Actually 8/5 Jacks or better returns 97.3%, or yields a loss of 0.027 bets per hand. So for an 800 bet bankroll, we would expect to play:

800/0.027 = 29,630 hands on average.

In reality though, the number of hands played can vary quite significantly. Running simulations will give a greater amount of info.

I modified codes originally found here for a 8/5 JoB game:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/25...d-sng-1093305/

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/25...-help-1090529/

I ran 1000 simulations of an 800 unit BR playing until the computer went broke. It took about 20 minutes on my laptop. Here is a quartile breakdown of the number of hands played:

`Summary of Play length`
Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
5748 14380 19180 30250 35640 314600

So roughly 25% of the time we play < 14k hands
roughly 50% of the time we play > 19k hands
and roughly 25% of the time we play > 36k hands

If one would play 300 hands/hour, he or she could expect to play 64 hours or more half the time on $1000.

I can also use this code to estimate henrix77's question on RoR. I just haven't got to it yet. And I need to look into bandit's last link...that has detailed info on the "right" way to calculate RoR in video poker. Just using the mean and standard deviation from the normal distribution is a bad approximation for VP RoR even with largish sample sizes.

Here is the data for playing the two games asked by Hendrix for up to 10,000 hands or busto (whichever comes first). Each scenario is simulated 1000 times.

FP JoB:
BR = 800 units ($1000 in quarters)
RoR = 0% (but some samples are very close to bust)

`Final BR in betting units`
Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
27.0 465.0 630.5 763.3 900.5 2825.0

Super Aces:
BR = 800 units
RoR = 26.3%

`Final BR in betting units`
Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
0.0 0.0 704.5 808.2 1315.0 3989.0

Super Aces:
BR = 1600 units
RoR = 0.8%

`Final BR in betting units`
Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
0 1032 1478 1591 2067 5096

My bad, I noticed i looked at 8/5/30 instead of 8/5/25 that pays 97.30%.

RoR over what time period? It's 100% in the long term.

I guess it was more of how many hands should I expect to play without going bust. Is it possible to figure this out with hitting a royal. How much of the EV is from the royal. I know this was mentioned ITT but I can't find it.

I answered your original question via simulation earlier ITT, and you'll get to play at least 19k hands half the time. As je points out, the RoR is 100% over an infinite number of hands as with ANY VP machine that pays < 100% return. Even for the pretty 99.96% VP machine that I found in Tunica last weekend.

As for sessions where someone fails to hit a royal, I can estimate this too with my code. The Royal contributes 1.99% to the return in an 8/5 JoB machine, so without a Royal the machine will return roughly 95.3%.

I ran a simulation of 1000 sessions where a player starts with $1000 on an 8/5 25c JoB machine. 64.5% of the sessions did not have a royal before the player went bust.

Below is a histogram of the number of hands the player played if she or she did not hit a Royal:



A summary of the number of hands when someone doesn't hit the Royal is as follows:

`Hands w/o Royal`
Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
7687 13060 15810 16420 19120 38440

This makes sense because if one doesn't hit a Royal, we probably expect the machine to take roughly 4.7% per hand, yielding 800/0.047 = 17k hands on average.

If we include the Royals we get this for the overall length of play:

`Summary of Play length`
Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
7687 14600 19650 29320 34900 329700

Also I wrote a bit of code to keep track of the number of Royals hit in each session. Here are those results: number of royals - number of sessions

0 - 645
1 - 189
2 - 75
3 - 44
4 - 20
5 - 13
6 - 8
7 - 1
8 - 3
9 - 0
10 - 1
11-16 - 0
17 -1 (major luckbox)

I possibly may have misread your question as I am thinking you're asking about the hand length one should expect if one does hit a royal... I don't have this data for this sample, but I can collect it for another sample if you would want me to.

nope I think that answered all of my questions. Just curious though, in your sim when 17 royals were hit did it still go bust. Is that the sim that took 38440 hands?

No...the data line that has the max of 38440 hands was the subset of simulations I tracked where zero royals were hit. If someone never hits the royal, 40k hands or more on an 8/5 quarter machine is nearly impossible with $1000.

The one where 17 royals was hit, it was most likely the maximum number of hands for all 1000 simulations, which was 329,700 hands. And yes, it still went bust too; they all did. But that sample returned 1 -800/329700 = 99.76% overall (2.46% higher than expectation). This isn't too surprising since the average number of royals over 329,700 hands would be about 8 and that sample had 17.

If you generate a strategy table on http://www.vpgenius.com it will show you the breakdown of how much of your EV on any particular game comes from the royal.

What is the definition of "full pay?" There's a casino that doesn't pay points on full pay machines, not sure which those are.

It depends upon who you ask. It's generally considered to be the paytable with the "best" return for a given game. However, it's sometimes considered to be a paytable that returns 100% or very close to it (eg, 99%+).

You really need to ask that particular casino which machines they consider to be "full pay" as that is the only opinion that matters in this case.

The highest payback a particular poker variant will typically offer.

So some examples of "full pay" would be:

(Full House/Flush payout) Game %age

9/6 Jacks or Better 99.54%
8/5 Bonus Poker 99.17%
10/7 Double Bonus 100.17%
9/6 Double Double Bonus 98.98%

For Deuces Wild "full pay" is 100.76% where 5 is given for 4 of a kind.

Full pays for other games can be found on this website; just look for (FP) by the game description.

http://www.vpfree2.com/video-poker/search

sorry if this has been asked in the thread already.

is it "legal" to use assistance; eg Iphone, while you play at a machine?

I use one all the time and no one has ever said a word to me.


Just came back from the casino and on my second spin on $0.25 DDB I got dealt 3333A. I played $50 of it and cashed my $150 and took off to the door. I am still in the chase for that elusive royal. I have 75,000 hands this year and no royal.

Most likely the casino wont care. But i would write down your toughest decisions on an index card instead of an "electronic device". Kinda like a blackjack strategy card. GL

I sit there with my phones infront of me surfing the web and doing all kinds of crap... they dont care...

Good hit on the quads.. Ive been on a downswing. No quads, no str8 flush to balance some of it.

Its sad that im happy to see $.05 BP and its full pay lol

gl

had a HORRIBLE VP trip last night. I actually played a new game after a while because it was going that bad.

I was dealt 13 hands in a row with a pair lower than jacks and not once did I get a winning hand on the re draw. It was very frustrating.

For any given set of 13 low pairs , bricking all 13 still happens 1.23% of the time. Over the amount of hands you've played this year, bricking 13 low pair hands in a row will happen at least once with about 100% certainty.

The odds if we included the 13 low pair starters being consecutive makes it more rare: for 75k hands, getting the 13 low pair starters in a row will be 1 in ~164.4, the probability of getting dealt 13 low pairs in a row and failing to win on any of them over 75k hands is about 1 in ~13.4k.

I wish I knew how to figure out things like that. So it seems that me not getting a royal in over 75k is far less likely than bricking 13 pairs in a row.

obtw, a little before I stopped playing I was dealt 8, 3oak in a row without improving any of them.

Definitely not. Not getting a royal in 75k hands is simply the probability of missing royal raised to the 75k power. A royal will happen about 1 in 40.5k hands for non deuces wild games, so going 75k hands w/o one should happen about: (40,499/40,500)^75,000 = 15.7% of the time.

Just found this thread the other day, thought I'd share some VP porn from last night...



First dealt royal ever. These were my 32nd-36th royals for the year so far since starting working the VP advantage plays out here in Vegas in March. Along with the other players in this thread, I'll be happy to answer any questions and will keep an eye on the thread going forward.

Good Luck!

Pack

I was digging thru gaming statutes today for another post in this forum and in Missouri, it is illegal to use one of these by the state statute's wording. But in practice, the casino probably won't notice, care, or prosecute if you are a typical VP player. Them kicking you out will cost themselves more money in the long run usually.

Nice hit bro! Damn, that sure is pretty.

I have a few questions for the optimal strategy 9/6 full pay JoB experts. I have the whole strategy down pat except for a few issues with low card straight flush draws that i've been given conflicting information about.

Are you always holding a low 3 card straight flush over 1 high card regardless?

Ex:

3 4 6 A T

How about vs. two unsuited high cards?

Ex:

3 4 6 J Q

How about vs. two suited broadways?

Ex:

3 4 6 K Q

How about specifically a 234 SF draw vs. suited and unsuited broadways

Ex:

2 3 4 with K Q or A K

Thanks a lot