Yeah her family is the exact opposite. Parents had her late, her dad was born a few years after the Great Depression and raised to be frugal to the extreme. Mom not quite as frugal but definitely saw gambling as a total waste of money. The first few times they heard the sums I was playing for, winning and losing, they were legitimately worried (for me, which I found to be nice in its own way. They were concerned for their future son-in-law).

I had to crush for years, pay for things like the ring, etc until they finally became convinced that I knew what I was doing, and gambling didn't have to mean - EV. Good thing I convinced them before I became a degen

My own parents needed no convincing, fortunately. Dad is the biggest degen (I feel like I spend every trip trying to convince him on the merits of preserving at least SOME degree of expectation) and mom doesn't care. Either way, it's my money and they always said if I busto my life, it's my life.

Maybe we've seen the last of it... let's see.

6 days to go... flight gets in evening of 4/21. Forgot how fun keeping these TRs updated can be so I'll try and do mini-updates during the trip. Full TR afterwards (under-promise and over-deliver, always a good strategy). Until then, some oldies but goodies (apologies if I've posted these before, I don't think I have but I can't remember).



Last poker session of my life, 40/80 at Bellagio. Played well, ran well (in for 2G). Pretty tough to motivate myself to play again since it's been years and it is exceedingly unlikely my next session will be this good.



This happened to my dad, first time I convinced him to switch from DDB (quad 2,3,4 w/kicker pays 800) to TDB (pays 2000, plus full pay TDB actually a better payback game). Needless to say, this hooked him. Still get jealous looking at the pic.



Back during that brief "craps to VP" interlude when I played BJ. One of a disappointingly-few good sessions. There's actually a ton of black there- about 4K worth.

Subscribed, I enjoyed the last trip report immensely. That being said it was due to it being centered around craps degen. I love craps it's the Devils game. Well that being said I dabble in vp and wouldn't mind related degen.

You don't play 40 regularly? Besides SoCal, it runs regularly in San Jose.

Wow, how much coin in per deal does it take to be eligible for $40k jackpot?

I never got to play live regularly past 2002; from 2002-2006 I played heavily, but my only live sessions were during trips to Vegas every 3-4 months, or Ocean's 11 (I'm from SD). After 2007 when I stopped playing online, my live play got even more sporadic. I tried to play every trip up until about 2013 but it got to be too much of a grind. I believe that pic is from 2013. It basically got tough to find a game over 20/40 at Ocean's 11 after 2008 or so and I got sick of driving up there (on weekends!) only to find no game going. As someone who learned to play/fell in love with limit it was really depressing. The only 40+ I've been able to find since then was at the Bellagio.

I do love the 40 there; I stopped keeping good records after 2007 but I feel like I generally crush. It's perfect for me- just the right mix of spewtard tourists coupled with regs who generally play a little too ABC-TAG. It just got really annoying to come in and have to wait for the game to start, or wait a long time on a list that a few years before was pretty easy to get into, esp when there was a craps game just a few yards away.

As far as the VP pic, that's 2$ credit, 5 credits per line, 10 lines, so 100$ a push. That's the second top prize at that game, top being either a dealt royal or dealt AAAA w/2, 3, 4 (either pays 4000 credits per line, so 4000 x 10 x 2$ = 80K).

Leon,

Can you (or anyone) give a total novice a basic breakdown of how multi line VP works? I see the same thing on every line in these jackpot pics. Is that how it works, same hand in each line? I get one line VP but am confused by the multi line.


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Well, San Jose is hardly a vacation destination, but I've never been in Bay 101 when there wasn't a 40/80 running, and 99% of the time, an 80/160 as well.

Yikes, way outta my league.

Sure, that's easy. Each line in multiline is independently-paid for; so for example, 3 lines at 1$ credit, 5 credits per line = 5$ x 3 = 15$ total. 5 lines, it'd be 25$ total.

Each line is a summation of one deal + independent draws. So to start, you get the same dealt hand on each line- say, a pair. Then, each draw occurs independently from a "new" deck, and each result pays what it's supposed to. So say you get dealt a paying pair, 3 lines. If you choose to hold, it will hold the same cards all three lines. Then, you deal- you might get crap on one line, trips on another, and crap on the third. Total win = pair (line 1) + trips (line 2) + pair (line 3).

So, the deal is HUGE on multiline. Good deals are magnified in importance, bad deals really hurt. Eg, total garbage on the deal is like getting dealt total garbage in every spot. Conversely, a huge hand (like in the pic above)... you just hold all the cards and watch it rain X the number of lines you've played. This is why a lot of people like 50 line, 100 line, etc- a dealt monster is infinitely more satisfying when you get to see it play out 100x!

All that said, multiline should decrease variance assuming the same total coin-in compared to single line (so says the math, and my personal experience). The wins are relatively smaller (unless you get a dealt monster) and the losses are smoothed out (if you get dealt crap, some of the lines might turn into paying hands even if you miss on a few). It's all the same in the end but multiline is generally more fun for me, since you can draw at a good draw several times and after all, that's what we're playing for. Finally getting a good draw single line, only to miss time and time again gets really old, really fast.

As a final example, suppose you get dealt AAA, 10 lines. You've got 10 chances at that 4th ace, a 22.5/1 shot. That's almost even money you'll make quads on at least one line (rough math). Mathematically compared to single line, same coin in, it'll end up the same in the long run but you'll miss for a long time single line (but when you do bink, it's like the draw came in on ALL the lines if you were playing multiline).

Hope that makes sense.

Yeah, I've read a bit about Bay 101 and am slightly envious of folks who live close by.

100$/push is outta my league too. I've never hit anything bigger than 10K at once, best sessions have only been in the 15K range. The variance in VP is insane and you can busto yourself so fast if you're not careful.

Perfect. Thanks very much

I have cleaned up this thread. Pray I do not clean it up any further.

But seriously, just do a post report next time and I'll come a running (waddling). I don't read every thread but take post reports seriously.

Any more talk about the topic which shall not be named gets you a 1 day vacation.

Love me some VP porn. The very first time I played was at Circus Circus in the early 80's. My buddy went to play 7 card stud and I bought a roll of quarters and sat at a progressive JOB machine. The jackpot was $1880 and I literally had to read the rules to see how I could win the big money. I figured that no matter what I was dealt I would try for the royal. About 6 hands in I got dealt 4 to the royal so the decision was easy. I needed the 10 of hearts and damn if it didn't pop up. I thought, 'no way, that was too easy'. I looked around and noticed other players were having their coins drop through. It took me a minute to realize that my hitting the royal meant the jackpot had to be reset so everyone else was frozen out of playing. I flagged down a change girl and asked her if I won. She looked at the machine and started yelling 'You won! You won!'. They took my picture (polaroid, lol), had me fill out tax forms and counted out the money as a big crowd now surrounded me. Great memory but as you can probably imagine I have never hit a royal again in the 35 years since.

I'm actually going to Vegas on the 24th and I'll be dabbling a little in VP but nowhere near the level of Leon. If I do happen to hit something I'll be sure to post.

Good luck Leon from a fellow San Diegan.

Thanks Gobbo. Maybe we should change the title to read "video poker" rather than "slot" since that's more accurate?

Leon

Haha I can just picture it, the old timers around you must have been PISSED. I swear stuff like that makes you think the game is rigged. They give you a little taste to hook you, then suck you dry...

Done. Best of luck. Lemme know if you want to grab some Chada one night.

Best of luck on your trip. Will be following the thread and rooting for a fellow SD degen!


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GobboBuddy thanks for cleaning up the thread, next time I'll just snitch it out when I see it first happening

One step closer to this becoming a prison with me as your warden.

At least your sensibilities would ensure the inmates are well fed.

Leon, you'd likely still be a favorite in a lot of poker lineups; any thoughts given to stepping back in and augmenting your roll through more serious study/play? You could work out some parameters where portions of winnings go to the "VP roll" to help you stay in those games until your roll is healthy?

Thanks for that compliment. Sure, I've thought about it, and the supplementation is what has motivated me to "force myself" to play limit during my trips up until about 2013-14, whenever I last played. It's the study/learning curve with different forms that I'm not willing to do (eg, NL).

I didn't mention this, but I put in a fair amount of study with PLO a few years back. I played small PLO when I could find it and did well, but b/c I was very overrolled for the game it just wasn't fun like poker used to be. Eg, waiting to get it in for a 500$ pot and MAYBE your hand holds up wasn't as exciting as craps where I might be putting 500-1K in action in 10 min. Of course, the "responsible" part of me ALSO wouldn't allow myself to just jump into 5-10 PLO or higher- that'd be "reckless" with my money haha. I guess the old player in me refuses to give up an edge (in poker) if I can help it- I know I'd be a fish for a while during the learning process and I simply don't want to go through that all over again.

So, here I am, generally unable to find a limit game, unwilling to take the time to learn NL, bored by the smaller games that more befit my skill level in those other forms... what to do? That said, your advice is sound and after this trip I'm going to have to reevaluate how to regenerate my roll. Poker realistically is the only sound financial option.

Say one went ice cold playing these above mentioned lines($100/push), how fast could one blow through a 25k roll? 30 mins-1hr?

Great thread btw. subbed and wishing you heaps of rungood.

What to do?

Learn mixed games? At least a lot of them are limit based & have same theory. Also many rotations have limit HE in them. If PLO is in mix then like you said you have background in it and if NL is in mix it's only a few hands in the mix and your edge wouldn't be hugely hit as NL might be a couple players good game/few others worst.

Also I'm sure there are decent sized limit games all
over the US??? Last time I was in Vegas and LA both had multiple games running with some real drooler looking non pros.

I think the main thing I need to do is overcome the unwillingness to grind factor. I know Vegas and LA have good sized limit games, but nothing in SD. So I'd end up playing once every 3-4 months anyways. If I'm going to drive up to LA, I'd rather just fly to Vegas.

Depends how fast you play, and whether there's an autohold feature or not. At my local casino, the autohold is on and it runs true, so you can cycle really fast if you want to (turn it to turbo, and just hit deal deal deal deal deal over and over).

I've burned through 2K in less than an hour plenty of times at 12.50/push, so multiply by a factor of 8... I'd say it's possible to churn through at least 16K at that level in 30min-1hr.