Discount Gambling

I finished my first week of playing Shuffle Master’s Ultimate Texas Hold’em in 4 of the casinos in Temecula Valley, and thought I’d post my take on the game. Of course, I was playing as I always do: grinding out minimum bets ($5 Ante and $5 Blind) and near-optimal EV decisions. I played every day, drove a lot, stayed up late, and probably logged around 40 hours of playing time. Usually when I play some game like this, I end up losing some amount near the house expected house edge. But UTH played so well, I just kept accumulating winning sessions, and I ended up net +$2000 for the week.

I’ve never had as much success with a game as I have with Ultimate Texas Hold’em. I notice the game plays very well, since you bet when you’re ahead (either with a good starting hand, or with a made hand), and you check otherwise. But I was really surprised that I won like this. Some of it’s due to session management. I’d end a session when I was up a few hundred. I might drive down the road to another casino and start another session, but I’d make a point to log a session win.

I saw that no one else played correctly, and they preferred to bet the bonus Trips bet instead of raising 4x preflop with good hands. They all thought I was crazy playing basic strategy. Of course they lost, not because of their Trips bets (only a 1.9% house edge), but because they wouldn’t bet their hands (Play bet). They refuse to raise 4x preflop without some monster like QQ or AKs. When you show them a basic strategy card (raise K5s, JTo, Q6s, 33, etc.), they just think you’re crazier. They don’t want a copy of the card, they just want your seat when you leave a winner.

I’d sit for hours and play. On the weekend sessions, I’d play all day, and find a time to leave when I was up. I never got stuck worse than $200 in a session, and that was rare.

While I just grinded away, I played two sessions with my friend G, a high-limit blackjack player (average $100-$200 bets). In UTH, he played $25 Ante bets, and grinded out one session for an $800 win. In the other session, he grinded for a few hours at this level, but at the end pressed his bets to $50 Antes. He hit a good streak of winning a few 4x ($200 Play bet) hands, then cashed out $1450 ahead.

So, my take on the game is that its good for the grinder, using session management. The game plays well, with a lot lower variance than blackjack, because you bet more when you have a good hand. It’s also good for hit and run play, for the same reason. And with an overall element-of-risk of about 0.5%, it’s a better game than blackjack, even though the house considers it a carnival game.

UTH is my new favorite game. I’ve never had success with a table game like this. Unfortunately, I have to drive about 50 minutes to reach the game, so I probably will stop playing it during the week. It’s not like the game is +EV or anything, I just got lucky, and cashed out winners. But if I do go, I’ll choose to play at Casino Pauma, essentially a tiny local’s casino, because the hand rate is much, much faster there, as you’re typically heads-up with the dealer. The worst thing about UTH at a busy casino is the game is slowed down tremendously by people entering and leaving the game, buying in and coloring out, and by inexperienced dealers and players. It can get painfully slow at a table full of these delays. Otherwise, I highly recommend you learn basic strategy, and try the game out.