What do you think of this theory?

[brmcc74]

My point is simple. Yes best strategy and paytables are essential to obtaining optimal results. Yes the math also is evident to prove this theory. It is possible to never achieve positive results playing VP. Like it or not, its a fact. You're not guaranteed to win in the long run playing this game. You improve your chances ofcourse, but theres no guarantee. It all depends on how the cards fall thanks to the random nature of the game. A few rules that are simple = In no particular order
1. Play best paytables
2. Play best Strategy
3. NEVER play less than 5 coin on standard VP games, more for "Specials"
4. Manage your bankroll= as with all gaming
5. HAVE FUN
6. Keep your day job and hope for some luck

[spxChrome]

 
The measure is simply the pay table on the machine combined with your skill level. It's just like flipping a coin. Yes, it's possible heads will come up in 1 million flips in a row, but the probability is heads will comes up right about 50% of the time. The more flips, the closer to 50% you'll be. The same with video poker. The more hands played with perfect strategy, the closer to the pay table percentage you'll be.
 
Sounds simple, problem is there are more than heads and tails in VP.  For the entire cycle to run to achieve such a weighted outcome would results in billions of hands.  Obviously, a number none of us will ever reach and would take a single machine which is played 5 hours a day on average at 600 hands an hour about 20 years to reach. 
 
And personally I believe if a machine is on the top side of that payback % it is removed from the gaming floor. But thats a whole other subject.

[shadowman]

spx,
 
It doesn't take billions of hands. Where did you get that idea. There are only 9-15 results from typical VP games. There's no difference between a pair of 3s or 4s in most games. So, it doesn't require all possible combinations/permutations to reach an expected result. In general you can get quite close in much less than a million hands.
 
For example, playing FPDW should get you within 1 standard deviation in around a quarter million hands. That means 5 out of 6 people would be winners and the others would be very slight losers.
 
About the only thing that stretches it out this far is the RF. The rest of the hands will average out long before that. I have no idea where you got your "billions" number but you should ignore them in the future.

[pokeherguy]

The best payback percentage I can find for the game I like in this area is 98.98%, for some reason 100% payback machines aren't legal here. Shadowman, just for my piece of mind I'd like to pose a question to you because I believe you to be more than qualified to provide an answer.
If I was to tell you I was going to play 500,000 hands of DDB at the $2 denomination always playing max play on a standard Class III video poker machine with a payback percentage of 98.98% how many handpays might I expect to see?

[spxChrome]

spx,
 
There's no difference between a pair of 3s or 4s in most games. So, it doesn't require all possible combinations/permutations to reach an expected result. In general you can get quite close in much less than a million hands.
 
 
Good point... I was figuring all 311,000,000 permutations up and down.
 
 
@pokerguy... I would say about 350.

[shadowman]

The best payback percentage I can find for the game I like in this area is 98.98%, for some reason 100% payback machines aren't legal here. Shadowman, just for my piece of mind I'd like to pose a question to you because I believe you to be more than qualified to provide an answer.
If I was to tell you I was going to play 500,000 hands of DDB at the $2 denomination always playing max play on a standard Class III video poker machine with a payback percentage of 98.98% how many handpays might I expect to see?


 
Where's new2vp when I need him. He could probably whip this one out in no time. But, since he's nowhere in sight let's see if I get the same results as spx.
 
The $2 denom means any win over over 1200/2 credits will generate a W2G. This is both types of quad aces as well as quad 2-4s w/kicker and. of course, the RF.
 
If you have a software program like winpoker they provide the frequency numbers. The probabilities are .002+.006+.014+.017 (%) which comes to .039% of the total hands. Take the 500K hands times .039% and you get ... 195.
 
That was a quick and dirty effort and if the numbers from winpoker are correct and I didn't mess things up, this should be the number.

[pokeherguy]

Well I wasn't far off using the vp statistics from this site because I came up with 197: 10-royals, 30-aces w/kicker, aces-86, 71-2,3,4's w/Kicker. The quad 2,3,4's-192 and misc. quads-1,182. I don't trust myself to come up with the right numbers even though I have played vp for 15 years, I appreciate your assistance and trust your numbers far more than my own.
 
 
Now back to the subject at hand on this topic as to whether all standard ClassIII VP games are created the same. If after playing those 500K hands you hit 11-royals, 13-aces w/kicker, aces-54, 2,3,4's w/kicker-39 for a total of 117 W2G's during that streatch of play at the same casino would those results seem reasonable or might you question the game? Other than the fact a lot of money would have been lost by the player there is nothing that could be done anyway other than go play at another casino, right? 

[New2vp]

Hey s-man, I've been playing golf and visiting some old friends this labor day weekend.  I saw the question last night, but didn't want to horn in since pokeherguy specifically asked for you.Plus I didn't know for certain depending on the casino if a hand pay always equated exactly to the limits of a W2G.  I had a hand pay of only $625 once playing quarter Loose Deuces a few years ago, but I'm not certain as to what is standard.  My math is ok, but my casino experience is not remotely close to yours.  It was nice of you to think of me.  I got a slightly different answer but agree with your methodology.  WinPoker's rounding of probabilities here to only one or two significant digits is the reason for the difference between your answer and my answer, which rounds to 201.Unfortunately, all the rounding errors in this calculation are in the same direction, so none of them offset each other as would usually be the case.  With one more decimal place, .002+.006+.014+.017 = 0.039 (%) becomes .0025+.0062+.0143+.0174 = 0.0404 (%), which would imply 202 hand pays.  Taking things out one more decimal place gets you to slightly under 201 1/2.Depending on what pokeherguy's reason for asking the question, I would probably answer that 95% of the time, he should see between 174 and 229 hand-pays.  If he saw fewer than 160, I would say he was having particularly bad luck, not playing optimally, or something a bit less than straightforward might be going on.Hope you have a good and/or profitable rest of the weekend!

[damule]

None of this all matters though. I saw at least a dozen same 5th-card flipovers today. So I'm convinced all these machines are gaffed and programmed to cheat the players.

[New2vp]

pokeherguy, I didn't see your 10:10 pm post until I made the previous one.  With a number as low as 117, you would only get that playing optimal strategy about 1 time in over 603 million.  This is nearly 6 standard deviations from the mean.  Those odds are a bit long to believe that you've just been unlucky.As to what you can do about it, I'll leave that to others to suggest.