--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "labum63" <labum63@...> wrote:
>
> I have never completely understood the entire Steve Jacob's discussion. Of course I understand that the Max strategey will hit the royal more quickly.
>
> But which strategy gives you the highest return per hour? I've never
> seen this explained over the years.
The distinctions between Max-ER/EV and min-cost-royal progressive strategies aren't nearly as esoteric as the discussion sometimes suggests.
In answer to your last question, MAX-ER yields the highest return per hour. But that doesn't mean it's necessarily a superior progressive strategy.
As an analogy, you have a choice between taking on one of two jobs this week: One pays $40/hr the other pays $50/hr. If it turns out the $40/hr opportunity promises a solid 40 hours of work, but the $50 only yields $25/hr (with no other opportunities on the table) and your goal is to maximize income, then clearly the $40/hr job is more advantageous.
Min-cost strategy is advantageous in one of two scenarios:
The first involves a case where you (at least temporarily) largely have a progressive opportunity all to yourself -- say, because no one else is playing it aggressively, or perhaps because you're part of a team that has a strong presence on the bank.
In this case, the probability is low that during your play someone else will hit the jackpot. As such, there's no need to rush to the jackpot and the math of the play yields the result that your expected loss incurred between now and your hit is minimized if you play a strategy that equates to a paytable with a RF value that takes the game ER to 100% with optimal strategy at that meter. (For example, for a 9/6 JB progressive, this would be a RF payout of something around 4800 credits)
Minimizing your expected loss translates to maximizing your expected profit, and in this sense is a superior strategy over max-ER -- you'll earn less per hour of play, but it's because you're playing less aggressively for the royal and so you look to play longer between each royal. But, the longer play time is such that while the hourly earn is lower, the total earn per royal hit is higher.
The truth is, if you always had another juicy progressive to chase immediately after hitting the current one, and there was no down time between good opportunities, then max-ER would again come out on top of min-cost. Min-cost only prevails if you presume you don't have a strong profitable play in between progressive chases and undesired time on your hands during the wait.
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There's a second scenario under which min-cost-royal strategy is advantageous: Because it's less aggressive, it poses less bankroll risk.
If you're talking a run-of-the-mill progressive and standard denoms and only a modest deviation from optimal paytables, then the difference isn't enough to take note of.
But if you're tackling a very juicy progressive that challenges your bankroll -- say a $5 progressive with 4% positive meter, when normally you're a $2 player, or say a game with something like 6/5 Jacks as the base paytable, then a player might find that a min-cost-royal strategy might give them a little more bankroll breathing room without sacrificing much in the way of ER.
But I'm really on the fence about the magnitude of the potential benefit here ... the differences are pretty thin -- I think at the far extreme, you might shave up to 4% off the risk of busting on the play for a given stake (say, picking numbers out of the air, taking you from 15% ROR to 11% ... in most cases the difference is much more modest). I'm not sure, from a practical perspective, how much more "playable" a progressive is via adopting min-cost vs max-ER.
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I think the most attractive argument for adoption of min-cost-royal strategy is, as has been noted, that it is a "static" strategy. There's no need to concern oneself about strategy breakpoints.
You can take satisfaction in that it is a bankroll-conservative strategy, that in most cases doesn't deviate materially from max-ER. I personally would recommend it for all recreational players ... suggesting they're likely to come out ahead by dispensing with the distraction of strategy shifts as the meter progresses (which, one might reasonably presume, are more prone to strategy errs that cost more than any overall advantage gained from the shifts themselves).
Frankly, I'd guess all but the most hard-core pros might benefit as well. (We know Dancer would never be content with a static progressive strategy ... ;)
- H.
