that money and that happened many times during my long royal flush drought.

But this is important: If I were using MY OWN MONEY to play, my win goal would have been much lower. Perhaps if I had $500 for the trip, I would leave when I was $300 up or even $200 up, which are very nice percentage gains. This was different as I was using a free play offer so I could shoot for the moon.

And the same thing happened at Caesars. I had a win goal of $2,000 and I left with the $2,000 but while I could shoot for the moon, why not? Yes I got up to about $8k and lost most of it, but I still came back with $2k from free play.

[slingshot]

As a matter of fact, I never posted anything about the quick trip to Rincon on Saturday. I really had intended to go tomorrow, Monday, but my wife was out with the girls so off I went. Had I gone tomorrow, I would have had an extra $40 of free play.

As it stands now, I will probably not be going back to Rincon for the rest of the month as the remaining free play daily offers are not worthwhile.

I did not state here a "win goal." But Rob, didn't you say that you had a particular win goal for free play amounts? Is it some percentage of the free play amount?

Regarding my win goal of 10K for that free play, it comes down to this: if I am going to use their money, I am going to try to win big or it isn't worth going just to run a few hundred bucks through the machine. I started at $1 hoping to hit quad aces so I could move up to $2, and then hopefully hit something good or move up again.

I thought I was "on my way" when I had about $2200 at the $2 level... but we all know what happens when the going is good. It gets bad. But then I changed to a $5 machine and lightning struck.

What I didnt want to do when I had 12k in my pockets was to continue and risk losing that. 12k is a very nice win. When I was playing DDB and I hit quad aces with a kicker (it happened many time) I would bolt with that money and that happened many times during my long royal flush drought.

But this is important: If I were using MY OWN MONEY to play, my win goal would have been much lower. Perhaps if I had $500 for the trip, I would leave when I was $300 up or even $200 up, which are very nice percentage gains. This was different as I was using a free play offer so I could shoot for the moon.

And the same thing happened at Caesars. I had a win goal of $2,000 and I left with the $2,000 but while I could shoot for the moon, why not? Yes I got up to about $8k and lost most of it, but I still came back with $2k from free play.

Certainly no condemnation from me! I think it boils down to the person's own traits. Me, I only get a small amount but I have trouble stopping when playing it once through and have a tendency to try for more which usually burns me. So mine is an exercise in learning to just stop and leave with whatever amount. Only a couple of times have turned out well for me and it required 3 times the amount of my freeplay-$35-to hit A's w/kicker. Anyway, congrats.

[Alan Mendelson]

Thanks sling. About three years ago, I went to Rincon to take advantage of $800 of free play. I started at the $1 DDB progressive where I got quad aces for $817 (no kicker, but there is a progressive on the aces without a kicker). I took that $817 plus about $500 of remaining free play and went to the $5 DDB progressive (this is back when the DDB games were 9/5 and not 8/5 as they are now). I went on a run and walked out with a bit more than $16,000. "Accidents" do happen.

[Rob.Singer]

My own preference on freeplay is to play it thru once and leave with whatever it renders. In the last two years I've hit two $8k winners doing that, which is a great deal of luck.

My belief on winning $12k and the $8k at Caesars is simple: even if you didn't do what you said you'd do on the +$8k trip, to me, there's not a lot of difference between being super-surprised being $8k up--and being $12k up. How you rationalized continued play after getting ahead $8k while claiming +$2k is still wonderful after pissing away $6k, and NOT attributing it to an addiction to keep playing, I'll never know. I rate that one an F+. Even bringing me in an apple the next day wouldn't have changed it.

[Alan Mendelson]

Rob, to me there was no difference between winning $2,000 with only free play, and winning $8,000 with only free play. Had I walked out with the full $8K I never would have known what else I might have won. Also, it was right at the start of my trip. I wasn't about to go to my room to watch movies.

NOW, VERY IMPORTANT. Had I put my own $500 into the machine and ran it up to $8,000 or just $2,000 or even less, I certainly might have cashed out and gone up to the room to watch movies... or finally have gone to the Atomic Bomb museum down Flamingo which I still haven't seen.

By the way, as 7 Stars, I get free movies.

[Alan Mendelson]

I wanted to update my "quitting when ahead" adventures. As I posted in another thread I hit a $20K royal this past Saturday at Caesars, and left with a net profit of about $14,000.

I just got back from a "quick trip" to Caesars which turned into a two-day trip. I went up Tuesday morning for a meeting with a client and luckily there was also a $1,000 free play promotion at Caesars.

So after my meeting, I checked in and picked up my $1,000 free play. I can't play the 8/5 Bonus machines with just a thousand dollars because they are at $5 and up, so I went to the $2 7/5 Bonus machines. I was doing OK for a while and actually after about a half hour I had $960 on the credit meter. At that point, all of the "free play" money was cycled through, so I could have hit the cash out button. But I said to myself... "self, if you go home with $500 it's okay, because you put in no money of your own, so keep playing." I did.

And a few hands later, I was dealt four cards to a flush, and in my excitement to hold the four clubs (non royal situation) I made a mistake and accidentally hit the button for "more games." You know what that means, don't you?

On the Game King machine this takes you to the main screen and you LOSE the hand you were just on. Damn. Well, in my anger I rushed to get back to Bonus and ... another accident... hit "double bonus."

Sometimes accidents are good... because while I didn't know I was on double bonus, a few hands later I was dealt 7AAAA. I held all five cards, and the machine locks for $1,600 handpay. Huh? Why did the machine lock on quad aces for $2? Then I realized I was on double bonus.

After the payout, I cashed out $900, for a total take of $2500 on the $1,000 of free play.

But like we say in the infomercial business... "wait, there's more!"

Instead of pocketing $2,500 I now "raised" my loss limit to $1,500 instead of just $500 and took $1,000 to the $5 8/5 Bonus games. I won't bore you with the details, but I came home with $5,000 in cash... and that's AFTER lost about $2,000 playing craps.

Not bad for never going to the ATM or reaching into my own wallet. Also, I put approximately 27,000 tier points on my TR account. That was the equivalent of a little more than 25% of what's needed for 7 Stars... all in two days.

I came home with three W2Gs. $2,000 for quad aces on the $5 machine, $1250 for a straight flush on the $5, and $1600 for the quad aces on the $2 Double Bonus.
While playing $2 7/5 Bonus I had quad aces three more times at $800 each.

Rob, if you are going to say I showed "no discipline" remember that my goal was to go home with $500 of the free play money. Instead, I came home with ten times that amount. And yes, Rob, all on negative machines including 7/5 Bonus.

Below is a photo of one of the $5 Bonus machines I had a great run on. On this particular machine I started with $800 and within a few hands hit quads... and even hit two quads back-to-back. I had more than $3,500 on the machine (remember, started with $800) when the aces hit.



Redietz has asked me to let him know how I am doing with my "win goal philosophy," so I will keep posting. Perhaps I might actually turn a profit playing these games for a full year doing it this way? I've often said that the key to being a winning gambler isn't always what you win -- but what you don't lose, and what you don't give back.