I covered the heads up bot machine at Red Rock extensively in 2010 and 2011. There is a new bot in Las Vegas. It plays 6-max.

The play is atrocious but the rake is 25% up to nine credits. This gives the bots proper odds to make some ridiculous chases.

The hold certainly is nowhere near 25%. I would guess around 2-3% for a competent player and some experts may be able to grind out a very small profit.

I found this machine at Harrah's.

Here is my report on it

Is that the right thread?

Good call on the wrong link. Thank you. It is fixed.

You mean 350 probably?

Once you fold you can end the hand without watching the bots finish. I think 700 hands an hour is easy once you get the hang of it.

If you fold preflop, the hand only takes about two seconds unless you voluntarily watch it to the end. There is an end game button that is like a fast fold at Rush Poker.

I see no value in watching a bot-only hand as I do not feel there is anything to learn. The bots pretty much just cap each other the whole way in hyper speed after you fold if you don't click the end game button.

When you quick fold you can see all of the other hands and the full board. That is the same as if you watched it the entire way.

You are able to play ~12 hands per minute for five hours? Even skipping hands that you fold that seems stupid high, that's an average of one hand every 5 seconds for 5 hours.

Confirmed slot machine

Well written article. Thanks for this.

It may be off a little but it isn't off by much. A hand that goes to showdown takes about 10 seconds. I have a ton of experience playing online poker, video poker and the HU bot.

I'm going to be on the very high end of speed for this game. I wouldn't expect a player new to machines to get anywhere near that.

If I fold preflop 40% of the time, I would play 400 hands in 20 minutes accounting for the preflop folds at three seconds per hand and hitting the end game button (though I think many would go by in two seconds, perhaps a few four seconds if I check and a bot opens behind me).

The other 40 minutes of the hour would only need 300 hands. Many of those won't go past the flop.

As soon as a bot opens you can hit "end game" then "deal" to get dealt new cards. It goes very fast if you want it to.

EDIT: Nevermind, got the answer I wanted in the comps section.

Thank you very much. It was one of my favorite to write.

One credit = $10 wagered at VP. I earned about $8, or 0.1%.

Caesars is not known for good immediate VP returns through Total Rewards. I suspect I will get a great mailer out of it. I won't know for a few more weeks.

Oh oops I guess it's good you answered anyways, as I thought I had the answer but apparently I was wrong.

Was wondering because of the insane rake. Good article.

Thank you. It rates you on the amount that you wager, not the amount of rake it takes. If you get past the rake cap you are still earning points as you put money in the pot even though there is no additional house edge on those wagers.

What's the math on grinding seven star

They should just make it NL and have all the bots shove all-in every hand but increase the rake to 40%

If you played $1 denom ($2/$4 FL) at the same speed I did it with comparable action it would take you 150-160 hours in a qualifying period to make it Seven Stars. I played two coins on the bonus most hands.

I think every coin of bonus you go up from two would subtract 20 hours from that. Every bonus coin you drop from two would add 20 hours, assuming 700 hands/hr for each.

The answer "it depends" probably falls somewhere between 160-200 hours for a fast player. If you don't have online poker or video poker experience that number might double or triple.

If my 2-3% hold for a good 6-max player is accurate, it would cost you $30-$45k to make Seven Stars on this machine. If you are exceptional and pick up on some of the patterns then maybe you could grind it out for nothing.

Casino noob here, so I'm assuming that is not a worthwhile way to grind Seven Stars?

The best video poker without a point restriction at a Caesars in Las Vegas that I know of has a 1.55% hold. This machine is probably going to be a little higher for a good player but perhaps a very good one would hit lower than that. It also depends on whether you're going to make any VP errors.

If your goal is to make Seven Stars at the cheapest way possible then this may be the answer if you don't want to play 9/5 JOB and are an above average 6-max LHE player.

You may also find better video poker outside Las Vegas that offers full points. For example, the last time I was at Cherokee, NC they had heads up 3-2 S17 blackjack machines with some other favorable rules where you could play 700 hands an hour and bet $2-$50.

If I was determined to make Seven Stars, I'd probably do it on those machines if they are still there. They've had them for at least a decade and they are very popular so I doubt they got pulled.

I just played this thing for like 3.5 hours with weirdchess1. Assuming it doesn't different at different stakes, the variance is very high and it definitely plays awful but the rake is obviously huge. We were playing .5/1 limit and lost I think 70 bets over 3.5 hours.

I think 700 hands an hour is probably going too high. I wasn't timing myself but it's hard to go too fast without making some button push errors.

I think weirdchess1 and I figured out its tendencies fairly quickly but the variance is just massive.

Thanks for the good write up Pokeraddict

Thanks for sharing - subbed

There is rake? lol. the heads up machine is rake free right? id rather play that

Interesting. Going to cross post this in some of the LHE forums.

I don't understand how much the rake is from the description.