Okay. Yes, I'm aware that this is a Blackjack Tournaments website. But, I've read several entries about playing VP to help get comps or invites to BJTs, and last week I asked about how best to play one-time free-play promo chips and was advised to play VP. So, I visited Wizard of Odds website and researched the various VP games available at our favorite casino. I then used the calculators to determine the expected payback. So, here's the situation, and my question: Before breakfast, I check out the paytables on this bank of ten machines, 25 cent Double Double Bonus with progressives on Royal Flush (RF), 4 Aces with 2, 3, or 4 (4A w/2,3,4), 4 Aces (4A), and 4 2s, 3s, or 4s (4 2,3,4). I write down the numbers, go to the room, plug them in to the calculator and get 99.7%. At this point, the progressives are: RF: $1091, 4A w/2,3,4: $551, 4A: $244, and 4 2,3,4: $124. (These start at $1000, $500, $200, and $100 respectively). Before lunch, I notice that all these machines are full. After lunch, they're all empty! So, I look closer, and the RF progressive is now $1000.19. Obviously, someone hit it and everybody stopped playing. I write down the new numbers and tell my wife it wouldn't make sense to play now because the big one paid off. She says: "Why don't you play anyway and get some experience?" I respond by telling her that I don't know how to play the best strategy on this game. She says: "So what? Nobody's playing anyway. What would it hurt?" So we compromised and I sat down to play. Probably 15 minutes later, I get 2 Aces, so I hold them and catch 2 more - and the progressive, which is now at $267. I play another 5 minutes and hit a straight flush for $62. All this time, I have the machines to myself. So, when we get home, I run the numbers I had recorded before I hit the $267 and learn that, although the RF progressive is at its lowest level, the other progressives are high enough that the expected payback had risen to 100.56%. Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot? After studying the calculator chart, I realize that, although the lesser progressives are smaller, the frequencies on those combinations are higher. Thus the expected payback goes up, even though the big jackpot was much lower. Is this a big DUH and I'm just too green? If so, why did everybody else stop playing after the RF progressive was hit?
To begin with most players have no idea how much impact the various progressives have on the long run percent on the game. All they see is the royal amount and a great percent of the players will not play a different strategy as the royal amount changes. This is to your advantage if you restrict your play to times when the long run payoff is above 100% (I like the long run to be at least 100.5% which gives me some room to make mistakes and still be playing above 100%). From what I have observed watching people next to me play, most people do not play 3 card SFs (with no high cards), 2 card royals (as the royal/SF amount goes up) or when to play the different 3 card royals above a high pair/2 pair as they statistically should.
I've played VP for a few minutes from time to time over the years, but never understood the attraction because I almost always lost. Then, I read what you, and others have to say about VP. So I read Stanford Wong's free eBook and learned that there is at least as much, if not more, to learn about proper playing strategy with VP as with BJ, and that playing strategies change with different games. But two weeks ago, I still didn't know much about playing VP and, a few days ago, I figured out, thanks to your advise to go to the Wizard of Odds site, that I can plug current progressive numbers into a calculator and get an expected payoff. When I witnessed that all ten people had stopped playing these games as soon as the RF jackpot was hit, and then had the good fortune to hit the 4 Aces progressive while being the only player at the machines, I was pretty happy, even though I realized I didn't know how to play. But it sure gave me the motivation to learn and practice. What amazes me is that so many so-called "VP players" are willing to sit and play for hours, chasing an $1150 RF jackpot, yet instantly stop playing as soon as it pays off. The combined $977 in progressives that remained to be hit on these machines apparently didn't interest any of them, even though the charts show that the frequencies of hitting the combinations that pay these smaller jackpots are far, far greater than hitting a RF! I've found a really good iPad app with a training game, called VP Tutor, but, I can't seem to find a strategy chart, or software to produce one, for DoubleDouble Bonus, with or without multi-level progressives, for any of the operating systems I have access to (Apple or Windows 10 beta). Do you have any suggestions? Thanks for your help, hopinglarry. It is greatly appreciated.
I know the wizard did put out a vp app for Iphones (I assume it would work on Ipad). http://wizardofodds.com/apps/vpwizard/ I do not have an iphone so I never looked at the app. He never put out an android version. You might search the Wizard of Vegas forums and get more info on it. http://wizardofvegas.com/
Where do you get a calculator to tell you what the HE is on progressive machines when factoring in the progressive jackpots?
If I am understanding your question. There are programs that you can buy. However, The wizard has calculators that are free on his site. Go to http://wizardofodds.com/ then his game calculators. There are 3 VP calculators that should do about anything you need.
That's what I've been using. I checked progressive amounts this afternoon when I sat down to play. I wrote down the numbers, played for 30 minutes, and wrote down the new numbers. With no one hitting any of the progressives and 7 to 8 of the 8 machines in use the entire 30 minutes, the expected return increased from 99.72% to 100.15% in that half hour. Five hours later, the two highest jackpots were still growing, but the two smaller ones had paid. The updated numbers produced a new expected return of 99.26%. I'm using an iPad after the fact, but if you use a smartphone, you can input the data on the spot and know what percentage you're playing at instantly!
I would be hesitant to do that in a casino. Casinos have known to be quite paranoid about device use. There have been cases in which casinos have playeres falsely arrested over trivial stuff like entering pass word in an iPhone. In fact, it is probably wise not to have any thing on your iPhone remotely related to gambling. Using iPad in your room is a better option.
I only know a smidgen about video poker but here it goes anyway.......... The quoted text above is 100% correct. You do not want to be using a device of any kind while at a machine, for the same reasons you don't want to try it at a table. I have witnessed Security hassling people merely for taking souvenir photos of slot/VP jackpots, and we've probably all seen dealers backing players off BJ tables for answering a phone call. While it's sketchy whether you can actually be arrested for this sort of thing, do you really want the hassles involved? One can get a seat-of-the-pants idea of the return % change for a VP prog but you need to know how much each winning hand contributes to the return for the game at reset. It isn't exact but you'll sure get an idea if it's a positive opportunity or not. For example, a decent rule of thumb - again, not exact but good enough for figuring on the fly - is every 10% that the Royal is above reset adds .2% to the overall return. So, if a quarter machine has the very common Royal reset of $1,000 but it now stands at $1,500, that's one full percent rise in the EV. By the way, Dancer's "Video Poker for Winners" is a superb program for VP, probably the best available and I think Ken sells it from this site. Not that I'm prejudiced or anything because I was one of his beta-testers for it before release.....
Video poker for winners has been on backorder, but I finally expect to receive some later today. It's an excellent choice. I'll be adding it back to the store as soon as I have copies on hand
I have played a lot of VP over the years (as have many other members of this forum). Especially, progressive VP at one casino which I have kept detailed records for the last 4 years, I have played about 1.3 million hands there. The casino has 4 different banks (at least 12 machines per bank) of progressive VP with different games on them. I play for $1 - 92% of the time, with the other 8% at .50 cents (when the royal amount is just too intriguing). With the multiple banks and different games, I needed some way to decide which bank to play. I whipped myself up a little spread sheet with various royal amounts and SF amounts on a bank with progressive SFs. I think every casino I have ever been in has a sign prohibiting electronic devices, but I have never seen anyone having problems with a strategy chart. There is a Double Double Bonus 9/5 bank with the royal and 4 of a kinds progressive. However, the starting level for this game is 97.9%. I never look at this bank because the royal would just have to get too high and unlikely it would be a better overall return than the other banks. I do not know what the overall progressive rate is for the bank There is a Double Bonus 9/7 bank with the royal and 4 of a kinds progressive. The starting level is 99.1%. I only consider this game if the royal is at least 5500. You could snipe this bank if you wanted to. Overall the bank has a 1% progression rate with the royal at .5%. There is a multigame bank with the royal progressive where the best games are JOB 9/6 (99.5%), Bonus Poker Deluxe 9/6 (99.6%) and Not so ugly ducks (99.7%). Three other games on the bank 98.9-99.1%, but I do not consider them. The bank has a .5% progression rate. There is a JOB 9/6 (99.5%) bank with a progressive royal, SF and 4 of a kind. Overall the bank has a 1% progression rate with the royal .5% and the SF/4 of a kind .25% each. You get 4 of a kinds about every 424 hands. This is often enough to use a static amount in my calculations. I should get paid 131 (all the banks round to the next higher dollar for payment amounts), but I just use 130 in my calculations. This makes the bank a 99.8% game to start with and this is normally the bank I play. My little spreadsheet enumerates the overall return as the combination of the SF and royal rise. The SF and royal progressing create a number of strategy changes with 3 card SFs, 2 and 3 card royals if you which to try to play accurately. Because of this, I have many strategy charts. Ken told me one time that he thought I just liked to generate strategy charts and there may be a kernel of truth in that VP, in general, has one major drawback. It is probably the most strenuous game in a casino you can play on your body. It takes its toll on your hands, wrists, shoulders and neck. This does not get better as you get older. I am getting so bad that 3K-4K hands is about all I can stand. I may be forced to use the touch screen method before too long.
What I am slowly coming to realize, while recording various entries into my own spreadsheets, is that the expected return % is influenced more significantly by moderate increases in the progressives for 4 Aces and 4 2s,3s, &4s than by the RF progressive at 30% above reset level. I plan to continue recording various actual numbers to try to determine a ballpark return % at a glance. Obviously, if you can hit 4 2s,3s, &4s twice as often as 4 Aces and if you can hit 4 Aces three times as often as 4 Aces w/2,3, or 4, bigger increases on the lower pays can help the return %. Likewise, if the likelihood of hitting 4 Aces w/2,3, or 4 is more than twice as great as hitting a RF, if the lower progressive increases at a faster rate than the RF progressive, the return % could get nice in a hurry. I was shocked to learn that, shortly after the RF was hit on this bank of 8 machines that I watch and play, with the 4 Aces w/2,3, or 4 progressive at 12% above reset, the 4 Aces progressive at 32% above reset, and the 4 2s,3s, &4s progressive at 47% above reset, the expected return was 100.56%.
I agree with this. Just playing for one hour straight, I started to lose focus, at that was first thing in the morning. How in the world do you play over a million hands and still be able to type? I'm going to need to train to get above 500 hands without taking a break!
Video Poker for Winners software for Windows PCs is finally back in stock at the BlackjackInfo store: https://www.blackjackinfo.com/store/video-poker-for-winners-software.html There is no better way to learn and practice the game. It supports dozens of different games, and you can change the paytable to whatever you like. For any paytable, you can create strategy charts, and practice the specific game with instant notification of any errors. Some versions of video poker are fairly easy to play accurately, while others challenge even the pros. You won't know the difference without software.
If the 4 of a kinds progressive got high enough, and if the overall return % got high enough to justify playing, would there ever be a time when you should hold just a pair of 2s, 3s, or 4s instead of holding two non-face pair? If so, can you help me determine when this would be advantageous? It turns out I seem to like to create strategy charts, also. Do you know of a self-help organization for this?
There is a point, but it is too unlikely to happen to worry about. Using the Wizards hand analyzer it appears to be around $592. I don't believe that will ever occur. It is not like 2 pair when one of them is Aces. Aces pay 5 by themselves and a pair of 2, 3 or 4 pays nothing. I don't know how to organize it. I just have a number of them with the RF going up by a 100 and some of them with the SF going up by 50's. I figure it is close enough.
HA! Thanks, Billy. On a really good day I can fake my way through it pretty OK. Although I'll bet it will be a long, long time before Greektown makes the same math error they did in January on a bonus cashback promotion. Oopsie!!!
