Skillful Play
(Scroll back to last month’s blogs if you missed Part 1+2 of this series.)
In Part 2 I talked about how advantage players are coping with casino cuts, and I suggested that some may decide to leave the “Advantage Play” category and move into “Skillful Play.” They will continue to do the “good” plays whenever they can find them, but will sometimes do the under-100%-EV plays when they still want to enjoy the casino entertainment option.
There are also some advantage players who are not deliberately or consciously moving to this “skilled” category but are gradually slipping into it. This could be happening when they don’t keeping evaluating their plays or not adjusting for reduced benefits. Overplaying can be a real danger here. Remember you figure your EV for a certain amount of coin-in. If you play longer with little or no increase in benefits, you will be diluting that EV quickly. With profit edges so slim these days, it is very easy for the advantage player to slip down below 100% in their play and flounder in negative territory.
The “skill” category will not be a lonely environment for the former advantage player; they will be joining a much larger group than the one from which they came, including many who have never been purely advantage players. Most in this skilled group started out as recreational gamblers, with fun as their main goal. Then slowly – or quickly – they realized that by studying and becoming knowledgeable about all aspects of casino life they could cut the cost and still have lots of fun. Most did not have the time, the opportunity, or the desire to take up the hard work of pure advantage play.
There are dangers in this “skill” category, for both groups. The advantage player knows the math, that the more under-100% play they do, the more their profits on the over-100% will be diluted. And they know that they will need a bigger and bigger financial bankroll as the non-advantage plays become a bigger percentage of their total play. There can also be a psychological bankroll problem. They may be used to short-term losses because they have always seen long-term success. But if the average of their various plays is now under 100%, they might not be able to bear the pain of short-term losses with no hope of long-term financial success.
The danger for the former purely recreational player may be that they know just enough gambling information to be….well….dangerous. They may wrongly think that “full-pay” means “over 100%,” which they figure that means they will definitely win eventually – so they risk money they can’t afford to lose. They don’t understand volatility or high bankroll requirements to avoid a risk of ruin. Sometimes a little knowledge can be worse than ignorance.
Another sub-group in this “skilled” category is definitely in a danger zone. They have studied and have a lot of gambling knowledge but they do not consistently apply it to their own play. I call this the talk-the-talk-but-don’t-walk-the-walk player. They know the difference between a “good” game and one that isn’t so good, but they often choose the latter because of non-math-based reasons, i.e., “more exciting.” These players often fall out of the “skilled” category quickly and land back in the purely recreational category.
There are many ways for the skilled player to improve their financial results. Skillful play does share a lot of the aspects of advantage play and many of the techniques I listed in Part 2 will work for both kinds of players: The more you study, the more you scout, the more you pay attention to the math details, the more you are flexible – then the more the cost of your entertainment will go down.
Skilled players often concentrate on maximizing comp benefits to save on out-of-pocket expenses. In fact, many skilled players have learned to play the comp game so well that they may really be “advantage” players. And by the same technique, many “advantage” players, who never counted comps in their total return in the past, may be able to stay in that category longer by including them. This is a great idea as long as you carefully control your VP losses so that they do not wipe out all that comp value. Brad and I found early in our casino play, when we didn’t have a very big bankroll, that sometimes we just couldn’t afford all the comps we could earn.
Remember back in Part One I suggested that you write down the EV of all your plays. Advantage players will already know this exact information but many in this “skilled” group may have only a vague feel for this number or depend on “estimating.” And even if they know how to figure EV, they don’t actually use the knowledge to help them make better play choices. They don’t translate EV percentage to actual dollar figures to see whether their bankroll will cover possible losses.
For anyone in this “skilled” category, it is a delicate balancing act. There are always dual goals working here – the money part and the fun part. You will have to make your own personal decision what weight you will place on each one.
Some time ago I realized that my skill level alone would not be profitable, even with the free play, free rooms, free food, free shows, and in some instances free air fare. So, I no longer take as many trips to Vegas/Tahoe/New Orleans, etc. I enjoy playing and am skilled enough (and often lucky enough) to limit my losses and sometime end up a winner. I often go to Vegas with one or more buddies, so we have fun. I was probably never a true advantage player, although I was wise enough to add up all the comps, free play, tournament entries and play machines I could afford.
So, I certainly agree with what you have to say, Jean, but your advice is probably given to those who already realize the current situation. It’s simply a matter of whether your readers consciously decide they aren’t going to play more than they can afford to lose, and not chase the comps. I get the comps I deserve….sometimes more than I deserve, but I don’t “aspire” to be anything more than a low Diamond player, if you get my play on words here.
I knew dozens of wannabes back during the big VP explosion. They all went broke, with a single exception, even though Vegas was so full of 102%+ opportunities–many of them with very little risk–that the problem was not to find such plays; it was to choose the very best ones. At that time, you could play in a flawed fashion, in terms of game selection, precision of play, etc., and still realize a profit. Not so today–ONE hole in your play and all the money leaks out.
For that matter, it’s quite possible to get destroyed on the best plays available today. Rarely can you manage to get above 100.5%, so any significant royal drought and the ol’ bankroll takes a dive. That’s the crux of the problem with video poker in general–when your overall return, and your journey into positive territory, utterly depends on a event which should take over 40,000 bets to happen occurring as often as it is “supposed” to, you run a substantial risk of going broke, or at least losing. This would be true even if the game returned 102%.
Unfortunately, most of the (very) few remaining plays require forays into High Volatility Land, so a player who was comfortably ensconced with low risk of ruin and is forced to change, because of destruction of the games/plays he was used to, will often find himself out of his (bankroll) depth. That’s what is killing players, either “advantage” or “skilled,” today–they are taking double hits: lower EV AND higher volatility. It’s amazing how quickly you can get snuffed out when you’re moving 20K an hour through a machine with only an 0.5% edge (such as playing NSUD at Coasts on a 7x point day).
For an all-too-brief period, this problem could have been addressed via comps, mailers, and promos making up for loss of EV–but recently, EVERY casino has tightened the screws. Now, you’re lucky if after running $500,000 through a machine, you get a complimentary T-shirt.
For the above reasons, I consider VP to be unplayable, particularly in Vegas, even though nominally positive plays still exist. I am reminded of a British politician’s comment comparing diplomacy to making love to an elephant: “There is no pleasure in it, you run the risk of being crushed to death, and it is years before you see any results!” He could have been talking about video poker in 2015.