As I figured when I wrote my last blog entry, it seems there is no one good time for everyone who is going to be at Harrah’s Resort Southern California (formerly called Rincon) to get together when we are there. But we still want to meet as many Frugalites as possible. So here is our tentative schedule and we encourage people to look us up and we can chat.
Most evenings, 25-28 – probably in the casino, in or nearby high-limit
Tuesday, the 27th – in cabana #8 at the pool – 6p-7p and perhaps earlier and later also
Wednesday, the 28th – off and on in casino from noon on
Hope to see some of you there!
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Now some questions you have had recently:
Q: Your blog site used to have a list of recent comments, but now this feature is missing. It was very helpful to those of us who read not only your great blogs, but all the readers’ comments as well. Now we cannot tell whether new comments have been added. Anyway, I wish it were back.
A: I want it back too, but there are some technical problems on the LVA site causing this. (In the meantime, just click on past blog entries and scroll down to the comments on each one so you don’t miss important information that is often in these.) Another problem that some of you have noticed is that Scot Krause’s bonus point list is not always being updated. These technical problems are being worked on and hopefully fixed soon. I’ll let you know.
Q: How does one go about documenting the exact number of hands played? I wouldn’t be able to retain the number of hands while thinking about strategy. What’s the secret?
A: There are several ways to do this. I will throw this question out to the readers here. How do you figure this out? Put your “secrets” in the Comments below or send them to me in an e-mail and I will list them in a future blog.
Hi to everyone answering the question and thanks for your answers. My problem is this: With playing the money from the myriad high pairs etc. how does a person keep track of the exact number of hands played? It seems to me that is the only way to know if the slot club is giving you the base points earned. Multipliers can then be used to get an exact number of points for any given session. I still don’t know how to keep track of the exact number of hands played so I’m still at the mercy of the machine. I guess we’re all in that same boat!!!
Good fortune and health to all
Simple, if you know how many $ played = how many slot pts.
Just get your ‘starting’ balance. If the reader still has ‘coin-count down’ amts or similar, even easier.
I.e. – at the Colorado Belle it’s $2 per pt.
So if you earn 500 pts (base-non/multiplied), you’ve played $1000. On .25 sgl-line vp at 1.25/hand that is 800 hands.
Obviously, on ‘bonus-pts’ days, it takes a bit more math to figure it all out, but it works out the same. Numbers never lie (although if the card reader isn’t working, or while you play, you accidentally reset/pull your card out for some reason, you’ll just have to recalculate. However, if you Write Down what your starting pt balance was before and after your session is truly done, they you should be able to figure it out!).
okay – you math geeks can add your own comments here…
Martin
We right down the points we currently have prior to playing even one hand. Then if you really want a good estimate…play for an hour straight at the same machine… Then write down the amount of points at the end of that hour. Assuming you know how many dollars in it takes to earn 1 point – then you could get a good average of how many hands an hour you play. We on average play (a single line machine) 600 hands per hour… sometimes more depending on the game and speed available on machine…
If the card reader gives you a running total of points earned (and some, such as the ones that merely say “accepted,” don’t), then you can simply determine the dollar amount that needs to be played to earn a point (by pointing a gun at a boothling, and then asking another boothling to make sure, then asking a supervisor, then verifying it for yourself), figure out how many dollars/hand you play, and then use your accumulated points to figure out the total hands played. For instance, you are playing quarters. That’s $1.25/hand. So $100 coin-in takes 80 hands. If the slot club awards points on a $1=1 pt basis, then earning 100 points means you’ve played $100. Divide that by 1.25; you have 80 hands played. If it takes $2 to earn one point, then earning 100 points means you have played 160 hands ($200/$1.25).
A less accurate but still useful method is to simply time yourself; see how many hands you play in an hour (or a fraction thereof) under normal conditions and without more than the usual interruptions. You then have a rough approximation of your hands/hour speed, which you can refine by repeating the procedure. This helps you detect when your point accumulation is grossly wrong; for instance, my recently playing five hours of .25 NSUD at the Nugget in Reno, a place that awards 1 point per dollar played, and earning only 478 points. I normally play 800 hands/hour, so I should have earned more like 4,000. (They told me there was nothing they could do, and I told them there was something I could do, which was never play there again.)
Write down your slot points after inserting your players card , then play a couple of hands and check the increase of slot points per hand . Lets say you are playing quarters max and each hand adds 2 more slot points . If at the end of your session your slot points increased by 4000 you’ve obviously played 2000 hands .
I find, because I do this when using a $100 free play coupon, that I can easily count to 20 (which is the minimum number of $1×5 hands you must play before you can cash out the free play). So, I did this for an hour once, merely putting a tic mark in my log book for every 20 hands. I don’t believe it caused me to misplay any hands. But, I wouldn’t want to do this very often. I found I was playing approximately 520 hands per hour. AND….I play basically one-handed, unlike a lot of VP tournament players who are very adept at playing with both hands.