| "I don't see you write about that. But now that I have you here, tell me, what is 'penetration,' anyway? Is it something I should be worrying about?" I told him I assumed he wasn't a card counter. "No," he said. "Does that make a difference?" It does. Penetration is important to card counters but not to most players. It's the percentage of cards that is dealt before the dealer reshuffles. "Is it better for more cards to be dealt out?" It is for a card counter. The more cards that are dealt out, the more cards the counter sees. And the more cards the counter sees, the more accurate the count. In a common six-deck game, penetration is said to be good if 1.25 decks or less are cut out of play, average if 1.5 decks are cut and poor if 2 or more decks are left undealt. "But you say that doesn't matter if you don't count cards?" It matters a little, but in a different way. Penetration that a counter would consider poor is actually better for an average player or a basic strategy player. "Really? Good penetration is a bad thing?" he chuckled. "Why?" Because frequent shuffles slow down the game, and a slower game is better for most players because it reduces their exposure to the house edge. Let's say you're at a six-deck table with "poor" penetration, playing about 50 hands an hour. Bet $10 per hand, and you risk $500 per hour. An average player loses about 2 to 2.5 percent of that--an average loss of $10 to $12.50 per hour. A basic strategy player loses about 0.5 percent in the long run, although it can be a few tenths of a percent more or less depending on house rules. That's an average loss of $2.50 per hour. Now let's say you move to a table with good penetration and the speed steps up to 60 hands per hour. The risk rises to $600 per hour, making average losses $12 to $15 per hour for an average player and $3 per hour for a basic strategy player. "Doesn't the risk increase for a card counter, too? Does playing more hands offset the gain from seeing more cards?" Card counters want to play more hands per hour. The faster the game, the more it benefits whoever has the mathematical edge. Card counters--the handful of good ones who have the knowledge, skill, discipline and bankroll to make it work--actually gain a mathematical edge on the house. Let a card counter with enough skill gain a 1.5 percent edge and risk $500, and the average profit will be $7.50. With a risk of $600, the average profit rises to $9. When it comes to refining video poker strategies, there's a definite pattern of diminishing return. Certainly it's worthwhile for the average player to learn that in Jacks or Better-based games, a low pair is quite a bit more valuable than a single high card, or that barring something odd like the enhanced return on straights in Double Bonus Poker, we draw to inside straights only if we have at least three high cards. Following a basic strategy table instead of just winging it--trying to use poker common sense in games that aren't entirely intuitive--can make a difference of a couple of percent in our long-run return. That's certainly worth the while of anyone who is going to play much video poker. But what about strategy exceptions, special cases that might gain us only a few hundredths of a percent? Is it worth the time and effort to learn strategies that take into account penalty cards--cards that, if discarded, reduce your chances of drawing flushes or straights? |
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