An
avalanche of advice, some even accurate, abounds about video poker.
A lot of it tells how to play each hand -- what to hold or discard.
A fair fragment helps bettors interpret the coin-back charts on
the belly glasses to estimate payback percentages. And a smidgen
suggests how big a bankroll players need at various betting levels
to be reasonably assured they won't run dry during a normal downswing,
not --at leas -- before amassing enough bonus points for a comp
to the all-you-can eat buffet.
In practice,
the last of these is more vital to bettors than the first two, despite
getting less attention. For instance, on hands where the strategy
isn't a gimme, differences between best and next best tend to be
trifling; further, flouting rules doesn't preclude winning. Similarly,
casinos may have poker machines with munificent, moderate, or miserly
payback percentages, although a single joint rarely offers a spectrum
of house advantages within any particular denomination; knowing
what to look for therefore doesn't guarantee you'll find what you
seek. But, premature insolvency can ruin any gambler's day; solid
citizens court disaster by betting too big for their bankrolls or
overestimating the playing time their stakes can be expected to
support, despite having control over just these factors.
Until now, the
few available survival guidelines have been vague. Typical is "bankroll
should be at least 100 times the bet per spin," say $125 to play
five coins in a 25-cent machine. Or, marginally more informative,
along the lines of "a stake of 200 times the total bet per spin
affords 95 percent confidence of being in the game for at least
two hours." These milestones are useful, as far as they go. However,
they don't tell players quite enough. How does edge enter the picture?
What about playing longer? Would $100 more significantly improve
my position? Can I raise my probability of survival to 99 percent?
These limitations
have finally been overcome. I've developed a formula linking bankroll,
bet size, spins per session, confidence you'll remain in action,
and house advantage. Starting with any four of these variables,
you can find the other ?? provided you can use a calculator, spreadsheet,
or paper and pencil to do addition, subtraction, multiplication,
and division.
Before I present
the formula, I'll mention it's "empirical." That is, it's based
on data from video poker simulated on a computer, not strictly on
the theory of probability. I'll also caution that results are approximate
-- not exact, but close enough to use for decisions in a milieu
where uncertainty reigns supreme.
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