w00t
So excited for Vegas! Still sad that I won't be playing in the WSOP, but oh well. Maybe I can make something happen in a live satellite.
I'm a little concerned about my video poker plan (see previous entry), because I've been practicing on a simulator and I'm still making mistakes. I've been improving, but this game is a little trickier to play perfectly than I expected. Right now I tend to make about 5-10 mistakes per 100 hands, on Deuces Wild. I haven't been practicing Jacks or Better as much, because Deuces Wild actually has >100% EV, whereas JoB has just under 100%. But I should be practicing both. Hopefully I can get them both near perfect through this week, or else I will have to bag that plan.
Tomorrow I am going to try and satellite into the $40k Guarantee tournament on Full Tilt. This is a $150 buy-in tournament. I was debating between going for this one and going for the $1,000 buy-in that is also tomorrow, but that of course would be a longer shot to get into. So I think I'll go with the $40k, and see if I can make anything happen in that.
The other possible plan for tomorrow would be to just head up to Tulalip. I went last week, for some 3/5 NL with $300 max buy-in. I played ridiculously bad for the first hour, and still managed to pull $200 out of that game. I'm actually still really mad at myself for how I played at first, I was just playing absolutely stupid. Stuff like open-limping on the button, calling raises with A8h, and then not folding on the flop with just a pair of aces, bluffing into a loose player, etc etc. Just awful. Hopefully it's out of my system now, at least.
But anyways. I enjoy tournaments more than cash anyways. Unfortunately I think I'm better at cash. Particularly limit. sigh.
but yeah. VEGAS BABY!!
Monday, June 25, 2007
Sunday, June 17, 2007
no wsop for me this year
Well my run for a Main Event seat has ended almost before it even started.
Since school has kept me so busy this year, I didn't really start playing any WSOP satellites until this week. The main one that I wanted to play in was $535 buy-in, the 100 seat guarantee. It is running right now, and the final count of entrants was 3,338 which means that actually the top 139 will get a seat.
Earlier, I played 3 satellites each for $69 (which I actually won seats into) to get into the $535, but could not connect on any of them. Then today, I played in a $109 buy-in satellite (which I also won my seat into) with about 1000 entrants and top 204 getting a seat into the $535. But unfortunately, I busted in 253 when I got so short that I had to push A9o, and ran into AK and got no help.
But, RAHUL is in this tournament right now, the 100 seat guarantee. Last update he said he was in about 600th, out of the 3,338. GOGOGOGOGOGO RAHUL.
I didn't really expect to win a seat this year, with my limited time and limited bankroll. But it'll be pretty sweet if Rahul does, again.
And I'm still going to try to play in some live satellites for a seat into one of the smaller WSOP events, like $1500 buy-in or so. We'll see how that goes.
Since school has kept me so busy this year, I didn't really start playing any WSOP satellites until this week. The main one that I wanted to play in was $535 buy-in, the 100 seat guarantee. It is running right now, and the final count of entrants was 3,338 which means that actually the top 139 will get a seat.
Earlier, I played 3 satellites each for $69 (which I actually won seats into) to get into the $535, but could not connect on any of them. Then today, I played in a $109 buy-in satellite (which I also won my seat into) with about 1000 entrants and top 204 getting a seat into the $535. But unfortunately, I busted in 253 when I got so short that I had to push A9o, and ran into AK and got no help.
But, RAHUL is in this tournament right now, the 100 seat guarantee. Last update he said he was in about 600th, out of the 3,338. GOGOGOGOGOGO RAHUL.
I didn't really expect to win a seat this year, with my limited time and limited bankroll. But it'll be pretty sweet if Rahul does, again.
And I'm still going to try to play in some live satellites for a seat into one of the smaller WSOP events, like $1500 buy-in or so. We'll see how that goes.
Monday, June 04, 2007
No comps? :(
So we're going to Vegas from June 29th to July 3rd. My plane ticket is booked. Only problem is... we don't have a hotel room yet!
Jeff had a voucher for 2 free weekday nights at Bally's which we were going to use for Sunday and Monday nights, but unfortunately he hasn't called to book it yet, and I just heard from Emily who tried to book rooms with a deal that she got around those same dates, and they told her that the rooms were too booked up to let her use her deal.
So this does not bode well for us. Our only hope is that Jeff's deal is somehow different enough that they will let him use it despite what they told Emily.
Augh. Weekend rack rates are like $155, and weekday are like $70ish. So this could suck. Meanwhile I did not receive any comped rooms this time around so I have no control over this. Bummer. We've been so used to staying at Bally's for so cheap. I got a deal for our Christmas trip for like $29, I got free Paris rooms over the summer, and other Bally's deals in the past too.
The difference is that on my past trip, I didn't play any -EV games. Those are the ones that they like to give you stuff for, to make you come back. Jeff no doubt got his comps from that big rush in Blackjack that he went on, when he was betting like $100-$200 per hand. The way they rate your play is based on how big you're betting and how long you're playing. The outcome has absolutely no bearing on it. They just want people who will give them big action to come back.
In the past, I've played Blackjack and Pai Gow giving them action of like $25-$100 per hand. But I could never play Blackjack for very long because that game terrifies me, even when I had a decent roll, so I never even built up THAT many points. Just enough to get a free room here and there.
Well, lately I've been reading about video poker, because Mike told me that you can actually beat it. This really surprised me, and coming from just about anyone else I wouldn't have believed it. But as Mike is a 2nd year in the Biostatistics department (ha ha) and a reader of 2+2, I have some faith in what he says about gambling and EV. So I looked into it. There are tons of different variations of this, but some are better than others, and some even have positive expectation. These are of course quite rare, but a decent game that shouldn't be too hard to find is 9/6JoB.
This is Jacks or Better, and the 9/6 means as follows: the 9 is the payout for a full house and the 6 is the payout for a flush. Other games have different payouts for these two hands, like 8/6, 8/5, even 6/5. This of course makes a huge difference in the long run, and with perfect play, 9/6JoB has a longterm expectation of .9954 per hand.
This means that if I'm at a 25 cent machine betting the max (5 coins, so $1.25), playing 1000 hands per hour (about average), I can expect to be down about $57.50 in 10 hours.
Ok so you're probably not quite sold on this yet. Why stare at a screen for 10 hours just to lose 60 bucks? Where does "beating it" come in? Well, what I've found out is that playing 25 cents at max bet for an hour is roughly equivalent to playing $25 blackjack for an hour, as far as comps go. That's pretty decent. And I can't play blackjack for more than like one hour without having a heart attack. It just moves too fast. But the comps that can be generated by this level of play are nothing to scoff at, in the form of free rooms, cashback, and gift cards. This can add up to way more than the $60 expected loss.
You might wonder how they can do even this. Why give you back more money than you're losing to them? Well, two things. First, not everyone plays "perfect," so their expectation is quite a bit lower. I hope to learn "perfect" play by my trip, which appears to be feasible for this variant of video poker (others are tougher). Second, things like free rooms will be quite valuable to me but cost almost nothing to them, especially if I use it at an off-peak time. Even gift cards probably cost them less than face value, and if I use it at somewhere that I would shop anyways, it's the same as cash to me.
The other thing is that video poker machines are sometimes tied to progressive jackpots. These can get quite huge, and if it's big enough, you might be actually playing with positive expectation. Ok so the odds of hitting a jackpot are of course quite low even if it gives you positive expectation, but from a gambling perspective, we always have to think about things in terms of an infinite sample size. If you think about everything this way, your long term results will show it even if it does not manifest itself in a given trip.
So. 10 hours of play. Cost $60 on average. Chance to hit a sweet jackpot. Keep the free scotch coming. And hopefully comped rooms for my next trip and probably other comps as well.
Everyone wins.
I hope. Will report back on this.
Jeff had a voucher for 2 free weekday nights at Bally's which we were going to use for Sunday and Monday nights, but unfortunately he hasn't called to book it yet, and I just heard from Emily who tried to book rooms with a deal that she got around those same dates, and they told her that the rooms were too booked up to let her use her deal.
So this does not bode well for us. Our only hope is that Jeff's deal is somehow different enough that they will let him use it despite what they told Emily.
Augh. Weekend rack rates are like $155, and weekday are like $70ish. So this could suck. Meanwhile I did not receive any comped rooms this time around so I have no control over this. Bummer. We've been so used to staying at Bally's for so cheap. I got a deal for our Christmas trip for like $29, I got free Paris rooms over the summer, and other Bally's deals in the past too.
The difference is that on my past trip, I didn't play any -EV games. Those are the ones that they like to give you stuff for, to make you come back. Jeff no doubt got his comps from that big rush in Blackjack that he went on, when he was betting like $100-$200 per hand. The way they rate your play is based on how big you're betting and how long you're playing. The outcome has absolutely no bearing on it. They just want people who will give them big action to come back.
In the past, I've played Blackjack and Pai Gow giving them action of like $25-$100 per hand. But I could never play Blackjack for very long because that game terrifies me, even when I had a decent roll, so I never even built up THAT many points. Just enough to get a free room here and there.
Well, lately I've been reading about video poker, because Mike told me that you can actually beat it. This really surprised me, and coming from just about anyone else I wouldn't have believed it. But as Mike is a 2nd year in the Biostatistics department (ha ha) and a reader of 2+2, I have some faith in what he says about gambling and EV. So I looked into it. There are tons of different variations of this, but some are better than others, and some even have positive expectation. These are of course quite rare, but a decent game that shouldn't be too hard to find is 9/6JoB.
This is Jacks or Better, and the 9/6 means as follows: the 9 is the payout for a full house and the 6 is the payout for a flush. Other games have different payouts for these two hands, like 8/6, 8/5, even 6/5. This of course makes a huge difference in the long run, and with perfect play, 9/6JoB has a longterm expectation of .9954 per hand.
This means that if I'm at a 25 cent machine betting the max (5 coins, so $1.25), playing 1000 hands per hour (about average), I can expect to be down about $57.50 in 10 hours.
Ok so you're probably not quite sold on this yet. Why stare at a screen for 10 hours just to lose 60 bucks? Where does "beating it" come in? Well, what I've found out is that playing 25 cents at max bet for an hour is roughly equivalent to playing $25 blackjack for an hour, as far as comps go. That's pretty decent. And I can't play blackjack for more than like one hour without having a heart attack. It just moves too fast. But the comps that can be generated by this level of play are nothing to scoff at, in the form of free rooms, cashback, and gift cards. This can add up to way more than the $60 expected loss.
You might wonder how they can do even this. Why give you back more money than you're losing to them? Well, two things. First, not everyone plays "perfect," so their expectation is quite a bit lower. I hope to learn "perfect" play by my trip, which appears to be feasible for this variant of video poker (others are tougher). Second, things like free rooms will be quite valuable to me but cost almost nothing to them, especially if I use it at an off-peak time. Even gift cards probably cost them less than face value, and if I use it at somewhere that I would shop anyways, it's the same as cash to me.
The other thing is that video poker machines are sometimes tied to progressive jackpots. These can get quite huge, and if it's big enough, you might be actually playing with positive expectation. Ok so the odds of hitting a jackpot are of course quite low even if it gives you positive expectation, but from a gambling perspective, we always have to think about things in terms of an infinite sample size. If you think about everything this way, your long term results will show it even if it does not manifest itself in a given trip.
So. 10 hours of play. Cost $60 on average. Chance to hit a sweet jackpot. Keep the free scotch coming. And hopefully comped rooms for my next trip and probably other comps as well.
Everyone wins.
I hope. Will report back on this.
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