A Question for Bob Dancer

[FloridaPhil]

[quote=New2VP]Clearly video poker is an important hobby to you.  What do you do for fun that does not involve video poker?  On what subjects do you consider yourself an expert?  I apologize for taking this thread on a small side trip by including "A question for Fla Phil."[/quote] I consider myself an experienced recreational player.  I do not consider myself an expert on video poker or any other gambling related subject.  I also do not believe I speak for anyone on this forum other than myself.  I have played video poker for 15 years strictly as a recreational player.  My wife and I both enjoy playing video poker and take frequent video poker vacations together where we play almost continuously for 3-7 days.  We are both financially well off, but play mostly quarters for reasons not related to finances.  We have never seen or played a 100% video poker game that we know of.  Together we play around 500,000 hands a year.The problem we have with Bob Dancer's strategy is that it answers every video poker question from the view point of a professional and ignores other players entirely.  He repeatedly states that no one should ever play less than 100% games.  To the majority of small denomination players across the US that do not have access to 100% games, this statement leaves them with no usable strategy.  Not having a negative game strategy, they continue as instructed and in our view lose more money than they should.  We used Bob Dancer's strategies on negative games for years and it costs us more money than we care to remember.   We didn't lose money because of any flaw in Dancer's strategy.  We lost money because we were playing negative games with a positive game strategy.   We are proficient players with nearly 100% correct hand choices using VPW software to train.   Eventually, we began thinking more about our loses than our winnings, changed to a new strategy and turned things around.  My wife and I play more video poker than most nonprofessional players on this forum, we take great video poker vacations and enjoy our time together with hardly any risk or cost.   We strongly believe this information should be available to others and there is room on this forum for both professional and recreational strategies.Clearly, Bob Dancer and some others on this forum disagree with us. Thankfully, there are just as many members who see value in our posts.   We are not interested in disputing everything Bob Dancer says or does in life or on this forum.  All we are asking for is equal space, recognition and respect for the many small time players who make up the vast majority of casino customers.

[New2vp]

I thought my question would allow you to talk about something else.  I don't think I mentioned Bob Dancer.Why don't we talk about your strategy you created. (I've quoted from it a couple times to give context to your answer; I hope you don't mind.)In this latest post, you mentioned that you needed a different strategy than what is necessary for positive games yet in the Cheap Strategy you say that you don't change the hand strategy.  ("Notice that I am taking [sic] about
modifying the amount of your bet, not the hand strategy.") ("Let's say you play single coin quarters for 10 hands in
a row and switch to max coins on the 11th hand of each
session.  Are the odds of hitting a jackpot on the 11th
hand the same as the previous 10 hands?  Absolutely!") As a side note, I would recommend that you do change the hand strategy to
account for the smaller royal when playing single coin. Unfortunately, when you do that, there is a tradeoff between EV and the frequency of of the $62.50 royals.  E.g., with 8/5 Jacks or Better, you will get less than 80% of the royals when playing single coin than you do when playing max coins.  On the other hand, if you don't change your strategy for single coins, you will be playing against an even greater house edge at single coin than you would otherwise.You also say you turned things around by playing a negative game strategy.  Do you mean that you turned your losses into gains by playing in a way that gave the casino an even greater house edge than it already had with its negative games at max coin?  If you simply cut your losses because you cut the amount that you bet, that would make sense, of course.("What
if I told you there was a way to win max coin $1,000 dollar
plus jackpots,
while playing 80% of your hands with single coin quarters?")if 80% of your play is at single coin which has a higher house edge, your losses at single coin of course will add to your losses with the 20% of your play that is at max coin, so your expected loss between max-coin royals (or some other defined max-coin jackpot) will be greater not less.  For example with 25-cent 8/5 Jacks, one will still take on average 40,170 max-coin hands per royal flush, during which time one will average a loss of $2356.53 before adding in the $1000 gain for the single max-coin royal.  But if 80% of the play is at single coin, that would be 160,679 hands of single coin play with an expected loss of an additional $1581.26 between max coin royals.  Certainly your loss per hour and per trip will be lower because you wagered less. By the way, you said your wife and you played more than most nonprofessionals on this forum, a combined 500,000 hands per year.  Based on these numbers, that would allocate a little less than 2.5 max-coin royals split between the two of you.Losses or not, that type of play with those results may not be for everyone, even some recreational players.Best of luck, especially getting more than the expected number of max coin royals if you stick to that strategy.  

[FloridaPhil]

These are good and fair questions.  I agreed not to discuss CS in detail on this forum.  I'll assume you are genuinely interested in my answers and moved your thread over to the Recreational Forum where it rightfully belongs.