Comments on: A Week Of Ultimate Texas Hold’em

By: stephenhow

stephenhow — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:10:57 +0000

Yes, the casino rates $5 Ante play as $35/hand, which is pretty generous. They probably come up with this figure assuming most people play the Trips bet (which I generally don’t). And most people play very, very wrong, and give up huge 20%+ edges to the house. But they’re overrating my action by a factor of 1.75. Of course, it depends on how much the casino comps for your play, but yesterday, I picked up $140 in free-play chips from casinopauma.com.

By: Steve Robinson

Steve Robinson — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:11:14 +0000

A follow-up to my post on comps. Here are some calcs using some guesses as to how one might be rated versus actual play:

House’s Est PC 4.0%
Hands / Hour 80
Average Bet 100
House’s Est Action 8,000
House’s Exp Win 320
Comp Value (40%) 128

Actual PC 0.5%
Hands / Hour 30
Average Bet 40
Actual Action 1,200
Expected Loss 60
Comps Earned 128
Difference / Hour 68

Comps (8 hours) 1,024
Cost of Comps 544

By: Steve Robinson

Steve Robinson — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:44:51 +0000

Assuming the game offered in Vegas has the same pay table, I have to think playing your optimal strategy at a full table would be an excellent way to play the Comp City game!

In my mind, a slow game is a HUGE plus, especially if the house overestimates its expectation to be in the 3 to 5 percent range, AND it thinks the hands played per hour is also higher than actual play.

If proper play means the actual house edge is only 0.5%, this could be a real winner!

I’d be interested to hear yours and other Comp City advocates’ thoughts on this concept!

By: stephenhow

stephenhow — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:49:53 +0000

Usually, I make a minimum Trips bet a few times per dealer “push”. I use it to piggyback a $1-2 Toke bet for the dealer. I’m warming up to the bet though. I think it’s a good place to press your action, since you increase your upside at a small risk and vig. I think an occasional oversize Trips bet is a good idea, and can make your night if you hit it.

By: Ted

Ted — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:52:09 +0000

Do you ever bet the trips?

By: stephenhow

stephenhow — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:17:39 +0000

Yes, I expect to “regress to the mean”, and eventually lose it all back. I’m a lifetime winner so far, and hope it lasts for another month I’ve definitely encountered some big swings sessions since my first lucky week. Yes, winning/losing 4x bets makes all the difference.

I hope you log some good wins soon. If you stick to basic strategy and minimum bets, you should enjoy your fair share of variance too.

By: Ted

Ted — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:54:13 +0000

That’s great. Congratulations on getting against so much, so fast. However, I would warn you not to be surprised if you experience a long losing streak. I respectfully disagree with you that the game is not volatile. If you lose a lot of big (4x) bets, you can be down a lot, very quickly. I have played the game on and off for a year or so and have yet to log any winning sessions. (I’ve just had one small since using your strategy).