Huck Seed $670k win on video poker

[wartdog]

Sick Life
On Tuesday, Huckleberry Seed tweeted, "Internet poker is down in the US, but I'm still pressing buttons!" And then accompanied it with this photo:

If you think your eyes are deceiving you, they aren't. It really does say $670,665.60, and yes, that is a poker machine. He went on to tweet that he was playing $500 per hand and had put around $50,000 in the machine over six hours before he hit the jackpot.

dam!!! (borrowed from poker news)

[rimmerryan]

OMG... What a sick win !!!

[MGM GRAND]

Amazing. He must have a gambling problem.
I couldn't imagine dropping 50k in a vp machine,
but it's probably only one pot lost in the poker room.

[joepro]

My favorite video poker story is of Richard "Quiet Lion" Brodie getting banned from Harrah's for being too good of a player.

[robinnh]

I can't imagine sitting there for 6 hours playing that game. How is that at all a fun or challenging way to spend an afternoon?

[ACE'S FULL]

I am sure he must have been drinking along with it... Think of it as softball.

[djmarc]

Huck claims a statistical advantage due to the size of the progressive jackpot. If you believe the stats in the article are valid, this definitely wasn't him deciding to have some drinks and put 50K in the machine for the hell of it.

Huck Seed Hits Video Poker Jackpot for $670,000

[JM]

Well its a statistical advantage IF you play perfect strategy on every hand. Very few people play perfect strategy on video poker and even fewer even KNOW the perfect strategy for the game he was playing which was Bonus Poker. If he did just "read some books" on video poker as he states in the article then he definitely wasn't playing perfect strategy. That only comes from many thousands of hands of practice so you can make the right decision on every hand without a second thought. Many many thousands on a more complex game like Bonus Poker, fewer on the simplest game Jacks or Better.

Rob, Its actually quite challenging, its not just a slot machine using cards. Its skill based and if you're skilled you can make money on it with proper game/paytable selection and perfect play. So many people don't play perfect strategy though that its a big money maker for the casinos. Others (like me) use it to their advantage since the casinos give you players club points/comps based on your play on these machines that they usually consider to be in the slots category (which is where you get the biggest points/comps). Some places are catching on now and either not giving you players club points on the machines that pay the best, or changing their pay tables so they pay poorly but still give points.

As an example, a 'full pay' Deuces Wild machine actually pays back over 100% of what you put through it (~100.2%) over time IF you play perfect strategy. Again, most don't. Full pay Jacks or Better (with the 9/6 paytable) pays just under 100% (99.544%) with perfect strategy. When you add the casino comps to that, you usually end up with an edge over the casino for the benefits. When the casinos have special 'double points days', its even more profitable since they are giving you double the comps for playing these machines they consider slots.

I've used this myself to get the top tier player club level at my local casino which gets me 3 free rooms a week for 6 months at a time plus a bunch of other perks and I'd do it almost entirely on full pay Jacks or Better. I've played easily hundreds of thousands of hands by now since I started playing it in the 90s. Perhaps even over 1,000,000 between practice play and actual play and I'll still make a mistake now and then on a hand (I play 1 hand about every 2 - 3 seconds on average), realizing it as soon as I hit 'deal'. No way he was playing perfect strategy on that game.

I've played for several hours at a time many times, and its mentally taxing to concentrate on every hand you see, selecting the right cards to hold and drawing new ones then starting another game every 2 or 3 seconds. Its also hard on the eyes staring at the screen for that long. He must have been drained after 6 hours, but hitting that progressive will rejuvenate you VERY quickly! Hitting a royal even without the progressive always does wonders for me.

[bmwguy525]

I love playing video poker and hitting up the Double Double Bonus is usually the first thing I do when I get to Vegas, as it always seems to come find ME at the bar. I've always looked out for 10/6 and 9/6 machines, but never thought past just trying to hit the royal or the quads with kicker.

It looks like full pay Deuces Wild is the highest ROR, though. You have any good books to suggest JM?

[JM]

No books but anyone who is seriously considering playing VP needs to get a program called Winpoker. ZSS Home Page - WinPoker Home Page its also available as an iphone app also called winpoker. Its the best simulator/trainer for videopoker.

The screens look just like the Game King VP machines and you can modify the paytables to match where you play and then analyze the game to see what the overall payout percentages are. You can enter a particular hand and see how you should play it if you're not sure. You can also play in training mode which will prompt you whenever you make the wrong play and tell you how much you are losing if you play it that way and then how you should play it. Its fun to play and it improves your game at the same time and helps with those critical decisions that come up sometimes.

As for books, look for ones written by Bob Dancer. He wrote the winpoker program and is the expert, but I don't think you really need a book. It may tell you the theory, etc but the program is the absolute best thing you can use to get the perfect strategy down cold. Those double double bonus and triple double bonus machines are the hardest strategy to master, I think Bob himself said its too complex for anyone to play perfectly without an aid of some sort to confirm the right play for certain hands.

Jacks or better is the simplest. Deuces wild is a bit more complex and takes longer to master, e.g. sometimes its best to hold just a deuce and throw everything else away but not always. I think Jokers Wild (kings or better version, never play the 2 pair version!) is probably between the two as far as ease of learning.

Oh and Huck's not the only one who can hit a progressive...



This was at foxwoods Tuesday evening after I finished my dinner. This machine went from normally being a 98.45% payback to 98.94% with the progressive which added nearly 25% to the royal flush payout! It makes it worthwhile to me to play when the royal is paying at least 120% of the normal $4000 jackpot. I was on my last hundred and the machine was hitting pretty well, running up to $400 at one point. I almost cashed out but decided to hang in with it for a while longer and glad I did! W00t!!

As you can see, I held 3 to the royal and drew the other two which was pretty amazing. Usually you get 4 and pull the one outer. I actually tossed an offsuit jack and drew two rather than hold the jack along with the AKT and try to make a straight or pair. Without knowing the perfect strategy cold, I may have tried that, but I knew the right play and made it without even a moments hesitation or thought.