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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS);faqs.301 Hardways 4 or 10 8:1 7:1 11.1% 6 or 8 10:1 9:1 9.09 ================================== Section R: Roulette Anybody out there really care about roulette? ================================== Section V: Video Poker Q:V1 Is it possible to gain an advantage at Video Poker? A:V1 (Steve Jacobs) The video poker strategy discussed here is for the common "8/5" machines (called 8/5 because of the 8-for-1 payoff for a full house and 5-for-1 payoff for a flush). "Joker's Wild" and "Deuces Wild" machines will require a much different strategy. In order to have an advantage over the house, you must find a machine with a progressive jackpot that is larger that about 1750 maximum bets. ($8750 for $1 machines, $2200 for $.25 machines, $440 for $.05 machines). The level only makes the game even with the house. The jackpot must be higher than this in order to gain an advantage. The player's edge increases by about 1% for each addition of 750 maximum bets into the progressive jackpot. In order to have a 2% edge, the jackpot must be about 2500 max. bets. ($12,500 for $1 machines, $3125 for $.25 machines, $625 for $.05 machines). The main difficulty with playing video poker is that it takes an average of 60 hours of rapid play to hit a royal flush, and it takes a _huge_ bankroll to survive long enough to win. During this times, the casino enjoys an advantage of approximately 5%. Straight flushes can be expected about once every 6 hours on average, but these contribute only about 0.5% to the player's edge. 4-of-kind hands occur only about once per hour, and these hands account for about 5% of the player's return. What this all means to the video poker player is that you will be playing with about a 10% disadvantage while waiting for an occasional "boost" from a 4-of-kind or straight flush. On average, it will take a bankroll about as large as the progressive jackpot to survive long enough to hit the royal flush (and this assumes that the jackpot is large enough to give the player a reasonable edge over the house). The following table shows the relative frequency of each hand, and the resultant effect on the expected return, assuming the given strategy is used. The table shows that you can expect to get nothing back about 55% of the time, and hit either a high pair, two pair, or three of a kind another 41% of the time. Hands of higher value occur only about 3.6% of the time. This means that the house has a whopping 31% edge most of the time. return % rate frequency variance ------------------------------------------ 5.308 -> 0.00306 -> 1/32680 91.90 --=<ROYAL FLUSH!!!>=-- 0.492 -> 0.00984 -> 1/10163 0.246 STRAIGHT FLUSH!!!! 5.878 -> 0.235 -> 1/425 1.469 FOUR OF A KIND!!! 9.183 -> 1.148 -> 1/87 0.735 FULL HOUSE!! 5.584 -> 1.117 -> 1/89.5 0.293 FLUSH! 4.512 -> 1.128 -> 1/88.7 0.180 STRAIGHT! 22.227 -> 7.409 -> 1/13.5 0.667 THREE OF A KIND 25.780 -> 12.890 -> 1/7.76 0.516 TWO PAIR 21.053 -> 21.053 -> 1/4.75 0.211 HIGH PAIR ------------------------------------------ 44.993% 4.317 + royal Q:V2 What is the "basic strategy" for Video Poker? A:V2 (Steve Jacobs) Strategy based on the following payoffs: high pair 1 for 1 two pair 2 for 1 3 kind 3 for 1 straight 4 for 1 flush 5 for 1 full house 8 for 1 4 kind 25 for 1 str flush 50 for 1 royal flush 2500 for 1 (expected return 102%) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Simplified strategy (find first hand that matches, keep only needed cards). Best draws are listed in order of decreasing expected value. Expected value of each draw is shown, in units of one max. bet. Numbers in () vary, depending on progressive jackpot (value shown is for jackpot of 2500 max. bets). drawing value hand -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0 (2500) royal flush 1 ( 54) 4/royal (break up KQJT9 str-flush) [1] 0 50 straight flush 0 25 4 kind 0 8 full house 0 5 flush 2 4.24 3 kind 0 4 straight 1 3.4 4/str-flush 2 ( 2.9) 3/royal (break up pairs) [2,3] 1 2.51 two pair 3 1.53 high pair 1 1.0 4/flush 1 0.87 KQJT 4/straight 3 0.814 low pair 1 0.809 QJT9 4/straight (outside, two high cards) 1 0.745 JT98 4/straight (outside, one high card) 2 0.699 QJ9 3/str-flush 2 0.697 JT9 3/str-flush 3 ( 0.69) 2/royal (both non-tens) 1 0.681 4/straight (outside, no high cards) 2 0.599 3/str-flush (one high card, spread 4) 2 0.597 3/str-flush (spread 3) 3 ( 0.59) 2/royal (10 + one high card) 1 0.596 AKQJ straight (4 high cards) 1 0.532 AKQT/AKJT/AQJT/KQJ9 straight (3 high cards) 2 0.515 KQJ unsuited 3 0.509 QJ unsuited 2 0.502 3/str-flush (one high card, spread 5) 2 0.500 3/str-flush (none high cards, spread 4) 3 0.48 3 unsuited high cards (keep lowest two) 3 0.48 2 unsuited high cards 4 ( 0.48) high card 2 0.402 3/str-flush (none high cards, spread 5) 5 0.360 garbage (draw 5 new cards) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Keep KQJT9 straight flush if progressive jackpot is below 2282 bets. [2] Keep two high pair if progressive jackpot is below 2100 bets. [3] Keep high pair plus paired 10's if progressive is below 2175 bets. The following draws should NOT be taken, since drawing 5 new cards gives a greater expected gain. 1 0.340 4/straight (inside, no high cards) --> keep none 2 0.305 3/flush (no high cards) --> keep none 2 0.275 3/straight (no high cards) --> keep none -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ================================== Section P: Poker Q:P1 How is Texas Hold'em played? A:P1 (Will Hyde) TEXAS HOLD'EM RULES (From the Garden City, San Jose, Rulebook): Each player is dealt two down cards (hole, or 'pocket' cards) as their initial hand. There is a round of betting after these cards have been delivered. Three board-cards are turned face up simultaneously (which is called 'the flop') and another round of betting occurs. The dealer then turns a fourth card face up on the board, and the third round of betting follows. [the 'turn' card] After a fifth card is turned face up on the board, the final round of betting takes place. [the 'river' card] The five face up board-cards are called community cards and a player may use any combination of five cards to determine his best hand. Best five-card hand wins. A player may use any combination of board cards or hole cards to make a hand. ================================== Section M: Miscellaneous Q:M1 How is Baccarat played? A:M1 (Steve Jacobs) Baccarat is a card games that is usually dealt from a shoe that holds 6 or 8 decks of cards. Two hands are dealt by the house dealer, the "bank" hand and the "player" hand. Before the hands are dealt, the players can bet either on the bank hand or the player hand, or on a tie. Winning bets are paid 1:1, but a 5% commission is charged on bank bets. Tie bets are paid 8:1. Once a bet has been placed, there are no opportunities for the player to make decisions -- both the bank hand and the player hand are dealt according to fixed rules. A game of baccarat is started by dealing two cards for the player hand and two cards for the bank hand. The object of the game is to be dealt the hand with the highest rank. The rank of a hand is determined by totalling the ranks of the individual cards. Tens and face cards are counted as zero, while all other cards are counted by the number of "pips" on the card face. No baccarat hand can have a total greater than nine. If a card is added that would give a total greater than nine, the hand rank is adjusted by subtracting 10. According to the rules of baccarat, the player will stand if the first two cards total 6, 7, 8, or 9. An eight or a nine is a "natural", and is an automatic winner if the other hand has a lower total. If both hands are eights or both are nines, then a tie occurs and neither side wins. If neither hand is a natural, then cards might be drawn before the game ends. If the player hand totals 5 or less, then a third card is drawn for the player hand and the player will stand regardless of the total. The banker stands when holding 7, 8, or 9, and always draws one card when holding 0, 1, or 2. For other banker totals, drawing is determined by the rank of the player hand, according to the following table: Bank 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 <- player hand rank -------------------------------------- 9 s s s s s s s s s s 8 s s s s s s s s s s 7 s s s s s s s s s s 6 s s s s s s H H s s 5 s s s s H H H H s s 4 s s H H H H H H s s 3 H H H H H H H H s H 2 H H H H H H H H H H 1 H H H H H H H H H H 0 H H H H H H H H H H When baccarat is dealt from 8 decks, the probability of a banker win is 45.86%, the probability of a player win is 44.62%, and the probability of a tie is 9.52%. The house edge on "player" bets is about 1.24%. Winning "bank" bets are charged a 5% commission, resulting in a 1.06% edge on these bets. The house edge on "tie" bets is about 4.9%. Q:M2 How is Red Dog played? A:M2 (Steve Jacobs) "Red Dog" is also known as "Acey Duecey" or "between the sheets". It is a card game that is usually dealt from a shoe containing four or five decks, although single deck games can be found occasionally. After the players bet, two cards are dealt face up on the table. If the two cards are adjacent, it is a tie. If the two cards are not identical, the player is allowed to place a "raise" bet, up to the size of the original bet. If the third card drawn is _between_ the first two cards, the player wins. If the first two cards are identical the player is not allowed to raise, and if the third card matches the first two, the player is payed 11:1. Payoffs are at even money unless the first two cards are a pair or the "spread" is 3 or less. Spread Payoff ---------------------------------- pair 11:1 0 (adjacent) push 1 5:1 2 4:1 3 2:1 4 - 11 1:1 The number of players at the table is totally irrelevent, since all players win or lose simultaneously. The only strategy decision that the player is allowed to make is whether or not to double the bet. With these payoffs, the bet should be doubled only when the spread is 7 or greater. The house edge for Red Dog is about 3%, and decreases slightly as more decks are used. Q:M3 Can the lottery be beat when the jackpot gets high enough? A:M3 [under construction] Q:M4 How is Pai Gow Poker played? A:M4 (John F. Reeves) Pai-gow poker is a banking poker game played in Las Vegas and some of the California card clubs. The object of pai-gow poker is to make two poker hands that beat the banker's hands. The player is dealt 7 cards that he makes into a five card hand (high hand) and a two card hand (low hand). The hands are played and ranked as traditional poker hands (with one exception: A2345 is the second highest straight), and the 5 card hand must be higher than the 2 card hand. If both hands are better than the banker's hand, you win, if both lose, you lose, otherwise it's a push. The banker wins absolute ties (i.e. K Q vs K Q). The game is played with a 52 cards plus one joker. The joker can be used as an Ace or to complete a flush or straight. The table layout has 7 spots one in front of the dealer and 6 for players, like this: Dealer 7 1 6 2 5 3 4 Each player spot has spaces for a bet, low hand, high hand and sometimes the house commission. The dealer deals 7 7-card hands in front of the chip tray. The banker can be a player, but is usually the house. The banker designates which hands go to which player by shaking a dice cup with three dice; the banker's position is either 1, 8 or 15 and the hands are passed out counterclockwise. So, if the dealer is the bank and the dice total to 6, player 5 gets the first hand, player 6 gets the second, the dealer gets the third and so on. The dice mumbo-jumbo appears to be ritual stuff --- you don't need to worry about anything until you get your hand. The player puts the two card hand face down in the box closest to the dealer, and the five card hand face down in back. Once everybody has set their hand, the dealer turns over and sets the bank's hand. The dealer goes counterclockwise around the table comparing the banks hand to the players, and taking, paying, or knocking. There is a 5% commission on winning bets that you can either put out next to your winning bet, or the dealer will subtract from your payoff. The lowest minimum bet is $5, seen at the Imperial Place and Four Queens. In pai-gow poker, the only strategic decisions are how much to bet and how to set your hand. The simple basic strategy for setting your hand is to make the highest 2-card hand that is less than your five card hand. If you can't figure out what to do, you can show your hand to the dealer and they will tell you how the house would set it. Since pairs generally win the 2-card hands, and two-pair wins the 5-card hands, the only difficult decisions are when to split two pairs. The house rules at the Four Queens were not to split low pairs (<= 6) and not to split pairs <= 10 if there was a Ace high two card hand. So the house would set A 10 10 6 6 5 3 => A 5 / 10 10 6 6 3 K Q 10 10 6 6 3 => 6 6 / 10 10 K Q 3 A ``Pai-gow'' is a hand with no pairs, such as Q J / K 7 8 6 2. Things get a little weird if a player wants to be the bank. To quote from the IP house rules: ``The House Dealer or the player may be the ``BANKER.'' The Bank wagers against all players. The bank will alternate between the house and the player (the House Dealer will at least take the bank every other hand). The BANKER will be signified by a white plastic marker. A Bank Player must either cover half or all wagers against him/her. The House will co-bank at 50/50 only at the Bank Player's request. The hand will be set according to house way and the table limit will apply if the House acts as a co-banker. In order to bank, a player must have played the previous hand against the House. The House will wager a sum equal to that player's wager against the house the previous hand. The player may request that a smaller amount be wagered. A Banker must be bank at the same spot of the hand he previously played against the house.'' Got that?? In the CA card clubs, all wagering is between players, so the option to be the bank rotates among the active players. The rule differences from the IP rules are that the Joker is wild, and the house commission is a flat $1 per hand ($10 minimum bet). Pai-gow poker is an easy game to play, and since each hand takes a while to play (dealer has to shuffle for each game) and most hands push, you can play on $20 at a $5 table for quite a while. Q:M5 Is there a horse racing newsgroup? A:M5 (John Wilkes) Not another newsgroup, but there is a mailing list for discussion of horse racing and handicapping. If you are interested in joining us, send a note to derby-request@ekrl.com and be sure to include an Internet email address (i.e., a "@" address.) Uucp "bang-style" addresses severely confuse the local software that processes alias mail, so I cannnot accept them for the list. -- Steve Jacobs ({ihnp4,decvax}!utah-cs!jacobs, jacobs@cs.utah.edu) Xref: bloom-picayune.mit.edu rec.games.board:23431 news.answers:4691 Newsgroups: rec.games.board,news.answers Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!xn.ll.mit.edu!ames!saimiri.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!usenet.ucs.indiana.edu!bigbang.astro.indiana.edu!ahabig From: ahabig@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu Subject: rec.games.board FAQ and intro Message-ID: <BzEvGL.BpE@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> Followup-To: poster Summary: useful information for readers of rec.games.board Originator: ahabig@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu Keywords: faq, intro Sender: news@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu (USENET News System) Nntp-Posting-Host: bigbang.astro.indiana.edu Reply-To: ahabig@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu Organization: Indiana University Astrophysics, Bloomington, IN Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 16:07:32 GMT Approved: news-answers-request@mit.edu Expires: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 05:00:00 GMT Lines: 382 Archive-name: games/board-games-faq Last-modified: 1992/12/17 Version: 1.5 Revisions : v1.5 : Kill file examples changed to a more efficient format, Ogre/GEV, MechWar, and EiA PBEM mailing lists added Revisions : v1.4 : New Archive-name format for news.answers, Rec.games.mecha split info added Revisions : v1.3 : Rec.games.diplomacy split info added, posting now every two weeks Revisions : v1.2 : Rec.games.abstract split info added Revisions : v1.1 : Changes to comply with news.answers standards rec.games.board FAQ and introduction ------------------------------------ Welcome to the rec.games.board newsgroup! This is a group in which board games of all sorts are discussed (with the exceptions of certain popular games which have their own groups, see below). This is a group with unusually large scope, given the huge number of different board games. Games that have popped up in the past seem to come from a few distinct groups : 1) "Parlor" games like scrabble, monopoly, and risk; 2) Military and Historic simulations of all kinds; and 3) games that don't fit into any of the above categories, but which are often played by the same folks as play #2. There are several games which have their own dedicated discussion forums. If you have a question or want to discuss these games, you'll get a much better response from the specific forum than you will from rec.games.board. Also, in general, cross-posting is a waste of bandwidth - try to avoid it. Here's a listing of games with their own home : Games which have their own newsgroups : ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Abstract games : rec.games.abstract Backgammon : rec.games.backgammon Battletech et al : rec.games.mecha Chess : rec.games.chess Cosmic Encounter : rec.games.board.ce Diplomacy : rec.games.diplomacy General game design : rec.games.design Go : rec.games.go Play-by-Mail games : rec.games.pbm Role-Playing Games : rec.games.frp.... Trivia games : rec.games.trivia Mailing lists (and where to write to be included) : ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Advanced Squad Leader : asl-request@tpocc.gsfc.nasa.gov Command Decision : cdmailer-request@godzilla.quotron.com Conflict Simulation : LISTSERV@UALTAVM.BITNET * Empires in Arms PBEM : eia-request@cc.swarthmore.edu Harpoon (naval mins.) : cz-request@ficus.cs.ucla.edu Mechwar : gt7805b@prism.gatech.edu ** Ogre/GEV : hcobb@fly2.berkeley.edu Pre-gunpowder mins. : alr@hoqaa.att.com Shogi : listserv@technion.bitnet *** Star Fleet Battles : hcobb@fly2.berkeley.edu * To subscribe, send mail with the subject line "sub CONSIM-L YourAddress" to the listserv server. ** To suscribe, send a message with the subject MechWar-L containing a body of SUB MechWar <your address> *** To suscribe, send mail with the following body : SUB SHOGI-L yourname Due to the fact that there are so many different games to talk about, and few people are interested in every one of them, please keep a few items of nettiquite in mind to make reading this group easier for all. 1) Put the name of the game in the "Subject :" line of your post. This allows uninterested people to quickly skip over your posting to get to the ones they want, and the interested parties to easily find your post. Included below are quick introductions to kill files and threaded news readers, the use of which can make your usenet life much easier. Here's a list of some common abbreviations for games to use in your subject lines : A&A = Axis and Allies A3R = Advanced Third Reich ASL = Advanced Squad Leader BTECH = Battle Tech CE = Cosmic Encounter EiA = Empires in Arms SFB = Star Fleet Battles WH40K = Warhammer 40,000 WiF = World in Flames So, for example, a Battle Tech post would have a subject line like "Subject: BTECH: Large Toddling Robots are good for us?" 2) Make use of the "Distribution: " line with your posts. Announcements of conventions, games for sale, opponents wanted, or questions about directions to gaming stores are of only limited use to people outside of a certain geographical area. The distribution line prevents, for instance, an announcement of "CAPCON XIX, a gaming convention at Ohio State University" from tantalizing those in Sweden who couldn't possibly attend. See below for a quick description of how to use this feature. 3) If you make a dumb mistake in a posting, accidentally cross post it, or accidentally post two copies, cancel the bad/extraneous ones. Do this by hitting "C" while reading your own post (in rn/trn - other news programs have different commands - read your manuals). FAQ's : ----------------------------------------------------------------------- There are too many games of really wide variety discussed here to try to answer FAQ's about specific games in this document. Some games (notably SFB and Diplomacy) have their own regularly posted FAQ's. Just spout out your questions, and they'll get answered! Following are instructions on how to use some usenet tools to make reading this group easier. They are moderately long, but are separated by "------" 's, so use the "g------" command to skip to the next section if you like. The topics are : The "Distribution: " line Threaded News Readers Killfiles How to use the "Distribution :" feature ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.answers Subject: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions 16. How do I use the "Distribution" feature? When your posting software (e.g., Pnews or postnews) prompts you for a distribution, it's asking how widely distributed you want your article. The set of possible replies is different, depending on where you are, but at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, possibilities include (for example): local local to this machine mh Bell Labs, Murray Hill Branch nj all sites in New Jersey btl All Bell Labs machines att All AT&T machines usa Everywhere in the USA na Everywhere in North America world Everywhere on USENET in the world Many of the posting programs will provide a list of distributions, if your site admin has kept the files up-to-date. If you hit return, you'll get the default, which is usually "world.". This default is often not appropriate -- PLEASE take a moment to think about how far away people are likely to be interested in what you have to say. Used car ads, housing wanted ads, and things for sale other than specialized equipment like computers certainly shouldn't be distributed to Europe and Korea, or even to the next state. It is generally not possible to post an article to a distribution that your own machine does not receive. For instance, if you live in Indiana, you can't post an article for distribution only in New Jersey or Germany unless your site happens to exchange those particular distributions with another site. Try mailing the article to someone in the appropriate area and asking them to post it for you. If you cannot determine what distributions are valid for your site, ask someone locally rather than posting a query to the whole network! Threaded News Readers ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Threaded news readers are news readers which track down all articles that are part of the same discussion, making it easier to a) follow the logical flow of conversation; and b) kill a whole topic ("thread") which does not interest you. Try to use and understand one, it makes life much easier! An example of this kind of software is "trn" - see your man pages for more info. Anyone who wants to write a blurb for this space describing these suckers please do so - I (the FAQ maintainer) don't have time at the moment. How to use a Killfile ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From: phillips@syrinx.umd.edu (Leanne Phillips) Subject: rn KILL file FAQ Rn and trn, and other varieties of rn, have a very useful feature called the KILL file, which allows you to kill (skip over) articles that you don't want to see. There is some support for killfiles in xrn, but the support is limited; nothing in here is guaranteed to work for xrn. See the xrn man page. KILL files come in two forms: Global: In your News directory, you will have the file KILL. Local: In your News directory, the killfile for group foo.bar will be foo/bar/KILL. The difference between the two is that there can be one killfile for each group (the local killfile), and that killfile affects only the particular newsgroup (foo/bar/KILL affects only foo.bar; baz/quex/KILL affects only baz.quex, etc). The global killfile affects all newsgroups. (There's a way to change the default names of the killfiles, but it's more complicated than I want to get into here. See the rn(1) man page.) Killfiles allow you to kill articles based on a number of criteria: a subject line, a general subject, articles from one poster, articles from one site, articles cross-posted from any other group, or from one other group in particular, and articles that are follow-ups to anything at all (that is, anything with the Re: in the subject line). You can also kill articles with a particular string anywhere in the article. This article assumes you know how to use an editor and that you have created the directories for any local killfiles you may need. Remember that the name of the file is KILL, not kill or Kill; caps are important. The general style for building a kill line is: /pattern/modifiers:command Now, that is obviously not useful to know without understanding it. The modifiers and commands are all explained in the rn man page, but here are some useful ones: Modifiers: a: all, look through the entire article for the pattern h: look through the header of the article for the pattern Commands: m mark as unread j mark as read = show subject line If no modifier appears before the colon, only the subject line of the article is searched. More than one command can be performed by using the style: