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FRONT PAGE - Back to VIDEO POKER PAGE The Sim Series Because most of our readers are "recreational" players and not full-time professionals, I thought it would be interesting to run a series of simulations on various Video Poker games to give you an idea of what may happen in a relatively small amount of play. For each game covered, I ran 50 simulations of 7200 hands each with the idea that this might represent a year's worth of play for someone who plays eight to fourteen hours each week. If you play at a rate of 600 hands per hour, then this works out to be twelve hours of time on the machine, so one simulation may represent the total play on a weekend visit to Las Vegas, Biloxi, Atlantic City, etc. Obviously, 50 simulations represent 360,000 hands of play and, if you are betting five quarters at a time, it amounts to $450,000 of total bets. If you're a dollar player, this would be an astonishing $1,800,000 of "action" which should qualify you for a lot of good comps at all but the stingiest of casinos. As you'll see, a lot can happen to your bankroll in 7200 hands of play. Wild swings can and do occur but knowing that helps, I think, especially if you have any doubts about the "randomness" of a machine, be it in a brick-and-mortar casino, or in a cyber-casino. The Methodology All of these simulations were run in the Autoplay mode of WinPoker, version 6.0. The program does not keep track of the highs and lows reached during a simulation, so I had to "eyeball" that as it was running. But, for our purposes here, I believe the accuracy achieved is adequate. All I basically did was to run one 7200-hand simulation after another, record the highs, lows and final result and then compile them into the table you'll see below. I then extracted certain averages, streaks, etc. which I though might be helpful. Several points to remember about these sims: First, WinPoker plays each hand 'perfectly' and we humans probably don't, so the results here are undoubtedly better than the average player will receive. Secondly, a total simulation of 360,000 hands at any Video Poker game is nowhere near "the long run". It's actually about 10% of "the long run" so it will be surprising to find that the total return for a simulation matches that of the paytable for the game covered. B>ut, all-in-all, I think these sims have considerable practical use because they represent what may happen to any of us in a given number of hands at our favorite Video Poker game. Just remember: your mileage may vary. The Games This series will eventually cover the majority of all Video Poker games out there, such as Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, Joker Poker, etc. which means this may go on for a long time. We'll cover "full-pay" versions, games with progressives and weird variations, if possible, so if there's a game which interests you, please e-mail me at aceten@stlnet.com and I'll try to do a sim on it. The Games This series will eventually cover the majority of all Video Poker games out there, such as Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, Joker Poker, etc. which means this may go on for a long time. We'll cover "full-pay" versions, games with progressives and weird variations, if possible, so if there's a game which interests you, please e-mail me at aceten@stlnet.com and I'll try to do a sim on it. Part 1: Pick 'Em Poker Usually found on Bally "GameMaker" machines, this is a game with a decent return for perfect play (99.95%) though a slot club cash rebate program or other comps are needed to get the total return over 100%. Since the Royal Flush is a rare event in this game (1 every 351,817 hands, on average), it adds only 0.34% to the total return so, as you'll see, it's possible to get ahead and stay there for quite some time. The big drawback to Pick 'Em Poker is best described by its nickname: "Snooze 'Em". This is one booooorrrring game! Once you learn the rather simple strategy, the challenge is gone and you just sit there and push one button or the other. Of course, that also allows for considerable speed at the game, so a good player should have no problem getting up to a rate of 1000 hands per hour.
Comments: As you'll see below, I got ahead in this game early on and basically never looked back. The cumulative return for the sim was 101.2% and that's not out of the realm of possibility, though the "expectation" was to lose about 225 credits ($56.25 in a quarter game). I just put it down to leading a clean life. The biggest win of 3870 credits is equal to $967.50 in a quarter game which is a good weekend's profit and the biggest loss shows us that about $1000 is needed as a "trip" bankroll. The biggest losing streak seems to imply that about $3000 is needed to attack this game on a long-term basis, but remember that Pick 'Em Poker is a long-term loser without a slot club cash rebate. If you play it long enough without any other form of compensation, you'll eventually lose all the $$$ you care to commit to the effort. With a 0.50% slot club cash-back program, a total bankroll of $3518 is needed to keep your "risk of ruin" at the 5% level. (Thanks to TomSki for that calculation). This game pays 1199 for 5 for a Straight Flush so sometimes a session would show a win of 1999 credits or something similar, but I just did some judicious rounding to keep everything in units of 5.
See you here next time. ©copyright, 2000 The GameMaster Online, Inc. |
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