Pot Shot Strategy Explained

[FAA]

Cheap Strategy sure prevents busting. That alone is valuable!

[FloridaPhil]

[quote=FAA]Cheap Strategy sure prevents busting. That alone is valuable![/quote]I think that is the biggest positive of playing cheap because you can play so many more hands it makes it easier to manage your money.  Learning to be satisfied with small wins is a real asset in video poker.  When a big win happens, it's a windfall not a chance to catch back up.  

[alpax]

Then I wish everyone good luck, as always, whether it's vp, eating breakfast, or drinking beer in the morning.

I wish you the best at your video poker play and hopefully you find a niche in a playing style or strategy that satisfies you.

Most of us understand Mr. Dancer's approach to the game. But what some people do not realize is that it requires very serious commitment to the game. It is something most of us are not willing to put in as we play the game for fun and Mr. Dancer does not have fun. The time spent includes analyzing every machine in multiple casinos from time to time. It is very competitive out there since many people want to take advantage of an opportunity and the seats are limited. So times you will find yourself having to arriving at a casino several hours early and waiting at the machine to even have an opportunity. There are only 4 of those Quick Quads at the South Point, and I'm sure more than 4 people want to play off it. Of course progressive banks are overrun by teams.

So if you are willing, it will take a while for the plans to bear fruit and more power to you if you are willing.

One part I do give credit to both Phil and Mr. Dancer is that their approaches can at least help the average player lose less of their money per trip to help them play longer in the long run on the worst case scenario.

One more thing I applaud the Cheap Strategy is that, Phil has showed us it is still possible to get free room offers by playing that way (if time is a factor in comp rating).

[FloridaPhil]

[quote=alpax]One more thing I applaud the Cheap Strategy is that, Phil has showed us
it is still possible to get free room offers by playing that way (if
time is a factor in comp rating).[/quote]It always amazes us how many offers we get playing Cheap 90% of the time.  Between my wife and I we do play a huge number of hands and occasionally one of us hits a max coin royal or some other good hand after switching to dollars.   Unfortunately, most of the better offers come from casinos with really terrible odds.  It may have something to do with our age and location.  I'm pretty sure two Florida seniors that like to play slot machines is right in their wheelhouse.

[FAA]

Even better if free room occurs. As a slow paced solo player, I'd have to sequester myself in the casino for a full day to pile up the hours metric. 

[j662]

I'd like to chime in regarding a different 'cheap' strategy that I've been using for quite a while myself.  Admission upfront - I'm a technical person who likes programming and isn't scared of math.  A while ago I threw together a program to crank statistics on video poker to examine what effects occur in the short term to expected return, because we all know that the ER of a game is a number that only is valid for long terms of play (> 500,000 - 4,000,000 hands dependent upon the game).  As a recreational player, I'll never play that many hands in my life.What the program pointed out is that, as you've all been talking about, the risk of busting with limited bankrolls has a significant negative effect on ER, even if you're playing perfect strategy, on games with less than 100% return.  The other side of the standard stated ER calculation is that you have that infinite bankroll to support infinite play.  Of course if you're lucky enough to have 100+% return games, you should just go full-bore, but those are rare indeed.The overall results of my calculations are1) no matter what the bankroll, save every little win above parity and don't re-bet it.  Re-betting wins decreases personal return.2) Use the smallest session bankroll possible so that you don't dig yourself into a big hole.That is, instead of putting $100 into that quarter machine and playing until you either lose it all or get to some arbitrary point above $100 to cash out, it's actually mathematically better to take that $100, divide it into 20 "sessions" of $5 each, with the following rules in each session:1) Playing $1.25 per hand (max coins), you play a maximum of four hands.2) If after any hand - even the first - if you're above $5, even to only $6.25, you cash out that session.3) Even if you still have cash left after four hands, you cash out.So, 20 sessions will give you (hopefully) 20 tickets back, some winners, some losers, but of course there will be sessions where you lose the $5.  After all cash has been converted to tickets, you count how many tickets you have.  Upon cashing out all the tickets, you are allowed to take no more than $5 times the number of tickets you turned in back as the bankroll for the next set.  Any surplus past that is put into your pocket, not to be touched again, to take home.Generally, the way it works it that you'll get 20 "sessions" the first time, maybe 19 the next time, then maybe 18, etc.  as you hit those four-hands-in-a-row losses that cost you a "session" in the next round.  But, tickets with profit from straights and better will be salting away take-home money in your pocket at the same time.  The process of cycling is repeated until you run out of tickets to cash in.  Doing it this way, $100 can easily last hours - especially with the multiple trips to cash in wads of tickets - but the return by doing this will almost never be less than 90% on any given night so you'll have maximally preserved bankroll.Now of course those looking for "the big hit" will hate this, but if your goal is to get the most play time per dollar as a recreational player, this method is the cat's meow.

[FloridaPhil]

[quote=J662]it's actually mathematically better to take that $100, divide it into 20 "sessions" of $5 each[/quote]You may be on to something here.  I made a couple of adjustments to my DW Cheap Strategy recently and so far it seems to be a big improvement. I cash all my money into $5 bills at the start.  I start with single coin play at the $1 level and cash out whenever the counter reads $50 or more.   I use $10 as the trigger point to switch back and forth to max coins.   I'm not sure what it is, but there does seem to be something about the math that makes this work .    If nothing else, it does slow your play down a bit especially if you change machines between $5s.  I'm still testing this out, but so far my results have been better.  We'll see...

[j662]

Yes, the math is there.  You can determine the exact return potential of any number of hands by convolving the perfect-play return percentages (probability mass distribution) of the game 'n' times.  This is what my program does.  However, that again assumes a sufficient bankroll to withstand 'n' losses in a row without going broke.  If the bankroll available is insufficient to handle losing every hand you are going to play in the session, your personal return must be less than the theoretical return.  In a strict sense there is no difference in the return of playing 1,000,000 sessions where you started with $5 each time and playing 50,000 sessions where you started with $100 each time, but playing with the bigger session stake makes it psychologically more difficult to stop and re-assess when losses begin to mount.The bigger point, though, is to look at the winning side of the distribution.  If, at any point in playing some arbitrary number of hands, you are ahead of our initial stake, any number of hands played after that point is wagering monies won.  Why would you want to expose your winnings to the negative return of the game by re-betting them?  In the great majority of situations the player will crawl up no more than one or two bet's worth of win before falling back below the start point. Thus, the smaller your session stake, and the smaller the win you're willing to stop and take home, the higher your personal return will be.

[FloridaPhil]

This is a valuable discovery.  The Cheap Strategy relies on two factors; the increased number of hands played with the same bankroll and the luck of hitting a max coin quad deuce or royal. The way we see it you are trading the possibility of a $1,000 max coin quarter royal flush (1 every 45,000 hands) for 9 tries at a $1,000 dollar quad deuce (1 every 5,000 hands).  To us the excitement of playing at the dollar level for less money than max coin quarters is worth the possibility of hitting a $250 royal.   Every time you get to hit the max coin button it's a real thrill.We're currently at the Hollywood Hard Rock on a three day video poker vacation.  Neither one of us got a quad deuce or royal all day and we are only down about $100 between us. Try that with max coins.    Good stuff... 

[FAA]

Hollywood Hard Rock three day video poker vacation.  Neither one of
us got a quad deuce or royal all day and only down about $100
between us.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Outstanding results. Nothing is going right and you're only losing $7 an hour. Which you are getting back on the drinks. Not to mention the gambling meter keeps the marketing people happy to keep the comps spigot open. Nice little racket!