Pocket Hand Win Frequency

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Pocket Hand Win Frequency

            The inspiration for this week's column comes from a reader this week who e-mailed me and had a question regarding a column I recently wrote about Ultimate Texas Hold'em.   In that column I was describing a hand I saw actually played at the Wynn a while back.  The Player was dealt a K-8 offsuit and did NOT wager 4x at that point, instead opting to wait for the Flop.  I had said that this hand was a marginal 4x wager and that the Player could expect to win the hand 54%, while losing it 42+% of the time. 

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Let It Ride Primer

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Let It Ride Primer

            Let It Ride is certainly not as popular of a game as it once was.  But, you'll still find it in most casinos.  In reality, it is a relatively slow moving game as casino games go.  It might be a bit deceptive because to start each deal, you have to put up three wagers.  But unlike other games where you might do the same (Ultimate Texas Hold'em), the three units is the maximum you can wager and you will very rarely wager all 3 and not win.

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Ultimate Texas Hold'em Complexity

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Ultimate Texas Hold'em Complexity

           This past week, I received 2 e-mails regarding Ultimate Texas Hold'em.  That's a good sign that I have found my topic for the week.  The first e-mail was from a reader who saw my column from several weeks ago about the strategy for UTH for the 4x wager.  I have frequently written that Players are too timid when making that 4x wager.  I understand the reasons why.  If you are at a $10 table, you already have $30 on the table (ante, blind and Trips Bonus).  $40 more will make you a $70 Player and that might not be what you bargained for.  But, the strategy dictates that you should make this wager about 45% of the time, which means you can either be prepared for it, or prepared to earn nowhere near the 99+% payback that UTH can offer.

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The ULTIMATE Irony

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The ULTIMATE Irony

            Just a few months ago, I wrote about how I thought Ultimate Texas Hold'em has the perfect betting structure.  This past Saturday night, I had an opportunity to see this in action.  My wife and I had the opportunity to see the new variety show at the Wynn called Showstoppers.  Good Show.  I definitely recommend it, but I would suggest looking for discount tickets!  After the show, we stopped to watch an Ultimate Texas Hold'em table game in action.  It was a $15 table, which is not for the feint of heart.  You have to be ready to wager $75-$100 per hand including the Ante, Blind, Trips and Play wagers.

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Players Can Be Choosers

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Players Can Be Choosers

            I received a rather strange question this past week from an inventor.  He wanted to know if doubling down in blackjack is an advantage for the Player or the Casino.  I find it strange because my expectation is that someone trying to invent games would probably understand what creates house advantages and what creates Player advantages.    I don't necessarily expect the average Player to fully understand this, but if you're trying to invent a game, you need to understand what levers to pull in order to make the game's math work out correctly.

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A Beautiful Betting Structure

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A Beautiful Betting Structure

           It was about 10 years ago that the Texas Hold'em craze was starting to take over poker rooms everywhere.  I used to play a lot of poker in college (won a lot of spending money).  I don't think we played a single hand of Texas Hold'em.  We played 7-card Stud, Guts, 5-Card Draw and a whole host of other strange games (baseball, nighttime baseball).  It's what you get when you play Dealer Choice poker for several hours.  But, not one hand of Texas Hold'em.  I had no idea what the game was until I saw signs for it in Las Vegas Poker rooms.  Even then, I paid it very little attention.

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Graduation Day

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            Last week, I alluded to the notion that Players play Ultimate Texas Hold'em more timidly than they should.  While a portion of this is probably based in the relatively complex strategy of the game, I believe the larger portion is in the decision itself.  It takes nerves of steel to put down 4 times your initial Ante wager.  Give me a High Pair or a suited A-J and I'm willing to risk it.  But what about offsuit A-8 or suited K-10.  How good are these hands?  Even if the strategy says to Play 4x, UTH allows the Player to wait for more information and then either Play 2x or wait longer.  So, why rush my decision?

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Bet Early and Often

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Last week I discussed the importance of net win vs. expected value when looking at wagers of different sizes.  The term expected value was originally used mostly to describe video poker hands.  Since the wager size is the same from hand to hand and the payouts are all essentially odds based - meaning they pay a certain amount for each unit wagered as opposed to a fixed dollar amount, using the expected value works fine.  But, in a game like blackjack where the Player has the option to double down, we need to look at net win (or loss) and not expected value.  We lower our win frequency (which lowers the expected value) when we double down, but we still do so because in the end we win more money, which is the real goal.

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Never Heard of You

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Never Heard of You

Two years ago, at the Global Gaming Expo, I was talking to someone at a table gaming booth.  I was reviewing their new offerings when the gentleman I was talking to looked at my badge and asked me what 'Gambatria' does.  Gambatria is the name of my company, and I'll refer you to my website of the same name (Gambatria.com) for an explanation of how the name came to be.  I told the guy that I'm a 'math guy' which is the colloquial industry term for I'm one of the guys that analyzes and/or invents games from the math side of things.  He told me he had never heard of me.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little hurt.

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